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> That's why Europe doesn't have rolling blackouts. It has a lot of wind and solar. Patently false. Europe has a lot of nuclear and gas and coal - way more tha

> That's why Europe doesn't have rolling blackouts. It has a lot of wind and solar. Patently false. Europe has a lot of nuclear and gas and coal - way more than wind and solar - that's why it doesn't have blackouts. Europe is up on the 50th latitude, solar is 3x worse than in California or Hawaii - and hence 3x more expensive. The cost per kWh of French nuclear plants at 7c/kWh is not much higher than French wind or solar at 5-6c/kWh, and it is half the cost of solar/wind plus the battery capacity to make it through windless winter weeks.

natmaka 4y ago
Share of nuclear in Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear?region=Europe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear... The real cost of nuclear (taking taxpayer's money into account) is heavily discussed, and will in any case only be known after decommission of all reactors then last dangerous waste inert: in the meantime any major blunder may change the total cost.
- Paradigma11 4y ago
  And the real cost of renewables will only be known after we have seen the effects of the instability that they introduced into a somewhat boring reliable essential industry.
  - natmaka 4y ago
    Maybe not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 Germany's gridpower offers one of the best quality of service (availability...) in Europe.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Across the whole continent, nuclear has been in decline for decades. So has coal. Renewables on the other hand have grown massively. French electricity pricing does not include the money that French tax payers pay to keep on building new nuclear plants. Or the money they are going to pay for getting rid of them. Or the money they will be paying for security, waste disposal, etc. Nuclear is pretty cheap when you just resell what tax payers give you and defer any cost back at the tax payer. That's the problem with nuclear: it can't really be done without tax payer money.
- trashtester 4y ago
  On the other hand, the prices French consumers pay DO include the price hikes that come with German renewable plants produce nothing, due to no wind in the winter. Also, France has significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions per capita than Germany, despite having a lot less renewable power. And for the costs of decommisioning, this report estimates that when that is included, the nuclear power generated by current plants have a levelized cost of between 0.059 euro and 0.083 euro per kWh. For future plants, the report claims costs between 0.076 and 0.117 euroes per kWh. The report states that this is high compared to alternatives, but if cheap Russian gas is taken away, it is probably cheaper than the alternatives (without gas, renewables must have a significant amount of storage added to their price to be viable as a 24/7 source, or one must return to super-dirty coal). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421513011440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    Nuclear has a well deserved reputation for being very expensive. France is no exception. Most of their nuclear plants are old and getting more costly to keep running. That is for sure not being funded out of regular energy revenue. Also France is a majority share holder in EDF that runs the nuclear plants in France. So they get to do lots of creative bookkeeping. Wikipedia has some nice factoids on the French nuclear industry; including this one: "The actual cost of generating electricity by nuclear power is not published by EDF or the French government but is estimated to be between €59/MWh and €83/MWh". That would be much higher than what they charge. Here's another gem: "EDF remains heavily in debt. Its profitability suffered during the recession which began in 2008. It made €3.9 billion in 2009, which fell to €1.02 billion in 2010, with provisions set aside amounting to €2.9 billion.[citation needed] The Nuclear industry has been accused of significant cost overruns and failing to cover the total costs of operation, including waste management and decommissioning." They are having significant cost related to their ancient plants needing lots of downtime for maintenance and upgrades to keep them going beyond their retirement age. And then the new plants are not projected to be any better. I wonder who is paying for this.

natmaka 4y ago

Share of nuclear in Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear?region=Europe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear... The real cost of nuclear (taking taxpayer's money into account) is heavily discussed, and will in any case only be known after decommission of all reactors then last dangerous waste inert: in the meantime any major blunder may change the total cost.

Paradigma11 4y ago
And the real cost of renewables will only be known after we have seen the effects of the instability that they introduced into a somewhat boring reliable essential industry.
- natmaka 4y ago
  Maybe not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 Germany's gridpower offers one of the best quality of service (availability...) in Europe.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Across the whole continent, nuclear has been in decline for decades. So has coal. Renewables on the other hand have grown massively. French electricity pricing does not include the money that French tax payers pay to keep on building new nuclear plants. Or the money they are going to pay for getting rid of them. Or the money they will be paying for security, waste disposal, etc. Nuclear is pretty cheap when you just resell what tax payers give you and defer any cost back at the tax payer. That's the problem with nuclear: it can't really be done without tax payer money.

trashtester 4y ago
On the other hand, the prices French consumers pay DO include the price hikes that come with German renewable plants produce nothing, due to no wind in the winter. Also, France has significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions per capita than Germany, despite having a lot less renewable power. And for the costs of decommisioning, this report estimates that when that is included, the nuclear power generated by current plants have a levelized cost of between 0.059 euro and 0.083 euro per kWh. For future plants, the report claims costs between 0.076 and 0.117 euroes per kWh. The report states that this is high compared to alternatives, but if cheap Russian gas is taken away, it is probably cheaper than the alternatives (without gas, renewables must have a significant amount of storage added to their price to be viable as a 24/7 source, or one must return to super-dirty coal). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421513011440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Nuclear has a well deserved reputation for being very expensive. France is no exception. Most of their nuclear plants are old and getting more costly to keep running. That is for sure not being funded out of regular energy revenue. Also France is a majority share holder in EDF that runs the nuclear plants in France. So they get to do lots of creative bookkeeping. Wikipedia has some nice factoids on the French nuclear industry; including this one: "The actual cost of generating electricity by nuclear power is not published by EDF or the French government but is estimated to be between €59/MWh and €83/MWh". That would be much higher than what they charge. Here's another gem: "EDF remains heavily in debt. Its profitability suffered during the recession which began in 2008. It made €3.9 billion in 2009, which fell to €1.02 billion in 2010, with provisions set aside amounting to €2.9 billion.[citation needed] The Nuclear industry has been accused of significant cost overruns and failing to cover the total costs of operation, including waste management and decommissioning." They are having significant cost related to their ancient plants needing lots of downtime for maintenance and upgrades to keep them going beyond their retirement age. And then the new plants are not projected to be any better. I wonder who is paying for this.