5 ms·

Electricity in France is so cheap that EDF has had to raise domestic electricity prices in order to make it possible for other providers to compete

Hammershaft 6y ago
In the short term nuclear is undoubtedly expensive, but when the debt from construction is payed off, it becomes an incredibly cheap and reliable source of energy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Not disputing, but in the interests of full disclosure, the presenter is (per YT About): * Professor David Ruzic * Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering * Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering * University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    The only truly reliable and inexhaustible output of the nuke industry is falsehood. They were lying before the first commercial plant was built ("too cheap to meter") and have continued well past the industry's deserved end ("incredibly cheap", above). The article demonstrates that even operating them, neglecting all of construction and decommissioning, costs more than alternatives. "Incredibly" is a perhaps unintentionally revealing admission.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  As far as I'm aware, dealing with the waste has cost taxpayers in Germany quite a lot over the last couple of decades, and all of the really hot stuff is sitting in glorified warehouses with no end in sight. I have a feeling this may still become a very significant part of the overall costs. Has any other country actually solved that problem?
  - merb 6y ago
    sometimes waste is even dumped just into the earth: https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-waste-across-italy-1513190243 https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/09/italy.nuclearpower https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/09/italy.nuclearp...
  - stevenwoo 6y ago
    Finland? They are still doing construction but it seems all the planning stages have been done, but haven't seen recent update. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuclear-waste-storage-may-set-example-world https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuc... they generate the money to pay for the spent fuel disposal by taxing the revenue from the nuclear plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
    - addicted 6y ago
      This is what the interviewee points to in the interview itself, but also adds that they mah not be the answer because there is evidence that original estimates for copper’s corrosion were far too optimistic.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    These glorified warehouses are cheap. Also cheap are former mines where 50 year old spent fuel can be placed with risks below that of chemical plants.
    - estaseuropano 6y ago
      That is simply wrong. Underground storage is not a panacea. Few mines are suitable and even those require expensive preparation and maintenance for coming decades or even centuries, with many hard to predict risks (think earthquake, flood).
      - 6y ago
pydry 6y ago
They're good until 2030 and then they're all going to start aging out at more or less the same time. Nuclear power is extraordinarily capital intensive but fairly reasonably priced to run once it's built. This also creates a strong incentive to run plants beyond their operating lifetime, which France may do. That takes us into exciting new territory safety-wise.
- Trombone12 6y ago
  And then it becomes comes time to dismantle them, and they turn capital intensive again.
  - api 6y ago
    This tail end expense is maybe the largest problem with nuclear power. Economic systems and corporate structures are not set up for this. The whole economy is used to things costing nothing at the end of their life, or nearly so. Done with a car? Scrap it, strip it, recycle the recyclables, and toss the rest. Done with a building? Implode it and cart it away. Same goes for almost all other pieces of machinery and capital. Done with a nuke? Now you have another cost almost as high as building it to begin with! It's like having to buy your car and then spend almost the same amount to un-buy it at the end of its life span. Yes such things can be priced in, but it requires a tremendous amount of foresight and discipline. There is a constant temptation to cut corners on any cost that won't be incurred for a long time, especially if that time is beyond the term of a politician or the career of a corporate bureaucrat. Done with a solar panel? Send it to a bulk electronics recycler. Done with a wind turbine? Scrap it like any other piece of heavy machinery. There are other industries with non-trivial decommissioning costs, like chemicals, oil and gas, etc., but at least the time frame is reasonably short. Nuclear decommissioning costs drag on and on, theoretically many times longer than the plant's useful life span.
Barrin92 6y ago
This is wrong in two ways. First off, electricity in France isn't particular cheap by European standards (which already is not cheap)[1] Secondly, the EDF is debt-laden and heavily subsidized by the French state, this is why other providers cannot compete. Nuclear energy itself is on the expensive end when it comes to energy sources. As the article points out, France has not even allocated a third of the money it needs to decommission existing plants. [1]https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- belorn 6y ago
  Looking at the European data for energy subsidy (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/en34-energy-subsidies/en34-energy-subsidies https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/en34-ener...), the energy sector that get most money is fossil fuels and by a large margin. Renewables comes in second. Nuclear do get most money for research and development compared to other energy sources, but I have a hard time see how that translate to energy prices. R&D usually goes to universities. If we use France specifically, according to the report here (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/progress_on_energy_subsidies_in_particular_for_fossil_fuels.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/progress_on_ene...): "In France, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Ireland and Finland, the highest shares were spent on fossil fuels (although in absolute terms, the fossil fuel subsidies in France were slightly lower than in Germany). Both Germany and France is at the same time dwarfed by the amount of subsidies given to fossil fuel in the US. Nuclear subsidized is a tiny dot on map compared to the billions being spent on coal, oil and gas.
api 6y ago
Are the prices subsidized? Are they actually that cheap or are you just paying the rest on your tax bill?

Hammershaft 6y ago

In the short term nuclear is undoubtedly expensive, but when the debt from construction is payed off, it becomes an incredibly cheap and reliable source of energy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY

throw0101a 6y ago
Not disputing, but in the interests of full disclosure, the presenter is (per YT About): * Professor David Ruzic * Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering * Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering * University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- ncmncm 6y ago
  The only truly reliable and inexhaustible output of the nuke industry is falsehood. They were lying before the first commercial plant was built ("too cheap to meter") and have continued well past the industry's deserved end ("incredibly cheap", above). The article demonstrates that even operating them, neglecting all of construction and decommissioning, costs more than alternatives. "Incredibly" is a perhaps unintentionally revealing admission.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
As far as I'm aware, dealing with the waste has cost taxpayers in Germany quite a lot over the last couple of decades, and all of the really hot stuff is sitting in glorified warehouses with no end in sight. I have a feeling this may still become a very significant part of the overall costs. Has any other country actually solved that problem?
- merb 6y ago
  sometimes waste is even dumped just into the earth: https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-waste-across-italy-1513190243 https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/09/italy.nuclearpower https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/09/italy.nuclearp...
- stevenwoo 6y ago
  Finland? They are still doing construction but it seems all the planning stages have been done, but haven't seen recent update. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuclear-waste-storage-may-set-example-world https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuc... they generate the money to pay for the spent fuel disposal by taxing the revenue from the nuclear plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
  - addicted 6y ago
    This is what the interviewee points to in the interview itself, but also adds that they mah not be the answer because there is evidence that original estimates for copper’s corrosion were far too optimistic.
- jojobas 6y ago
  These glorified warehouses are cheap. Also cheap are former mines where 50 year old spent fuel can be placed with risks below that of chemical plants.
  - estaseuropano 6y ago
    That is simply wrong. Underground storage is not a panacea. Few mines are suitable and even those require expensive preparation and maintenance for coming decades or even centuries, with many hard to predict risks (think earthquake, flood).
    - 6y ago

pydry 6y ago

They're good until 2030 and then they're all going to start aging out at more or less the same time. Nuclear power is extraordinarily capital intensive but fairly reasonably priced to run once it's built. This also creates a strong incentive to run plants beyond their operating lifetime, which France may do. That takes us into exciting new territory safety-wise.

Trombone12 6y ago
And then it becomes comes time to dismantle them, and they turn capital intensive again.
- api 6y ago
  This tail end expense is maybe the largest problem with nuclear power. Economic systems and corporate structures are not set up for this. The whole economy is used to things costing nothing at the end of their life, or nearly so. Done with a car? Scrap it, strip it, recycle the recyclables, and toss the rest. Done with a building? Implode it and cart it away. Same goes for almost all other pieces of machinery and capital. Done with a nuke? Now you have another cost almost as high as building it to begin with! It's like having to buy your car and then spend almost the same amount to un-buy it at the end of its life span. Yes such things can be priced in, but it requires a tremendous amount of foresight and discipline. There is a constant temptation to cut corners on any cost that won't be incurred for a long time, especially if that time is beyond the term of a politician or the career of a corporate bureaucrat. Done with a solar panel? Send it to a bulk electronics recycler. Done with a wind turbine? Scrap it like any other piece of heavy machinery. There are other industries with non-trivial decommissioning costs, like chemicals, oil and gas, etc., but at least the time frame is reasonably short. Nuclear decommissioning costs drag on and on, theoretically many times longer than the plant's useful life span.

Barrin92 6y ago

This is wrong in two ways. First off, electricity in France isn't particular cheap by European standards (which already is not cheap)[1] Secondly, the EDF is debt-laden and heavily subsidized by the French state, this is why other providers cannot compete. Nuclear energy itself is on the expensive end when it comes to energy sources. As the article points out, France has not even allocated a third of the money it needs to decommission existing plants. [1]https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

belorn 6y ago
Looking at the European data for energy subsidy (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/en34-energy-subsidies/en34-energy-subsidies https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/en34-ener...), the energy sector that get most money is fossil fuels and by a large margin. Renewables comes in second. Nuclear do get most money for research and development compared to other energy sources, but I have a hard time see how that translate to energy prices. R&D usually goes to universities. If we use France specifically, according to the report here (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/progress_on_energy_subsidies_in_particular_for_fossil_fuels.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/progress_on_ene...): "In France, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Ireland and Finland, the highest shares were spent on fossil fuels (although in absolute terms, the fossil fuel subsidies in France were slightly lower than in Germany). Both Germany and France is at the same time dwarfed by the amount of subsidies given to fossil fuel in the US. Nuclear subsidized is a tiny dot on map compared to the billions being spent on coal, oil and gas.

api 6y ago

Are the prices subsidized? Are they actually that cheap or are you just paying the rest on your tax bill?