3 ms·

Is electricity significantly cheaper in France because of the abundance of nuclear? Or are nuclear costs high there as well?

rsynnott 6y ago
Not super-cheap, but on the cheaper end for Western Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- lucb1e 6y ago
  Meanwhile, most people I talk to IRL about the topic, after having had the safety talk: "But nuclear is too expensive!" Strangely they never have comparative prices or can explain why France doesn't have super high energy prices.
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    I'm a major LFTR fan/stan, but new nuclear projects aren't a good idea with the cost curves for wind/solar generation and battery storage dropping 10% per year at a minimum. Over the 5-10 years of a major nuke project planning and construction, they're going to see their target cost undercut by wind/solar by massive margins. Obviously those curves won't last forever, once they stabilize, then new nuke projects will have a more stable target.
    - lucb1e 6y ago
      I'd happily pay today's prices if that means we can stop worrying whether we'll find enough physical space. We still need to fill as much as we can find, but we're not bound by it. The USA has it easy so to speak. Higher density countries, especially if they don't want to fill literally their whole share of the sea with wind (which is also much more expensive than on land), if they have any sea to begin with... e.g. I heard that southeastern Germany has much less wind because they have a higher minimum distance between villages and wind turbines, but I don't remember where I read that (whether they have less wind installed was a quicker check[2], omw to bed since it's 5am here). They already can't find space to put them and green energy is only at like 5% of their energy need (33% of the electricity[3], which is 15% of the energy need[4]). In fact, if you look at the graph of [3], renewables are so far mostly replacing nuclear production and fossil fuels are still going strong. This just isn't the time to phase fission out, yet, regardless of whether anyone is in favor of building it out. I just think it's silly to exclude many many megawatts of the safest kind of green energy. We're barely scratching the surface of replacing power generation, let alone the other ~90% of fossil fuel usage (e.g. in the Netherlands, 112TWh is electricity versus 900TWh total fossil fuel usage per year[1]). It's like deciding not to bring more oxygen to the international space station, hoping you'll be able to find enough room to grow plants instead. Just that the experiment we're doing is on the scale of a planet and decades ahead with a notoriously hard to predict future. I say we should start building today and, as soon as we then can, turn off the fossil fuel based power plants, replace the lion's share of combustion engine cars, etc. that contribute to killing or impairing millions of people every year[5], rather than (to use the previous comparison) worrying whether oxygen production by vegetation might be cheaper than lifting up some more oxygen. "Will it keep us going strong" is perhaps a better question than "what's the cheapest option that will make it look like we're making good progress to the majority of our voters?" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_Netherlands [2] https://1-stromvergleich.com/wind-power-germany/ https://1-stromvergleich.com/wind-power-germany/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_Electricity_production_1991-2017_(EIA).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution "air pollution causes the deaths of around 7 million people worldwide each year, and is the world's largest single environmental health risk"
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      I think SMRs like nuscale have a pretty good chance at the same as long as the myriad of startups can consolidate a little and not crowd each other out of the consistent volumes required to advance on the learning curve. It seems right now the medium term future of the industry largely wrests on the economic success of the nuscale ecosystem.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Nuclear has very high levelized cost of energy, but consumer electricity prices are quite far removed from those numbers. You can't compare consumer prices to learn anything about the relative costs of power production, because 90% of the price difference is because of different legislation. See e.g. here [1] for a comparison of different power sources. [1]https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
Bayart 6y ago
The rates are just around the EU average. But it also means it's not far away from countries having a massive amount of coal plants, so not too bad.

rsynnott 6y ago

Not super-cheap, but on the cheaper end for Western Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

lucb1e 6y ago
Meanwhile, most people I talk to IRL about the topic, after having had the safety talk: "But nuclear is too expensive!" Strangely they never have comparative prices or can explain why France doesn't have super high energy prices.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  I'm a major LFTR fan/stan, but new nuclear projects aren't a good idea with the cost curves for wind/solar generation and battery storage dropping 10% per year at a minimum. Over the 5-10 years of a major nuke project planning and construction, they're going to see their target cost undercut by wind/solar by massive margins. Obviously those curves won't last forever, once they stabilize, then new nuke projects will have a more stable target.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    I'd happily pay today's prices if that means we can stop worrying whether we'll find enough physical space. We still need to fill as much as we can find, but we're not bound by it. The USA has it easy so to speak. Higher density countries, especially if they don't want to fill literally their whole share of the sea with wind (which is also much more expensive than on land), if they have any sea to begin with... e.g. I heard that southeastern Germany has much less wind because they have a higher minimum distance between villages and wind turbines, but I don't remember where I read that (whether they have less wind installed was a quicker check[2], omw to bed since it's 5am here). They already can't find space to put them and green energy is only at like 5% of their energy need (33% of the electricity[3], which is 15% of the energy need[4]). In fact, if you look at the graph of [3], renewables are so far mostly replacing nuclear production and fossil fuels are still going strong. This just isn't the time to phase fission out, yet, regardless of whether anyone is in favor of building it out. I just think it's silly to exclude many many megawatts of the safest kind of green energy. We're barely scratching the surface of replacing power generation, let alone the other ~90% of fossil fuel usage (e.g. in the Netherlands, 112TWh is electricity versus 900TWh total fossil fuel usage per year[1]). It's like deciding not to bring more oxygen to the international space station, hoping you'll be able to find enough room to grow plants instead. Just that the experiment we're doing is on the scale of a planet and decades ahead with a notoriously hard to predict future. I say we should start building today and, as soon as we then can, turn off the fossil fuel based power plants, replace the lion's share of combustion engine cars, etc. that contribute to killing or impairing millions of people every year[5], rather than (to use the previous comparison) worrying whether oxygen production by vegetation might be cheaper than lifting up some more oxygen. "Will it keep us going strong" is perhaps a better question than "what's the cheapest option that will make it look like we're making good progress to the majority of our voters?" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_Netherlands [2] https://1-stromvergleich.com/wind-power-germany/ https://1-stromvergleich.com/wind-power-germany/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_Electricity_production_1991-2017_(EIA).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution "air pollution causes the deaths of around 7 million people worldwide each year, and is the world's largest single environmental health risk"
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    I think SMRs like nuscale have a pretty good chance at the same as long as the myriad of startups can consolidate a little and not crowd each other out of the consistent volumes required to advance on the learning curve. It seems right now the medium term future of the industry largely wrests on the economic success of the nuscale ecosystem.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Nuclear has very high levelized cost of energy, but consumer electricity prices are quite far removed from those numbers. You can't compare consumer prices to learn anything about the relative costs of power production, because 90% of the price difference is because of different legislation. See e.g. here [1] for a comparison of different power sources. [1]https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/

Bayart 6y ago

The rates are just around the EU average. But it also means it's not far away from countries having a massive amount of coal plants, so not too bad.