Comment by boshomi
4 hours ago
Nuclear power has been killed off by economic forces; there’s no turning back. Solar and wind power generate cheap electricity in abundance, and midday electricity prices in Europe regularly dip into negative territory (as low as minus €500 (sic!) on May 1!).
Modern grids do not require high-risk investments in ultra-inert baseload power that ultimately fails to find a market; instead, they require low-risk investments in highly flexible power sources, such as batteries or pumped-storage facilities and transmission upgrades, that can capture surplus electricity at low cost (sometimes negativ) and sell it hours later at favorable prices.
The 2036 electricity futures price for Germany is €70/MWh. The break-even point for France’s EDF for old nuclear power plants that had long since been written off financially was at roughly the same level in 2020. Due to rising labor costs, their break-even point is now significantly higher. There were solid economic reasons why EDF was recently nationalized 100%. New nuclear power plant construction in France is a foreseeable economic disaster. Private investors would have fled long ago.
If power is so cheap mid-day, why don't european buildings have sufficient air conditioning not to kill the elderly during heat waves? The laws restricting AC all have power conservation as their rationale.
Nuclear power died 20 years ago for 40 years now.
Meanwhile Chinas 2060 plan for a carbon zero grid with 25% nuclear and 100% over provisioning is right on track.
Nuclear power has been amazing for my native country Sweden and I do not believe for a nanosecond that there were “economic forces” that shut down many of our operational nuclear plants.
It was political lunacy, in Sweden and Germany and many other countries.
It certainly was political - with tax policies, you can make nuclear uneconomic which is exactly what happened in Sweden. For decades, the production and capacity taxes were a material part of the operating cost for operators. Only some 10 years ago the political positions started to change and become more nuclear-friendly.
I take a center position on this: every year new nuclear looks worse economically, but that's not a good reason to shut down already operating plants.
The safety issues .. I think the combination of low probability (unknown) and potentially huge cost (Chernobyl affected almost the entirety of Europe!) make it exceptionally prone to toxic discourse. You just can't assign reliable numbers to it. There's a risk of ending up with a Space Shuttle situation, where because a disaster would be so bad everyone in the chain downplays the risk until an O-ring explodes.
Maybe we can try SMRs once they're actually in production, but somewhere else can try them first on their own expense.
The problem is just that already operating plants don't become safer or more state of the art while time goes by. I'd be as comfortable with a 70-year-old nuclear power plant as I would be flying in a 70-year-old airplane...
Solar and wind are still heavily subsidized are they not? If they're so economically amazing why are they subsidized?
I'm not sure why subsidies are per se bad. But also almost all infrastructure is subsidized regardless: roads, trains (cargo as well), ports, nuclear, coal, etc...
I did not express an opinion on whether subsidies are good or bad :)
because they're really important? both for the planet but also for strategic energy independance (no gas from russia, no oil from hormuz or america, light from the sun and wind from the air is all thats needed)