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With hindsight, it wasn't a very good idea to shut down 6 of 12 nuclear reactors. Still much better than the situation in Germany, but that's a very low bar. I
by throwaway473825 15d ago
With hindsight, it wasn't a very good idea to shut down 6 of 12 nuclear reactors. Still much better than the situation in Germany, but that's a very low bar.
It will be interesting to see how the Rolls-Royce SMR project works out. Since it appears to be impossible to build anything cheaply in the UK, this will be the real test.
- londons_explore 15d ago> Since it appears to be impossible to build anything cheaply in the UK The solution is to build nuclear power stations on ships in China, then sail them to the UK and plug them in. If power prices elsewhere in the world become advantageous, sail them elsewhere and plug them in there. You still have the interconnection costs, but seaside places sometimes have high voltage connections for existing or historic power plants (who themselves are water cooled)
- exe34 15d agoA Chinese nuke on the coast of Britain might be hard politically. Even if it's benign, you can bet the US will run an expensive campaign to discredit it in public opinion.
- Heliosmaster 15d agoIt doesn't come preloaded with fuel.
- defrost 15d agoThere's a special line crossed by a 100% Chinese owned floating nuclear power plant, as opposed to a 24% Chinese owned fixed in place nuclear power plant like the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station?
- JumpCrisscross 15d agoYou wouldn't even need it to be Chinese owned. Just Chinese built and indemnified. Hell, I'd take a guarantee from a consortium of Chinese SoE banks over the U.S. government today. (I'm American.)
- torginus 15d agoEven if you own it, you'll need the Chinese to run it for you and provide you with spares.
- pseudohadamard 14d agoSort of like needing the US for F-35 parts? Given the choice between being dependent on China or the US, I know which one I'd choose - China is running a business, the US is running... God knows what it is they think they're running, but it's not something you want to get tied up in.
- lostlogin 15d ago> you can bet the US will run an expensive campaign to discredit it in public opinion. The US has effective run this on itself for the past few years. The Chinese look fairly benign in comparison.
- vablings 15d agoNot really. If something bad happens you can always just drag the boat back to China and say here you deal with this lol
- mitxela 15d agoThere's a simpler solution, stop letting the AI turn everything into paperclips and there won't be a shortage of paperclip material.
- layla5alive 14d agoJust change AI for Corporations and I agree.
- notTooFarGone 15d agoYeah please send some electricity to Germany it's so horrible here :'(
- throwaway473825 15d agoYou certainly could use an alternative to gas heating during the upcoming winter. It doesn't look like Qatar will be able to deliver.
- nikanj 14d agoStill can’t believe the german voters were successfully convinced that replacing german nuclear with russian fossil was a green choice
- antupis 15d agoSweden main issue is that there is no transmission capacity between North and South, like now prices are 2x at south.
- ZeroGravitas 15d agoThe government that keeps rejecting offshore wind for bogus security reasons is probably a bigger factor. Those wind farms would have connected into the zones with the highest prices. They've rejected an amount that would generate more than the entire grid usage. Or way more than double what the cheap zones generate from their 2/3rds hydro and 1/3rd wind.
- leonidasrup 14d agoOn one hand Swedish government rejected applications for 11 offshore wind sites on national security grounds, on the other hand, wind investors state that they will not do wind investments in Sweden without subsidies. " risk-sharing mechanism will be required, for example through two-sided Contracts for Difference and state-backed credit guarantees that reduce investment risk and unlock project financing.” https://www.renews.biz/offshore-wind/skyborn-calls-for-swedish-cfds-after-offshore-win/ https://www.renews.biz/offshore-wind/skyborn-calls-for-swedi...
- cineticdaffodil 14d ago[dead]
- Gud 15d agoSwedens main issue is a political class disconnected from reality.
- cluckindan 14d agoThat is a global issue.
- Jensson 15d agoThere is plenty transmission capacity, the issue is EU regulations not allowing Sweden to keep prices low in the south.
- Gud 15d agoYou didn’t need “hindsight”. It was painfully stupid at the time.
- bjourne 15d agoPower generation is 25% higher with 6 than with 12 reactors. Plenty of scaremongering around volatility, though. Consumers don't realize that one-hour price spikes are completely irrelevant since they pay monthly (or even quarterly) AVERAGE prices. Max, min, mean, and standard deviation. People don't know statistics and are so easy to fool by demagogues.
- leonidasrup 14d agoLarge customers buy directly on electricity markets at hourly market price, or have direct power purchase agreements with power suppliers. Most small customers are paying using average prices, but these average prices are calculated from the costs of power suppliers and these are affected by hourly market prices. So when many small customers consume use lot of electricity during hours with high hourly market price, the average price for small customers goes up. Best solution is instalation of smart meters so that small customers pay according to hourly market price.
- nikanj 14d agoIt was a great idea* *if you’re a seller of fossil fuels
- croes 14d agoIt’s a great idea if you’re in reach of Russian drones
- croes 14d agoWith Russia‘s aggression and the rise of drone wars it’s a pretty good idea to get rod of such big single point of failures like nuclear power plants. And climate change also isn’t in favor of nuclear power plants that need external water sources for cooling