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Actually, prices excluding taxes and levies look pretty similar: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-household-electricity-prices-second-highest-eu http

Actually, prices excluding taxes and levies look pretty similar: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-household-electricity-prices-second-highest-eu https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-household-electr... And in Germany and Denmark, taxes and levies ARE the main price drivers. The maintenance costs are amortized in the per-kwh cost to consumers, same as with nuclear or gas or coal. Single houses can't live off just solar energy because they aren't diversified like a nation can be (in terms of storage, routing, diversity of technologies, etc). Nuclear is nice in theory, but unfortunately they are managed by humans, and humans do stupid things like run them past their decommission date or fail to locate backup generators above flooding level or skimp on maintenance and inspections. And nuclear accidents create no-go zones that last millenia. Only truly "meltdown-proof" reactors would avoid this problem, but R&D into this is terribly slow and seems to be obstructed at every turn by incumbents.

coddle-hark 6y ago
I’ve read somewhere that meltdowns are impossible in modern reactor designs, is that not true?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- orwin 6y ago
  It is impossible with Gen3+ (that include a core catcher). However, i have studied Gen3 and Gen3+ designs, i think Gen3 design are really safe enough, even if knowledge decline as much as it did on Trantor: anybody with small training could keep one functionning if they follow the simple rule: if something unexpected happen, Don't touch anything. Gen3+ add a new surface of attack, a digital one, while the main issue in Gen3 is not fixed (for information, the main security issue is the pool). I'm not a fan.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    A core catcher is a thing that mitigates the worst scenario of a meltdown (by catching the melted core before it can melt through the concrete floor), it doesn't prevent a meltdown. If the core catcher comes into play the core has already melted and escaped from the reactor pressure vessel.
    - orwin 6y ago
      Mmm, true, i meant that in Gen3+ the meltdown was manageable for any civilisation, but in any case, if a meltdown happen in a Gen3 or Gen3+, it will be caused by malice and a lot of neglect, and not by accident. Still, Gen3+ and their core catchers are overengineered and i think are not worth the additional cost in GHG.
      - pfdietz 6y ago
        Extra safety features are worth it if they allow the overall expensive "nuclear culture" to be relaxed. Otherwise, it's just rearranging deck chairs on an economic Titanic. Having said that: even a contained meltdown is devastating for the utility. The owner of TMI was gravely wounded by the cost of that accident.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gridlockd 6y ago
Those taxes and levies are used to finance the renewables, so it makes no sense to leave them out of the picture. These renewables produce a lot of power that isn't needed during their peaks, which gets sold at low or negative prices on the market, yet is compensated for with the full subsidy. During their troughs, you need another source of power, usually natural gas, which is expensive, or coal, which raises the baseline production and therefore exacerbates the peak production problem. The result on CO2 emissions is pretty damning. This is the danger of picking "winning technologies", you are telling the market to waste resources. Instead, you need to incentivize the market for your actual goal and then let it do its thing. Putting a price on CO2 would've incentivized all sorts of technologies that reduce net CO2 emissions.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  And we're doing exactly that: Putting a price on CO2, and also subsidizing renewables to kickstart the industry and get some production scale going. Seems like the fastest route to full renewables. You can even see the effect of the market manipulation starting in 2008: out-of-pocket costs on solar have dropped 8x since then. No problem of this magnitude is ever solved with a single-prong approach. It calls for some far-thinking: Figure out which energy sources will eventually be the cheapest to harvest sustainably, and then take a financial hit now for a bonanza later. Complaining about the price comparison today is just silly, considering that people in the industry only look at out-of-pocket money when making their decisions.
  - cbmuser 6y ago
    They have been “kuckstarting” renewables in Germany for the past 20 years and we invested 500 billion Euros. How long do you want to continue kickstarting? Until 2150?
    - kstenerud 6y ago
      And now production has ramped up, economies of scale are in play, R&D startups are all over, and out-of-pocket costs have dropped 8x in the past 12 years.
cbmuser 6y ago
You will never get the market prices from the electricity exchange. In particular, those prices aren’t stable and are often negative or soar up to 4000 Euros per MWh in Germany. Please, for the sake of an honest discussion, look at the actual data in Germany. And, no, there is neither a strong fossile nor nuclear lobby in Germany. The renewables lobby is - by far - the strongest lobby as the overwhelming majority in Germany supports renewables. Germany has already invested more than 500 billion Euros for the transition to renewables and we are still among the dirtiest electricity producers and we are still building new fossile plants. 100% renewables based on wind and solar does not work and will never work on a large scale.
- Retric 6y ago
  Germany is further north than Maine, it’s excessive early adoption is a poor model for solar adoption globally. Though it did drive the industry forward which provides global dividends.

coddle-hark 6y ago

I’ve read somewhere that meltdowns are impossible in modern reactor designs, is that not true?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
orwin 6y ago
It is impossible with Gen3+ (that include a core catcher). However, i have studied Gen3 and Gen3+ designs, i think Gen3 design are really safe enough, even if knowledge decline as much as it did on Trantor: anybody with small training could keep one functionning if they follow the simple rule: if something unexpected happen, Don't touch anything. Gen3+ add a new surface of attack, a digital one, while the main issue in Gen3 is not fixed (for information, the main security issue is the pool). I'm not a fan.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  A core catcher is a thing that mitigates the worst scenario of a meltdown (by catching the melted core before it can melt through the concrete floor), it doesn't prevent a meltdown. If the core catcher comes into play the core has already melted and escaped from the reactor pressure vessel.
  - orwin 6y ago
    Mmm, true, i meant that in Gen3+ the meltdown was manageable for any civilisation, but in any case, if a meltdown happen in a Gen3 or Gen3+, it will be caused by malice and a lot of neglect, and not by accident. Still, Gen3+ and their core catchers are overengineered and i think are not worth the additional cost in GHG.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      Extra safety features are worth it if they allow the overall expensive "nuclear culture" to be relaxed. Otherwise, it's just rearranging deck chairs on an economic Titanic. Having said that: even a contained meltdown is devastating for the utility. The owner of TMI was gravely wounded by the cost of that accident.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gridlockd 6y ago

Those taxes and levies are used to finance the renewables, so it makes no sense to leave them out of the picture. These renewables produce a lot of power that isn't needed during their peaks, which gets sold at low or negative prices on the market, yet is compensated for with the full subsidy. During their troughs, you need another source of power, usually natural gas, which is expensive, or coal, which raises the baseline production and therefore exacerbates the peak production problem. The result on CO2 emissions is pretty damning. This is the danger of picking "winning technologies", you are telling the market to waste resources. Instead, you need to incentivize the market for your actual goal and then let it do its thing. Putting a price on CO2 would've incentivized all sorts of technologies that reduce net CO2 emissions.

kstenerud 6y ago
And we're doing exactly that: Putting a price on CO2, and also subsidizing renewables to kickstart the industry and get some production scale going. Seems like the fastest route to full renewables. You can even see the effect of the market manipulation starting in 2008: out-of-pocket costs on solar have dropped 8x since then. No problem of this magnitude is ever solved with a single-prong approach. It calls for some far-thinking: Figure out which energy sources will eventually be the cheapest to harvest sustainably, and then take a financial hit now for a bonanza later. Complaining about the price comparison today is just silly, considering that people in the industry only look at out-of-pocket money when making their decisions.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  They have been “kuckstarting” renewables in Germany for the past 20 years and we invested 500 billion Euros. How long do you want to continue kickstarting? Until 2150?
  - kstenerud 6y ago
    And now production has ramped up, economies of scale are in play, R&D startups are all over, and out-of-pocket costs have dropped 8x in the past 12 years.

cbmuser 6y ago

You will never get the market prices from the electricity exchange. In particular, those prices aren’t stable and are often negative or soar up to 4000 Euros per MWh in Germany. Please, for the sake of an honest discussion, look at the actual data in Germany. And, no, there is neither a strong fossile nor nuclear lobby in Germany. The renewables lobby is - by far - the strongest lobby as the overwhelming majority in Germany supports renewables. Germany has already invested more than 500 billion Euros for the transition to renewables and we are still among the dirtiest electricity producers and we are still building new fossile plants. 100% renewables based on wind and solar does not work and will never work on a large scale.

Retric 6y ago
Germany is further north than Maine, it’s excessive early adoption is a poor model for solar adoption globally. Though it did drive the industry forward which provides global dividends.