- 02 Dec 2019 21:45
#15052312
Well, lets take a dream scenario when you replace all the energy production with nuclear which is cheapest option right now. Lets also pretend that you don't need to upgrade the grid almost at all somehow.
So US is around 4 460 000 GWH in 2018. We can safely assume that 66% of this are fossil fuels while the remaining 33% are renewables. (If you count Nuclear as a renewable which some don't like) It is close enough.
So 4 460 000 GWH * 0.66 = 2 944 000 (Aproximately)
So in US, it is estimated that you need around 5945$ in nuclear per KW to install. Which is a nice way of saying that you need 5945 per 8,784 KWH at 100% capacity at all time. No power plant ever runs at 100% capacity all the time. So lets say they run at 80% capacity on average (I Have no clue for this number).
So it rounds to around 6000 USD per 7000 KWH which puts us at around 0.85714 USD per KWH so we multiply it by 2 944 000 000 000 = which adds up to 2.5 trillion. We need to add 10% for cleanup so that puts us at 2.75 trillion. Lets go with very low interest rates of 2.5% per year. Nuclear power plants take around 5ish years to build and around 20ish years to become profitable if not more. So total cost in the end will be around 3.5 trillion.
So basically the US will need to cough up, just to construct the cheapest possible solution right now around either 2.5 Trillion upfront and around 500 billion every year for 5 years just to build the power plants. This does not include the maintanence, training of personal or expanding the capacity to build them. Basically you will need to convince the US to not spend on the military for a decade or so to fund this. (Just the power plants construction, expanding the capacity to build them and training of personal to man them).
Hydro technically can be cheaper but you can't build it everywhere.
I mean i am no professional nor do I think my math is correct fully. But it still shows a grim picture of sorts. This does not include increased consumption, job losses for making gas/oil people unemployed or other problems that this will cause. Nor does it account in to itself upgrade of the power grid, storage, delivery etc. I have no idea how to calculate all those together.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv
Pants-of-dog wrote:So, what would be the cost for the USA to implement the Green New Deal?
Or, if you wish to discuss another country, please use that country as an example.
Another question that would need to be asked would be: how much do you gain?
Well, lets take a dream scenario when you replace all the energy production with nuclear which is cheapest option right now. Lets also pretend that you don't need to upgrade the grid almost at all somehow.
So US is around 4 460 000 GWH in 2018. We can safely assume that 66% of this are fossil fuels while the remaining 33% are renewables. (If you count Nuclear as a renewable which some don't like) It is close enough.
So 4 460 000 GWH * 0.66 = 2 944 000 (Aproximately)
So in US, it is estimated that you need around 5945$ in nuclear per KW to install. Which is a nice way of saying that you need 5945 per 8,784 KWH at 100% capacity at all time. No power plant ever runs at 100% capacity all the time. So lets say they run at 80% capacity on average (I Have no clue for this number).
So it rounds to around 6000 USD per 7000 KWH which puts us at around 0.85714 USD per KWH so we multiply it by 2 944 000 000 000 = which adds up to 2.5 trillion. We need to add 10% for cleanup so that puts us at 2.75 trillion. Lets go with very low interest rates of 2.5% per year. Nuclear power plants take around 5ish years to build and around 20ish years to become profitable if not more. So total cost in the end will be around 3.5 trillion.
So basically the US will need to cough up, just to construct the cheapest possible solution right now around either 2.5 Trillion upfront and around 500 billion every year for 5 years just to build the power plants. This does not include the maintanence, training of personal or expanding the capacity to build them. Basically you will need to convince the US to not spend on the military for a decade or so to fund this. (Just the power plants construction, expanding the capacity to build them and training of personal to man them).
Hydro technically can be cheaper but you can't build it everywhere.
I mean i am no professional nor do I think my math is correct fully. But it still shows a grim picture of sorts. This does not include increased consumption, job losses for making gas/oil people unemployed or other problems that this will cause. Nor does it account in to itself upgrade of the power grid, storage, delivery etc. I have no idea how to calculate all those together.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv