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This article cuts off before revealing much information to non-subscribers. Here's the corresponding Reuters article, which I could read in its entirety: http

This article cuts off before revealing much information to non-subscribers. Here's the corresponding Reuters article, which I could read in its entirety: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/sweden-plans-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2035-can-take-costs-2023-11-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/sweden-plans-new-nuc... Key points: - They intend to build the equivalent of two new conventional nuclear reactors by 2035 (presumably meaning something like 2000 megawatts of generating capacity, but it could come from small reactors). - They intend to build the equivalent of 10 new conventional reactors by 2045. The government has not yet announced what sort of funding model will be used to get the new reactors built.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rakkhi 3y ago
Along with the post yesterday that the US is re-entering the nuclear fuel industry this is great news. We need more: https://open.substack.com/pub/rakkhi/p/nuclear-energy?r=1afqp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web https://open.substack.com/pub/rakkhi/p/nuclear-energy?r=1afq...
- collegeburner 3y ago
  it's in rather poor taste to link to your own paywalled article and provide almost nothing in the comment
  - godelski 3y ago
    Extra weird considering 1) the link didn't work for me, 2) parent is a cyber security expert and his cyber security posts look to be mostly open and when not have more details before the paywall. Why is the thing you're not an expert on the thing that's paywalled... Nuclear energy is a pretty sophisticated topic and I'll be honest, as someone with a degree in physics, who has worked on radiation shielding, and worked at DoE labs (in CS, not physics or engineering, but I was talking to those folks quite a lot given my background and worked on analyzing data), I'm not even confident enough to put my face to my statements. I'm not putting my credentials to boast, but to say that this is a threshold for "unqualified." It's just too easy to get something little wrong which makes your whole belief collapse. I can tell you, I even see people on the pro-nuclear side make a lot of blunders that have meaningful changes (I've even seen this in shielding even when I have slides showing Geant4 simulations and the results are expected from the math). Nuclear is a pretty tough topic and requires a lot of nuance. Climate even more so. I know a lot of people have strong opinions on these topics but I hope those opinions also do not come with high confidence. A paywall to me suggests higher confidence. Plus is a weird move to advertise your substack. Advertise your domain expertise! That's your quality content.
twelvechairs 3y ago
Thing with Nuclear is its long term. It's 10 years to plan (theres always some customisation), fund, develop and train then another 5-10 before you move to profitability. Then through the life cycle there's constant government scrutiny and regulation before a complex decommissioning process that is pre-paid. This doesnt fit well with political election cycles. Solar and wind are winning not because they are cheaper or more balanced for the grid but because you can buy off the shelf components, install them quickly and make it to profitability sooner. There's just a whole lot less time and risk.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  If we subjected solar and wind to the same level of regulatory burden (as in: ensured that they would have the same level of expected harms/deaths/accidents as nuclear), they also would be completely unprofitable. If we subjected all our generation to the same regulatory burden, nuclear would be profitable again because our power would be drastically more expensive.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    I am very pro nuclear but I am also very pro stringent regulation around nuclear. I don’t find the argument that nuclear reactors could be regulated as windmills super compelling, but that’s just me.
    - MostlyStable 3y ago
      While I personally think nuclear is overregulated, my point wasn't even that you need to decrease regulation. I was just pointing that if current nuclear regulations demonstrate how safe we think our power generation should be, then wind and solar (and everything else) are under regulated, since they both kill more people/MWh generated than nuclear does.
      - jacobedawson 3y ago
        Genuine question - I wasn't aware of this (fatalities per mwh for wind & solar), what would be the best source to find out more?
photochemsyn 3y ago
They're offering $37 billion in loan guarantees, which means that if a private party agrees to take the money and build the nuclear power plant but then defaults on the loan (i.e. if they can't sell the power from the plant at the repayment rate, I suppose), then the government is stuck with the whole bill. Even that apparently won't be enough to bring in the private contractors, however: > "Guarantees are very important, but that won't be enough," Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said. "For this type of infrastructure it is going to require the state to take part and share the risk." I'm not sure what that means, the loan guarantee already seems like quite a risk. Are they going to go for nationalization of the power sector or something like that?
- capableweb 3y ago
  > I'm not sure what that means, the loan guarantee already seems like quite a risk. Are they going to go for nationalization of the power sector or something like that? Seems large parts already is nationalized. Vattenfall is a huge power company and is owned by the Swedish state.
dang 3y ago
Ok, we've changed to that from https://greeninvesting.co/2023/11/sweden-gov-announces-massive-expansion-of-nuclear-energy/ https://greeninvesting.co/2023/11/sweden-gov-announces-massi.... Thanks!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rakkhi 3y ago

Along with the post yesterday that the US is re-entering the nuclear fuel industry this is great news. We need more: https://open.substack.com/pub/rakkhi/p/nuclear-energy?r=1afqp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web https://open.substack.com/pub/rakkhi/p/nuclear-energy?r=1afq...

collegeburner 3y ago
it's in rather poor taste to link to your own paywalled article and provide almost nothing in the comment
- godelski 3y ago
  Extra weird considering 1) the link didn't work for me, 2) parent is a cyber security expert and his cyber security posts look to be mostly open and when not have more details before the paywall. Why is the thing you're not an expert on the thing that's paywalled... Nuclear energy is a pretty sophisticated topic and I'll be honest, as someone with a degree in physics, who has worked on radiation shielding, and worked at DoE labs (in CS, not physics or engineering, but I was talking to those folks quite a lot given my background and worked on analyzing data), I'm not even confident enough to put my face to my statements. I'm not putting my credentials to boast, but to say that this is a threshold for "unqualified." It's just too easy to get something little wrong which makes your whole belief collapse. I can tell you, I even see people on the pro-nuclear side make a lot of blunders that have meaningful changes (I've even seen this in shielding even when I have slides showing Geant4 simulations and the results are expected from the math). Nuclear is a pretty tough topic and requires a lot of nuance. Climate even more so. I know a lot of people have strong opinions on these topics but I hope those opinions also do not come with high confidence. A paywall to me suggests higher confidence. Plus is a weird move to advertise your substack. Advertise your domain expertise! That's your quality content.

twelvechairs 3y ago

Thing with Nuclear is its long term. It's 10 years to plan (theres always some customisation), fund, develop and train then another 5-10 before you move to profitability. Then through the life cycle there's constant government scrutiny and regulation before a complex decommissioning process that is pre-paid. This doesnt fit well with political election cycles. Solar and wind are winning not because they are cheaper or more balanced for the grid but because you can buy off the shelf components, install them quickly and make it to profitability sooner. There's just a whole lot less time and risk.

MostlyStable 3y ago
If we subjected solar and wind to the same level of regulatory burden (as in: ensured that they would have the same level of expected harms/deaths/accidents as nuclear), they also would be completely unprofitable. If we subjected all our generation to the same regulatory burden, nuclear would be profitable again because our power would be drastically more expensive.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I am very pro nuclear but I am also very pro stringent regulation around nuclear. I don’t find the argument that nuclear reactors could be regulated as windmills super compelling, but that’s just me.
  - MostlyStable 3y ago
    While I personally think nuclear is overregulated, my point wasn't even that you need to decrease regulation. I was just pointing that if current nuclear regulations demonstrate how safe we think our power generation should be, then wind and solar (and everything else) are under regulated, since they both kill more people/MWh generated than nuclear does.
    - jacobedawson 3y ago
      Genuine question - I wasn't aware of this (fatalities per mwh for wind & solar), what would be the best source to find out more?

photochemsyn 3y ago

They're offering $37 billion in loan guarantees, which means that if a private party agrees to take the money and build the nuclear power plant but then defaults on the loan (i.e. if they can't sell the power from the plant at the repayment rate, I suppose), then the government is stuck with the whole bill. Even that apparently won't be enough to bring in the private contractors, however: > "Guarantees are very important, but that won't be enough," Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said. "For this type of infrastructure it is going to require the state to take part and share the risk." I'm not sure what that means, the loan guarantee already seems like quite a risk. Are they going to go for nationalization of the power sector or something like that?

capableweb 3y ago
> I'm not sure what that means, the loan guarantee already seems like quite a risk. Are they going to go for nationalization of the power sector or something like that? Seems large parts already is nationalized. Vattenfall is a huge power company and is owned by the Swedish state.

dang 3y ago

Ok, we've changed to that from https://greeninvesting.co/2023/11/sweden-gov-announces-massive-expansion-of-nuclear-energy/ https://greeninvesting.co/2023/11/sweden-gov-announces-massi.... Thanks!