this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Well yea, countries keep buying nuclear from France because it's clean, cheap, and they don't want to suffer the political backlash from the science lacking environmentalists which come forward when they talk about building nuclear on their own land
It's literally the most expensive power of any of the major options.
Yesterday the price of electricity was -1.16 c/kwh here despite having all those expensive reactors.
Levelized costs of electricity are different from the spot price. Market price doesn't tell you anything about cost efficiency of nuclear (or any other source).
And yet germany with no nuclear plants consistently pay more than the rest of the world for electricity.
Please have a look for statistics that are adjusted for purchasing power, first of all. Then please compare the LCoE of nuclear power to for example wind energy - it's only comparable (and comparably low) because decommissioning and waste disposal is not factored in - you pay for that via taxes. Also, at least in Germany there is the Merit-Order system im place, which artificially creates a price for electricity with the explicit goal to make it more independent of the costs of each individual source. While you are correct that prices have been high (also after adjustment for pp, but not as much), the price shock in recent years was due to gas, for instance, and would have been high even if many nuclear power plants were still on the grid.
I am just saying that things are not as simple as some comments on this thread make them out to be. The statement that nuclear is cheap (it is only if you ignore the expensive part of the costs) because my electricity bill is small is just not reasonable.
I just realized I engage in a discussion on a shitposting community. I guess I am kind of new here.
Yup, just like Vegans, environmentalists come up with an answer they like and find some shakie science to back it up.
liberals and their damn SCIENCE
The Nuclear power industry is not closer to science than any other energy generating industry.
German green party
Nuclear plants:🤮
Carbon plants (that actually produce more radiation that nuclear plants): 🥰
See also: the "Atomkraft? Nein Danke" sticker that has a cartoon picture of the biggest nuclear reactor in the solar system on it. Irony: it's good for the blood dearie.
Fusion is way better than fission
The nuclear ship had sailed long before the Green Party became part of the current government. While I also think that nuclear power is a much better alternative to coal power plants it’s simply not feasible to revert Germany’s decision when wind and solar is as cheap as it is now.
I'm not familiar with the German politics, but are you saying that Germany got rid of nuclear despite environmentalists?
These decisions are mainly rooted in the peace movement of the 80s (fueled by the nuclear missiles in Germany installed by the US) and the direct experience of Tschernobyl. Its supported by the majority in the public.
The current political decision was made by the more conservative government.
France has been importing more electricity than exporting in 2022 because their nuclear reactors can’t perform in the heat resulting from climate change. And this is more likely to happen again as each year becomes hotter.
I’m not sure where this fetishism for France‘s nuclear energy is coming from.
You're quoting 2022 because that year >30% of the reactrors were taken offline for maintenance. The French government is also shutting down nuclear reactors due to lack of funding & outdated technology.
This is not an inherant problem with nuclear, but because the French government hasn't invested since the 70s.
If funding wasn't cut (due to environmental activists), the output would be more than needed.
Nuclear is still our best bet for combatting climate change and reducing carbon emissions.
Im quoting 2022 because this was last year. As in, the most recent year.
I don’t disagree that we should have phased out coal instead of nuclear first. But what has happened has happened. I do disagree that we need a „nuclear renessaince“ now, because neither the economics nor the timelines work out at this point in time. Solar and wind is cheaper, faster to build, and more flexible as you can iterate on their designs MUCH more quickly than nuclear plants. That’s the main reason why solar panel efficiency is going through the roof.
Why cannibalize the investments in what obviously works?
You only solve one part of the problem: what do you use when there's no sun and no wind? Coal? Gas?
As far as I can tell, there is no time with no sun AND no wind: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_statistics_-_latest_trends_from_monthly_data
In fact, there are multiple studies claiming that you can very well supply base load with renewables, for instance this one:
https://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf
One other problem with nuclear is that it has to run at a fixed output level, and can’t be scaled down if there is eg. lots of solar power being generated. In this case, you have to scale down renewables to make sure you can use the nuclear power, which makes it clash with the eventual goal to power everything with renewables.
I don't know who, in his sane mind, can claim there will never be periods of time with no sun and no wind at the same time. https://notrickszone.com/2022/12/07/plunging-towards-darkness-germany-sees-week-long-wind-sun-lull-as-energy-supply-dwindles/
You need a pilotable generator matching renewables. You can't do without it. The only question is how much of it you need to plan. Existing approaches are storage: batteries, hydro where it's possible (you pump the water up a dam to store back energy) and backup generators: coal, gas, and in some future plans, hydrogen.
None of these is a perfect solution (well, nothing is a perfect solution).
It is not completely true that nuclear needs to run at fixed level. Depending on their design, some plants are pilotable and some are not. But I don't think (I'll be happily corrected if needed) any had the flexibility you need to be used with renewable (quick large variations).
So the ideal mix is, IMHO, a baseline provided by nuclear, and a mix of renewable and complements to produce the difference.
Bonus: there is a "method" promoted by some (ignorant) politics they call "proliferation" ("foisonnement", not sure I'm translating that the best). This is utter BS...
The idea is there will always be sun or wind somewhere in a super-grid spreading through Europe. If you think about it for 1 minute, that means that small part of Europe where there is wind will power, for a more or less short time, a large portion of the whole Europe?? Not only is that totally insane from the capacity point of view, but it also completely neglects the grid's stability and electricity transportation issue. It is very difficult to transport electricity over very large distances without disturbing the grid. Ask Germany, they spend massively on infrastructures right now without counting on proliferation. That would raise the requirements further...
Good Post overall, no need to attack my sanity though :-)
I agree with most of this in principle. Having 100% base load with renewables is an aspirational goal - for now - but nevertheless achievable, I believe. You will find that the sun does, in fact, always shine (somewhere on the planet), and that wind almost always blows (somewhere on the planet). Admittedly, wind is more prevalent throughout the day than sun, but still.
There have been recent discoveries of superconductors that might help transport the electricity where it is needed. But again, this is all in the medium to long term future.
But of course, short to medium term, and long term too, energy storage will play a huge role. I expect massive development in this area, as this is being iterated on anyway, eg. for EVs.
Maybe it comes from France exporting the cheapest energy in Europe in the last 20 years. But yeah, 2022 means nuclear energy is worthless I guess.
What do you mean by cheapest energy? Nuclear is more expensive than renewables, if you factor in construction and maintenance cost. It only works because it has been massively subdisidized.
Or do you have some source that this energy is „cheaper“? Please be aware that France caps their electricity prices internally and subsidizes them with taxes (which is fine, but makes the prices incomparable to other countries).
„The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.“
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSKBN1W909J
Ok, so obviously, you're not well aware of how the new European open market works, and why France ended up paying part of consumer's bills.
France uses to have a state-owned company, EDF, producing and distributing electricity in France. EDF had a monopole. France had the cheapest electricity of Europe, and EDF was profitable. Sink that in, when you say nuclear is expensive:
EDF was delivering the cheapest electricity of Europe and was profitable.
A decision from the European Union was taken to force all members to switch to an open market. French government at the time was conservative, so they happily went along with it. Everyone "knows" that private sector always does better than whatever has "public" or "state" in its description.
But how would you introduce competition when virtually no one else produces any electricity? How to kickstart it? That's where bright people went very very creative.
Production and distribution of electricity was split as separate activities. EDF spinned off the distribution part of its work. In parallel, a quota of nuclear production was allocated to new companies, "electricity suppliers", so that they got something to sell at an affordable price.
That's where it starts to be interesting: to guarantee a margin to electricity suppliers, so that they would make enough money to invest in production, the daily price of electricity on the market is set to the marginal cost of the most expensive power plant that's turned on. Do you follow me? If today, 99% of electricity is coming from a nuclear power plant, but you need to start a coal power plant to provide the last 1%, all 100% of the electricity that day is billed at the cost of the coal power plant! I am not kidding, I am not making that shit up!
Why prices exploded since last year? Well, you've heard about gas prices, right? Every day a gas power plan is turned on with gas prices through the roof, 100% of the electricity that day is billed at the cost of the gas power plant. That's why France started subsidizing the consumers bills, because most of them could not afford a x6, 7, 10 on their electricity bills.
But at least, we do have competition now, don't we? Well... not on the production side...
No condition on investment was given to the electricity supplier. Read that again. Guess what happened. Electricity suppliers were buying most of their electricity at a cheap regulated cost from EDF and selling it with a big profit to consumers, all while producing nothing themselves. Why would they?? Money is trickling down to them for free!
Even better: as they were more competitive than EDF, thanks to having 0 maintenance and 0 investment to make, and cheap electricity to resell, their customers base grew. Then they found out that they were not getting enough cheap electricity, and they faced a dilemma: buy a larger share of electricity from other real producers, that would have increased their cost, or cap their customers base (or of course, invest in production, but who wants to do that, right?).
They did neither of these. They pleaded to the current government to get MORE cheap electricity from EDF. And the government did that: forced EDF to allocate more of its cheap nuclear electricity to them, increasing the quota. Needless to say that if EDF needed more electricity for their own customers, they were answered that they could buy the more expensive electricity from outside, or invest in more capacity. Makes sense, right? The exact opposite of what the system was supposed to do.
Now, the very best part: when gas price exploded, even the small fraction of electricity bought by the electricity suppliers impacted their cost. It was unacceptable to them. So they raised their rate to be above EDF, or even outright cancelled contracts with their customers, so that customers would go back to EDF (EDF cannot refuse contracts, and is not allowed to adjust its own rates). But... electricity suppliers do not have to give up on their quota from EDF... so...
EDF had to buy back the electricity EDF produces, to companies producing nothing, at the rate of the market, of course, not the rate at which EDF is forced to sell that electricity to these companies. So it's even better now. EDF sells them electricity (which is a virtual sale, electricity still goes from EDF plants to households like it did before). These companies sell it back to EDF with a big margin. Dream business, isn't it?
So France does not subsidize bills because nuclear is too expensive.
France literally subsidizes a scam scheme, in which most of the money going to parasitic companies producing nothing.
Any sources on any of that? That’s a lot of „you just know that“ information, and I do consider myself well informed. I am not from France though.
Anyway:
neither of those points addresses the costs of energy production I quoted above. Those are, to the best of my knowledge, approximately correct. It may very well have been that nuclear was competitive in the past, it isn’t anymore.
getting scammed by some middle man seems to be a fate that all modern democracies share, though who the middle man is varies country by country :-)
I consider the marginal cost thing to be one of the best acts from the EU. Maybe not in France, but overall it rewards the most efficient energy producer massively, which currently is solar. Those companies can use the excess money to reinvest.
I'd love to see the science behind why the reactors couldn't perform in the heat seeing as how essentially all regular power generation involves spinning a turbine with steam. Temps might be hot in Europe, but they aren't quite 100C/212F hot.
Nuclear plants are cooled with river water, and that water is getting too hot:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/
The fetishism for nuclear was just imported 1:1 from Reddit
Or you know, it just makes sense and wasn't imported from anywhere? Some of us actually prefer real data and science instead of sensationalism and fear mongering.
It's just so apparent that the pro nuclear brigade is not preferring all real data, just the one it fits. I am not against nuclear per se, I just find it hilarious how at reddit and here as well, people are just SO pro nuclear that nothing else should even be considered. Which made me think if all that is just a very persistent astroturfing campaign
To suggest that the nuclear industry is capable of any kind of lobbying activity is utterly laughable, given its history. We're talking about a sector which, for over 40 years, has been unable to prevent the cancellation of almost all its research projects or new reactor construction projects, and which still sees very strong opposition all over the world, as well as in the European Parliament.
The only reason why nuclear power's reputation has been partially restored in recent months is that electricity prices in Europe have soared as a result of the common market, and countries that have opted for renewable energies have become dependent on Russian fossil fuels.
Actually, the nuclear power industry did / does indeed run astroturfing campaigns. For example the "pro-nuclear civil society" in Japan. If you read up on nuclear power online you will find an abundance of websites and groups which offer very one-sided information and are tied to the nuclear power industry.
Nuclear fission power had huge investments and substitutions but turned out to not be economically feasible in most cases. There is a lot of money to be lost and made in this industry.
Between scientists there is also no consensus whether nuclear power (in its current application) is a good thing.