The most common argument is that wind and solar power are the cheapest clean energy sources and that nuclear power plants are the most expensive. Taken at face value, it is true that a single solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is cheap, and that a single wind turbine is cheap, while on the other hand, a single nuclear power plant costs billions of pounds. Technically, measured one-on-one, it is correct that wind and solar are cheaper. But is it useful to compare them in this way? //

To understand why people argue that wind and solar power are cheaper, we need to examine the basic economic metric for assessing a generating power plant: the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE). This metric provides what is essentially a banker’s number that covers the total amount of power over the lifetime of an energy source, divided by the lifecycle costs over the lifetime of the same energy source.

But there’s a problem: LCOE is a terrible metric for assessing cost-effectiveness because it doesn’t include several crucial factors. For example, it ignores costs and benefits at an energy system level, such as price reductions due to low-carbon generation and higher system costs when extra interconnection, storage, or backup power is needed due to the variable output of wind and solar power.

Crucially, LCOE ignores the value of the plant’s output to the grid. For example, solar plants have a much more attractive production profile relative to wind farms because society needs most of the energy during the day when the sun is shining. So, even though the LCOE of solar power is higher than wind energy, it provides electricity that is more economically valuable. A paper found that ‘An LCOE comparison ignores the temporal heterogeneity of electricity and in particular the variability of VRE [Variable Renewable Energy]’. Therefore, the true economics of power generation can be very different to the ones predicted by the LCOE numbers.

Another issue LCOE ignores relates to different lifespans of technologies. Typically, a 20- or 30-year recovery period is accounted for, but what about when competing technologies last half a century or more? Then the comparison is faulty, as nuclear power plants can generate power for 60 to 80 years, sometimes longer.

Other factors that aren’t considered by the LCOE include:

• Cost of the land required
• Cost to the consumer
• Dispatchability, i.e. the ability of a generating system to come online, go offline, or ramp up or down, quickly as demand swings
• Indirect costs of generation, which can include environmental externalities or grid upgrade requirements
• Additional cost of integrating non-dispatchable energy sources into the grid
• Cost of disposal, which is usually built into the price of nuclear energy but excluded from the price of solar and wind power
• Subsidies and externality costs, such as the costs of carbon emissions
• The cost of backup or baseload power

Intermittent power sources like wind and solar usually incur extra costs associated with needing to have storage or backup generation available. LCOE ignores the cost of this unreliability, which can be as simple as keeping coal-fired power stations running in case they are needed to fire up and meet electricity demand when it becomes less windy or sunny. //

South Korea is our second example. In the mid-1980s the Korean nuclear industry decided to standardise the design of nuclear plants and to gain independence in building them. The country imported proven US, French, and Canadian reactor designs in the 1970s and learned from other countries' experiences before developing its own domestic reactors in 1989. It developed stable regulations, had a single utility overseeing construction, and built reactors in pairs at single sites.

The results were remarkable: between 1971 and 2008, South Korea built a total of 28 reactors. Due to the developments they made in 1989, their overnight construction cost fell by 50%. //

With nuclear energy, waste disposal and decommissioning costs are usually fully included in the operating costs, but they are not accounted for in wind and solar costs. Yes, a single solar panel is cheap. But what about disposing of it? Sadly, they often end up in landfill sites in poor countries abroad, where they leach toxic chemicals. Batteries are currently not recycled, and therefore this is another missing cost. Wind turbine blades face similar issues. And none of these elements will last more than thirty years before they need replacing. What will that cost? //

Oil and gas companies celebrate wind and solar power because they keep fossil fuels in business. Today, wind and solar are backed 1:1 by oil-and-gas-based generators, to fill the gaps when it isn’t windy or sunny, thus keeping the oil and gas industries in demand. In the future, solar purists propose mega storage, which means more batteries, and overbuilding (extra panels) as the solution. These extra costs aren't factored into LCOE. //

What I have tried to do here is trigger a thought experiment by illustrating how complicated these assessments are, that it is not a case of comparing one panel to one plant, and that the LCOE fails on all counts. Ultimately, the full cost of nuclear energy is an upfront investment for a long-lasting, reliable form of energy, which is not the cost people consider when arguing that solar panels and wind turbines are cheaper. Nuclear energy can get cheaper, or it can get more expensive, depending on how it is approached. //

I am of the opinion that we should build everything we need to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and reduce deaths from air pollution. Yet it is clean energy advocates who only like wind and solar power who argue against nuclear energy based on the myth that the latter is too expensive. //

Every time a nuclear power plant is replaced with fossil fuel generation, people die from the resulting air pollution, and more fossil fuel waste is stored in the Earth’s atmosphere. Every time a grid is made to support more wind and solar power without the baseload power to support them, fossil fuels win as they have to fill the gap. Every time a nuclear power plant isn’t built on the supposed basis of cost, the environment is further harmed and human progress takes a step backwards. Every time someone quotes the LCOE, they are either being misled, misleading others, or both.