Nickel Drives Up Nuclear Cost

It can be built faster, it can be more reliably operated and it comes with less environmental risk but the nuclear plant proposed by power heavyweights General Electric and Hitachi will come at cost.

The New York Times reports that GE Energy president and chief executive John Krenecki says inflation in copper and nickel has driven the construction cost of the partnership's plant up considerably.

According to the paper he told a US press conference that the cost of building such a plant could come in at around $2,000 to $3,000 per kilowatt of capacity.

The US has been looking closely at GE's and Hitachi's offering as it questions its own capacity to keep up with rising energy demands, but it is not just nuclear construction costs that are rising.

The cost of building coal-fired power plants has also risen, by as much as 30% due to the rising cost of resources.