4 ms·

All those reactors might have been great in the 80s, but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive

All those reactors might have been great in the 80s, but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive solution. France is also in the middle of experiencing a huge amount of maintenance costs due to many of their reactors coming up to critical age milestones. But it's often hidden under the massive layers of obfuscation due to being masked under the total French energy budget.

nyokodo 4y ago
> but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive solution. Partially true. In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense, and in all geographies as a hedge against long bouts of unusual weather.
- Turskarama 4y ago
  Nuclear is a terrible technology to use as a hedge against inclement weather for power generation. The cost is all upfront, so you really want to be running it at 100% basically all the time for it to be at its most cost effective. Only running it when renewables aren't generating is incredibly costly, we'd be better off just overbuilding renewables + storage and having plenty of redundancy in the grid.
  - Zopieux 4y ago
    True, but you just won't find the necessary storage capacity to run solely on renewables — you'd need a miracle battery breakthrough or a miraculously convenient landscape close to population centers to build tons of reversible water reservoirs. You need your baseload to come from a steady, highly available, weather independent source. Nuclear is basically this only carbon free solution ticking the boxes.
    - Turskarama 4y ago
      That depends on where you live, and 80% of the worlds population lives in places where overbuilding enough storage _with current technology_ is still cheaper than nuclear. For that last 20%, building more grid connections towards the equator is again still cheaper than nuclear.
      - ianburrell 4y ago
        Also, the overbuilt solar and wind solution is better in other ways. It gives extra, dispatchable capacity which can be used for things like extracting CO2, and making hydrogen. Those will be important, and made fuels could be storage mechanism. It is likely better to use gas peaker plants for rare times without renewables and extract the CO2 later when sun is shining.
        natmaka 4y ago
        Some gas turbines can now burn (green) hydrogen. Germany deploys those beasts. https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fuele...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Alternatively just have 3 hours of storage and keep the gas generators hanging around for that one week in two years they're needed. All the money wasted on nuclear can then be put towards electrification of emissions sources which are vastly more important than that last 0.5% of emissions (which will further increase the flexibility as it does so).
- afterburner 4y ago
  > In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense I guess you don't realize that much of New England's power already comes from renewables. Remember they get hydro power from Quebec. Maine gets 2/3 of its power from renewables. Which leads to my second point: your power generation doesn't need to be right next to you. And in any case, off shore wind is plentiful, and New England isn't the Arctic, it still gets plenty of sun year round. https://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/future-forward/the-gradual-greening-of-new-england/ https://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/future-forward/the-gradual...
pydry 4y ago
Not just maintenance costs but some truly eyewatering upcoming decommissioning costs as well as construction on new plants. EDF already went bankrupt like, last week. Even despite all of this France is expecting the % of electricity sourced from nuclear power to decline - new plants aren't being built fast enough to replace those aging out.
- _ache_ 4y ago
  Humm, EDF need money thank for regulation that force the company to sell electricity at a loss. % of nuclear electricity may decline but not sharply.
  - natmaka 4y ago
    "at a loss" is highly debatable: the 'Cour des comptes' (local Court of Accounts) officially published figures showing that the production cost was 22€ when this law was passed, and the fixed price is 42€... Not even counting the huge amounts of public money gobbled up by EDF since the very beginning.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > EDF already went bankrupt like, last week. Because the costs thet sell at are capped, regardless of what it costs them to generate (and those costs exploded in some areas due to the war and the common European power market), which was the right choice to protect consumers from energy poverty.

nyokodo 4y ago

> but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive solution. Partially true. In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense, and in all geographies as a hedge against long bouts of unusual weather.

Turskarama 4y ago
Nuclear is a terrible technology to use as a hedge against inclement weather for power generation. The cost is all upfront, so you really want to be running it at 100% basically all the time for it to be at its most cost effective. Only running it when renewables aren't generating is incredibly costly, we'd be better off just overbuilding renewables + storage and having plenty of redundancy in the grid.
- Zopieux 4y ago
  True, but you just won't find the necessary storage capacity to run solely on renewables — you'd need a miracle battery breakthrough or a miraculously convenient landscape close to population centers to build tons of reversible water reservoirs. You need your baseload to come from a steady, highly available, weather independent source. Nuclear is basically this only carbon free solution ticking the boxes.
  - Turskarama 4y ago
    That depends on where you live, and 80% of the worlds population lives in places where overbuilding enough storage _with current technology_ is still cheaper than nuclear. For that last 20%, building more grid connections towards the equator is again still cheaper than nuclear.
    - ianburrell 4y ago
      Also, the overbuilt solar and wind solution is better in other ways. It gives extra, dispatchable capacity which can be used for things like extracting CO2, and making hydrogen. Those will be important, and made fuels could be storage mechanism. It is likely better to use gas peaker plants for rare times without renewables and extract the CO2 later when sun is shining.
      - natmaka 4y ago
        Some gas turbines can now burn (green) hydrogen. Germany deploys those beasts. https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fueled-gas-turbines https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fuele...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Alternatively just have 3 hours of storage and keep the gas generators hanging around for that one week in two years they're needed. All the money wasted on nuclear can then be put towards electrification of emissions sources which are vastly more important than that last 0.5% of emissions (which will further increase the flexibility as it does so).
afterburner 4y ago
> In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense I guess you don't realize that much of New England's power already comes from renewables. Remember they get hydro power from Quebec. Maine gets 2/3 of its power from renewables. Which leads to my second point: your power generation doesn't need to be right next to you. And in any case, off shore wind is plentiful, and New England isn't the Arctic, it still gets plenty of sun year round. https://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/future-forward/the-gradual-greening-of-new-england/ https://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/future-forward/the-gradual...

pydry 4y ago

Not just maintenance costs but some truly eyewatering upcoming decommissioning costs as well as construction on new plants. EDF already went bankrupt like, last week. Even despite all of this France is expecting the % of electricity sourced from nuclear power to decline - new plants aren't being built fast enough to replace those aging out.

_ache_ 4y ago
Humm, EDF need money thank for regulation that force the company to sell electricity at a loss. % of nuclear electricity may decline but not sharply.
- natmaka 4y ago
  "at a loss" is highly debatable: the 'Cour des comptes' (local Court of Accounts) officially published figures showing that the production cost was 22€ when this law was passed, and the fixed price is 42€... Not even counting the huge amounts of public money gobbled up by EDF since the very beginning.
sofixa 4y ago
> EDF already went bankrupt like, last week. Because the costs thet sell at are capped, regardless of what it costs them to generate (and those costs exploded in some areas due to the war and the common European power market), which was the right choice to protect consumers from energy poverty.