Compared to War, how affordable is "civilian nuclear power"?

The "unaffordability" of infrastructure

Compared to Ukraine?

There have been numerous discussions regarding the unaffordability of nuclear power and various other offshoot technologies aimed at decarbonizing the economy sustainably. The argument often hinges on concerns such as the high levelized cost of electricity, lengthy construction times, and the perceived lack of “private sector” interest in financing advanced reactors.

Many advanced technologies struggle during the “commercialization-valley of death'“ and with nuclear power in particular, the regulatory compliance can additionally stretch out the process. It is during this critical phase that government assistance to get a project going becomes justified, because (despite libertarian ignorance) it is how most advanced technologies diffused from the laboratory into the economy.

As a general rule, it's often assumed that only after the third nuclear reactor is constructed, does a viable business case emerge, typically when the nth of a kind cost of a reactor is around $3 per Watt. As shown in the curve below, Asian economies are progressing at this rate, whereas Western countries face challenges in bringing their costs under control.

The data is from 2019. Clearly First of a Kind Reactors in Western Economies are too expensive

This affordability gap between east and west explains the delay in new nuclear reactor construction in the USA, especially considering the competitive pricing of alternative technologies such as the remarkable decline in the cost of solar panels in particular.

But as usual, “the unaffordability of infrastructure” requires context, because the US government has recently allocated an additional $95 billion to fund its foreign military operations.

Of this amount, $65 billion is earmarked for Ukraine, surpassing Russian military spending for the year 2024. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has been widely criticized as a significant misuse of resources, particularly given the backdrop of the US's involvement in the 2014 coup d'état that toppled its democratically elected government.

But had the USA, Russia and Ukraine adhered to the conditions outlined in the Minsk II Agreements, the conflict could have been prevented from escalating, sparing both nations' taxpayers from funding a tragic loss of life. The Ukrainians being sandwiched between a great power conflict have become the sacrificial lamb in another pointless war.

So how many civilian nuclear reactors could we have gotten for the $65 billion that went to Ukraine alone? If the USA got the Chinese or Indians to build them at $2/Watt, then around 32 GW of electricity, about half of Texas’s installed capacity could have been procured.

Clearly reducing the military’s carbon emissions, isn’t a priority for Washington and neither is the “affordability of infrastructure”. The obstacle is that the elected representatives prefer to spend public finances on killing people.