The report you quote already cites load factor around 90% for new builds, a 50% load factor wouldn't double the costs. That being said, 90% load factor for a grid with a high share of nuclear is probably extremely optimistic.
The reason such high capacity factors can be reached in countries that have a low nuclear share is that nuclear has an extremely low marginal cost, and is always picked over plants that require fuel.
True, the fixed costs are $20-35/MWh. Deduct that from the figure before doubling. Not that it matters.
Running a pure nuclear grid will never get 90% capacity factor. That relies on only taking the base load and offloading the actual hard part to other generators. Exactly what nuclear proponents like to say will be impossible for renewables.
> That relies on only taking the base load and offloading the actual hard part to other generators. Exactly what nuclear proponents like to say will be impossible for renewables.
It's certainly not impossible, since that's what we do currently. The reason we would like to stop doing it in the future is co2 emissions, not a feasibility barrier.
Now my point was that we don't have experience of massive storage. And in the absence of storage, nuclear costs go up, while renewables output goes down. One is painful but manageable, we don't have a plan to handle the other.
Personally, I wish we spent a bit less subsidies on renewable production, and a bit more on grid-sized storage, so we can have an answer on costs. Without this, discussions on storage-enabled grids are conjectures at best.
https://www.iaea.org/fr/newscenter/news/contribution-du-nucl...
The report you quote already cites load factor around 90% for new builds, a 50% load factor wouldn't double the costs. That being said, 90% load factor for a grid with a high share of nuclear is probably extremely optimistic.
The reason such high capacity factors can be reached in countries that have a low nuclear share is that nuclear has an extremely low marginal cost, and is always picked over plants that require fuel.