11 ms·

Germany drops opposition to nuclear power in rapprochement with France

49 points by chickenbig 1y ago

chickenbig 1y ago
https://archive.is/pJpDt https://archive.is/pJpDt
- sylware 1y ago
  With a noscript/basic (x)html browser I get blocked by a javascript captcha...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - diggan 1y ago
    I tried telnet and it couldn't even connect. Clearly the fault of the website operator.
    - sylware 1y ago
      Clearly for properyl educated brains, telnet and noscript/basic (x)html are the same :) You know, we all know a compiler is actually a shell, :)
Arnt 1y ago
«“The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power,” said a senior French diplomat involved in the talks. This meant that “all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed.” “This will be a sea-change policy shift,” said a German official.» Will it really? https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Levelized-Cost-of-electricity-2024-1200x872.png https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Level... is a little unusual, it shows the cheapest nuclear power to be as cheap as the most expensive PV+battery. Still, it's difficult for me to see how this policy change will really change anything. A real change would require a commitment against market-based production/sale of electricity, e.g. a quota such that power generators using PV/batteries were allowed to produce at most x% of the power in the EO.
- preisschild 1y ago
  You quote a PV-lobbying firm as your source, what do you expect? Also LCOE is just not adequate to compare these two, as you have additional storage and transmission costs for intermittent, weather-dependent sources, whereas most nuclear power plants can be online providing full capacity more than 90% of the time. LCOE does not account for that. This IEA report uses a metric that includes those system costs (value-adjusted LCOE, VALCOE) and it shows nuclear energy is definitely competitive. Especially if managed well and power plants aren't prematurely shut down due to political reasons, like they were in Germany. https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020 https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    Competitive now? Or competitive in the near future? All of the components of renewables, including PV modules and storage, seem to be following an inverse exponential in price. This does not seem to be true of nuclear. It's easy to make conservative assumptions that leave you with a bunch of financially unsustainable infrastructure. This would be a total disaster.
    - chickenbig 1y ago
      > All of the components of renewables, including PV modules and storage, seem to be following an inverse exponential in price. Definitely not true of offshore wind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012502 Also it seems like a fallacy of composition to believe that a cheap system is formed from cheap individual components.
      - matthewdgreen 1y ago
        A cheap system is a combination of cheap components, land, and the labor required to assemble it. But in terms of minimized labor costs, you just don’t get a lot better than PV and batteries. And there’s still room for cost reductions from technological improvements and more efficient PV.
preisschild 1y ago
Good. If Germany wants to do its own thing, then so be it, but they shouldn't be allowed to block / disincentivize other EU members from using nuclear power. If we want to incentivize "clean" tech, we should go by an objective metric, such as co2 emissions per kilowatt-hour (where nuclear power is even less emitting than PV/Wind over its total lifecycle)
- cwassert 1y ago
  First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU. That's the whole point of the EU. Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2. Handling of this waste is often overlooked when looking at the costs or CO2 footprint. And that does not even touch the associated risks.
  - preisschild 1y ago
    > First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU Blocking other countries tends to make member states hate each other, which isn't good for the EU. > Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2 You literally just put them inside steel concrete casks [1] after they were in a pool for a few years. You can even hug those casks safely. Whereas the CO2 is in the air we breathe and in the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. How is this "more problematic"? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
    - nottorp 1y ago
      > How is this "more problematic"? Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents in spite of them being much more likely to die in their own car.
      - natmaka 1y ago
        > Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents This doesn't compute: avoiding being a victim of a plane accident is rather simple: don't hop on any plane and your are something along the .99999 covered. Avoiding being threatened (and many generations after you) by a nuclear major accident or erring 'hot' nuclear waste is way (WAY!) more difficult.
thatsit 1y ago
Imho it’s a good thing to not block other countries approach to clean power from a german perspective. However, there is just no way new nuclear power makes any sense for German grid. Just last week we had negative prices for _every_ day during peak demand (yes, peak demand is usually around noon, it’s just not visible because there is so much solar self-consumption) https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=20&legendItems=2wgw3w1 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c... What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.
- dapf 1y ago
  Do you have the pixie dust needed to make enough of them at a reasonable price?
  - Schiendelman 1y ago
    It's less pixie dust than nuclear capacity - the cheapest additional nuclear capacity costs more than the most expensive grid scale batteries.
    - chickenbig 1y ago
      > the cheapest additional nuclear capacity costs more than the most expensive grid scale batteries. Nuclear capacity and grid batteries do different things, so the word capacity is rather too imprecise. Otherwise one could argue that a lightning rod has higher capacity and is cheaper than a battery.
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        Let’s look at Vogtle. With Vogtles $36.9B we are able to build the equivalent supply in renewables (in TWh) and 10 days of storage at Vogtles 2.2 GWe output. Spending nuclear money on storage leads to the same thing. And it puts in context just have horrifically expensive new built western nuclear power is.
natmaka 1y ago
Germany sets the tone in Europe (at least financially) and used to refuse to pay for nuclear power which (since Fukushima) it does not want at home and which, deployed in other nearby nations, exposes it to risk. I suspect a trade/swap: Germany will obtain something from France in return.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  I would say this started after Chernobyl. Long before Fokushima.
  - natmaka 1y ago
    Indeed, however it was loosing traction to the point of "The phase-out plan was initially delayed in late 2010, when during the chancellorship of centre-right Angela Merkel, the coalition conservative-liberal government decreed a 12-year delay of the schedule". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Changes_to_phase-out_schedule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Chang... Protests weren't as strong as they used to be, and didn't change anything. Then the Fukushima major nuclear accident happened (march 2011), the population demanded a quick nuclear phase-out, and no subsequent government even only attempted to neglect it ( https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 ).
exabrial 1y ago
The anti-nuclear bullshit needs to stop. Germany got it wrong. German power generation is some of the dirtiest in the world. In 2024 321g CO2eq/kWh. Right now at the time of posting, literally they're emitting 1/2 a kilogram of C02 for one kilowatt-hour. Meanwhile France, the country Germany claims is not producing "clean" energy: 2024 27g CO2eq/kWh. Time of posting, 95.7% of their electricity is from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar. Sources: * https://www.nowtricity.com/country/france/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/france/ * https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/
- codingbot3000 1y ago
  If you like nuclear, ask yourself the following questions: - Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.) - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents? - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site? - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)? - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them? If you can answer all these questions with a clear yes, continue to promote it. If not, please don't!
  - preisschild 1y ago
    > - Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.) Those studies are about as credible as links between Autism and vaccines... > - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents? I would not care, there are no negative health benefits. > - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site? Absolutely. Tax revenue and jobs for the area with no negative effects that you wouldn't have with other construction either. > - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)? You are plainly misinformed, as a matter of fact EDF even had to sell their power at a loss way below market rate to their competitors due to the goverment. > - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them? Nice cherry picking when Canada and Australia are even bigger exporters. Sure, why not trade with them.
zoezoezoezoe 1y ago
[flagged]

49 points by chickenbig 1y ago

chickenbig 1y ago

https://archive.is/pJpDt https://archive.is/pJpDt

sylware 1y ago
With a noscript/basic (x)html browser I get blocked by a javascript captcha...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- diggan 1y ago
  I tried telnet and it couldn't even connect. Clearly the fault of the website operator.
  - sylware 1y ago
    Clearly for properyl educated brains, telnet and noscript/basic (x)html are the same :) You know, we all know a compiler is actually a shell, :)

Arnt 1y ago

«“The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power,” said a senior French diplomat involved in the talks. This meant that “all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed.” “This will be a sea-change policy shift,” said a German official.» Will it really? https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Levelized-Cost-of-electricity-2024-1200x872.png https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Level... is a little unusual, it shows the cheapest nuclear power to be as cheap as the most expensive PV+battery. Still, it's difficult for me to see how this policy change will really change anything. A real change would require a commitment against market-based production/sale of electricity, e.g. a quota such that power generators using PV/batteries were allowed to produce at most x% of the power in the EO.

preisschild 1y ago
You quote a PV-lobbying firm as your source, what do you expect? Also LCOE is just not adequate to compare these two, as you have additional storage and transmission costs for intermittent, weather-dependent sources, whereas most nuclear power plants can be online providing full capacity more than 90% of the time. LCOE does not account for that. This IEA report uses a metric that includes those system costs (value-adjusted LCOE, VALCOE) and it shows nuclear energy is definitely competitive. Especially if managed well and power plants aren't prematurely shut down due to political reasons, like they were in Germany. https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020 https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  Competitive now? Or competitive in the near future? All of the components of renewables, including PV modules and storage, seem to be following an inverse exponential in price. This does not seem to be true of nuclear. It's easy to make conservative assumptions that leave you with a bunch of financially unsustainable infrastructure. This would be a total disaster.
  - chickenbig 1y ago
    > All of the components of renewables, including PV modules and storage, seem to be following an inverse exponential in price. Definitely not true of offshore wind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012502 Also it seems like a fallacy of composition to believe that a cheap system is formed from cheap individual components.
    - matthewdgreen 1y ago
      A cheap system is a combination of cheap components, land, and the labor required to assemble it. But in terms of minimized labor costs, you just don’t get a lot better than PV and batteries. And there’s still room for cost reductions from technological improvements and more efficient PV.

preisschild 1y ago

Good. If Germany wants to do its own thing, then so be it, but they shouldn't be allowed to block / disincentivize other EU members from using nuclear power. If we want to incentivize "clean" tech, we should go by an objective metric, such as co2 emissions per kilowatt-hour (where nuclear power is even less emitting than PV/Wind over its total lifecycle)

cwassert 1y ago
First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU. That's the whole point of the EU. Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2. Handling of this waste is often overlooked when looking at the costs or CO2 footprint. And that does not even touch the associated risks.
- preisschild 1y ago
  > First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU Blocking other countries tends to make member states hate each other, which isn't good for the EU. > Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2 You literally just put them inside steel concrete casks [1] after they were in a pool for a few years. You can even hug those casks safely. Whereas the CO2 is in the air we breathe and in the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. How is this "more problematic"? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
  - nottorp 1y ago
    > How is this "more problematic"? Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents in spite of them being much more likely to die in their own car.
    - natmaka 1y ago
      > Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents This doesn't compute: avoiding being a victim of a plane accident is rather simple: don't hop on any plane and your are something along the .99999 covered. Avoiding being threatened (and many generations after you) by a nuclear major accident or erring 'hot' nuclear waste is way (WAY!) more difficult.

thatsit 1y ago

Imho it’s a good thing to not block other countries approach to clean power from a german perspective. However, there is just no way new nuclear power makes any sense for German grid. Just last week we had negative prices for _every_ day during peak demand (yes, peak demand is usually around noon, it’s just not visible because there is so much solar self-consumption) https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=20&legendItems=2wgw3w1 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c... What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.

dapf 1y ago
Do you have the pixie dust needed to make enough of them at a reasonable price?
- Schiendelman 1y ago
  It's less pixie dust than nuclear capacity - the cheapest additional nuclear capacity costs more than the most expensive grid scale batteries.
  - chickenbig 1y ago
    > the cheapest additional nuclear capacity costs more than the most expensive grid scale batteries. Nuclear capacity and grid batteries do different things, so the word capacity is rather too imprecise. Otherwise one could argue that a lightning rod has higher capacity and is cheaper than a battery.
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      Let’s look at Vogtle. With Vogtles $36.9B we are able to build the equivalent supply in renewables (in TWh) and 10 days of storage at Vogtles 2.2 GWe output. Spending nuclear money on storage leads to the same thing. And it puts in context just have horrifically expensive new built western nuclear power is.

natmaka 1y ago

Germany sets the tone in Europe (at least financially) and used to refuse to pay for nuclear power which (since Fukushima) it does not want at home and which, deployed in other nearby nations, exposes it to risk. I suspect a trade/swap: Germany will obtain something from France in return.

barbazoo 1y ago
I would say this started after Chernobyl. Long before Fokushima.
- natmaka 1y ago
  Indeed, however it was loosing traction to the point of "The phase-out plan was initially delayed in late 2010, when during the chancellorship of centre-right Angela Merkel, the coalition conservative-liberal government decreed a 12-year delay of the schedule". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Changes_to_phase-out_schedule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Chang... Protests weren't as strong as they used to be, and didn't change anything. Then the Fukushima major nuclear accident happened (march 2011), the population demanded a quick nuclear phase-out, and no subsequent government even only attempted to neglect it ( https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 ).

exabrial 1y ago

The anti-nuclear bullshit needs to stop. Germany got it wrong. German power generation is some of the dirtiest in the world. In 2024 321g CO2eq/kWh. Right now at the time of posting, literally they're emitting 1/2 a kilogram of C02 for one kilowatt-hour. Meanwhile France, the country Germany claims is not producing "clean" energy: 2024 27g CO2eq/kWh. Time of posting, 95.7% of their electricity is from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar. Sources: * https://www.nowtricity.com/country/france/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/france/ * https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/

codingbot3000 1y ago
If you like nuclear, ask yourself the following questions: - Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.) - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents? - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site? - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)? - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them? If you can answer all these questions with a clear yes, continue to promote it. If not, please don't!
- preisschild 1y ago
  > - Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.) Those studies are about as credible as links between Autism and vaccines... > - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents? I would not care, there are no negative health benefits. > - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site? Absolutely. Tax revenue and jobs for the area with no negative effects that you wouldn't have with other construction either. > - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)? You are plainly misinformed, as a matter of fact EDF even had to sell their power at a loss way below market rate to their competitors due to the goverment. > - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them? Nice cherry picking when Canada and Australia are even bigger exporters. Sure, why not trade with them.

zoezoezoezoe 1y ago

[flagged]