American electric utilities pay 0.1 cents for every kilowatt-hour generated by nuclear fission to pay for the eventual long-term disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. With the debate raging about whether or not it makes sense to build new plants, it is interesting to put this cost in perspective of cost per unit of installed generating capacity.
Note that lower lifetimes and capacity factors will result in lower values due to the fact that this fee is based upon amount of electricity generated, a proxy for the volume of waste produced. Costs per watt also remain constant when changing the generating capacity as cost per energy (kWh) is simply a form of cost per power (W) with time included.
$0.54/Watt of installed capacity
Lifetime cost for plant: $1,088,528,778.11
Created by Corey Johnson, yeroc.us August 2010. Go back to calculators.
