Comment by boshomi
5 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.
Do old people not have air conditioning because the law prohibits it? I thought it was more that air conditioners are expensive, old people in Europe are often somewhat poor and on fixed incomes, and a lot of historically temperate places in Europe have no tradition of AC.
Certainly a lot of the young wealthy people I know in Europe have AC, even outside of the really hot places.
The death toll per heat wave can easily hit 5 figures in just france. A hybrid portable-minisplit that will cool a 100m^2 apartment is under a thousand euros, and draw just under a Mwh per year. A portable to cool one small bedroom is much less power-efficient, but can often be found between 200 and 300. That's not cheap, per se, but funerals aren't much less expensive in Europe than in America. Many EU countries allow some limited cooling in public buildings, but I still sweat in most grocery stores, malls, libraries, museums, etc. during hot weather--they just don't take air conditioning to a comfortable temperature as worth the power bill, the way America does.
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.
And we call them the enemy
They are not on track.
From https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/World-Nuclear-Industry-St...
> According to the China Nuclear Energy Association, despite higher output, nuclear’s share of China’s total electricity production slightly slipped from 4.9 percent in 2023 to 4.7 percent in 2024, (Energy Institute data indicate a 3.7-percent increase in net production and a drop from 4.7 percent to 4.5 percent of the nuclear share).40 The remarkable share decline occurred because China’s electricity consumption grew by 6.8 percent or 627 TWh—significantly larger than Germany’s total annual demand—to a total of over 9,850 TWh, and the country added a combined 357 GW of solar and wind capacity (278 GW and 79 GW, respectively) in the same year compared to just 3.5 GW of new nuclear.41
And from https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/World-Nuclear-Industry-St...
> Targets vs. Reality
> China has dominated global nuclear power development over the past quarter-century, though its ambitious latest Five-Year Plan targets have proven challenging to meet. The 10th Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) put forward a policy of “moderate development of nuclear power,” targeting around 8.6 GW gross operating capacity by 2005,61 with 7.1 GW gross achieved in reality. (All Five-Year Plan capacity numbers quoted hereunder are gross gigawatts). During this period, China connected six new units to the grid—including two French 900-MW reactors at Ling Ao and two Canadian 668-MW CANDU 6 reactors at Qinshan—and completed the development of the CPR-1000, China’s indigenized version of the French M310 900-MW design that would become the workhorse of its early nuclear fleet. The 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010) called on China to pursue “an active development of nuclear power” with a target of 10 GW gross operating by 2010.62 With 10.9 GW gross operating at the end of 2010, that target was slightly over-achieved. This period saw the construction starts for Westinghouse’s two AP-1000s at Sanmen in 2009 and AREVA’s EPRs at Taishan in 2009–2010, China’s first Gen III projects. Construction commenced on 29 units, most of which were CPR-1000 reactors. Fukushima’s March 2011 disaster fundamentally reshaped China’s nuclear trajectory during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015). The government imposed a moratorium on new approvals to conduct comprehensive safety reviews. Existing plants and Gen II reactors under construction had to undergo major upgrades including enhanced flood barriers, backup power system overhauls, and seismic reinforcements.63 When approvals resumed, China adopted a strict “Gen III-only” policy requiring passive safety features and core-catchers. Operational capacity reached just 28.7 GW by 2015 versus a target of 40 GW.64 Nevertheless, the period closed with construction beginning on Fuqing-5 and -6 as well as Fangchenggang-3, China’s first Hualong One reactors, representing its indigenous Gen III technology. The 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) aimed for 58 GW operational capacity plus 30 GW under construction while establishing the Hualong One as an exportable technology and advancing systems like the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTR-PM) and fast reactors.65 However, domestic capacity reached only 51 GW by 2020 and 17.5 GW under construction constrained by the ongoing inland reactor ban— a controversy unheard of in other nuclear countries limiting nuclear power plant development to the seashore—and extended construction timelines for Generation III units. In August 2019, the U.S. added CGN to its Entity List,66 citing national security concerns regarding alleged attempts to acquire U.S. technology for military purposes.67 This restricted CGN’s access to certain technologies and affected its international partnerships, including involvement in nuclear projects in the United Kingdom. Later, CNNC was also added to the Entity List.68 The sanctions reinforced China’s focus on self-reliance, accelerating the transition from foreign technologies to the domestically developed Hualong One design. With an operating capacity of around 61 GW as of mid-2025, the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025)69 target of 70 GW operational capacity is out of reach. According to plans, 4.5 GW are scheduled to come online in 2025, but no new reactor started up in the first half of the year. COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to global supply chains, combined with delays caused by mandatory safety upgrades, have created persistent bottlenecks. First-of-a-kind Hualong One projects saw numerous delays (see Figure 23). Meanwhile, plans for innovative projects like offshore floating nuclear power platforms appear to have stalled, with 2023 reports suggesting the program may have been suspended over safety and feasibility concerns.70
Yeah they found gas in the Netherlands which was exported for cheap all across Western Europe.
It's not because of hippies or Chernobyl that nuclear reactors never got built. A gas turbine is cheap and simple.
Solar and wind are still heavily subsidized are they not? If they're so economically amazing why are they subsidized?
I’m not sure they are heavily subsidized (alone or compared to other energy sources), but let’s ignore that.
Because they require an upfront investment that many households cannot make.
Also, whether such investments make economical sense for companies hugely depends on interest rate, and that fluctuates.
Because of that, a country with a long term goal to decrease dependency on non-renewables may want to subsidize such investments.
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)
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 as 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...
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