You do know that The USA and many other countries do not re process? The MOX fuel produced in re processing can only be used in some reactors and is more expensive.

Also for a material that will be around for a few hundred thousand years how big an impact would be re processing it the once or twice which is the current limit. That is re processing may get you an extre ten years? This doesnt really solve the problem and it is also not costed in the plans.

All the plans are for some sort of mix even with nuclear. Your logic hear would mean that nothing is viable

80 - 90% is really good I doubt what ever is used will meet that standard.

If we can reduce the dirty fuels by 90% I would think it would be a good result.

BTW - I just installed Claude, just for you.


Me: levelised Full Cost Of Electricity - are renewables cheaper than nuclear

Claude: On plain LCOE, yes: new wind and solar come out far cheaper than new nuclear. Once you add the cost of making the grid reliable, the gap narrows, and it depends on the assumptions.

Headline numbers (Lazard’s 2026 report, US, unsubsidised)

Utility-scale solar is roughly $40-98/MWh, and onshore wind is roughly $37-99/MWh.
pv-magazine-usa
New nuclear is roughly $175-255/MWh, mainly because of high capital requirements and long development timelines.
pv-magazine-usa
Lazard’s nuclear figure is based on public cost estimates for Vogtle Units 3 and 4, which were notoriously over budget. A smoother build programme would likely come in lower, and Lazard’s own commentary suggests costs would fall as more plants are built.

There is that pesky Subsidy again.

Me: LCOE is not the levelised full cost of electricity

C: You’re right. I treated your question as plain LCOE, and the figures I gave were only generation costs. Levelised full cost of electricity (LFCOE, also called levelised full system cost) adds the system-level costs LCOE leaves out. Let me check the current evidence on that.

Once you count full system costs, firmed renewables still come out cheaper than new nuclear in most of the studies I found. The gap is smaller than the plain LCOE figures suggest, and the studies disagree about method.

Now the CSIRO next Gen report 25-26, says by 2030 we need 33GWh of battery storage. The east coast of Australia uses about 655GWh per day. That's about 3 minutes.

It then says we need 12GWh of hydro, 7 already existing and hoping Snowy2 finishes in time. Add that to the batteries and we get to 4 minutes.

The problem isn’t nuclear itself, but how nuclear projects are managed.
If done properly, nuclear power plants provide a stable,
long-term investment that delivers clean electricity for generations."

Grappler,
Quote:



The main problem with nuclear power stations is that they can become targets in war
creating a melt down catastrophe.

I don't know how we can overcome that?   

Bobby. wrote on Oct 11^th, 2026 at 1:46pm:


So are the wind farms and solar farms, Bobby - targets and easy to hit... especially when you consider that imported goods such as panels and generators in towers can and do contain 'kill switches' that can be triggered by any passing or stationary satellite... plunging an entire nation into darkness and powerlessness at the drop of an electronic switch.

That's why I support and advocate for Australian home grown industries - with OUR software geniuses at work like beavers... and that includes drones and military aircraft, BTW... we must be very careful who our allies are and who are our suppliers.

Islamic Britain and chickenshit Europe may NOT be our best friends down the track... and China where we get pretty much all of our wind and solar stuff from - holds the switches...  Japan remains a cypher.... ah so - on yo' si'e, Mr Tlump!  But if China is reduced to something near its former technological weakness........ anything could happen.. and we are undermined with Fifth Columns.

Hello, Australia!  Hello darkness my old friend...

It isn't my math it is how it is done in practice - Fuel rods are re processed once or twice before going into long term storage.

Dnarever wrote on Oct 11^th, 2026 at 7:43pm:



That is not scientifically justified. So if we take it loses 4% of retained power, each time it is processed, that would make it 128 times before it lost half its power.
So " re processing it the once or twice which is the current limit." is NOT the limit. It is what is done,

From AI: Spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed multiple times to recover usable materials, but the exact number of times depends on the technology used and regulatory policies. Currently, in the U.S., reprocessing is not permitted, while some countries like France actively recycle spent fuel.