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Cheaper compared to what? In my country people recently installed a significant amount of small-scale solar (over 50k households in 2023 compared to 1000 in 20

Cheaper compared to what? In my country people recently installed a significant amount of small-scale solar (over 50k households in 2023 compared to 1000 in 2020), in addition to large scale solar and wind generators. Did our electricity get cheaper? No. It's more expensive than the worst year of the crisis after Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why? Because the national power grid operator had to increase their investment to stabilize the grid by 2 orders of magnitude, which means they will spend over 60% of the entire national budget during next 3 years - and somebody has to pay for that. That's a crazy amount and every single person here is unhappy about that. Nuclear might be more expensive per MWh pure electricity cost-wise, but the full system with storage, balancing and distribution costs is much more complicated=expensive now because of the renewables. It's funny that the same people who always talk about "hidden costs" and "unpriced externalities" of nuclear and fossil fuels never consider this. My country is backtracking its support for renewables and will build more nuclear instead. Unfortunately a lot of the damage is done and we can't stop all support as it's mandated by EU regulation. BTW why is Germany importing 2 GW of French nuclear electricity right now if it's so expensive and bad overall? And why is Germany burning so much coal it produces 9 GW right now, if renewables are so great? Let's not forget about the environment too - at this moment France is producing 16g of CO2/kWh, while Germany is at 375 average, and that coal burning causes 1000g/kWh. I hope they do pay for that, it seems kinda unfair that the French invested into clean energy but still have to breathe what the Germans are putting into the air...

tuatoru 2y ago
It was always a silly idea to let domestic solar connect to the grid. Dual wiring systems inside the buildings was the way to go. But then I thought letting Turkey into NATO was stupid too, so what do I know?
- addicted 2y ago
  Considering Turkey controls Black Sea access and it’s being in NATO meant that it was responsive to Western needs as opposed to being a Russian ally (which is what it’s naturally setup to do geographically, economically and politically) meant that Russia doesn’t have a full reign over the Black Sea and most obviously meant that Turkey was able to essentially force the grain deal which has kept the Ukrainian economy alive for a couple of years now. So including Turkey into NATO was a pretty great idea, both in the short and long terms simply because of their control over the Black Sea if nothing else (then producing some of the drones that probably kept the Ukrainians alive for months before the West really stepped in didn’t hurt either).
addicted 2y ago
The only reason we have switching costs is that the grid system for nearly a century was designed for fossil fuels with essentially a hub and spoke system. This is an incredibly fragile system as we saw with the massive blackouts. Different technologies will obviously incur a switching cost. The reason Germany has to import that energy and burn coal is obvious. It decided to eliminate 30-40% of its power source nearly overnight. Is it really a shock that NEW renewables which are indeed that great but are barely a decade old in terms of being cost effective alternatives were not able to fully and immediately replace all that fossil fuel capacity and that Germany relied instead on existing decades old, existing but worse infrastructure.
- throwaway1105q 2y ago
  There was no blackout in my country past 30 years. The last one was before the revolution, that was before we had enough nuclear. It's a shock that they have been investing incredible amounts of money into it for decades and still couldn't match the few nuclear reactors they turned off, indeed. At least they have the social/political argument - they turned the nukes off because they didn't like it. It's dumb but respectable. Lying about it being cheaper than nuclear is not respectable.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    Sorry to burst your bubble. Reality is knocking at the door: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&interval=year https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.... It just keeps going up.
    - throwaway1105q 2y ago
      Looks very corelated to the growth of renewable generation capacity...
- notTooFarGone 2y ago
  > It decided to eliminate 30-40% of its power source nearly overnight Or more like 10%? https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... And not over night but over legislation that spanned over decades? The amount of really stupid misinformation all around nuclear is baffling to me. Do you see an increase or a decrease in coal consumption?
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
> Nuclear might be more expensive per MWh pure electricity cost-wise, but the full system with storage, balancing and distribution costs is much more complicated=expensive This is a current talking point in Australia. "Yes we admit it's more expensive per kWh but it'll be cheaper overall". The national science agency didn't agree when it looked into it. They found it's more expensive per kWh and still more expensive after taking into account grid impacts. So are you getting your information from your equivalent science agency or from the equivalent right wing politicians and press?
- throwaway1105q 2y ago
  You have academic theories, I'm getting practical information from my electricity invoice. The energy regulation office informed me about the necessary power grid operation budget increase through it when they doubled the distribution fee at the end of 2023. The budget (and fee) was stable for decades before this after accounting for inflation. What grid impacts? The grid here has worked well for decades, there is no comparable grid impact from replacing coal and gas with nuclear. I guess it's different in Australia but this is a very densely populated small country, replacing 3 thermal power plants with 1 nuclear has zero impact on the grid and you can reuse parts of the thermal plant and infrastructure around it. The politicians are busy talking about migrants and the Russian war, so I can't read anything about this from them even if I wanted to.
- Krssst 2y ago
  > right wing politicians and press? Is nuclear right-wing now? I thought the right wing were all for coal; nuclear is an ideal replacement for coal. Non-dispatchable renewables play nice with fossil fuels since the plants have to stay online for bad days; the fossil fuel lovers should love them too (though I agree that they don't seem to)
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    The fossil fuel suppliers don't like fossil plants being kept online just in case, they like it when the fuel is actually burned in large quantities and then more is bought from them. That's how they make their money. They did however like to say that renewables would lead to more fuel being burned, even though that never made a lick of sense, because that helped them delay renewables and so burn even more fossil fuels. And some people believed that, even though it's doesn't make any sense. Nuclear fills that same, "this makes no sense but if you repeat it enough it'll delay progress on renewables and allow for more fossil fuels to be sold/burned" role in right-wing messaging.

tuatoru 2y ago

It was always a silly idea to let domestic solar connect to the grid. Dual wiring systems inside the buildings was the way to go. But then I thought letting Turkey into NATO was stupid too, so what do I know?

addicted 2y ago
Considering Turkey controls Black Sea access and it’s being in NATO meant that it was responsive to Western needs as opposed to being a Russian ally (which is what it’s naturally setup to do geographically, economically and politically) meant that Russia doesn’t have a full reign over the Black Sea and most obviously meant that Turkey was able to essentially force the grain deal which has kept the Ukrainian economy alive for a couple of years now. So including Turkey into NATO was a pretty great idea, both in the short and long terms simply because of their control over the Black Sea if nothing else (then producing some of the drones that probably kept the Ukrainians alive for months before the West really stepped in didn’t hurt either).

addicted 2y ago

The only reason we have switching costs is that the grid system for nearly a century was designed for fossil fuels with essentially a hub and spoke system. This is an incredibly fragile system as we saw with the massive blackouts. Different technologies will obviously incur a switching cost. The reason Germany has to import that energy and burn coal is obvious. It decided to eliminate 30-40% of its power source nearly overnight. Is it really a shock that NEW renewables which are indeed that great but are barely a decade old in terms of being cost effective alternatives were not able to fully and immediately replace all that fossil fuel capacity and that Germany relied instead on existing decades old, existing but worse infrastructure.

throwaway1105q 2y ago
There was no blackout in my country past 30 years. The last one was before the revolution, that was before we had enough nuclear. It's a shock that they have been investing incredible amounts of money into it for decades and still couldn't match the few nuclear reactors they turned off, indeed. At least they have the social/political argument - they turned the nukes off because they didn't like it. It's dumb but respectable. Lying about it being cheaper than nuclear is not respectable.
- imtringued 2y ago
  Sorry to burst your bubble. Reality is knocking at the door: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&interval=year https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.... It just keeps going up.
  - throwaway1105q 2y ago
    Looks very corelated to the growth of renewable generation capacity...
notTooFarGone 2y ago
> It decided to eliminate 30-40% of its power source nearly overnight Or more like 10%? https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... And not over night but over legislation that spanned over decades? The amount of really stupid misinformation all around nuclear is baffling to me. Do you see an increase or a decrease in coal consumption?

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

> Nuclear might be more expensive per MWh pure electricity cost-wise, but the full system with storage, balancing and distribution costs is much more complicated=expensive This is a current talking point in Australia. "Yes we admit it's more expensive per kWh but it'll be cheaper overall". The national science agency didn't agree when it looked into it. They found it's more expensive per kWh and still more expensive after taking into account grid impacts. So are you getting your information from your equivalent science agency or from the equivalent right wing politicians and press?

throwaway1105q 2y ago
You have academic theories, I'm getting practical information from my electricity invoice. The energy regulation office informed me about the necessary power grid operation budget increase through it when they doubled the distribution fee at the end of 2023. The budget (and fee) was stable for decades before this after accounting for inflation. What grid impacts? The grid here has worked well for decades, there is no comparable grid impact from replacing coal and gas with nuclear. I guess it's different in Australia but this is a very densely populated small country, replacing 3 thermal power plants with 1 nuclear has zero impact on the grid and you can reuse parts of the thermal plant and infrastructure around it. The politicians are busy talking about migrants and the Russian war, so I can't read anything about this from them even if I wanted to.
Krssst 2y ago
> right wing politicians and press? Is nuclear right-wing now? I thought the right wing were all for coal; nuclear is an ideal replacement for coal. Non-dispatchable renewables play nice with fossil fuels since the plants have to stay online for bad days; the fossil fuel lovers should love them too (though I agree that they don't seem to)
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  The fossil fuel suppliers don't like fossil plants being kept online just in case, they like it when the fuel is actually burned in large quantities and then more is bought from them. That's how they make their money. They did however like to say that renewables would lead to more fuel being burned, even though that never made a lick of sense, because that helped them delay renewables and so burn even more fossil fuels. And some people believed that, even though it's doesn't make any sense. Nuclear fills that same, "this makes no sense but if you repeat it enough it'll delay progress on renewables and allow for more fossil fuels to be sold/burned" role in right-wing messaging.