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> I have the same feeling but opposite. The problem is that this is just a feeling. The bigger problem is that this feeling is still extremely widespread, com

> I have the same feeling but opposite. The problem is that this is just a feeling. The bigger problem is that this feeling is still extremely widespread, completely contrary to the facts. For example... > Nuclear energy has never been profitable anywhere in the world to date This is completely false. Nuclear energy is profitable pretty much everywhere it is used. Almost obscenely profitable, if you are allowed to run the plants. I ran the numbers for Hinkley Point C. At the rate they negotiated (14,8 Cents/kWh...or was it pence?) the profits are almost obscene. A modern EPR will generate 1040 TWh of electricity over its lifetime, assuming 80 years operation and 90% capacity factor. Assuming the EDF-negotiated price is 14,8 cents, that's a cool € 150 billion worth of electricity. But that's just one reactor, whereas HPC is two. So € 300 billion. Puts even the completely ridiculous cost overruns for those two reactors into perspective, doesn't it? China built their two EPRs for a total of $7.5 billion, and with the EPR2, EDF is pretty certain to get construction times and costs. Here's an explainer of the economics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY The annual reports for one of the Swiss plants are online. They produce electricity for 3-5 cents. Profitably. In Switzerland. And they have expenses like...oh...a new administrative building in one year. Switzerland is not cheap. > has entirely disproportionate downsides What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia > The evidence for this is overwhelming and undeniable, Yes, the evidence for nuclear is overwhelming und undeniable, yet some people go right ahead and deny it. > I truly don’t understand how it’s possible for rational humans to believe that. Agreed. I truly don't understand how it’s possible for rational humans to believe that nuclear is unsafe and uneconomic.

Kon5ole 2y ago
>This is completely false. Nuclear energy is profitable pretty much everywhere it is used. Not if you consider the full costs. Every official source you find only shows the costs that the operators have to pay, but the operators never pay the full cost. No nuclear power plant that I have found documentation for anywhere is operated without immense national subsidies. You mention Hinkley point and say that they will generate 150 billion euros in income over 80 years. Let's assume that's about right and look further. It is currently estimated to cost over 40 billion to build. Now we're at 110 billion. The storage facility will likely be Sellafield, which has a yearly budget of around 2.5 billion per year, times 80 years is 200 billion. Now we're at negative 90 billion. Negative 90 billion already while the plants are actually operational. But the waste has to be managed for longer than that. For centuries after the plants have been closed, in fact. So we're at negative what, 300, 400 billion over the lifetime of costs. This is also without considering any cost of operations. We assume here that 1000 people operating the plant work for free, never need any equipment, the plant never need maintenance, and the calculation still has a debt of several hundred billion. Now you might say wait, that makes no sense, then EDF (the operator) would be unprofitable and go bankrupt! Yes, and they did, a few years ago. France covered the bill of over 50 billion euros in debt and also the upcoming 20 or so more billions in repair and maintenance. EDF was unprofitable even when they neglected required repairs and maintenance. Again, nuclear is not profitable. Now, since the costs are mostly covered by governments and future generations, short-sighted investors and quarterly earnings-focused companies will of course go along with the pretense that it is. Amazon is buying the subsidized unrealistic purchase price because that's what's going to be relevant to them. When the operator goes bankrupt because the costs turn out to be way more than they calculated with, it's not Amazon's problem. It's the US taxpayer's problem.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  >> Nuclear energy is profitable pretty much everywhere it is used > Not if you consider the full costs. Yes, in fact it is one of the few (maybe only?) electricity source that accounts for full costs. Fossil fuels deposit their waste in the atmosphere, renewables are heavily subsidized and their environmental damage generally isn't included either. > No nuclear power plant that I have found documentation for anywhere is operated without immense national subsidies. Citation needed. > You mention Hinkley point and say that they will generate 150 billion euros in income over 80 years. Incorrect. That is one reactor of HPC. Both together would be € 300 billion if they continue to get the agreed price, which I don't think they will. > The storage facility will likely be Sellafield, which has a yearly budget of around 2.5 billion per year, times 80 years is 200 billion Not only do you only take the output of just one reactor when there are two, you require that one reactor to finance all of Sellafield, a facility that serves the entire country. The UK has more than one reactor. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74eb21e5274a59fa715fc7/Table_of_past_and_present_UK_nuclear_reactors.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74eb21e5274... > Yes, and [EDF] did [go bankrupt], a few years ago. No they did not. The French state, which never owned less than 84% of EDF, bough the remaining 16% stake to simplify the planned nuclear expansion. > EDF was unprofitable even when they neglected required repairs and maintenance. The opposite was true. EDF was and continues to be immensely profitable over the last few decades, despite being milked dry by the state, for example having to suffer such idiocies as having to sell 25% of their electricity at 4 cents/kWh to competitors and then often having to buy it back at market rates (ARENH). In 2022 those market rates were up to € 1/kWh, so they had to buy back their own electricity at 25x the price that they were required to sell it for. And the French government increased the ARENH quotas in that year. These kinds of insane accounting shenanigans, all on the back of reliable and highly profitable nuclear plants, were the primary reason that EDF had a € 10 billion loss in 2022, their first in over a decade, IIRC. > Again, nuclear is not profitable. Only if you can't add up the numbers. See above. And see, again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
  - Kon5ole 2y ago
    >> Yes, and [EDF] did [go bankrupt], a few years ago. >No they did not. Yes they did. That the government bailed them out instead of actually letting the bankruptcy take place makes no difference. However you slice it, the bottom line is that the price of nuclear electricity in France has not included the 10 billion that France paid to take ownership, does not include the 50 billion of debt that they took over, and not the 20 billion of neglected maintenance. This is a well documented 80 billion euros that should have been paid by EDF and should have been visible on the electricity bills of nuclear power customers in France. But it wasn't. There are other examples too, like the german Asse II mine, rancho seco in the US, the government nuclear fund in sweden, all either entirely paid for by taxpayers or underfunded meaning they will eventually have to be paid for by taxpayers. >LOL. Not only do you only take the output of just one reactor when there are two, Yes I did, because none of the other 9 reactors pay for Sellafield either. If the rules change today so that new nuclear plants have to pay for their own waste, then HPC would have to pay for all of Sellafield. Also, HPC will probably be the last remaining plant for at least 40 years (if it is operational for 80), so it will have to finance Sellafield alone then. And what about the remaining centuries after that? Who pays then? You may think that's unfair, but it is of course even more unfair that they don't pay for it and instead kick the costs to future taxpayers. Right? Who pays for Rancho Seco, who pays for Yucca Mountain, who pays for Asse II, who pays for AVR? Not the nuclear operators. How can you even remotely believe that nuclear pays for it's full costs when there are so many examples like this?
Kon5ole 2y ago
> What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia? A handful of people operating Chernobyl have caused costs that passed 600 billion euros already in 2016, and will keep costing more money for the foreseeable future. Nations have international agreements to cover liabilities from nuclear power stations, since no company and very few individual nations can cover the costs of severe accidents. That's disproportionate.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. In Fukushima it was all of them. The 1975 Banqiao dam failure caused (best estimate) around 200000 deaths, evacuation of tens of millions and a several million houses destroyed. Was that a reason for the entire world to get out of hydro-power, because the "disproportionate downsides" are just too great? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure Or did we check that our dams are built to better standards? And possibly update those standards? The RBMK-1000 was a reactor that even at the time would never have been permitted to be built in the west. Not even close. It was inherently unstable, with the positive void coefficient, and had no containment. And the kinds of shenanigans that were ordered at Chernobyl also are not permitted. TMI was a meltdown. There was no effect outside the plant. And nuclear safety was improved significantly after TMI. Fukushima will have no health effects in the Japanese population. All the adverse health effects and the vast majority of the financial damages are due to the unnecessary evacuation and the shutdown. "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." "Relocation was unjustified for the 160,000 people relocated after Fukushima." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... “By now, more Japanese have died from the closing of Japan's nuclear power plants following the 2011 Tohoku quake than from the tsunami and the earthquake combined, which was about 20,000 people.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-down-japans-nuclear-plants-after-fukushima-was-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-... In terms of money, just 5 years of the reactor shutdown cost the Japanese more than $200 billion. That is the vast majority of the financial damage. Take that to 10 years and you are at $400 billion and that's assuming constant prices. The "Atomausstieg" has cost Germany more than €500 billion. So what is disproportionate? Nuclear energy is cheap, clean and safe. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
ViewTrick1002 2y ago
> I ran the numbers for Hinkley Point C. At the rate they negotiated (14,8 Cents/kWh...or was it pence?) the profits are almost obscene. Yeah, nuclear power can be profitable when it is enormously subsidized. The CFD for Hinkley Point C proves that nuclear power does not have a business case in 2024. Then add on top that the French government is asking for more subsidies on Hinkley Point C since it might not be enough! https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36bb8 https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36... The reality of this is evidenced by Sizewell C. Even with complete political unity for nearly 20 years they haven't managed to come up with a working business case outside of essentially a cost plus contract. Building nuclear power as a cost plus contract, there you have true insanity. https://www.ft.com/content/2a5d9462-b921-4577-82c1-4eb508775624 https://www.ft.com/content/2a5d9462-b921-4577-82c1-4eb508775... But that is the reality of nuclear power today. It is vastly undercut by renewables and expensive to the point that even with near political unity the cost can't be defended when public scrutiny is applied down the line.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  > Yeah, nuclear power can be profitable when it is enormously subsidized. No, it is pretty much always profitable. When you negotiate rates that are similar to what renewables get, the profits get obscene. One person I showed these numbers to, who had previously also made the claims about nuclear never being profitable, changed his tune quite quickly. The profits at those rates are so obscene that he claimed it must be corruption. > The CFD for Hinkley Point C proves that nuclear power does not have a business case in 2024. No it doesn't. HPC's primary purpose is to rebuild the UK's nuclear industry. In addition to providing incredible amounts of reliably electricity. > ... for more subsidies ... Don't have access to the article, but the headline speaks of a loan guarantee. Which is less than what renewables get. > The reality of this is evidenced by Sizewell C. Which they are building. Evidence that there is no business case? In fact UK plans to quadruple nuclear power. Because there is no business case. Riiiight. > Building nuclear power as a cost plus contract, there you have true insanity. Evidence of the "cost plus" contract? > It is vastly undercut by renewables Only when the renewables are massively subsidized. And they don't deliver the same product: reliable, dispatchable electricity.

Kon5ole 2y ago

>This is completely false. Nuclear energy is profitable pretty much everywhere it is used. Not if you consider the full costs. Every official source you find only shows the costs that the operators have to pay, but the operators never pay the full cost. No nuclear power plant that I have found documentation for anywhere is operated without immense national subsidies. You mention Hinkley point and say that they will generate 150 billion euros in income over 80 years. Let's assume that's about right and look further. It is currently estimated to cost over 40 billion to build. Now we're at 110 billion. The storage facility will likely be Sellafield, which has a yearly budget of around 2.5 billion per year, times 80 years is 200 billion. Now we're at negative 90 billion. Negative 90 billion already while the plants are actually operational. But the waste has to be managed for longer than that. For centuries after the plants have been closed, in fact. So we're at negative what, 300, 400 billion over the lifetime of costs. This is also without considering any cost of operations. We assume here that 1000 people operating the plant work for free, never need any equipment, the plant never need maintenance, and the calculation still has a debt of several hundred billion. Now you might say wait, that makes no sense, then EDF (the operator) would be unprofitable and go bankrupt! Yes, and they did, a few years ago. France covered the bill of over 50 billion euros in debt and also the upcoming 20 or so more billions in repair and maintenance. EDF was unprofitable even when they neglected required repairs and maintenance. Again, nuclear is not profitable. Now, since the costs are mostly covered by governments and future generations, short-sighted investors and quarterly earnings-focused companies will of course go along with the pretense that it is. Amazon is buying the subsidized unrealistic purchase price because that's what's going to be relevant to them. When the operator goes bankrupt because the costs turn out to be way more than they calculated with, it's not Amazon's problem. It's the US taxpayer's problem.

mpweiher 2y ago
>> Nuclear energy is profitable pretty much everywhere it is used > Not if you consider the full costs. Yes, in fact it is one of the few (maybe only?) electricity source that accounts for full costs. Fossil fuels deposit their waste in the atmosphere, renewables are heavily subsidized and their environmental damage generally isn't included either. > No nuclear power plant that I have found documentation for anywhere is operated without immense national subsidies. Citation needed. > You mention Hinkley point and say that they will generate 150 billion euros in income over 80 years. Incorrect. That is one reactor of HPC. Both together would be € 300 billion if they continue to get the agreed price, which I don't think they will. > The storage facility will likely be Sellafield, which has a yearly budget of around 2.5 billion per year, times 80 years is 200 billion Not only do you only take the output of just one reactor when there are two, you require that one reactor to finance all of Sellafield, a facility that serves the entire country. The UK has more than one reactor. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74eb21e5274a59fa715fc7/Table_of_past_and_present_UK_nuclear_reactors.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74eb21e5274... > Yes, and [EDF] did [go bankrupt], a few years ago. No they did not. The French state, which never owned less than 84% of EDF, bough the remaining 16% stake to simplify the planned nuclear expansion. > EDF was unprofitable even when they neglected required repairs and maintenance. The opposite was true. EDF was and continues to be immensely profitable over the last few decades, despite being milked dry by the state, for example having to suffer such idiocies as having to sell 25% of their electricity at 4 cents/kWh to competitors and then often having to buy it back at market rates (ARENH). In 2022 those market rates were up to € 1/kWh, so they had to buy back their own electricity at 25x the price that they were required to sell it for. And the French government increased the ARENH quotas in that year. These kinds of insane accounting shenanigans, all on the back of reliable and highly profitable nuclear plants, were the primary reason that EDF had a € 10 billion loss in 2022, their first in over a decade, IIRC. > Again, nuclear is not profitable. Only if you can't add up the numbers. See above. And see, again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
- Kon5ole 2y ago
  >> Yes, and [EDF] did [go bankrupt], a few years ago. >No they did not. Yes they did. That the government bailed them out instead of actually letting the bankruptcy take place makes no difference. However you slice it, the bottom line is that the price of nuclear electricity in France has not included the 10 billion that France paid to take ownership, does not include the 50 billion of debt that they took over, and not the 20 billion of neglected maintenance. This is a well documented 80 billion euros that should have been paid by EDF and should have been visible on the electricity bills of nuclear power customers in France. But it wasn't. There are other examples too, like the german Asse II mine, rancho seco in the US, the government nuclear fund in sweden, all either entirely paid for by taxpayers or underfunded meaning they will eventually have to be paid for by taxpayers. >LOL. Not only do you only take the output of just one reactor when there are two, Yes I did, because none of the other 9 reactors pay for Sellafield either. If the rules change today so that new nuclear plants have to pay for their own waste, then HPC would have to pay for all of Sellafield. Also, HPC will probably be the last remaining plant for at least 40 years (if it is operational for 80), so it will have to finance Sellafield alone then. And what about the remaining centuries after that? Who pays then? You may think that's unfair, but it is of course even more unfair that they don't pay for it and instead kick the costs to future taxpayers. Right? Who pays for Rancho Seco, who pays for Yucca Mountain, who pays for Asse II, who pays for AVR? Not the nuclear operators. How can you even remotely believe that nuclear pays for it's full costs when there are so many examples like this?

Kon5ole 2y ago

> What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia? A handful of people operating Chernobyl have caused costs that passed 600 billion euros already in 2016, and will keep costing more money for the foreseeable future. Nations have international agreements to cover liabilities from nuclear power stations, since no company and very few individual nations can cover the costs of severe accidents. That's disproportionate.

mpweiher 2y ago
The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. In Fukushima it was all of them. The 1975 Banqiao dam failure caused (best estimate) around 200000 deaths, evacuation of tens of millions and a several million houses destroyed. Was that a reason for the entire world to get out of hydro-power, because the "disproportionate downsides" are just too great? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure Or did we check that our dams are built to better standards? And possibly update those standards? The RBMK-1000 was a reactor that even at the time would never have been permitted to be built in the west. Not even close. It was inherently unstable, with the positive void coefficient, and had no containment. And the kinds of shenanigans that were ordered at Chernobyl also are not permitted. TMI was a meltdown. There was no effect outside the plant. And nuclear safety was improved significantly after TMI. Fukushima will have no health effects in the Japanese population. All the adverse health effects and the vast majority of the financial damages are due to the unnecessary evacuation and the shutdown. "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." "Relocation was unjustified for the 160,000 people relocated after Fukushima." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... “By now, more Japanese have died from the closing of Japan's nuclear power plants following the 2011 Tohoku quake than from the tsunami and the earthquake combined, which was about 20,000 people.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-down-japans-nuclear-plants-after-fukushima-was-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-... In terms of money, just 5 years of the reactor shutdown cost the Japanese more than $200 billion. That is the vast majority of the financial damage. Take that to 10 years and you are at $400 billion and that's assuming constant prices. The "Atomausstieg" has cost Germany more than €500 billion. So what is disproportionate? Nuclear energy is cheap, clean and safe. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

ViewTrick1002 2y ago

> I ran the numbers for Hinkley Point C. At the rate they negotiated (14,8 Cents/kWh...or was it pence?) the profits are almost obscene. Yeah, nuclear power can be profitable when it is enormously subsidized. The CFD for Hinkley Point C proves that nuclear power does not have a business case in 2024. Then add on top that the French government is asking for more subsidies on Hinkley Point C since it might not be enough! https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36bb8 https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36... The reality of this is evidenced by Sizewell C. Even with complete political unity for nearly 20 years they haven't managed to come up with a working business case outside of essentially a cost plus contract. Building nuclear power as a cost plus contract, there you have true insanity. https://www.ft.com/content/2a5d9462-b921-4577-82c1-4eb508775624 https://www.ft.com/content/2a5d9462-b921-4577-82c1-4eb508775... But that is the reality of nuclear power today. It is vastly undercut by renewables and expensive to the point that even with near political unity the cost can't be defended when public scrutiny is applied down the line.

mpweiher 2y ago
> Yeah, nuclear power can be profitable when it is enormously subsidized. No, it is pretty much always profitable. When you negotiate rates that are similar to what renewables get, the profits get obscene. One person I showed these numbers to, who had previously also made the claims about nuclear never being profitable, changed his tune quite quickly. The profits at those rates are so obscene that he claimed it must be corruption. > The CFD for Hinkley Point C proves that nuclear power does not have a business case in 2024. No it doesn't. HPC's primary purpose is to rebuild the UK's nuclear industry. In addition to providing incredible amounts of reliably electricity. > ... for more subsidies ... Don't have access to the article, but the headline speaks of a loan guarantee. Which is less than what renewables get. > The reality of this is evidenced by Sizewell C. Which they are building. Evidence that there is no business case? In fact UK plans to quadruple nuclear power. Because there is no business case. Riiiight. > Building nuclear power as a cost plus contract, there you have true insanity. Evidence of the "cost plus" contract? > It is vastly undercut by renewables Only when the renewables are massively subsidized. And they don't deliver the same product: reliable, dispatchable electricity.