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I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable. Then there's a probl
by AndyPa32 1y ago
I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable.
Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on.
You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.
- freetonik 1y agoLong build times are often the result of constantly changing regulations. Also it’s interesting that build times in Japan are almost 2 times smaller than in US.
- rootsofallevil 1y agoNuclear doesn't have a great record in other countries either. I might have the wrong figures but Hinkley Points C is over 2 times over budget and likely to be 5+ years late. The exemption being France and maybe China? France did a programme of nuclear power stations rather than the 1 or 2 offs that seem to be the norm elsewhere and that seems to have worked pretty well. I'd be surprised if HPC is competitive with solar + wind + BESS when it comes online but I could well be wrong
- looofooo0 1y agoSouth Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.
- mpweiher 1y agoUnited Arab Emirates. Fastest build times are Japan with under 4 years. Germany built its Konvois in just shy of 6 years. Just before we stopped building altogether. France built 50+ reactors in 15 years. We know how to build nuclear quickly, reliably and (relatively) cheaply. We also know how to do it slowly, eratically and expensively. Fortunately the former comes almost but not entirely automatically with building lots of them.
- natmaka 1y agoDuring the past 25 years there were projects aiming at building industrial nuclear reactors. They all ended badly (canceled, way over budget or delay...).
- mpweiher 1y agoThat's completely false. The Konvois in Germany were extremely successful. France built 50+ reactors in 15 years from a standing start.
- natmaka 1y agoI wrote "During the past 25 years" Please describe any nuclear reactor which was successfully built in France or Germany during the past 25 years. France: https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-plan https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl...
- mpweiher 1y agoGermany didn't build any. France built hardly any. And that's the complete answer: we know how to build nuclear reactors quickly and cheaply. Building only very few of different novel designs while slowly (or quickly) losing the industrial base to do so, for example by making it illegal to build more (or at all) is exactly how you don't do it.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoThe EPR2 program is in absolute shambles. Currently they can’t even agree on how to fund the absolutely insanely bonkers subsidies. Now targeting investment decision in H2 2026… And the French government just fell because they are underwater in debt and have a spending problem which they can’t agree on how to fix. A massive handout to the dead end nuclear industry sounds like the perfect solution! But nuclear is fast to build, if we ignore all modern western examples!
- natmaka 1y ago> South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia. Barakah (delivered March 2024) was late (by about 3 years?), undersold (KEPCO hadn't any other ongoing project and the Korean government at the time wanted a nuclear phase-out) and various tricks are now known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal
- tatref 1y agoIn France, the last construction is Flamanville EPR. It is at least 5 times over budget and 15 years late https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pl...
- mpweiher 1y agoAnd even that absolutely catastrophic nuclear construction project has a better ROI than any German intermittent renewables. After almost 25 years of renewable subsidies. Note: catastrophic nuclear is still better than best renewables.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoSource please. That truly does not make sense given that renewable subsidies are being phased out around the world and renewables are the fastest growing energy source in human history. In contrast nuclear power is backsliding, and the few projects which get green lit have insanely large subsidies attached.
- mpweiher 1y ago> That truly does not make sense Reality doesn't have to make sense to you. > renewable subsidies are being phased out around the world Nope. Countries are trying to phase out renewables subsidies. And failing. Recently, the UK, Denmark and Germany have had offshore-wind sales with exactly zero bids. > fastest growing energy source in human history. People love those delicious subsidies. > In contrast nuclear power is backsliding Nope. > and the few projects which get green lit have insanely large subsidies attached. Only in markets that have been thoroughly distorted by subsidies and other preferential treatment for intermittent renewables.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoLet’s begin with concluding that you could not find a source for your claims. Instead you go on a tangent hoping to muddy the water. I find it interesting how someone so smart can just lie through their teeth. Now you’re trying to paint the entire renewable industry, solar, storage, onshore wind etc. with the paint brush of off-shore wind. The German and Danish auctions were negative bid auctions. To explain what that means: companies were asked to pay for the privilege to build off shore wind at a set very low CFD. Those delicious subsidies right?!? Might even call them negative subsidies! Given recent interest rate hikes and increased cost for construction materials off shore wind is right on the cusp of viability. Other projects like this one in Germany moves forward without any subsidies. https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/pressreleases/2025/vattenfall-builds-germanys-largest-offshore-wind-farm https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/pressreleases/2... What you of course don’t mention is that the recent interest rate hikes and increases in construction costs impacts nuclear power far more than off-shore wind and other renewables. So someone actually knowledgeable in the topic would not promote nuclear power as the alternative. So again. Please stop lying and misrepresenting cherry picked stats. You know better.
- mpweiher 1y agoNo, the exceptions are builds like HPC. The average build time is currently 6.5 years. The median is lower at 5.8. The variations across both time and space of those average are neither large nor particularly systematic. There have always been outliers, so if you focus on those you can "prove" anything you like. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoWhich for western construction creates a dataset weighted around ~1980. Not sure why that is relevant half a century later? Instead taking the average of all modern western construction and we get close to 15 years. With the recent insanely subsidies european projects being proposed even the initial timeline calls for a ~10 years build time. Assuming everything goes to plan.
- Nursie 1y agoIt won’t be competitive with anything. But that’s OK, Theresa May signed a guarantee that they’d get paid an uncompetitive price by the taxpayer, regardless.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoBut that expensive guaranteed price still wasn't enough to cover the actual costs and the EdF CFO resigned in protest. Once that became too obvious to deny, after the French government had renationalised EdF, they were begging the UK government to give them more money, possibly buried in the contract for the second plant build. For that build they stopped using CFD, a financial instrument designed for nuclear but which has massively helped renewables, be ause it couldn't hide the nuclear cost overruns. They're now charging electricity users in advance for the nuclear they are going to build with no guarantee of eventual costs.
- m101 1y agoIt is expensive because of the regulatory burdens associated with making it unreasonably safe. By unreasonably safe I mean that harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific, and death rate expectations are far lower than alternative power generation technologies. Nuclear fuel storage is relatively straightforward, and volumes have potential to be reduced 30x through recycling.
- oneshtein 1y agoNuclear power plants require international laws and international cooperation for insurance, because one serious incident, such as Chornobyl, can wipe a continent. In Ukraine, profits from all nuclear plants will cover damages, caused by Chornobyl, in 1000-5000 years IF nothing more will happen to Chornobyl or other an other nuclear power plant in those years, which is unlikely.
- looofooo0 1y agoWhat kind assumptions is this based on?
- close04 1y agoWe can make nuclear safe (enough) but after one big incident nobody wanted the political career suicide to push for this. So we are stuck with criticizing stone-age level nuclear power because we never took it further. The West never stopped doing something just because the USSR didn’t do it properly. If we did the same with commercial air travel after the first disasters we’d still cross the oceans in boats. Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking kills 7-8 times more people than cars every year (that’s 80-100 Chernobyls worth every year) and we still allow it. The reasons are political not technically or financially insurmountable obstacles. We didn’t shut down nuclear in Europe for “green” reasons or because we can’t improve it, or because it kills too many people, but because enough Russian money went into politicians’ pockets to do this.
- oneshtein 1y ago
- retinaros 1y agosure state funded solar panel that you need to change every 10 year and batteries with rare minerals are cheaper.
- pzo 1y agobut comparing to solar / wind there you also have to factor batteries production, battery replacement, wind turbine replacement and recycling (they are not easily recyclable), cleaning solar panels etc.
- gnatolf 1y ago'recyclable' is such a vague term. E.g. radiation-affected typically easily recycled materials are very hard to deal with (think e.g. pipe steel from power plants) and are effectively non-recyclable, instead of close to 100% recyclable, as their non-contaminated counterparts. Opposed to that, battery recycling is mostly hard to deal with in terms of economics, and admittedly the chemistry involved is complex, but at least from a technical point of view, plenty of solutions are available - and the tech is coming in relatively quickly now that the demand is there (remember, first generation EVs are just now getting closer to EOL). It's slightly amusing that recycling of a wind turbine is treated as if it was a big deal - yes the laminated rotor parts can't be part of circular economies, but the total material amount of this laughably small. All the metal components are very easily recycled.
- pzo 1y agoI'm talking about wind turbine wings. A lot of stuff is fiberglass and have to be buried.
- gnatolf 1y agoYea, I know. Their volume may look impressive, the actual amount of material is quite small and 'burying' that absolutely non-toxic stuff isn't any problem.
- natmaka 1y agoIn many Western nations bury them is now forbidden. Most are burnt in cement kilns (producing useful heat). In France, 95% of the mass of a wind turbine must be recycled (legal obligation), the concrete base is not spared and the law requires wind farm operators to lock (upfront) a financial guarantee (deposit). Recyclable blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones are being considered: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-chemical-process-renders-all-existing-wind-turbine-blades-recyclable/ https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-che... According to EDF (multinational electric utility company owned by the government of France, the giant in France, owning and operating all nuke plants) 94% of a solar panel is recyclable. In France most of it is already recycled.
- jeroenhd 1y agoUntil we solve the long-term energy storage problem that renewable sources have, we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter. So far the cleanest solution we've come up with is gas plants, but gas plants made Europe extremely dependent on Russia. The alternatives are oppressive regimes or the US, which has been starting trade wars seemingly out of boredom. Nuclear fuel, on the other hand, is exported not only by Kazachstan, but also Canada and Australia. In terms of "countries you don't want to depend on", I'd rather have Canada than Qatar. I'm not sure if the economics still work out if you factor in the ineffective, half-assed Russian sanctions that have Europe fund Russia's war economy. The only alternative is probably coal, but only if you don't hold coal to the same standards in terms of waste disposal and nuclear exposure of the public as nuclear plants. Nuclear isn't cheap, in part because it's become a niche market only some countries still participate in, but the politics and large-scale economics aren't as bad as the anti-nuclear crowd make them seem. They'd probably be bad for America, because the mighty oil industry stands to lose money and they'd need to import their fuel, but for countries already importing their fuel the balance is completely different. Infuriatingly, the crowd that wants to do something about global warming also seems to think every nuclear reactor is going full Chernobyl within the decade. All of the parties I even consider voting for are staunch anti-nuclear activists for no documented reason other than "we don't like it".
- Nursie 1y ago> we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter. AFAICT this is not really nuclear. They excel at constant production, not switch ability to fill in around renewables.
- tomatocracy 1y agoNuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily. It's on/off that takes a long time. And you can supplement nuclear with pumped storage hydro to steepen its turn up/down curve in extremis.
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- JackSlateur 1y agoFrom a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem. The issue is political. Ibidem for the fuel: yes, you can depends on wild countries; You can also depends on Australia, Canada and India, which seems like not-so-bad countries (in my opinion);
- natmaka 1y ago> From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem When it comes to nuclear waste repositories real experts official publish: "Internationally, it is understood that there is no reliable scientific basis for predicting the process or likelihood of inadvertent human intrusion." Source: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/2019-03/An%20International%20Peer%20Review%20of%20the%20Cig%C3%A9o%20project%20%28IAEA%29_0.pdf https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/201...
- JackSlateur 1y agoI have no idea how this information relates to the parent post;
- natmaka 1y agoA problem with nuclear waste is that living being (especially human beings) must not be exposed to it.
- JackSlateur 1y agoYes Like magma, sulfuric acid, mercurium, lead, basically thousands of stuff You eat it, you die
- baobabKoodaa 1y agoYou're being obtuse on purpose and that's not nice. Could you please just respond to the argument in a good faith manner rather than pretend you don't understand the argument?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dgellow 1y agoHow is it not economically viable given it is actively used since multiple decades in France? I also disagree with saying it is the cheapest, in practice it is actually pretty expensive compared to solar and wind, but economically nuclear makes a lot of sense, it fits a really good role in the grid
- uecker 1y agoJust that it is used does not mean it is economically viable if the government is deeply involved - which is the case in France.
- dgellow 1y agoThat’s not how economic viability works. EDF posted €11.4bn net profit in 2024[0] and France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity precisely because nuclear is economically viable. Government involvement doesn’t negate viability, it enables it, just like with roads, ports, or any other infrastructure requiring long-term capital deployment. 0: https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/frances-edf-sees-rise-its-nuclear-11-and-hydro-30-output-2024.html https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/fran...