Comment by vrganj
16 hours ago
This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too.
https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea...
We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.
People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, sometimes renewables is a good fit, sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Most of the time a mix is the best fit. It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. All these systems are then built using assumptions, sometimes those assumptions no longer make sense after a certain period of time and sometimes you just temporarily or permanently have to adapt to the changes in the environment. This is an unusual but expected scenario for the nuclear plants along the Danube.
> sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit
There is simply NO safe level of fossil fuel use.
Disagree, it's just that the safe level is around 0.1% of current use (though I don't just mean use of fossil fuels for electricity, I mean *everything*).
There’s applications that we still have no alternative for though - e.g. aviation - so we’ll have to accept the burning of hydrocarbons there.
Not fossil hydrocarbons forever, of course, but synthetic kerosene might be a thing soon enough.
I don't know what you mean with "no safe level of fossil fuel use". It doesn't mean anything without contextualizing that statement.
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Agreed, whenever I hear someone say "we need more/less nuclear and less/more solar/wind", I hear "let's burn more fossil fuels while we uselessly split hairs".
Unless the scenario is totally different where you live, pro-nuclears are mainly "we need more nuclear, less rerewables, don't care about fossils, just guaranteed production", while pro-renewables are mainly "we need more renewables, less or no fossils and as few nuclear as possible".
If someone is getting wiped from the mix because of renewables, it is coal and fuel, not nuclear.
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The point they are making is that climate change will further push these conditions, so are we willing to build more nuclear power plants, knowing that by the time they are ready to go online this problem will be worse? Or better to invest in renewables which can be implemented today and will alleviate this problem? A mix of both with heavy majority of renewables and nuclear/fossil only to guarantee baseloads seems like the best idea to me.
I'm not really opposed to nuclear power politically. I just think it's a non-starter given the much higher cost, complexity of buildout and lack of reliability.
In countries with dark winters and without enough hydro power, the only reliable alternative are fossil fuels...
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>sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit.
Oh come on.
Everyone is politically motivated on this subject, and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default, where the "political" is comprised of is, the voting citizens. We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone.
I'm not filled with joy about my chav ("redneck") neighbours weighing in on nuclear vs solar and climate change and national and international energy markets and power distribution...
I don't have a clue either. Don't ask for my vote on how to power a country. Take my taxes and use them to listen to experts
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>and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default,
Why is it a good thing that everyone and their brother seeks to apply state violence to micromanage what should be a fairly arcane technical issue?
>We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone.
Do you feel the same way about topics where your opinion differs substantially from the local majority?
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> People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated.
If you can spend a Dollar only once, you might end up with renewables. People can be economically motivated too. No reason to draw politics in an already heated discussion.
> It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible.
I mentioned all of this in my message. What was unclear about it or did you perhaps not read past the first sentence?
I have not seen anyone arguing only nuclear to get rid of fossil fuels, what I see is people arguing that we need nuclear to supplement renewables to remove fossil fuel and the other side saying renewables and batteries(and maybe the occasional gas peaker plant or two...) or bust.
It’s the second of third year in a row that this happens.
At some point it will be the new normal.
https://telex.hu/belfold/2026/07/31/energia-krizishelyzet-ho...
It can be, but you need water, just like for solar you need sunlight and storage and for wind power you need, well, wind. Coal and gas rely on natural resources, which can be disrupted through geopolitical tension, like Russia's gas supplies into Europe getting cut off / sanctioned.
Every power source has their tradeoffs, and I don't think anyone is denying that.
What I do think is that people are making up arguments or statements that Other People have and call them out on it.
High temperatures also severely affect solar panel efficiency.
This is a technical problem with technical solutions. You can just fix things, you don't need to throw out 30% of your power generation to pay billions for climate change vagueposting.
Kind of? I'm sure you can change a nuclear power plant so it doesn't rely on river or sea water but that's not something that can be done overnight.
Restoring river water levels can't be done through technical solutions though, they rely on the weather and we can't control that. The European river levels are largely influenced by inland rain, snowfall, and glacier forming/melting; snowfall and rain has been meagre this year, glaciers have been melting and receding for decades now.
Electricity costs by nuclear power is heavily subsidized by tax money in France, so the French are paying the higher costs anyway. Just saying. Maybe there's a technical solution involving nuclear but it's really expensive compared to the much cheaper technical solution: renewable energy.
Different reasons though, France has nothing to do with water level or availability. It's for environment protection.
Not true at all. It's both in France and increasingly because the rivers run dry in the summer. Besides killing rivers for electricity and for "saving CO2" is as stupid as burning coal to keep HVACs running becauae the summers are getting hotter and hotter each year.