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Sweden recently did the same: in order for companies to agree to make new reactors, the government had to promise them a price floor for the electricity they pr
by Jolter 4mo ago
Sweden recently did the same: in order for companies to agree to make new reactors, the government had to promise them a price floor for the electricity they produce. The price floor suggested is more than twice the current price on the spot market. That means that, for the lifetime of those reactors, Swedish taxpayers will be subsidizing production of nuclear power. I thought the idea was that they would be profitable? What happened to the political right’s love of the free market? When politicians go fixing prices with this kind of ”advance bailout”, it just makes it look like they are trying to get a nice retirement job in the nuclear power sector…
- Scroll_Swe 4mo agoBase load generation. Yes, we have hydro. Wind is way too unpredictable, solar is too. So, we can only have 2 powers to provide base load in Sweden. https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
- crote 4mo agoNuclear base load is a lie. The aforementioned subsidies aren't just for the electricity it produces, it is also for the electricity it could produce. The nuclear plant has a right to sell electricity to the grid at a certain price. Market price too low? The government pays the difference. No demand? The government buys the unused production capacity. In practice this means that during periods of excess you are shutting down dirt-cheap solar and wind just so you can run a heavily-subsidized nuclear power plant. Nuclear doesn't pick up the gaps left by solar and wind, solar and wind pick up the gaps left by nuclear!
- Scroll_Swe 4mo agoOkay so we turn off all nuclear like Germany? Now what?
- Jolter 4mo agoStraw man.
- Scroll_Swe 4mo agoNice bait haha cant even reply to tghe below thanks "Nuclear base load is a lie." okay turn it off then bibba
- Jolter 4mo agoIt’s literally the definition of a straw man argument. You state a proposition that nobody proposed, because it’s easy for you to tear it down. While others are arguing about your straw man, nobody is looking at or following up on the proposals *actually* on offer. Nobody in the thread has proposed turning off all nuclear, hence you were building a straw man. Please don’t do that on HN.
- cindyllm 4mo ago[dead]
- mpweiher 4mo agoGiving priority to non-reliable producers is insane.
- Arodex 4mo agoWith batteries, not only is renewable more reliable, it is also much easier to maintain grid stability.
- Scroll_Swe 4mo agoHas this been deployed in real life working, by any country?
- mpweiher 4mo agoThe biggest risk for nuclear is the government. That's why the government has to indemnify the companies against those risks. Spot market prices are not total system costs.
- Jolter 4mo agoYou’re right, the total system costs include a lot of things, including disposal of spent fuel. Which is apparently so expensive, nuclear can’t compete with renewables fairly.
- mpweiher 4mo agoThat's not true. Disposal of spent fuel was always included in the price of electricity (for example in Germany, but many/most others as well) and is negligible in cost. Finland just built a spent-fuel repository for ~ € 1 billion. For the entire country. Just the single EPR at Olkiluoto 3 will produce electricity worth €100 billion over its lifetime if you assume a price of 10 cents/kWh. So at 10 cents, it would be 1% of the price of electricity if Olkiluoto 3 had to finance the whole thing by itself.
- Jolter 4mo agoWhat part isn’t true? That disposal of fuel is part of the total systems cost? Or that the new nuclear can’t compete without subsidies? I think both are evident truths.
- mpweiher 4mo agoThe part I explained: disposal is, unlike your claim, not a significant part of total cost of nuclear power. Therefore, even assuming for a second your counterfactual that nuclear power isn't cost-competitive, it wouldn't be due to the disposal costs. Of course it's also not true that nuclear isn't cost competitive. It absolutely is.
- 4mo ago