Four hours of Li-ion storage at $80/kWh, which is 8¢/W·h, costs 32¢/W. Four hours is enough to time-smooth solar output for a day.
So solar plus four hours of storage costs 44-64¢/W for equipment, add another $1/W for installation (in Australia and Germany, the US is 2-2.5 times this for some reason), and you get about $1.50/W.
And solar and storage equipment costs continue to decline, at about 30%/year. New Texas wind goes for 1-2¢/kWh with 40% capacity factor, and offshore wind about 8-10¢/kWh with 65%+ capacity factor.
Electric vehicles can also provide dispatchable load, as they are on the road for 2-4 hours/day, so parked 20-22 hours/day, and only need to charge for 2-4 of those 20-22 hours when parked. The need for baseload is overstated. Though realizing that potential requires a better approach to utilities - the investor-owned utility model does not serve the public interest.
Yes I understand that nuclear won't always cost $10-20/W, Vogtle and Hinkley C required a lot of new training which could be used to build new plants for less than half that. The author was disingenuous at using that figure.
But even at $5/W, nuclear costs are 2-3 times higher than solar or wind plus storage today, and the trends are not in favor of nuclear. That's why China's nuclear industry is stalling - it's getting crushed by solar, wind, and batteries.
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