Economic challenges of nuclear power

The costs of nuclear power is detailed. Concerning the construction costs, the mean value over the French fleet of reactors is 1,2 billions euros/GWe and 1.5 billions euros/GWe when the engineering and pre-exploitation costs are included. The construction costs of future reactors will be far higher than expected: 6 billion euros versus 3.5 billions euros for the EPR. The Audit Office has recently made public the real cost of today's nuclear electricity in France: 54 euros/MWh, this value is given by the CCE method and includes all the aspects of nuclear energy: construction, operation, dismantling, maintenance, upgrading works required for life extension, new safety requirements due to Fukushima feedback and long-term managing of wastes. The cost of nuclear accidents is not taken into account. The costs of dismantling can be estimated from the feedback experience from the dismantling of nuclear reactors in the Usa, the value obtained is consistent with the OECD rule that states that it represents 15% of the construction cost. The economic impact of decommissioning a plant after 40 years of operating life while its operating life could have been extended to reach 50 or even 60 years has a cost of losing 1 billion to 2 billion euros per reactor. Despite the fact that tomorrow's nuclear systems will be more expensive than today's, it will stay in a competitive range. (A.C.)