Daniel_G wrote:
QuoteSolar now costs $1,796,000/MW. I think that is adjusted for capacity factor.
You are not comparing apples to apples. Solar is about $1/W but that only produces 4-6Wh per day. A nuke will generate 24/7 so 4-6 times as much energy is produced from the nuke watt to watt.
As I said, I believe the EIA numbers are adjusted for capacity factor. In other words, they compute the cost based on average hours of sunlight and the average number of kilowatt hours produced by a solar panel, not by maximum capacity of the panel. That is also what they do for wind generation.
There is some controversy about this, because coal is now so expensive, coal plants are often shut down, either overnight, or for days at a time. In the UK they are closed for weeks at a time. That makes the actual coal capacity factor low. They could be used 24 hours a day, but that would be burning money for no reason. Nuclear plants cannot be shut down momentarily. They have to be left running, so they are all baseline generation.
Decades ago, coal was burned in bulk, making it difficult to shut down. Nowadays it is ground up into fine particles, or gasified, so it can be closed down or turned down more easily. Natural gas can be turned on or off, or increased for a rapid response to demand. Battery storage has the most rapid response, obviously.
Using coal for short term generation is like burning cash money: