Three DOE National Labs (ORNL, ANL, INL) Report on the Conversion of Coal Plants to Nuclear Plants.

[Finishline42]

3. I might have missed it, but I didn't see how long and at what cost would be involved to

convert a coal plant to nuclear?

RE: turbines

I know that the turbines are designed for the projected duty cycle. And as you said, coal plants are designed to run constantly (they have a long cool down and warm up cycle) which forces them to keep them turning with little or no load during the lull in demand from evening of the current day to the start up the next day. A lot of coal is burned in the process. Any time that wind and solar are available, it's at a cheaper cost than anything that uses fuel that has to be bought to create electricity. Without a doubt, wind and solar drives up the cost of coal, gas and nuclear.

The cost and time to convert coal to nuclear is relevant because of how wind and solar are being developed. What I have noticed is that there are companies that specialize in the process of building a wind and/or solar farm. they understand the permitting process, what it takes to secure the properties for the project and then getting the equipment installed and brought online. But once the revenue steam is established, the asset gets sold. The selling company recovers capital to direct to the next projects and the buyers have an asset and all they are concerned with is generating revenue (they don't have large labor or fuel costs).

There are a lot of companies that are capable of building a wind or solar farm. How many companies are able to convert a coal plant to nuclear?

BTW, Is there a case history of this being done?