Led by the same party who when not in power cried loudly about how important it is to keep nuclear running, but in the 16 years it was in power before, when there would've actually been time to change things, didn't actually do anything except a small flip-flop once that cost the state billions in damages to the energy companies. It's just deeply unserious. They'll talk about how we should be open to nuclear, cut funding for renewables, give some money to some startups or consultancy firms and nothing will actually be built.
>France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
Today France takes more than a decade to build a single reactor (Flamanville 3) and the debts incurred nationalizing EDF, are now causing serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting. As clean and safe as nuclear power might be, I think the world will be fine not following that example.
Not that it's really hidden, but this article is biased toward pro nuclear point of few and carefully not mention when we (France) had to import electricity from other European countries right when the prices were super high due to Russia's war to Ukraine because half of our reactors were shut down because of technical issues...
Why not just replace the CEO of the electricity company with someone who has less political connections, and accept that the primary function of EDF is not accounting, but making electricity work, and pick someone who is either an engineer or just has a little bit more experience with planning instead?
France has cheap electricity because of the nuclear buildout, in other words: because engineers saved 50% on the price, not because an MBA saved 0.1% on the price.
It's not like it took much planning to avoid that outcome, it just wasn't done. But I'm sure this saved EDF 5 bucks and the costs were carried by everyone else.
Is their somewhere a (honest!) exploration/essay on why there are so few nuclear power plants being build?
Like South Korea is building some, and China (but they invest way more in renewables).
All other countries are either building 0, building less then retire, or on the process of building very little but taking ages.
If nuclear fission is "cheap, abundant and carbon-free", why has nobody put their money where their mouth is?
It takes a lot of engineering skills and you basically need to buy a pre-existing design because it's not something you can reverse engineer easily. Figuring things out yourself is basically too expensive for any countries that is already part of the rich few that can.
Then you have to deal with the geopolitics around nuclear material, since you could very much use it for military purpose (Iran problems, for example).
To finish, you basically need to build a specialized industry around it and it has to be very local. You would probably need to hire outside expertise for the first build to even be sure that all requirements/quality levels are met.
It's not something that you decide to buy overnight and just do. Since it benefits greatly for economies of scale (makes no sense to just build 1) you basically need to have full industrial planning for a very very long term. At the very least 15 years, but since you also need to deal with the waste and maintenance, you are basically committed for at least 50 years.
Which is exactly why once you know and can do it at the country level, it makes no sense to let go and do something else. You will have to deal with the maintenance of current reactors anyway and still have to deal with waste with no chance for potential repurpose.
But our current world is extremely dominated by neo-liberalism and that means short-term thinking and profit maximisation. This can be seen in the ever-changing political climate (at least in France).
I actually think this is the real major reason so many are infatuated with renewables: it can make money and they can profit from it. The funny thing is that this money-making is only possible thanks to the reliability of nuclear and coal/gas plants in Germany for example. From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
If those were real problems then nuclear power would get built. Capitalism finds a way if there is profit to be made. Less scrupulous countries would pounce on the opportunity to have cheaper energy. That evidently has not happened and even China is reducing their nuclear share of the electricity mix, going all in on renewables and storage instead.
The real reason is cost. Nuclear power plants produce extremely expensive electricity until they are paid off ~40 years later. For paid off nuclear plants the cost is acceptable as long as they can get paid for nearly all hours of the day, if capacity factors craters then paid-off plants become too expensive.
And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at €0 50% of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady state.
Who wants to lock in energy crisis prices until ~2080 factoring in construction time? The nukebro squad seems to think that is reasonable.
> From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
But this is the issue you guys never tackle. It is all about "baseload" without the slightest understanding about how the demand curve looks.
Extremely expensive because it is extremely expensive. The few projects in the west which get off the ground generally have:
1. Credit guarantees
2. Guaranteed extremely high electricity prices for ~40 years.
3. Direct subsides like zero interest loans
4. Subsidized accident insurance (the state takes all risk)
For example, in the UK they realized after Hinklkey Point C locking in extremely expensive electricity for 35 years that it telling the public how expensive it is was not a good political choice.
Therefore Sizewell C they instead foist the costs as a cost-plus contract on the ratepayers as the plant get built.
11 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 38.2 ms ] threadHowever, the opposition to nuclear is currently being reevaluated by the German government.
Today France takes more than a decade to build a single reactor (Flamanville 3) and the debts incurred nationalizing EDF, are now causing serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting. As clean and safe as nuclear power might be, I think the world will be fine not following that example.
France has cheap electricity because of the nuclear buildout, in other words: because engineers saved 50% on the price, not because an MBA saved 0.1% on the price.
It's not like it took much planning to avoid that outcome, it just wasn't done. But I'm sure this saved EDF 5 bucks and the costs were carried by everyone else.
If nuclear fission is "cheap, abundant and carbon-free", why has nobody put their money where their mouth is?
Then you have to deal with the geopolitics around nuclear material, since you could very much use it for military purpose (Iran problems, for example).
To finish, you basically need to build a specialized industry around it and it has to be very local. You would probably need to hire outside expertise for the first build to even be sure that all requirements/quality levels are met.
It's not something that you decide to buy overnight and just do. Since it benefits greatly for economies of scale (makes no sense to just build 1) you basically need to have full industrial planning for a very very long term. At the very least 15 years, but since you also need to deal with the waste and maintenance, you are basically committed for at least 50 years.
Which is exactly why once you know and can do it at the country level, it makes no sense to let go and do something else. You will have to deal with the maintenance of current reactors anyway and still have to deal with waste with no chance for potential repurpose.
But our current world is extremely dominated by neo-liberalism and that means short-term thinking and profit maximisation. This can be seen in the ever-changing political climate (at least in France).
I actually think this is the real major reason so many are infatuated with renewables: it can make money and they can profit from it. The funny thing is that this money-making is only possible thanks to the reliability of nuclear and coal/gas plants in Germany for example. From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
The real reason is cost. Nuclear power plants produce extremely expensive electricity until they are paid off ~40 years later. For paid off nuclear plants the cost is acceptable as long as they can get paid for nearly all hours of the day, if capacity factors craters then paid-off plants become too expensive.
And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at €0 50% of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady state.
Who wants to lock in energy crisis prices until ~2080 factoring in construction time? The nukebro squad seems to think that is reasonable.
> From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
But this is the issue you guys never tackle. It is all about "baseload" without the slightest understanding about how the demand curve looks.
1. Credit guarantees 2. Guaranteed extremely high electricity prices for ~40 years. 3. Direct subsides like zero interest loans 4. Subsidized accident insurance (the state takes all risk)
For example, in the UK they realized after Hinklkey Point C locking in extremely expensive electricity for 35 years that it telling the public how expensive it is was not a good political choice.
Therefore Sizewell C they instead foist the costs as a cost-plus contract on the ratepayers as the plant get built.
Pure insanity.