7 ms·

Oh good. Then Google will be "clean", while countless homes will be getting their power from coal or whatever instead of this nuclear plant.

echelon 22d ago
It's a market. Why can't someone buy it? Why does it matter that homes "aren't clean" while Google is? That's silly. There's going to be the same level of demand no matter what - the same mix of coal and nuclear inputs will happen regardless of where the outflows are. It's fungible. More demand will in time result in an increase in supply. That's a good thing. We'll be building a lot more, and it's long overdue.
- vlovich123 22d ago
  You’re assuming a large enough supply that can absorb demand. This is true in China but not generally in the West. If supply was just in time constructed so you maybe have only like 10-30% extra vs peak, the 50% of a nuclear power plant shifts the preexisting non-Google demand onto the non-nuclear sources as the plant can no longer meet its non-Google demand. It’s generally no different than if Google acquired that electricity from the available mix rather than the plant directly. The thing it gives them is the ability to meet their individual net-0 targets (and thus government incentives) - a local optimization at the cost of a global net negative (at least as far as carbon electricity sources goes)
  - kccqzy 22d ago
    This is a case where the supply was about to be gone and Google provided funds to keep it operating (the original nuclear reactor began operation in 1977 and it now needed EUR 700M to extend the service life). And one can probably guess that this supply just wasn’t cost competitive in the first place, but Google increased the demand so much that it now becomes cost competitive.
    - vlovich123 22d ago
      Source? The provider had requested to extend the lifetime of that particular reactor to 2050 2 years ago (something they’d started considering 8 years ago). Now maybe they did this contingent on expecting this Google deal to materialize, but it’s not clear to me these Google funds are strictly the only reason they’d keep operating the plant.
      - kccqzy 22d ago
        From https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-signs-up-for-electricity-from-finnish-nuclear-power-plant https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-signs-up-for-... > Currently, about 80% of the projects required to extend the service life and investments of EUR700 million still lack an investment decision. Fortum said the PPA with Google will generate a predictable revenue stream, enabling it to complete the life extension investments at Loviisa. I think they requested the operating license extension before the actual decision to extend was made.
- lukeschlather 22d ago
  Google is buying the output because they are increasing demand by half a nuclear power plant's worth of power. I actually think it's pretty reasonable to pass a law demanding they build an entire nuclear power plant here.
  - landl0rd 22d ago
    "The agreement with Fortum provides long-term financial certainty for the Loviisa plant, which currently generates about 10% of Finland's electricity. Fortum said Google's commitment would support an investment programme aimed at extending the life of the nuclear station and increasing its generating capacity." Long-term PPAs are what you usually want because they are bankable and give you solid demand on which to expand. Which is literally what they're talking about doing.
  - nomel 22d ago
    I think government regulations to put a cap on utility profits is a better long term move. Force excess to be directed into green energy expansion.
    - gottorf 22d ago
      > government regulations to put a cap on utility profits I don't know about Finland specifically, but isn't this already the case practically everywhere?
      - AnthonyMouse 22d ago
        Governments are extremely bad at calculating how much something "should" cost. Profits are revenue minus expenses. "Expenses" are revenue to someone else. Whenever you try to cap "profit" of some entity that isn't actually subject to competitive pressure, the next thing that happens is that the people running it start colluding or taking kickbacks from any of the people whose revenue constitutes their expenses. Because then the utility company's expenses go up, which they would normally not want because it reduces their profit, except that then they can say that their profit isn't over the threshold and use that to increase revenue (i.e. raise prices) and still make the same profit but now also get the kickbacks under the table or help out their cronies by overpaying them. It also in general deprives them of the incentive to improve efficiency, because reducing waste lowers expenses, which in a normal system you have the incentive to do because it means you make more money, but not if profit is a fixed amount defined by the law regardless of what you do. Which is to say, it's much better to find a way to narrow the utility monopoly as much as possible and subject them to competitive pressure as much as possible, than to try to pretend that you can limit the profit of an entire monopoly supply chain by declaring that a single entity in it can only have a specific amount.
- morkalork 22d ago
  At this point with all the free-market-hand waving going around, it feels like someone telling me that it's not urin raining down on me, just sparkling trickle down economics.
  - echelon 22d ago
    You now have a PhD in your pocket. Is that not the miracle of the free market? King Richard II would have killed for an iPhone, PS5, air conditioning, and Uber Eats. He'd swap places with you, and he was king. You don't realize how awesome you have it. Just a hundred years ago your ancestors were (probably) eating rotten meat and drinking unclean water.
    - radiator 22d ago
      > King Richard II would have killed for an iPhone, PS5, air conditioning, and Uber Eats. He'd swap places with you, and he was king. I don't for a moment believe that, but apparently arguments that cannot possibly be proven are in vogue nowadays.
      - kuerbel 22d ago
        [flagged]
      - hiAndrewQuinn 22d ago
        Would you switch positions with King Richard II, then? That's a hypothesis we can test since you're here.
    - King-Aaron 22d ago
      King Richard II would look at those devices you're offering and have you flayed for heresy
    - morkalork 22d ago
      [flagged]
    - bsoqk 22d ago
johnnyApplePRNG 22d ago
Yes let's shame corporations for spending money on and supporting things that need more support. /s
- vlovich123 22d ago
  It’s unclear. It helps Google with their marketing that they’re a net zero carbon company. But if what’s happening is they’re displacing previous nuclear power users onto dirtier, that’s not really reducing carbon and it’s making it seem like Google isn’t the problem when it actually is - without them that community might otherwise be 100% nuclear and it would be no different from a macro level from Google adding that consumption to dirty sources.
  - jryle70 22d ago
    > they’re displacing previous nuclear power users onto dirtier They are not. The plant may not survive beyond 2030 without this order.
    - vlovich123 22d ago
      Where did you read this? What I read is that Fortum was considering extending to 2050 as early as 2018 and finalized those plans 2 years ago. I read nothing that indicates the survival of this plant is dependent on this Google deal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
      - jryle70 22d ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652346
        vlovich123 22d ago
        > Those decisions would otherwise have been made year by year, but the long-term deal with Google ensures Loviisa will keep running through the end of its operating license It's important to be able to read through PR in planted pieces. There's no indication that Loviisa was actually going to struggle. It's a guaranteed revenue stream which removes some risk for them, but Finland has seen a boom in data centers and such which is why Fortum went after the 2050 extension in the first place. They even wanted to build a third reactor which the government declined to authorize. That doesn't speak to them wondering if there's enough demand to keep the plant alive. It's highly unlikely Loviisa was going to close down even without the Google deal.
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
jryle70 22d ago
The plant may be closed without this Google's order. The cost to keep it running is substantial. I guess that's what you prefer? "The Finland deal will ensure that the Loviisa plant keeps operating beyond 2030, the companies said in a statement. Keeping it running until 2050 will require about €1 billion of investments over the years" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/google-gives-a-20-year-lifeline-to-nordic-nuclear-power-plant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/google-gi...
- Illotus 22d ago
  Lol, it certainly wouldn't have been decommissioned in any case. For that to happen electricity consumption would need to be going down instead of up and Finland would need to have abundance of steady power to replace it.
  - jryle70 22d ago
    First of all, are you willing to wait to find out? Second of all, if it is not Google, it'd be either other businesses, or from tax money. Why should tax money be used to bail out a failed business?
    - throwaway473825 22d ago
      If it costs only €1 billion to extend the lifespan by 20 years, then nothing else can compete with it. The capacity is 1 GW.
      - fedecaccia 21d ago
        There are two completely different businesses. OL3 will generate ~745 TWh over his life, from a total investment of ~€11bn. Loviisa life extension will generate ~170 TWH, from an investment of ~€1bn. Considering the capacity factor, we are comparing 6€/MWh for Loviisa against ~15€/MWh for OL3. So, it is worth mentioning that extending the life of an existing power plant can be a really good investment. Main difference is in initial setup/concrete installment!! You can review all the maths using data from OL3 here: https://reactoratlas.com/en?y=2026&s=finland-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant&u=finland-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant-3&c=21.443%2C61.237%2C11.50 https://reactoratlas.com/en?y=2026&s=finland-olkiluoto-nucle...
pembrook 22d ago
Finland doesn't get the rest of its power from coal, they're one of the greenest energy markets on the planet.
- kalleboo 22d ago
  But they export a substantial amount to Estonia, who do
  - pembrook 22d ago
    Coal usage is rapidly declining in Estonia too: https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/estonia/ https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/estonia/

echelon 22d ago

It's a market. Why can't someone buy it? Why does it matter that homes "aren't clean" while Google is? That's silly. There's going to be the same level of demand no matter what - the same mix of coal and nuclear inputs will happen regardless of where the outflows are. It's fungible. More demand will in time result in an increase in supply. That's a good thing. We'll be building a lot more, and it's long overdue.

vlovich123 22d ago
You’re assuming a large enough supply that can absorb demand. This is true in China but not generally in the West. If supply was just in time constructed so you maybe have only like 10-30% extra vs peak, the 50% of a nuclear power plant shifts the preexisting non-Google demand onto the non-nuclear sources as the plant can no longer meet its non-Google demand. It’s generally no different than if Google acquired that electricity from the available mix rather than the plant directly. The thing it gives them is the ability to meet their individual net-0 targets (and thus government incentives) - a local optimization at the cost of a global net negative (at least as far as carbon electricity sources goes)
- kccqzy 22d ago
  This is a case where the supply was about to be gone and Google provided funds to keep it operating (the original nuclear reactor began operation in 1977 and it now needed EUR 700M to extend the service life). And one can probably guess that this supply just wasn’t cost competitive in the first place, but Google increased the demand so much that it now becomes cost competitive.
  - vlovich123 22d ago
    Source? The provider had requested to extend the lifetime of that particular reactor to 2050 2 years ago (something they’d started considering 8 years ago). Now maybe they did this contingent on expecting this Google deal to materialize, but it’s not clear to me these Google funds are strictly the only reason they’d keep operating the plant.
    - kccqzy 22d ago
      From https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-signs-up-for-electricity-from-finnish-nuclear-power-plant https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-signs-up-for-... > Currently, about 80% of the projects required to extend the service life and investments of EUR700 million still lack an investment decision. Fortum said the PPA with Google will generate a predictable revenue stream, enabling it to complete the life extension investments at Loviisa. I think they requested the operating license extension before the actual decision to extend was made.
lukeschlather 22d ago
Google is buying the output because they are increasing demand by half a nuclear power plant's worth of power. I actually think it's pretty reasonable to pass a law demanding they build an entire nuclear power plant here.
- landl0rd 22d ago
  "The agreement with Fortum provides long-term financial certainty for the Loviisa plant, which currently generates about 10% of Finland's electricity. Fortum said Google's commitment would support an investment programme aimed at extending the life of the nuclear station and increasing its generating capacity." Long-term PPAs are what you usually want because they are bankable and give you solid demand on which to expand. Which is literally what they're talking about doing.
- nomel 22d ago
  I think government regulations to put a cap on utility profits is a better long term move. Force excess to be directed into green energy expansion.
  - gottorf 22d ago
    > government regulations to put a cap on utility profits I don't know about Finland specifically, but isn't this already the case practically everywhere?
    - AnthonyMouse 22d ago
      Governments are extremely bad at calculating how much something "should" cost. Profits are revenue minus expenses. "Expenses" are revenue to someone else. Whenever you try to cap "profit" of some entity that isn't actually subject to competitive pressure, the next thing that happens is that the people running it start colluding or taking kickbacks from any of the people whose revenue constitutes their expenses. Because then the utility company's expenses go up, which they would normally not want because it reduces their profit, except that then they can say that their profit isn't over the threshold and use that to increase revenue (i.e. raise prices) and still make the same profit but now also get the kickbacks under the table or help out their cronies by overpaying them. It also in general deprives them of the incentive to improve efficiency, because reducing waste lowers expenses, which in a normal system you have the incentive to do because it means you make more money, but not if profit is a fixed amount defined by the law regardless of what you do. Which is to say, it's much better to find a way to narrow the utility monopoly as much as possible and subject them to competitive pressure as much as possible, than to try to pretend that you can limit the profit of an entire monopoly supply chain by declaring that a single entity in it can only have a specific amount.
morkalork 22d ago
At this point with all the free-market-hand waving going around, it feels like someone telling me that it's not urin raining down on me, just sparkling trickle down economics.
- echelon 22d ago
  You now have a PhD in your pocket. Is that not the miracle of the free market? King Richard II would have killed for an iPhone, PS5, air conditioning, and Uber Eats. He'd swap places with you, and he was king. You don't realize how awesome you have it. Just a hundred years ago your ancestors were (probably) eating rotten meat and drinking unclean water.
  - radiator 22d ago
    > King Richard II would have killed for an iPhone, PS5, air conditioning, and Uber Eats. He'd swap places with you, and he was king. I don't for a moment believe that, but apparently arguments that cannot possibly be proven are in vogue nowadays.
    - kuerbel 22d ago
      [flagged]
    - hiAndrewQuinn 22d ago
      Would you switch positions with King Richard II, then? That's a hypothesis we can test since you're here.
  - King-Aaron 22d ago
    King Richard II would look at those devices you're offering and have you flayed for heresy
  - morkalork 22d ago
    [flagged]
  - bsoqk 22d ago

johnnyApplePRNG 22d ago

Yes let's shame corporations for spending money on and supporting things that need more support. /s

vlovich123 22d ago
It’s unclear. It helps Google with their marketing that they’re a net zero carbon company. But if what’s happening is they’re displacing previous nuclear power users onto dirtier, that’s not really reducing carbon and it’s making it seem like Google isn’t the problem when it actually is - without them that community might otherwise be 100% nuclear and it would be no different from a macro level from Google adding that consumption to dirty sources.
- jryle70 22d ago
  > they’re displacing previous nuclear power users onto dirtier They are not. The plant may not survive beyond 2030 without this order.
  - vlovich123 22d ago
    Where did you read this? What I read is that Fortum was considering extending to 2050 as early as 2018 and finalized those plans 2 years ago. I read nothing that indicates the survival of this plant is dependent on this Google deal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
    - jryle70 22d ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652346
      - vlovich123 22d ago
        > Those decisions would otherwise have been made year by year, but the long-term deal with Google ensures Loviisa will keep running through the end of its operating license It's important to be able to read through PR in planted pieces. There's no indication that Loviisa was actually going to struggle. It's a guaranteed revenue stream which removes some risk for them, but Finland has seen a boom in data centers and such which is why Fortum went after the 2050 extension in the first place. They even wanted to build a third reactor which the government declined to authorize. That doesn't speak to them wondering if there's enough demand to keep the plant alive. It's highly unlikely Loviisa was going to close down even without the Google deal.

deleted 22d ago

[deleted]

jryle70 22d ago

The plant may be closed without this Google's order. The cost to keep it running is substantial. I guess that's what you prefer? "The Finland deal will ensure that the Loviisa plant keeps operating beyond 2030, the companies said in a statement. Keeping it running until 2050 will require about €1 billion of investments over the years" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/google-gives-a-20-year-lifeline-to-nordic-nuclear-power-plant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/google-gi...

Illotus 22d ago
Lol, it certainly wouldn't have been decommissioned in any case. For that to happen electricity consumption would need to be going down instead of up and Finland would need to have abundance of steady power to replace it.
- jryle70 22d ago
  First of all, are you willing to wait to find out? Second of all, if it is not Google, it'd be either other businesses, or from tax money. Why should tax money be used to bail out a failed business?
  - throwaway473825 22d ago
    If it costs only €1 billion to extend the lifespan by 20 years, then nothing else can compete with it. The capacity is 1 GW.
    - fedecaccia 21d ago
      There are two completely different businesses. OL3 will generate ~745 TWh over his life, from a total investment of ~€11bn. Loviisa life extension will generate ~170 TWH, from an investment of ~€1bn. Considering the capacity factor, we are comparing 6€/MWh for Loviisa against ~15€/MWh for OL3. So, it is worth mentioning that extending the life of an existing power plant can be a really good investment. Main difference is in initial setup/concrete installment!! You can review all the maths using data from OL3 here: https://reactoratlas.com/en?y=2026&s=finland-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant&u=finland-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant-3&c=21.443%2C61.237%2C11.50 https://reactoratlas.com/en?y=2026&s=finland-olkiluoto-nucle...

pembrook 22d ago

Finland doesn't get the rest of its power from coal, they're one of the greenest energy markets on the planet.

kalleboo 22d ago
But they export a substantial amount to Estonia, who do
- pembrook 22d ago
  Coal usage is rapidly declining in Estonia too: https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/estonia/ https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/estonia/