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> I could argue that nuclear power isn’t that expensive when I can buy nuclear power at retail for 9 cents per kWh, but that isn’t really an interesting point.

> I could argue that nuclear power isn’t that expensive when I can buy nuclear power at retail for 9 cents per kWh, but that isn’t really an interesting point. Paid-off nuclear plants are in the same range as new built renewables in cost. They don't magically appear out of thin air though, someone has to pay to build them.

ftth_finland 3y ago
A brand new nuclear power plant was just taken into service here in Finland. As a result electricity prices dropped about 5 cents per kWh across the board. However, as noted before, this isn’t really all that interesting. The storage part is the big interesting trillion dollar question.
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  Of course, if someone puts up the money and eats the loss you get cheap electricity. The problem is, someone has to eat the loss. People proposing nuclear power generally have no answer regarding who this "someone" is rather than generic handwaving about "the grid!" > However, as noted before, this isn’t really all that interesting. The storage part is the big interesting trillion dollar question. For the Nordics this is already solved with the existing hydropower. Sweden as of this week stores 19 TWh in their reservoirs. This is the reason no storage gets built in the Nordics, it is impossible to compete with scheduling the release of water more in line with renewables rather than daily consumption cycles.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    > Of course, if someone puts up the money and eats the loss you get cheap electricity. The power companies paid for the nukes and the French paid for botching the job. > The problem is, someone has to eat the loss. People proposing nuclear power generally have no answer regarding who this "someone" is rather than generic handwaving about "the grid!" The end user always pays in the end. Around here people will rather pay for working power rather than freeze to death. > For the Nordics this is already solved with the existing hydropower. Um, no. Even if you aren’t from around here these things are easily looked up on Wikipedia. Norway is the only Nordic country with enough hydro, but even they, like Sweden, are lacking in north-south transmission capacity. Iceland is too far away. Denmark has no hydro. Sweden only has enough for 50%. Finland only has about 20%. To further point out the obvious, Finland has to import more than a gigawatt during peak power usage, even when using all generation capacity in the country! > Sweden as of this week stores 19 TWh in their reservoirs. This is the reason no storage gets built in the Nordics Um, no. Again. The reason more hydro isn’t being built is because there is nowhere left to put more off it! Plus, in Sweden’s case, lack of north-south transmission capacity. Which nobody is building. So, tell me again, why isn’t more grid storage being built out in the Nordics?
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  French taxpayers are footing the real cost: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Olkiluoto-3-EPR-parties-agree-settlement-12031801.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Olkiluoto-3-EPR-parties... > "In the event that the supplier consortium companies fail to complete the OL3 EPR project by the end of 2019, they will pay a penalty to TVO for such delay in an amount which will depend on the actual time of completion of the OL3 EPR project and may not exceed EUR400 million," Note the article is from 2018 > The latest schedule sees grid connection taking place in December, with the start of regular electricity production in May next year. Whoops.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    Again, the nuclear part isn’t the interesting bit. It’s the storage part that is interesting and keeps being ignored in these comments. Yes, the French had to pay penalties and cost overruns. Even so that only doubles the system costs from 4 cents to 8 cents.
    - Gwypaas 3y ago
      I think what you are missing from this discussion is that both renewables and nuclear require dispatchable power to fill the gaps. If storage is "impossible" then a nuclear grid is impossible unless you overbuild it leading to costs multiples higher than Ukrainian war gas crisis costs. The problem is that renewables and nuclear are economically incompatible, like the article goes into depths about. Renewables easily win this battle as the cost for new built renewables are in the same range as operations and maintenance for paid off nuclear plants. Generally, the research available see no issues building 100% renewable grids, so I do not know why you keep hampering on about it being impossible? https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
      - ohgodplsno 3y ago
        >The result is a holistic vision of the transition towards a net-negative greenhouse gas emissions economy that can limit global warming to 1.5°C The research in question ignores the fact that we've already passed that level. >However, a clear deficit and research gap exist, since a detailed description of the industry sector, i.e. separated major industries such as cement, iron and steel, chemicals, aluminum, pulp and paper, etc., is lacking in almost all cases. Therefore, a full defossilization of the non-energy feedstock demand of the industry sector has not been modelled in global 100% RE analysis. The research in question conveniently says "we don't really know how much industries use, but surely it can't be that bad right ? Anyways, we're not taking it into account" >The industry sector is described in detail in Pursiheimo et al. [145], though the authors admit that TIMES, the model used, was not capable of applying full power-to-X functionality for the industry sector, thus fossil hydrocarbon inputs to the industry sector were still required by the model. Similarly, Teske et al. [125] and Luderer et al. [146] mention that the chemical industry is still fully based on fossil fuels. The research in question confirms that the whole industrial sector still requires massive amounts of hydrocarbons. Overall, all these full renewable grids papers assume one critical thing: a complete change of all of our infrastructure, to add storage, better grid organisation, and overall a complete rework of... everything. While that's a lofty goal, looking at the reality where we can't even phase out simple things makes it quite unbelievable. Everything is possible if you ignore reality.

ftth_finland 3y ago

A brand new nuclear power plant was just taken into service here in Finland. As a result electricity prices dropped about 5 cents per kWh across the board. However, as noted before, this isn’t really all that interesting. The storage part is the big interesting trillion dollar question.

Gwypaas 3y ago
Of course, if someone puts up the money and eats the loss you get cheap electricity. The problem is, someone has to eat the loss. People proposing nuclear power generally have no answer regarding who this "someone" is rather than generic handwaving about "the grid!" > However, as noted before, this isn’t really all that interesting. The storage part is the big interesting trillion dollar question. For the Nordics this is already solved with the existing hydropower. Sweden as of this week stores 19 TWh in their reservoirs. This is the reason no storage gets built in the Nordics, it is impossible to compete with scheduling the release of water more in line with renewables rather than daily consumption cycles.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  > Of course, if someone puts up the money and eats the loss you get cheap electricity. The power companies paid for the nukes and the French paid for botching the job. > The problem is, someone has to eat the loss. People proposing nuclear power generally have no answer regarding who this "someone" is rather than generic handwaving about "the grid!" The end user always pays in the end. Around here people will rather pay for working power rather than freeze to death. > For the Nordics this is already solved with the existing hydropower. Um, no. Even if you aren’t from around here these things are easily looked up on Wikipedia. Norway is the only Nordic country with enough hydro, but even they, like Sweden, are lacking in north-south transmission capacity. Iceland is too far away. Denmark has no hydro. Sweden only has enough for 50%. Finland only has about 20%. To further point out the obvious, Finland has to import more than a gigawatt during peak power usage, even when using all generation capacity in the country! > Sweden as of this week stores 19 TWh in their reservoirs. This is the reason no storage gets built in the Nordics Um, no. Again. The reason more hydro isn’t being built is because there is nowhere left to put more off it! Plus, in Sweden’s case, lack of north-south transmission capacity. Which nobody is building. So, tell me again, why isn’t more grid storage being built out in the Nordics?
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
French taxpayers are footing the real cost: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Olkiluoto-3-EPR-parties-agree-settlement-12031801.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Olkiluoto-3-EPR-parties... > "In the event that the supplier consortium companies fail to complete the OL3 EPR project by the end of 2019, they will pay a penalty to TVO for such delay in an amount which will depend on the actual time of completion of the OL3 EPR project and may not exceed EUR400 million," Note the article is from 2018 > The latest schedule sees grid connection taking place in December, with the start of regular electricity production in May next year. Whoops.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  Again, the nuclear part isn’t the interesting bit. It’s the storage part that is interesting and keeps being ignored in these comments. Yes, the French had to pay penalties and cost overruns. Even so that only doubles the system costs from 4 cents to 8 cents.
  - Gwypaas 3y ago
    I think what you are missing from this discussion is that both renewables and nuclear require dispatchable power to fill the gaps. If storage is "impossible" then a nuclear grid is impossible unless you overbuild it leading to costs multiples higher than Ukrainian war gas crisis costs. The problem is that renewables and nuclear are economically incompatible, like the article goes into depths about. Renewables easily win this battle as the cost for new built renewables are in the same range as operations and maintenance for paid off nuclear plants. Generally, the research available see no issues building 100% renewable grids, so I do not know why you keep hampering on about it being impossible? https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
    - ohgodplsno 3y ago
      >The result is a holistic vision of the transition towards a net-negative greenhouse gas emissions economy that can limit global warming to 1.5°C The research in question ignores the fact that we've already passed that level. >However, a clear deficit and research gap exist, since a detailed description of the industry sector, i.e. separated major industries such as cement, iron and steel, chemicals, aluminum, pulp and paper, etc., is lacking in almost all cases. Therefore, a full defossilization of the non-energy feedstock demand of the industry sector has not been modelled in global 100% RE analysis. The research in question conveniently says "we don't really know how much industries use, but surely it can't be that bad right ? Anyways, we're not taking it into account" >The industry sector is described in detail in Pursiheimo et al. [145], though the authors admit that TIMES, the model used, was not capable of applying full power-to-X functionality for the industry sector, thus fossil hydrocarbon inputs to the industry sector were still required by the model. Similarly, Teske et al. [125] and Luderer et al. [146] mention that the chemical industry is still fully based on fossil fuels. The research in question confirms that the whole industrial sector still requires massive amounts of hydrocarbons. Overall, all these full renewable grids papers assume one critical thing: a complete change of all of our infrastructure, to add storage, better grid organisation, and overall a complete rework of... everything. While that's a lofty goal, looking at the reality where we can't even phase out simple things makes it quite unbelievable. Everything is possible if you ignore reality.