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This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-down-nuclear-reactors-as-heatwav
by vrganj 3mo ago
This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too.
https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-down-nuclear-reactors-as-heatwave-intensifies https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclear-plant-could-shut-down-thursday-or-friday-pm-says-2026-07-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea...
We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.
- cinntaile 3mo agoPeople arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, sometimes renewables is a good fit, sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Most of the time a mix is the best fit. It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. All these systems are then built using assumptions, sometimes those assumptions no longer make sense after a certain period of time and sometimes you just temporarily or permanently have to adapt to the changes in the environment. This is an unusual but expected scenario for the nuclear plants along the Danube.
- vrganj 3mo agoI'm not really opposed to nuclear power politically. I just think it's a non-starter given the much higher cost, complexity of buildout and lack of reliability.
- deepsummer 3mo agoIn countries with dark winters and without enough hydro power, the only reliable alternative are fossil fuels...
- oblio 3mo agoWind + storage, geothermal.
- deepsummer 3mo agoStorage of energy in the dimensions required for weeks with almost no wind is an unsolved problem. Right now, we can't store enough to make it through a single night without using fossil fuels. Most countries don't even have the capacity to store the energy for a single hour.
- emsign 3mo agoGeothermal and storage is worth investing in, investing in nuclear is not. NPPs are simply too expensive and you won't find investors unless you heavily subsidize it with tax money. Only compnies willing to invest in NPPs are those with virtually free money: the handful of AI big tech giants.
- deepsummer 3mo agoHow can you be sure of that before even having a practical and proven solution for the required scale of storage?
- ben_w 3mo agoWe have proven solutions. We're building the factories to make them as fast as we can find investors with money to spend on them, because they're already cheaper than fossil fuels which are themselves cheaper than nuclear.
- RandomLensman 3mo agoAs we can store fossil fuels for weeks of demand, we can store the required energy in chemical form, no? Germany has huge natural gas storage, for ezample.
- stavros 3mo agoAgreed, whenever I hear someone say "we need more/less nuclear and less/more solar/wind", I hear "let's burn more fossil fuels while we uselessly split hairs".
- otherme123 3mo agoUnless the scenario is totally different where you live, pro-nuclears are mainly "we need more nuclear, less rerewables, don't care about fossils, just guaranteed production", while pro-renewables are mainly "we need more renewables, less or no fossils and as few nuclear as possible". If someone is getting wiped from the mix because of renewables, it is coal and fuel, not nuclear.
- hamper653 3mo agoWhat about Germany?
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoIf we have $X to invest in power I’d rather it were invested in solar and wind, which returns more kWh per dollar and in a shorter timeframe.
- stavros 2mo agoYeah I care that they aren't invested in fossil, and the question of which renewable to invest in far, far down my list of concerns, to the point where it's not really worth discussing. A lot like how when I'm starving to death I'm not really interested in a debate on whether I should have ice cream or cake.
- paganel 3mo agoEveryone is politically motivated on this subject, and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default, where the "political" is comprised of is, the voting citizens. We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- gib444 3mo agoI'm not filled with joy about my chav ("redneck") neighbours weighing in on nuclear vs solar and climate change and national and international energy markets and power distribution... I don't have a clue either. Don't ask for my vote on how to power a country. Take my taxes and use them to listen to experts
- dudefeliciano 3mo agoPlot twist, the experts are lobbyists and they convince our politicians to start fracking and massively increase the use of "clean coal"
- vablings 3mo agoI would be willing to bet on a board of PHDS of varying sciences they would determine that coal is dumb and a waste of money
- dudefeliciano 3mo agothere are plenty of PHDs out there who have been bought and are in the pockets of industry...
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago>and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default, Why is it a good thing that everyone and their brother seeks to apply state violence to micromanage what should be a fairly arcane technical issue? >We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone. Do you feel the same way about topics where your opinion differs substantially from the local majority?
- ThePowerOfFuet 3mo ago>sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Oh come on.
- blitzar 3mo agoYour at the north pole ... its dark all day long (and cold) ... you need some heat and some power
- peterashford 3mo agoScott base in Antarctica (NZ's scientific research base) is installing wind turbines and batteries and getting rid of diesel generators.
- cozzyd 3mo agoYes but the South Pole burns jet fuel. Not much wind and 6 months of darkness. The hut point peninsula is consistently windy though and the turbines are pretty! https://photos.app.goo.gl/goDVb7KuiKr6soHT6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/goDVb7KuiKr6soHT6
- peterashford 3mo agoSo, larger batteries, then. Or produce hydrogen from excess wind power in the summer as a chemical battery.
- cozzyd 3mo agoyes, people (some of whom I know) have looked at this of course: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123011322?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212... but it's somewhat risky, since if the power goes out in winter, to first order, everyone dies. I think you'd always keep the generator on at low load, just in case. Note that wind turbines at pole have not historically been very successful, maybe that will improve.
- seszett 3mo ago> sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit There is simply NO safe level of fossil fuel use.
- ben_w 3mo agoDisagree, it's just that the safe level is around 0.1% of current use (though I don't just mean use of fossil fuels for electricity, I mean *everything*).
- danw1979 3mo agoThere’s applications that we still have no alternative for though - e.g. aviation - so we’ll have to accept the burning of hydrocarbons there. Not fossil hydrocarbons forever, of course, but synthetic kerosene might be a thing soon enough.
- acdha 3mo agoYes: the way we should think about that is that we do things like switch to trains and BEVs so we can afford to continue running airplanes while synthetic fuels are being put into production.
- cinntaile 3mo agoI don't know what you mean with "no safe level of fossil fuel use". It doesn't mean anything without contextualizing that statement.
- dudefeliciano 3mo agoThe point they are making is that climate change will further push these conditions, so are we willing to build more nuclear power plants, knowing that by the time they are ready to go online this problem will be worse? Or better to invest in renewables which can be implemented today and will alleviate this problem? A mix of both with heavy majority of renewables and nuclear/fossil only to guarantee baseloads seems like the best idea to me.
- Krasnol 3mo ago> People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. If you can spend a Dollar only once, you might end up with renewables. People can be economically motivated too. No reason to draw politics in an already heated discussion.
- cinntaile 3mo ago> It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. I mentioned all of this in my message. What was unclear about it or did you perhaps not read past the first sentence?
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoNuclear makes sense in arctic areas, I’m struggling to see the benefits of real nuclear over renewable plus storage as it’s more expansive and takes decades, even before the cleanup costs.
- flr03 3mo agoDifferent reasons though, France has nothing to do with water level or availability. It's for environment protection.
- emsign 3mo agoNot true at all. It's both in France and increasingly because the rivers run dry in the summer. Besides killing rivers for electricity and for "saving CO2" is as stupid as burning coal to keep HVACs running becauae the summers are getting hotter and hotter each year.
- stefan_ 3mo agoThis is a technical problem with technical solutions. You can just fix things, you don't need to throw out 30% of your power generation to pay billions for climate change vagueposting.
- Cthulhu_ 3mo agoKind of? I'm sure you can change a nuclear power plant so it doesn't rely on river or sea water but that's not something that can be done overnight. Restoring river water levels can't be done through technical solutions though, they rely on the weather and we can't control that. The European river levels are largely influenced by inland rain, snowfall, and glacier forming/melting; snowfall and rain has been meagre this year, glaciers have been melting and receding for decades now.
- emsign 3mo agoElectricity costs by nuclear power is heavily subsidized by tax money in France, so the French are paying the higher costs anyway. Just saying. Maybe there's a technical solution involving nuclear but it's really expensive compared to the much cheaper technical solution: renewable energy.
- eecc 3mo agoIt’s the second of third year in a row that this happens. At some point it will be the new normal.
- d1sxeyes 3mo agohttps://telex.hu/belfold/2026/07/31/energia-krizishelyzet-hoseg-aszaly-vizhelyzet-paksi-atomeromu#:~:text=Ilyen%20m%C3%A9g%20sose%20t%C3%B6rt%C3%A9nt https://telex.hu/belfold/2026/07/31/energia-krizishelyzet-ho...
- Cthulhu_ 3mo agoIt can be, but you need water, just like for solar you need sunlight and storage and for wind power you need, well, wind. Coal and gas rely on natural resources, which can be disrupted through geopolitical tension, like Russia's gas supplies into Europe getting cut off / sanctioned. Every power source has their tradeoffs, and I don't think anyone is denying that. What I do think is that people are making up arguments or statements that Other People have and call them out on it.
- preisschild 3mo agoYou dont even need a huge amount of water with the right closed-cooling-cycle reactors. High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors for example.
- xinayder 3mo agoHigh temperatures also severely affect solar panel efficiency.
- acdha 3mo agoThat’s like 0.3-5% per C° so even at extreme temperatures you’re talking like -15% — and that’s happening when it’s extremely sunny so you’re talking 85% or better, not a 15 point reduction off of an already limited panel. Nuclear costs so much more that renewables and batteries can be overprovisioned to compensate and still be massively cheaper, not to mention online a decade or more earlier.
- themaninthedark 3mo agoI have not seen anyone arguing only nuclear to get rid of fossil fuels, what I see is people arguing that we need nuclear to supplement renewables to remove fossil fuel and the other side saying renewables and batteries(and maybe the occasional gas peaker plant or two...) or bust.
- acdha 3mo agoThere are people who advocate for an all nuclear strategy but other than the ones whose non-profit gets fossil fuel industry contributions it seems to be much less common than a decade ago because the economics are undeniable now.
- preisschild 3mo agoThis seems like a strawmen. Most nuclear advocates I see online just want nuclear power given the same subsidies and chances that PV/Wind get.
- acdha 3mo agoNuclear power is massively subsidized already — those plants only get built with massive state support. Right now you can justify a solar rollout with traditional fins because it pays for itself in a couple of years but in the United States a new plant is subsidized at every step of the design and build, and fuel is subsidized from mining to disposal. That’s the underlying problem: it’s not a question of whether nuclear can work at all ever but rather that for any given point since the early 2010s it’s been very hard to justify nuclear because you need to spend billions of dollars more than renewables upfront and accept higher CO₂ emissions for 1-2 decades before it makes any reduction in emissions. If we’d invested half a century ago like France it might’ve been very different but the cost and time differential now is so stark.
- antonvs 3mo agoMost nuclear advocates don’t seem to realize how incompetent and short-sighted humans are collectively, and don’t recognize the inevitable implications of that. They prove this when they complain about how regulations are stifling nuclear power. Oh yes, let’s just deregulate nuclear power, why not? There’s no strong enough way to describe the stupidity of this.
- 1970-01-01 3mo agoFor this we can just use our old friend uptime. Solar downtime is always daily unless you're in the arctic. Nuclear power will be at least 2 nines. Battery and solar, that is the hardest variable to measure.
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoNuclear power is about 90% actually - plants are shut down for maintenence way more than 3.65 days a year you suggest
- preisschild 3mo agoNuclear power plants can be equipped with cooling towers so the heated water doesnt go back to the danube directly.