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When you're so far down the rabbit hole that cheap virtually unlimited clean electricity is bad because it cannot make you rich... If killing children was prof

When you're so far down the rabbit hole that cheap virtually unlimited clean electricity is bad because it cannot make you rich... If killing children was profitable and somehow legal we'd find people like you investing billions in it I assume I doubt you understand how many solar panels you'd need to replace nuclear, I also doubt you understand how some countries cannot live on solar power for size and geographical reasons alone

chpatrick 3y ago
Moral outrage won't make the economics work out.
- lm28469 3y ago
  Why are countries who invested in nuclear enjoying the cheapest and cleanest electricity then ? The "economics" seem to work very well for them. Why do I pay 47ct/kwh in Germany while my parents pay 13ct/kwh in France ?
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    Because France already has a ton of installed nuclear capacity and Germany stupidly got rid of it. But as alternatives get better and better it makes less sense to start a 20 year process to install new nuclear.
    - lm28469 3y ago
      Call me when Germany's electricity is clean and cheap then, I bet we'll be in the same place in 25 years, in the meantime it's reality VS sci-fi, and so far reality is harsh
      - natmaka 3y ago
        In France fossil fuels produce ~65% of final energy, and the project aiming at building the first instance of a series of reactors (EPR) planned in 2004 is a failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanville_3_%28France%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi... Germany generates more and more clean electricity while not loosing too much of its industrial sector, with a higher GDP and while getting rid of its nuclear: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/low-carbon-electricity?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=DEU~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/low-carbon-electricity?ta... France emits less partly thanks to the dramatic reduction of its industrial sector: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&region=Europe&country=FRA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-tra... The net difference between France and Germany isn't as high as sometimes claimed: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&time=1990..latest&country=FRA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
        realusername 3y ago
        > The net difference between France and Germany isn't as high as sometimes claimed: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... How can you say it's not massive? Germany hasn't even reached the 90s levels of France yet..
        natmaka 3y ago
        The major factors are: France was massively less industrial than Germany, its industrial sector is way less developed than 30 years ago (not emitting is easy when you buy more imported goods), its GDP is quite lower, its climate warmer.
        realusername 3y ago
        Maybe it's also due to the fact that France has 40% electric heating and in Germany it's something like 5%...
  - b3orn 3y ago
    Because you chose the most expensive energy provider? I pay significantly less than 47ct/kWh in Germany.
  - pydry 3y ago
    Why do I pay eye watering rents to live in a shoebox while my parents pay 0 rent to live in a massive house? France's electricity prices will either sky rocket when their paid off 70s nuclear plants finally age out or they will keep running them and open up an exciting new world of nuclear disaster risks. Germany, meanwhile, will be sitting pretty once it has paid off the capex on its far cheaper green energy.
    - realusername 3y ago
      > Germany, meanwhile, will be sitting pretty once it has paid off the capex on its far cheaper green energy. Well no, not really. what's preventing that is the low lifespan of renewables. They are close to 0% of the way of their 2050 goals and will understand the meaning of exponential installation pretty soon.
      - pydry 3y ago
        This is just wrong. They produce roughly 50% from renewables. The lifespan is baked into LCOE - the measure where nuclear power is 5x as expensive.
        realusername 3y ago
        That's exactly what I said yes, everything (or very close to) will be decommissioned by 2050. If you have 50GW of renewables installed and you have a goal of 100GW, you need to install ... 100GW.
        cinntaile 3y ago
        The renewables they have right now of course count towards their 2050 goals, that they need to get replaced eventually is a given but doesn't zero out their current contribution towards that goal.
        realusername 3y ago
        No they don't for the most majority since they have to be decommissioned. They have to install renewables every month just to keep the existing capacity running, not even talking about expanding it.
  - natmaka 3y ago
    Electricity is less expensive in France than in Germany because the French taxpayer pays a higher share of the energy system. https://data.oecd.org/chart/7eRr https://data.oecd.org/chart/7eRr
unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
When things are not profitable-- meaning people who expend resources in it are constantly having to add external resources just to stay involved-- those situations result in shrinking engagement and resources. You can have all the passion and altruism in the world, but hypothetically if you make an investment with -10% annual return, let's say, you will eventually be unable despite your best efforts, to expand this investment or even to maintain it in its original condition. Contrast this with a +10% annual return, it will be self-sustaining and someone who believes in it will have the resources over time to do a lot more of it.
- lm28469 3y ago
  Ok then I guess it's time to cancel roads and schools in most Europe, they cost too much. And health too, that's not profitable, ah and trains too ... Did we collectively lost our minds ? What's going on ? The economy is here to serve the people, not the other way, it's fine to lose money here and there for _critical_ infrastructure
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    It's not about greed. Even if you're the government would you rather spend the same amount of money for 1 GW in 20 years with a ton of difficult environmental and other questions or for 0.7 GW right now?
  - pydry 3y ago
    >Did we collectively lost our minds ? We would have if we deliberately chose to build roads that are 5x more expensive and took 10x longer to build with taxpayer money. Thats where the pro nuclear movement is right now though. Nuclear power is stupidly expensive. It only gets built because the industrial base shares costs with the nuclear-military industrial complex. They realize that it's harder to rally concerned citizens around keeping nuclear weapons and subs cheap so instead they tell you that it's green and try to gloss over the fact that it's eye wateringly expensive even when the very expensive disaster insurance is almost exclusively covered by joe taxpayer.
  - unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
"cheap"? Nuclear is almost 600% more expensive than wind/solar. Lazard LCOE numbers. https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... Solar PV+storage is 1/4 the cost. Look, I love nuclear as a cool concept, and admit that the regulatory barriers are unfair, but the industry simply is not cost competitive. Is regulatory barriers entirely responsible for being 6x as expensive? I doubt it. I'm guessing at best you can get down to 3x as expensive with more rational policy. Then MAYBE the next gen reactors will bring it down another 50%, but by the time anything new gen rolls out to a substantive degree, guess what solar and wind will probably drop again. Solar has perovskites on the horizon, wind has the usual economies of scale improvements, and battery storage has sodium ion in the immediate future and sulfur techs in the medium term. I say keep the current plants operating as best they can (otherwise coal will be used, or gas). And keep investing in scalable reactor technology. Best that can be done for nuclear now.

chpatrick 3y ago

Moral outrage won't make the economics work out.

lm28469 3y ago
Why are countries who invested in nuclear enjoying the cheapest and cleanest electricity then ? The "economics" seem to work very well for them. Why do I pay 47ct/kwh in Germany while my parents pay 13ct/kwh in France ?
- chpatrick 3y ago
  Because France already has a ton of installed nuclear capacity and Germany stupidly got rid of it. But as alternatives get better and better it makes less sense to start a 20 year process to install new nuclear.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    Call me when Germany's electricity is clean and cheap then, I bet we'll be in the same place in 25 years, in the meantime it's reality VS sci-fi, and so far reality is harsh
    - natmaka 3y ago
      In France fossil fuels produce ~65% of final energy, and the project aiming at building the first instance of a series of reactors (EPR) planned in 2004 is a failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanville_3_%28France%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi... Germany generates more and more clean electricity while not loosing too much of its industrial sector, with a higher GDP and while getting rid of its nuclear: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/low-carbon-electricity?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=DEU~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/low-carbon-electricity?ta... France emits less partly thanks to the dramatic reduction of its industrial sector: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&region=Europe&country=FRA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-tra... The net difference between France and Germany isn't as high as sometimes claimed: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&time=1990..latest&country=FRA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
      - realusername 3y ago
        > The net difference between France and Germany isn't as high as sometimes claimed: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... How can you say it's not massive? Germany hasn't even reached the 90s levels of France yet..
        natmaka 3y ago
        The major factors are: France was massively less industrial than Germany, its industrial sector is way less developed than 30 years ago (not emitting is easy when you buy more imported goods), its GDP is quite lower, its climate warmer.
        realusername 3y ago
        Maybe it's also due to the fact that France has 40% electric heating and in Germany it's something like 5%...
- b3orn 3y ago
  Because you chose the most expensive energy provider? I pay significantly less than 47ct/kWh in Germany.
- pydry 3y ago
  Why do I pay eye watering rents to live in a shoebox while my parents pay 0 rent to live in a massive house? France's electricity prices will either sky rocket when their paid off 70s nuclear plants finally age out or they will keep running them and open up an exciting new world of nuclear disaster risks. Germany, meanwhile, will be sitting pretty once it has paid off the capex on its far cheaper green energy.
  - realusername 3y ago
    > Germany, meanwhile, will be sitting pretty once it has paid off the capex on its far cheaper green energy. Well no, not really. what's preventing that is the low lifespan of renewables. They are close to 0% of the way of their 2050 goals and will understand the meaning of exponential installation pretty soon.
    - pydry 3y ago
      This is just wrong. They produce roughly 50% from renewables. The lifespan is baked into LCOE - the measure where nuclear power is 5x as expensive.
      - realusername 3y ago
        That's exactly what I said yes, everything (or very close to) will be decommissioned by 2050. If you have 50GW of renewables installed and you have a goal of 100GW, you need to install ... 100GW.
        cinntaile 3y ago
        The renewables they have right now of course count towards their 2050 goals, that they need to get replaced eventually is a given but doesn't zero out their current contribution towards that goal.
        realusername 3y ago
        No they don't for the most majority since they have to be decommissioned. They have to install renewables every month just to keep the existing capacity running, not even talking about expanding it.
- natmaka 3y ago
  Electricity is less expensive in France than in Germany because the French taxpayer pays a higher share of the energy system. https://data.oecd.org/chart/7eRr https://data.oecd.org/chart/7eRr

unyttigfjelltol 3y ago

When things are not profitable-- meaning people who expend resources in it are constantly having to add external resources just to stay involved-- those situations result in shrinking engagement and resources. You can have all the passion and altruism in the world, but hypothetically if you make an investment with -10% annual return, let's say, you will eventually be unable despite your best efforts, to expand this investment or even to maintain it in its original condition. Contrast this with a +10% annual return, it will be self-sustaining and someone who believes in it will have the resources over time to do a lot more of it.

lm28469 3y ago
Ok then I guess it's time to cancel roads and schools in most Europe, they cost too much. And health too, that's not profitable, ah and trains too ... Did we collectively lost our minds ? What's going on ? The economy is here to serve the people, not the other way, it's fine to lose money here and there for _critical_ infrastructure
- chpatrick 3y ago
  It's not about greed. Even if you're the government would you rather spend the same amount of money for 1 GW in 20 years with a ton of difficult environmental and other questions or for 0.7 GW right now?
- pydry 3y ago
  >Did we collectively lost our minds ? We would have if we deliberately chose to build roads that are 5x more expensive and took 10x longer to build with taxpayer money. Thats where the pro nuclear movement is right now though. Nuclear power is stupidly expensive. It only gets built because the industrial base shares costs with the nuclear-military industrial complex. They realize that it's harder to rally concerned citizens around keeping nuclear weapons and subs cheap so instead they tell you that it's green and try to gloss over the fact that it's eye wateringly expensive even when the very expensive disaster insurance is almost exclusively covered by joe taxpayer.
- unyttigfjelltol 3y ago

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

"cheap"? Nuclear is almost 600% more expensive than wind/solar. Lazard LCOE numbers. https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... Solar PV+storage is 1/4 the cost. Look, I love nuclear as a cool concept, and admit that the regulatory barriers are unfair, but the industry simply is not cost competitive. Is regulatory barriers entirely responsible for being 6x as expensive? I doubt it. I'm guessing at best you can get down to 3x as expensive with more rational policy. Then MAYBE the next gen reactors will bring it down another 50%, but by the time anything new gen rolls out to a substantive degree, guess what solar and wind will probably drop again. Solar has perovskites on the horizon, wind has the usual economies of scale improvements, and battery storage has sodium ion in the immediate future and sulfur techs in the medium term. I say keep the current plants operating as best they can (otherwise coal will be used, or gas). And keep investing in scalable reactor technology. Best that can be done for nuclear now.