[ RadSafe ] Wind and Nuclear Capital Costs

[alanpeg at sbcglobal.net]

I am puzzled by some figures in Sandy's newsclip of 15 Feb. According to the story, FPL has spent nearly $1 billion to install wind-farm capacity of 1600 MW for almost 400,000 homes. This amounts to a capital cost of $2,500 per home and a capacity of 4 kW per home. As I understand it, a nuclear reactor costs $1,000 to $2,000/kW (depending on who you ask) and serves 750,000 homes. This amounts to a capacity of 1.3 kW per home and a cost of $1,300 to $2,600 per home. I can think of two possible explanations for the discrepency in capacity:

(1) The news article is in error
(2) Wind needs higher peak capacity because it is intermittent.

Thanks for any comments.

Al Rosenfield
Columbus Ohio