Comment by V__
1 day ago
Until 2016, nuclear energy received more subsidize than renewables in Germany. [1]
EDF was nationalized in 2022, doesn't have to build money reserves for decommissioning (which would be tens of billions), is about 50 billion in debt and just got a 5 billion government loan to keep some old reactors running and another government loan to build new plants. These are not minute interventions, both France and Germany heavily subsidize their sectors (in different ways). With the ARENH program ending in 2025, a more fair comparison will be possible.
I have to read up on the system costs though, that may be ai fair point.
[1] https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/877586/4e4dce913c3d88... (last page)
> Until 2016, nuclear energy received more subsidize than renewables in Germany.
That's not true. That report is based on a completely ridiculous paper by the FÖS, the "Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft". Calling the numbers it uses "completely made up" is putting it kindly.
One of the many debunking is here:
https://kernd.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Artikel_atw_D_20...
Summary:
"The disregard for scientific methodology, for basic knowledge of economics and business administration, environmental economics, energy economics, and nuclear technology, the biased selection of sources, even the use of newspaper articles as supposedly scientific sources, and the denial of the positive effects of nuclear energy, which far outweigh its social costs, are unworthy of the FÖS. Either they are a sign of insufficient economic expertise at the institute, as well as a lack of knowledge of scientific methodology, or the FÖS is deliberately misleading readers with the aim of being able to cite the highest possible fictitious costs for nuclear energy on behalf of its NGO clients. Both discredit the study and its client."
The debt that EDF carries is completely normal for a company this size, especially one that does infrastructure. It would be unusual for a company not to use the capital markets to finance such projects. EDF has been highly profitable for decades, recently while being used to subsidize other parts of the economy via ARENH as well as being used to buffer the effects of the energy crisis, not just via ARENH, but through massive expansion of ARENH.
ARENH is not "ending", it is being replaced by a comparable scheme that is structured slightly differently.
EDF was not "nationalized" in 2022. It was always a state company, with the state never holding less than 85%. The period where the state held less than 100% was relatively short, from 2005 to 2022. The state bought out the minority shareholders in order to streamline the planned nuclear expansion.
The "subsidies" for EDF (cheaper loans etc.) amount to around € 2.7 - 3 billion a year. By itself, that's obviously not "minute". However, these sums are dwarfed by the ARENH program and the profits that EDF pays to the state, which turn the subsidies into "negative subsidies" in sum. That is, the state gets more money from EDF than it gives it, by a good amount.
Even if that weren't the case, the sums are dwarfed by the German subsidies for renewable, which are an order of magnitude higher than the gross subsidies in France (and infinitely higher than the net-negative subsidies).