[HN Gopher] Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC
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Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC
Author : mpweiher
Score : 89 points
Date : 2025-12-12 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eesc.europa.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eesc.europa.eu)
| klipklop wrote:
| This is what anybody with a brain has been saying since at least
| the 1980's.
| esafak wrote:
| Halleluia! Better late than never.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| And what have they said about the millenia-spanning effects of
| the waste?
|
| About reactor malfunctions and fallout?
|
| Yes, I know the chances are slim and you know as well as I do
| they're not 0.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Nuclear Energy is incredibly expensive and has a lot of other
| issues like long term waste storage. It's arguably better than
| Coal and Gas but the KEY to decarbonisation is and always will be
| renewables. The Headline is rather misleading in that regard.
|
| Anyways, solar is also cheaper
| belorn wrote:
| As long there is no need to use gas during periods of non-
| optimal weather, then solar and wind is great.
|
| The lithium battery plant in northern Sweden went bankrupt so
| its difficult to say how to solve the storage solution by both
| being cheap and financial viable. New battery solutions are
| being made, but in the end it need to be cheap enough over the
| long term. The current use of gas for non-optimal weather means
| prices jump up by a factor of around 100x of what it is during
| good weather, and the average price in nordpool (the northen
| pan-European power exchange) is about 20x than what you get
| with good weather. That should illustrate how much variability
| there is in the energy price right now, and how much people are
| paying for that gas powered electricity in periods of non-
| optimal weather conditions.
|
| A lot of fossil fuel subsidies goes directly to support the
| high variability power grid, and they more than doubled during
| 2022 when the gas prices went up. It is incredibly expensive,
| likely more than nuclear, to have a grid supported by
| renewables during optimal weather conditions and fossil fuels
| during non-optimal weather conditions. It also generate a lot
| of waste in term of pollution which has a bigger issue both
| short and long term than nuclear waste.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Nordpool prices are not true market prices, as much of the
| demand does not participate in the market. For example, many
| residential customers still have fixed-rate contracts, and
| some power companies sell the power they generate to their
| owners at cost price.
| exabrial wrote:
| > Long term waste storage
|
| This is pretty far from the truth. Exactly One Swimming Pool is
| all that is needed to store the entire "waste" for a country.
|
| If you don't recycle it.
|
| Or if you don't put it concrete.
| exabrial wrote:
| Also, be sure to elaborate on the massive waste problem that
| Solar and Wind create:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| I would suggest finding more recent information than articles
| that already were disinformation back in 2020.
|
| In recent news we are seeing the fossil lobby ally with new
| built nuclear power since wasting money and opportunity cost
| on new built nuclear power potentially may stymie renewable
| development.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-e.
| ..
| Archelaos wrote:
| Absolutely right.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground.
| With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality,
| no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found
| in Europe.
|
| Look, I love nuclear technology. But time has moved on. The costs
| to rebuild this industry is astronomical and means we lose out on
| key-future technology like batteries.
|
| Edit: But then there are bombs. And especially French love their
| nukes due national security. This is the only reason to keep
| pushing for nuclear, since Russia, the US and China are not gonna
| change direction on this either. But the very least we could do
| is be honest about it.
|
| Edit 2: Changed from "World has moved on" to "time has moved on",
| since evidently China has invested for a good 2 decades to build
| their own fully functional nuclear-industry. Proving my point
| that it takes dedicated investment, network effects and scale to
| rebuild this industry. After all, they too want to mass produce
| nukes.
| nixass wrote:
| > Look, I love nuclear technology. But the world has moved on.
|
| Come again?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| We deploy 10x the capacity in renewables and batteries than
| we do in nuclear and its only accelerating. We are trending
| towards 1/10th the cost of nuclear per GW. There is no going
| back just due to the sheer scale of mass manufacturing
| renewables.
|
| We are below $1B/GW for solar. China just opened a $100/kWh
| ($100M/GWh) battery storage plant. All deployable within a
| year.
|
| Contrast this to $16B/GW for recent nuclear plants, and you
| don't benefit from starting a build for another 20 years
| nixass wrote:
| Use case: Germany
|
| It's going great!!!11
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_mi
| n...
| notTooFarGone wrote:
| Ok let's link Germany when the sun is not shining and the
| wind is not blowing.
|
| Thanks for cherry picking and not linking averages.
| lawn wrote:
| You still need electricity when the sun isn't shining and
| the wind isn't blowing you know?
| Archelaos wrote:
| Gas-fired power plants are planned for load balancing,
| and these are already being built in such a way that they
| can be converted to hydrogen operation at a later date.
| nixass wrote:
| You can move slider for last 24hrs, there were sunny bits
| in Germany. CO2 is constantly shit over here. And yeah..
| what am I supposed to do when it's not sunny or no wind?
| Fart into windfarm?
| Phil_Latio wrote:
| Then look at the the average and compare with France.
| Germany causes 6 times more Co2 stemming from energy
| production.
|
| The energy mix in Germany leads to a situation where
| electric cars are dirtier than diesel (for the first
| ~200000 km / 125000 miles driven).
| Archelaos wrote:
| Citation needed. I don't belief a word of this.
| derriz wrote:
| > The energy mix in Germany leads to a situation where
| electric cars are dirtier than diesel (for the first
| ~200000 km / 125000 miles driven).
|
| Renewable share of electricity production is about 56% so
| this claim is not at all credible.
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-covers-
| nearly-5...
| nosianu wrote:
| That's what this is for, in general:
| https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/trans-
| euro...
|
| Also, Germany currently has the problem of much more and
| more reliable wind generation in the north, but not
| enough network capacity to send it all south when needed.
| It is being addressed, but as expected, it is very
| complicated because infrastructure across the whole
| country touches the interests of a lot of groups with
| very different interests.
|
| We might need much better tunnel building equipment and a
| deep sub-terranean network... (useful sci-fi idea, needs
| to be able to cope with mild earth quakes in some
| regions).
| Archelaos wrote:
| This! Don't be disappointed by the downvotes. The
| fussile+nuclear energy lobby is desparte because of
| Germany's success. This industry is the equivalent of the
| tabacoo and pestizide industry of the past. Everything is
| fine, cheap and under control -- until it isn't ...
| nuxi wrote:
| We need more Kohl, that'll do the trick...
| goatlover wrote:
| That's great, but what percentage of decarbonization will
| it stall at due to lack of energy density and relying on
| the wind/sun?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| How is it stalling anything if it offers a cheaper and
| faster build than nuclear? If you need to build 1GW and
| want it anytime in the next 2 decades, you sure as hell
| don't choose nuclear. You either do natural gas or
| renewables these days. Those are the only competitive
| sources of energy.
| mpweiher wrote:
| You actually need energy even when the sun doesn't shine.
|
| And you are incorrect: renewables are not competitive
| without heavy subsidies and preferential treatment, such
| as being allowed to shift the cost of their intermittency
| onto the reliable producers.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| The problems lies in the lack of storage. Which is why
| you need efficient and scalable battery technologies.
| This is the true key technology that yields much more
| promise than anything nuclear.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Since the capacity factor is so much lower, 10x in capacity
| just about matches the energy production of nuclear. Never
| mind the dispatchable power.
|
| And since nuclear power plants last about 4x longer than
| renewables, you actually have to install 4x the production
| to have an equivalent fleet over time.
|
| So by your numbers, the world is shifting towards a nuclear
| fleet.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Ugh. One of us is living in an alternate reality. If the
| share of energy produced is not growing increasingly more
| renewable, then it's me.
| mpweiher wrote:
| An initial much stronger increase in renewables is a
| logical an unavoidable consequence of what I described.
|
| The increase in renewable production _needs_ to be 4x
| greater initially, because of the longer life of nuclear
| plants. Queueing theory /Little's Law. So this is
| entirely expected if you are targeting (a) a fairly
| constant fleet and (b) fairly constant production rate,
| both of which are desirable.
|
| Under the Messmer plan, France ignored this and built 50+
| reactors in 15 years. Which means that they were pretty
| much done after 15 years, their nuclear industry had
| basically nothing to do for the next 40 or so years and
| withered. Bad idea.
|
| The current rate of new construction starts in China
| implies a build rate of at least 10 reactors per year.
| With an expected life of 80 years, that implies a target
| fleet size of around 800 reactors if the rate remains
| constant.
| solarengineer wrote:
| I am a small-time investor in renewable energy businesses,
| but I am also a believer in nuclear energy.
|
| Consider a city like Mumbai that needs about 3.8 GW per
| day. One would need lots of windmills and large solar farms
| that would need to be positioned in a different state
| having more sunlight throughout the year. Mumbai often
| experiences cloudy weather and intermittent wind. I cannot
| imagine only wind and solar supporting the needs of Mumbai.
|
| There are countries other than the US who do not take 20
| years to build a reactor. Out-dated regulations, punitive
| paperwork, and perhaps poor project management are the
| reasons for the oft-cited delays in the US. Other countries
| complete their builds in 6 to 7 years.
| https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-
| impressive-...
| mpweiher wrote:
| The US delays with the Vogtle AP-1000s (the only recently
| completed US build) were extremely atypical.
|
| First, it was a FOAK design. Which _always_ takes longer
| to build, it is a prototype.
|
| Second, the nuclear build know how in the nuclear
| engineers, construction workers, and supply chain was not
| really there any longer.
|
| Third, they used a new permitting system, which in theory
| should have been better and probably will be better in
| the future: instead of ongoing individual checks and
| modifications, which made every nuclear power plant in
| the US a unique unicorn, you are now allowed to submit a
| master design and once approved you can build that over
| and over. Without changes.
|
| Alas, Westinghouse wasn't actually done with the design
| when they submitted. So when they started building, they
| noticed that they had submitted plans that could not
| actually be built. Oops. That cause massive delays. And
| delays = cost.
|
| And the suppliers fought each other, one went bankrupt
| etc. COVID also didn't help.
|
| So how can we guarantee that the same won't happen in the
| future and that NOAK builds will be better? Well, for one
| they now have plans that are obviously buildable, because
| a bunch of AP-1000s have been built. So _that_ exact
| thing absolutely can 't happen.
|
| Also, we can look to China. Turns out, China also built 2
| FOAK AP-1000s. These also took about 10 years, despite
| China usually building in 5. And it turns out, China
| built some more AP-1000s after that. NOAK builds. And
| these took 5 years to build with buildable plans,
| experience building that reactors and a mature nuclear
| industry to back them.
|
| So there is good reason to believe that future NOAK
| builds of the AP-1000 and of comparable reactors will be
| much faster and much cheaper than what we've seen so far.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| That cost is a property of the regulatory environment, it
| isn't intrinsic.
|
| You can buy a floating nuclear power plant in the form of
| an aircraft carrier for a lot less than $16B. The US Navy
| builds these things as a matter of course in a few years
| using standard designs they crank out by the dozens.
| hvb2 wrote:
| Those carriers have 700MW thermal output reactors. The
| new generation EPRs built now are about 6x that.
|
| And yes, carriers have a lot less rules because it those
| have issues we're already in big trouble. You'll need
| strict rules given the big impact a failure has. No one
| has an aircraft carrier or sub in their backyard (not
| constantly that is)
|
| Standardizing a design and building N of them would help
| though
| nine_k wrote:
| The problem is that much of Europe lies pretty far north.
| Certainly, Spain can deploy solar power with high
| efficiency, but Netherlands can't grab as much sunlight no
| matter what, to say nothing of Sweden or Norway. Wind power
| helps, but it's way more expensive than solar.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Wind is still much cheaper than new nuclear with an LCOE
| in the UK under half that of new nuclear.
|
| Surprisingly it seems worthwhile to build solar in places
| like the UK/Netherlands/Denmark since solar production is
| negatively correlated with wind.
|
| Norway and Sweden have large hydropower resources too.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Since you use China as a comparison for solar: China builds
| 1.4GW nuclear power plants in 5 years for $3.5 bn.
|
| And of course the capacity factor for PV is about 10%, so
| you need 10x the capacity to get the same output even on
| average. Never mind that you get nothing at night, and very
| little in winter.
| g8oz wrote:
| Not 10%. It's a 25% capacity factor for utility scale
| solar in the US. I'm assuming it's a similar number for
| China.
| mpweiher wrote:
| In Germany it has now dropped to 8%.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| Look at the boom of nuclear in the 70s. The industry wide and
| deep expertise from production, to planning, to logistics.
| Particularly the french did this par excellence. But nuclear
| has first languished and is now almost non-existent in
| Europe.
|
| Contrary to capitalist believe you cannot solve all issues
| fast by throwing unreasonable amounts of money at it. You
| must built industries that synergies with each other, have
| deep institutional knowledge and capable workers that can
| deliver the tiny tolerances required to make nuclear safe and
| effective.
|
| We simply do not have the (intellectual) capacity for this
| anymore and the effort is better spent on battery technology
| if Europe actually wants to have any stake in future of EV
| and renewables. It is significantly less capital intense too.
| nunobrito wrote:
| Plenty of comments here are disproving that baseless
| argument.
| derriz wrote:
| The technology of electricity production has advanced since
| nuclear peaked in the mid 1980s.
|
| We have better/cheaper ways of producing electricity than
| attaching a heat source to tank of water, boiling the water
| to produce steam, then forcing the steam through a turbine,
| capturing the kinetic energy in order to turn the rotor of an
| alternator. Whether that heat source is coal or nuclear,
| you're still looking at what is fundamentally a 19th century
| design - attach a steam engine to an alternator.
|
| Gas turbines remove the boiling water/steam engine part. Wind
| turbines remove heat from the process completely and solar PV
| removes the mechanical part.
|
| All 3 technologies are base on mass production - particularly
| solar PV. And so all have seem massive price decreases which
| is expected to continue. Meanwhile nuclear gets more and more
| expensive.
|
| Globally, nuclear peaked about 2 decades in terms of energy
| production ago, 2.5 decades ago in terms of number of
| operating turbines, 3 decades ago in terms of share of
| electricity production and 4 or 5 decades ago in terms of
| plants under construction.
| goatlover wrote:
| But that means it's not a completely new industry since the
| French already have nuclear power plants and working experts.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| Oh yeah, the EPR is going super great. Delay after delay
| after delay.
|
| The Finnish EPR only took 18 years of construction. What a
| marvel of engineering and planning.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Shifting goal posts.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Er...what?
|
| There is a massive nuclear renaissance in-progress.
|
| According to the following tracker:
|
| https://globalenergymonitor.github.io/maps/trackers/nuclear/
|
| There are currently 419 reactors in operation, 76 in
| construction, 140 in pre-construction and 290
| planned/announced. I have a slightly older version of that
| chart, where those numbers were 69, 92 and 178, respectively.
|
| Note that both the numbers are pretty large compared to the
| installed base (more than doubling the installed base), that
| they are increasing for the earlier stages (indicating more is
| in the pipeline than is currently being built), and that all
| the pipeline stages are increasing over time.
|
| Which is of course consistent with the fact that 34 countries
| have now signed the international pledge to triple nuclear
| output that was first agreed at COP28. These countries include:
| France, the United States, China, Japan, Poland, Sweden, etc.
| India has plans and is on track to triple by 2032, but hasn't
| signed the pledge.
|
| I am also not sure why you think that "all existing experts"
| have retired and there is no nuclear industry. The World
| Nuclear Exhibition in Paris November 4-6 of this year had over
| 1000 exhibitors, and more than half of those were from Europe.
|
| https://www.framatome.com/en/evenements-clients/world-nuclea...
|
| Even phase-out-Germany still has substantial nuclear
| engineering capacity, there's even a nuclear fuel factory in
| Lingen. And of course the actual nuclear component of a nuclear
| power plant is only around 20%. About the same effort/cost goes
| into the steam turbines, of which Siemens is a major worldwide
| supplier.
|
| And of course civil nuclear programs have next to nothing to do
| with military nuclear programs. There are many more users of
| civil nuclear power than there are military nuclear powers, and
| the military nuclear powers invariably got the bomb first, and
| added a civil program later, with some like Israel only having
| a military nuclear program, not a civilian one.
|
| In fact, there's a fun anecdote from the beginnings of the
| French nuclear program, since you mention France: when the
| Messmer plan got started, the military wanted to deploy an
| indigenous type of reactor for the civilian program that was
| more suitable for military uses, but in the end the government
| decided to standardize on a US Westinghouse pressurized water
| reactors that was not useful for military purposes.
| sailingparrot wrote:
| > So you want to create a completely new industry. From the
| ground. With all existing experts having retired.
|
| This is an article about Europe. Do you really believe France
| alone is operating 57 nuclear reactors, and producing 70% of
| its energy via fission, without the industry, the knowledge,
| and with no experts left? Is chatgpt running everything?
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| If you are so smug about this, answer me:
|
| 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing
| end-of-life?
|
| 2: How many reactors has Europe built since 2005?
|
| 3: What's the overrun time of reactors in Europe, compared to
| China?
|
| The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the industry
| has existed. It was world class, but the institutional
| knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist and
| would need to be rebuilt for the new generation of reactors.
| And we are not even talking Generation 4 here.
| nine_k wrote:
| France in particular connected a new nuclear power station
| to the grid as late as 2024 [1]. But the previous reactor
| was put online in 1999 or so.
|
| Three more were built in EU since 2000: one in Finland
| (Swedish/Finnish design) and two in Slovakia
| (Soviet/Russian design).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Powe
| r_Plan...
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The Finnish reactor is the same French EPR design used at
| Flamanville and Hinkley Point C.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
| sailingparrot wrote:
| Yes, very few new NPP have been built in Europe recently.
| Quite a few have been built by Europe however. The french
| company Framatome alone, with 18k employees, is actively
| building 2 EPR reactors in the UK (+ preliminary studies
| for 8 more), one reactor has been finished last year in
| France and recently multiple were built or being built in
| China, India, Russia (although I guess that might be
| canceled).
|
| Its also already operating the 57 french reactors as well
| as operating reactors in South Africa, China, Korea,
| Belgium, Finland.
|
| Sure, the industry will need to grow, but claiming it
| basically has to start from 0 is ludicrous.
| sigmar wrote:
| These questions are inane. No, "all existing experts" did
| not retire. not making new plants was a decision made by
| politicians.
|
| Europe has never stopped working on creating new and better
| nuclear reactor designs
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
| hvb2 wrote:
| Iter is a research project that Europe is a part of,
| along with the rest of the world. That has nothing to do
| with building power plants, at least not anytime soon.
|
| We haven't built a reactor in a long time. So those EPRs
| being built are all way behind schedule and thus costing
| substantially more.
|
| You can design whatever you want. Building one is a whole
| different story. That's not an opinion that's just what
| happened at the first 2 EPRs and Hinckley point isn't
| going great either
| sigmar wrote:
| >We haven't built a reactor in a long time.
|
| France finished Flamanville 3 in 2024. Finland finished
| Olkiluoto 3 in 2022. Are those not recent enough? both
| were EPR designs
| hvb2 wrote:
| Have you looked when they started construction and what
| their projected end date was?
|
| Yes there are new ones but both of those are perfect
| examples of the lack of knowledge [1].
|
| I'll quote: > Many of the organisations chosen to work on
| the different parts of the plant did not have any
| experience in nuclear, and little understanding of the
| safety requirements.
|
| We'll get there. But yes, we're rebuilding a lot of lost
| knowledge and paying for the teething issues.
|
| 1: https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-nuclear-finlands-
| cautionary-...
| t_tsonev wrote:
| Those are not really great construction examples, are
| they? Both projects took 15+ years to complete with huge
| cost overruns. And for those two "successful" projects,
| you can find 2 or 3 that failed.
| llsf wrote:
| It takes time between the plan and putting it online. It
| is mostly due to regulations. Relax the regulations and
| it would be cheaper and faster.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Yup. Europe can absolutely still build reactors, just not
| at a price that is economically competitive.
|
| Olkiluoto 3 started regular production in 2023, taking 18
| years to build at a cost of EUR11 billion (3x over
| budget).
|
| Flamanville 3 started regular production in 2024, taking
| 17 years to build at a cost of EUR13.2 billion (4x over
| budget) or EUR19.1 billion including financing in 2015
| prices.
|
| Hinkley Point C (two reactors) is currently estimated to
| have its first unit come online around 2030, taking 14
| years with total costs now estimated at PS31-35 billion /
| EUR36-41 billion (2x over budget) in 2015 prices.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Funny, the Finns are super happy with their "uneconomic"
| nuclear reactors. Current approval rating for nuclear is
| now 81%, up from 77% last year.
|
| The UK is so disappointed by their HPC project (which is
| the most expensive nuclear reactor project in history,
| AFAIK), that they just completed the investment decision
| for the follow-up Sizewell-C, which will also be 2 UK-
| EPRs.
|
| Oh, the guarantee price for HPC is the same as that for
| various off-shore wind-projects. So obviously
| economically uncompetitive. At 10 pence/kWh the two
| reactors at HPC will produce electricity worth PS200
| billion. Which does put the cost of PS41 billion into
| perspective, despite that being the most ridiculously
| over-time and over budget nuclear project in history.
|
| Actually, Flamanville 3 did not start "regular"
| production in 2024, they were just given go-ahead to go
| to full power a few days ago. It was first grid-connected
| in 2024 and then started a lengthy ramp-up phase. It
| slowly coming online was the time for the Cour des
| Comptes to give its verdict, which was pretty damning.
|
| Flamanville 3 was probably the worst run nuclear project
| in French history. And even so, this "damning" verdict
| was that it FV3 would only be somewhat and in the worst
| case marginally profitable. But still profitable. Which
| is better than pretty much every intermittent renewables
| project out there, certainly in Europe.
|
| EDF is often accused of receiving heavy state subsides,
| with the implication that this is to keep the nuclear
| power plants going or subsidize nuclear electricity. It
| is true that EDF gets state subsidies. For their
| intermittent renewable projects. Ba-da-dum-tss. The
| nuclear party of their business is tremendously
| profitable, despite being forced to subsidize industry
| through the ARENH program.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Existing nuclear reactors produce incredibly cheap power.
| The German decision to stop theirs before coal should be
| considered an environmental crime.
|
| Finns should be super happy with Nuclear since the cost
| overruns were overwhelmingly born by Areva (majority
| owned by the French state) which accumulated losses of
| EUR5.5 billion and went bust!
|
| As a nuclear weapons power the UK has a national security
| interest to keep its nuclear industry around. It needs to
| build some reactors to do that, but given the prices of
| new nuclear I don't expect it to build more than the
| minimum necessary.
|
| Hinkley Point C comes in at PS92.50/MWh in 2012 prices
| (PS128.90 in 2024 prices). At the last auction wind
| prices were PS54.23/MWh in 2012 prices (PS75.68/MWh 2024
| prices).
|
| Now those prices for intermittent wind exclude the cost
| of providing backup power with gas but that is still much
| cheaper than nuclear.
| golem14 wrote:
| I found an interesting set of charts + explanation for
| China:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics/comments/1ijcocq/ch
| ine...
|
| It would really be great to understand (rather than me
| guessing) China's rationale to build these plants, and
| also their safety.
|
| They generate about 5% of their electricity with nuclear.
| That's a lot, but is it enough to power the country if
| other alternatives stop being viable (war, shortages,
| ...?) Maybe it's OK for them that in such a situation,
| they just turn off enough residential power to last
| through the night with nuclear and storage. z
|
| Do they see the nuclear research as dual use? My
| understanding is that nuclear subs and ships do use
| entirely different nuclear plants. Maybe research into
| small modular reactors is more dual use. There's also use
| for those reactors if they really want to build moon
| bases.
|
| Maybe at their cost of the plans (I heard [?]3B for a
| 1+GW plant), this is actually competitive with
| solar+storage. It's definitely competitive with western
| nuclear power plants, if they want to export in other
| developing markets.
| pyrale wrote:
| > 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are
| nearing end-of-life?
|
| > The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the
| industry has existed. It was world class, but the
| institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality
| does not exist and would need to be rebuilt for the new
| generation of reactors. And we are not even talking
| Generation 4 here.
|
| The only reasonable conclusion from your logic is that it
| would have felt like an even worse idea to build nuclear
| reactors in the 1970's. Yet, using today's hindsight, it
| was a great idea.
|
| Airbus would have been a terrible idea: no one had built
| commercial airliners before, and only the US had the know-
| how. Today, we know otherwise.
|
| etc.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| > The only reasonable conclusion from your logic is that
| it would have felt like an even worse idea to build
| nuclear reactors in the 1970's. Yet, using today's
| hindsight, it was a great idea.
|
| If the competition was renewables and storage rather than
| plants running on imported oil during the oil crisis it
| would have been.
|
| 75% of all new capacity in TWh (I.e. adjusting for
| capacity factor.) globally are renewables and storage.
| There's no need to swim against the river.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Intermittent renewables have capacity factors in the
| 10-20% range. So divide by 5.
|
| 34 nations have committed to tripling nuclear capacity,
| including the US, China, France, the UK and many others.
| And they are acting on this as well.
|
| The tide is nuclear, no need to swim against it.
|
| And no, countries _also_ doing renewables in no way
| negates this.
| okanat wrote:
| Well it made sense for France for multiple reasons even
| in 70s. France didn't trust / like Anglophone dominance
| in the world. They brutally kept their colonies,
| sometimes to the bitter end. The mistrust to US/UK
| hegemony and the strong sense of nationalism is the
| reason we have Ariane and Airbus programs. Henceforth,
| they also invested in their own nuclear program. To make
| small and cheaper nuclear weapons, you need plutonium
| which can only be created in reactors. Even with that
| knowledge they burned fossil fuels majorly before 70s.
|
| France built majority of their nuclear reactors after 70s
| oil crisis. So it made sense to have independent
| resources for them. So they won't need to rely on other
| nations, some of which were their former colonies that
| hated them. They had two strong reasons to keep a nuclear
| base electricity generations.
| b3orn wrote:
| > Airbus would have been a terrible idea: no one had
| built commercial airliners before, and only the US had
| the know-how.
|
| That's just plain false, Airbus started as a cooperation
| between a lot of european aerospace companies, which had
| different a lot of know-how in different fields. For
| example Sud Aviation (later Aerospatiale, now Airbus) was
| the French part of the Concorde, they also had the
| Caravelle.
| Aloha wrote:
| Plus there was a significant contribution from England -
| VC10, deHavilland Comet, etc.
|
| England also made what I consider to be the prettiest
| bomber ever made - the Handley-Page Victor
| tokai wrote:
| >If you are so smug about this, answer me
|
| Is this satire?
| godelski wrote:
| > If you are so smug about this, answer me:
|
| Please adhere to the HN guidelines and refrain from this
| kind of language. We can discuss this more civilly.
|
| But I'll answer what I can, assuming your are genuine.
| > 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are
| nearing end-of-life?
|
| 10 reactors, 3 plants. (57 are currently operational)
|
| I think this is a more American-centric comment than you
| realized... France had a bigger rollout in the 80's and a
| few from the 90's so there's another decade (* _making this
| time key!*_ ) before a slow decline. Also remember that
| France is a lot smaller than America so needs less power.
|
| Not to mention, France _exports_ a lot of electricity[0]. I
| want you to look pretty closely at that graph again. It
| says they exported 81.8TW this year. What 's France's
| nuclear capacity? 380TW[1]. France exports about 15% of its
| total energy, more than all its hydro (it's next biggest
| source). You may be interested to see where that
| electricity goes....[2]
|
| _France_ can lose those reactors and be fine, _Europe_ is
| a different story... > 2: How many reactors
| has Europe built since 2005?
|
| 4, In Russia. But _France_ built 2 reactors in 2002.
| > 3: What's the overrun time of reactors in Europe,
| compared to China?
|
| I don't have an answer to this but > the
| institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality
| does not exist
|
| I can tell you that both France and the US are the biggest
| supporters of international aid in China's rollout. So the
| institutional knowledge exists and still progressing,
| albeit slower than before.
|
| Besides, I'm not sure this fear even makes sense. What,
| China could "start from scratch" but "France" (or anywhere
| else) couldn't? What would make China so unique that such
| things couldn't be replicated elsewhere? This is a fallacy
| in logic making the assumption that once skills atrophy
| that they can never be restored or restore more slowly. If
| anything we tend to see skills restore far quicker from
| atrophy than from scratch! So why paint a picture of "give
| up"? Isn't that just making a self-fulfilling prophecy?
|
| [0] https://analysesetdonnees.rte-
| france.com/en/exchanges/import...
|
| [1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
| profil...
|
| [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/72h/hourly
| locallost wrote:
| If you had followed the crisis from 2022 when a quarter of
| the reactors were out of service, you wouldn't ask that
| question. They had to fly in welders from the US because they
| were not able to fix the problem... Also, every new nuclear
| project done by the French in this century has been a
| complete disaster. Flamanville, Olkiluoto and now Hinkley
| Point C.
| nosianu wrote:
| I don't know how reliant France is, but they do seem to rely
| quite a bit on Rosatom (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/ar
| ticle/2023/03/12/french...).
|
| They also rely on imports of uranium - e.g. from Niger, which
| recently had quite the fallout with France.
|
| It does not look to me at even a casual glance that French
| nuclear tech could fully work on its own. Similar for the UK.
|
| It is not just about the experts, the supply chain too.
| Although, of course how much that matters in comparison is
| the question, since pretty much everything nowadays depends
| on some faraway place.
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| > But the world has moved on.
|
| China's got 27 reactors under construction right now:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| You are naturally correct and I have corrected my statement.
| I intended to refer to the West but my wording was factually
| incorrect.
|
| China has invested so much for so long into nuclear
| technology that they now have the industry which Europe once
| had. And to rebuild the same type of industry would take the
| same amount of effort that China had to do. Meanwhile, the US
| can't even build their own warships anymore.
| derriz wrote:
| In the first 5 months of this year, China added 198 GW of
| solar PV and 46 GW of wind. Nuclear is a small side-hustle
| for them.
| pyrale wrote:
| nameplate capacity of different generation sources can't be
| compared, if only because capacity factor is not
| comparable.
| derriz wrote:
| China's plan is to add 100GW of nuclear by 2040.
|
| In 2024 alone, it added 360GW of wind and solar and the
| trajectory for renewables is steepening, not declining so
| this year's number looks like it will exceed this number
| - 450GW or more.
|
| Capacity factors are just noise when you're dealing with
| nearly 2 orders of magnitude of difference in scale.
| Apply whatever adjustment for capacity factor differences
| that you like but 100GW of nuclear over 15 years is not
| going to catch up with 450GW of wind and solar per year.
| t_tsonev wrote:
| But you can compare generated power, right?
|
| > In the 12 months to June 2025, wind and solar (2,073
| TWh) generated more electricity than all other clean
| sources (nuclear, hydro and bioenergy) combined (1,936
| TWh). Just four years ago, wind and solar generated half
| as much electricity as other clean sources combined.
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-
| transi...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| China has been scaling back and delaying their nuclear
| program in favor of renewables since Fukushima.
|
| At saturation, given current nuclear build out based on
| actual construction starts and China's grid size, China will
| end up with 2-3% nuclear power in the grid mix.
|
| Enough to sustain a civilian industry to complement any
| military ambitions, but it does not move the needle.
|
| In terms of electricity China is all in on renewables and
| storage with a backstop of locally sourced firming coal.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > China has been scaling back and delaying their nuclear
| program in favor of renewables since Fukushima.
|
| Not "has". "Had". The whole world held their breath after
| Fukushima.
|
| Now that everybody knows that nothing really consequential
| happened apart from state overreaction, Japan, China and
| the rest of the world are no longer holding their breath.
|
| China has been approving 10 or more nuclear power plants
| per year the last couple of years. Given the lifetime of 80
| years of modern nuclear reactors and Little's Law
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little%27s_law) that implies
| an expected fleet size of 800 reactors. At 1.2 - 1.4GW per
| reactors, that would be slightly above 1 TW of generating
| capacity, which is enough for 90% of current Chinese
| electricity production.
| scythe wrote:
| >So you want to create a completely new industry. From the
| ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding
| high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on
| resources not found in Europe.
|
| You could say most of the same things about batteries. There is
| a little lithium in Europe. But Europe doesn't have a battery
| industry. It's in China. And you could buy batteries from
| China, but we aren't doing that and the political trends don't
| support more energy dependence on China. You could also buy
| nuclear reactors from China, but of course Europe doesn't want
| to do that either.
|
| What they are proposing is that Europe is going to pivot from
| not making batteries to not building nuclear plants. They will,
| however, write lots of papers about the reactors (nee
| batteries) they would like to build, if only the prevailing
| wage or regulatory regime or other economic excuse du jour
| wasn't stopping them.
|
| It has increasingly become my impression after watching these
| debates unfold that the core technology is not the real
| problem. The problem is a lack of political will to encourage
| the growth of new industries in green energy, failing both at
| regulatory and industrial policy. Solar is succeeding, not
| because it is the best form of energy (though it is) but
| because it is mostly paid for and installed by individuals and
| small businesses (with a little capital you can own your own
| solar farm!).
| belorn wrote:
| Sweden had a major company try to make lithium batteries but
| it was not economical viable without major and continuously
| infusion of government subsidies. The company Northvolt is
| the largest bankruptcy in modern Swedish industrial history.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I think Fukushima rather than Chernobyl looms over us as a more
| realistic disaster that could happen again.
|
| When you look at the data though, its political fallout was much
| worse than the actual toll on human life, etc. Fukushima released
| a small about of radiation into the environment. But modern
| reactors don't have the same runaway reactivity flaws that
| Chernobyl did.
|
| Not zero risk. But not the level of risk resulting in half a
| continent potentially being uninhabitable.
| goatlover wrote:
| Would Chernobyl have realistically made half a continent
| uninhabitable had the Soviets not taken all measures to contain
| it? Or is it more worse case fear mongering nuclear has always
| had, while oil tankers s[ill into oceans, pipelines leak into
| national parks, people die from polluted air, and climate
| change continues to grow worse?
| mandevil wrote:
| I mean, the basic problem at Chernobyl was the lack of a big
| heavy containment vessel that essentially all other reactor
| designs have. That containment vessel (and a couple of other
| design features, e.g. negative void coefficient in a PWR)
| has, so far, largely prevented Chernobyl like issues at
| other, better designed reactors. So far a TMI/Fukushima Dai
| Ichi/Chalk River is about the worst that has been observed in
| a reactor with a containment vessel.
|
| And as for how realistic it was that it would make large
| areas unlivable, the threat was of a melt-down going far
| enough down to hit the water table and contaminating the
| groundwater. That would make large areas only livable if you
| brought your own water, even for bathing, basically making
| the area impracticable. Obviously it didn't happen, but I'm
| not clear whether it was a 0.5% chance, a 5% chance or a 50%
| chance.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Fukushima was the result of the biggest earthquake in 1000+
| years of Japanese history occurring where the resulting tsunami
| knocked out the backup generators at the plant.
|
| Such an extreme set of outlier events _could_ happen again, of
| course, but it 's not very realistic.
| retrac wrote:
| Here in Ontario, residentially we pay about 0.09 USD per kWh at
| night and 0.18 USD with demand peak pricing on weekday
| afternoons. Or if you have flat rate it's about 0.13 USD per kWh.
| This is considered very expensive by Canadian standards and it's
| due to our nuclear power program where about 55% of electricity
| is from nuclear, the rest from a mix of wind/hydro/solar/biofuel
| and gas. The increased price during the day is due to the need to
| burn a bit of gas at peak demand. The grid is otherwise nearly
| carbon neutral, and the long-term plan is to phase out the gas
| with a mix of wind, nuclear and pumped storage.
|
| We pay less in practice than the rates given above for power,
| because the government also subsidizes it. But even without that
| I understand such rates would be relatively cheap in most
| European countries.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Here in Ontario, residentially we pay about 0.09 USD per kWh
| at night and 0.18 USD with demand peak pricing on weekday
| afternoons._
|
| Provincial regulatory report from 2025-2026:
|
| * https://oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-
| report-20251017...
|
| Search for "RPP Price Report" for previous ones:
|
| * https://www.oeb.ca/consultations-and-projects/policy-
| initiat...
| belorn wrote:
| Is that the commercial price to the end customer with tax and
| connection fees, or is it the gross price at the power
| exchange?
| nine_k wrote:
| End customer tariffs, I suppose. IDK if they include
| delivery.
|
| Bulk prices at exchanges are way lower, like 2.2C/ per kWh:
| https://www.ieso.ca/Power-Data/Price-Overview/Ontario-
| Market...
| retrac wrote:
| Consumer price of the energy. Doesn't include connection
| fees, but those are a minority of the cost. Includes special
| energy taxes. But not sales tax.
|
| For a real example, I'm on flat rate and if I use 1000 kWh my
| monthly bill will be 211 CAD (effective rate 0.21 CAD / 0.13
| EUR per kWh) including taxes, connection, delivery,
| everything, but without subsidy. The amount I pay after the
| subsidy is applied would be less at 165 CAD.
| hvb2 wrote:
| Is the subsidy just to lower cost of living for the lowest
| incomes?
|
| Would be very curious about the rationale for it if not.
| Why would you subsidize increased energy use
| scotty79 wrote:
| The argument against deregulation of energy prices is
| that poor people won't be able to afford it. But if you
| create a program that subsidizes some reasonable amount
| of energy per person per month the price of electricity
| can go as high as it needs to. I don't know if that was
| rationale in Canada but it's one possible rationale why
| government might want to aubsiduze energy usage.
| retrac wrote:
| It applies to most private residential and small-scale
| business electric use. Rationale would be getting quite
| political, as you might imagine. But I suppose there are
| several justifications that are given.
|
| One is to offset the cost to the consumer for phasing out
| fossil fuels. Coal has been shut down and wind and
| storage and new nuclear is being built. Politically it
| has been presented as a matter of fairness; poor people
| are least able to pay for increases or to retrofit. A
| kind of wealth redistribution. (Though when you remember
| large corporately-run farms are included in the subsidy
| it's maybe not the most progressive form of
| redistribution.)
|
| In Quebec where they have a great surplus of
| hydroelectric they also partly subsidize residential
| electricity with the profits of the surplus sale to the
| United States. The energy is so cheap there than
| resistive heating is cheaper than natural gas for home
| heating. Avoiding dependence on oil and gas imported from
| either the US or western Canada, or rather trying to
| lessen that dependence, is a standing issue for both
| Quebec and Ontario.
| belorn wrote:
| Consumer price for here in South of Sweden during October
| was for me EUR0.22 per kW/hh which include tax. On top of
| that I also had additional fixed connection fee and an fee
| based on peak consumption rate (combined those two were an
| extra EUR125 for that month). No subsidy.
|
| The reason for the high kW/h is because limited wind/solar
| during that month and high gas prices which result in high
| market price at the power exchange. The given reason for
| the fixed fees is because of the need to expand
| transmissions and build out more reserve energy to handle
| the increase variability of the grid as a result of the
| increase use of renewables and the outcome of
| decommissioning a few nuclear reactors in the south of
| Sweden.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Existing nuclear power is something to keep around as long as
| it is safe and needed.
|
| The problem is that new built western nuclear power requires
| ~18 cents/kWh (Vogtle, FV3, HPC etc.) when running at 100% 24/7
| all year around, excluding backup, transmission costs and
| taxes.
|
| Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV and
| maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room almost
| the entire year.
|
| This does not even take into account that new built nuclear
| power requires ~15-20 years from political decision to working
| plants.
|
| As soon as new built nuclear power's costs and timelines are
| confronted with reality it just does not work out.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Where are you getting 18 cents/kWh? Lazard?
|
| Anyway, even if that were correct numbers, it would
| misleading on several fronts, as the only new western
| reactors were unrepresentative FOAK builds, and also troubled
| beyond just regular FOAK status.
|
| Furthermore, the costs tend to be calculated for the period
| while they are repaying the loans, so it's mostly capital
| costs. Once the plant is paid off, the price drops
| dramatically.
|
| The average build time is currently 6.5 years, median
| slightly less, trend downwards.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| The currently proposed handout from tax money for the
| French EPR2 fleet is 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans.
| Sum freely.
|
| That is with the first reactor coming online 2038 with a
| perfectly executed project.
|
| I suggest you stop referencing unsourced statistics when
| the topic at hand is new built _european_ nuclear power.
|
| Edit - toned it down
| credit_guy wrote:
| > I suggest you stop lying
|
| Was this really necessary?
| mpweiher wrote:
| I asked you where you were getting the 18 cents/kWh hour
| from.
|
| Which you did not answer.
|
| And then you accuse _me_ of referencing unsourced
| statistics and lying.
|
| Hmm...
|
| The 6.5 years figure is from here:
|
| https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-
| constructi...
|
| "Current european nuclear" is completely atypical and
| unrepresentative. The numbers are too low to be
| statistically significant anyhow, but on top of that they
| were all FOAK builds, all of a single (base) design that
| has been deemed too difficult to build by its
| manufacturer and thus discontinued, and mostly built in
| countries with little recent nuclear experience.
|
| The HPC build, for example, was very explicitly intended
| to build up the UK nuclear industry, which was a
| significant part of the cost.
| solarengineer wrote:
| As I understand it, the technologies exist by which home
| owners who already have solar can draw only as much grid
| energy as they actually need. There are multiple uses of
| nuclear energy beyond home usage and there would be those who
| do not have access to adequate solar or wind energy.
| Apartment residences in large cities are one of the target
| segments.
| 0x457 wrote:
| > Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV
| and maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room.
|
| In EU, the split between flats (apartments) and houses is
| roughly 50/50, depending on how densely populated the country
| is. In the US, it about 1/3 in apartments. Canada is roughly
| 50/50, with a slight detached-house bias.
|
| Not that it doesn't mean houseowner vs renter. Landlords have
| next to zero incentive to install solar PV because renters
| pay for electricity. In the US about 7% of homes have solar,
| I don't know about EU and Canada.
|
| Solar can't provide baseline and even in sunny SoCal, you
| will go back to the grid often enough that being off-the-grid
| isn't reasonable for the typical household.
|
| Anyway, we still need new nuclear power plants.
| tokai wrote:
| Relative cheap? More like ridiculously cheap.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Modern energi consumption confuses me. There has never been more
| wind and solar, coal fired plants are almost a thing of the past.
| Everything is becoming increasingly energy efficient, yet we
| produce more CO2?
|
| Where is the fossile fuel being burnt?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Roughly, greenhouse gases are, a quarter from (animal)
| agriculture, quarter from energy, quarter from industry
| (cement/steel etc), and a quarter from transport.
| dalyons wrote:
| i couldnt believe that animal ag was the same as power, so i
| looked it up. Animal ag is ~14%, power is ~35%. so not close
| to equivilant, but ag is still a way bigger percentage than i
| would have guessed!
| mandevil wrote:
| Mostly, what you are seeing is that the half of the world
| living in the India-SEA-China circle [1] are living much better
| lives, which requires far more energy then living as
| subsistence farmers did. In the G7, CO2 emissions have declined
| (but not as fast as they need to stay below the 2C target) but
| the rest of the world is emitting more: during the negotiations
| for the Kyoto Accords in 1998 G7 countries produced about half
| of the world's CO2 and now they produce about a quarter. That's
| mostly because the rest of the world started emitting more and
| only a little because of drops in the amount produced by G7
| countries.
|
| There is obviously major ethical issues here. The rich, already
| developed world- having emitted enormous quantities of CO2 to
| get there- telling poor, undeveloped people living as
| subsistence farmers that they can't use any more energy because
| of all the CO2 already in the atmosphere is a really hard
| argument to make, locking them into being poor forever while
| the developed world benefits from all that CO2 consumption. But
| on the other hand, by skipping right to large scale solar,
| maybe those inside the circle can do a better job?
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle
| alecco wrote:
| > Where is the fossile fuel being burnt?
|
| China 50%, India 11%. And that is based on their official
| numbers so probably a lot more.
|
| https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-consumption-by-count...
| thegrim33 wrote:
| For some reason it took this long to hit me.
|
| If you take as axioms:
|
| 1) Countries have major political interest in whether other
| countries have nuclear reactors
|
| 2) Countries are already, at large scale, manipulating discourse
| across the internet to achieve their political goals
|
| Then of course it follows that any comment thread on a semi-
| popular or higher site about whether a country should build more
| nuclear reactors is going to be heavily manipulated by said
| countries. That's where (most) of the insane people in such
| threads are probably coming from.
|
| How are we supposed to survive as a civilization with such
| corrupted channels of communication?
| cauch wrote:
| What is, according to you, the political interest?
|
| There are countries that have interest of having gas or oil
| bought from them. It is not clear if they are pro or against
| other countries going nuclear: on one hand, nuclear will
| replace part of their market. On the other hand, lobbying to
| move towards nuclear may impede progress in replacing gas and
| oil by renewable (a strategy would be to lobby so that the
| nuclear project starts and then lobby so that the project
| stagnates and never delivers).
|
| There are countries that have interest in seeing nuclear
| adopted because they have a market for the ore extraction or
| waste processing. There are countries that have interest in
| seeing nuclear not adopted because they have a market around
| other generations.
|
| Finally, some countries may want to see their neighbors adopt
| nuclear: the neighbor will pay all the front bills and take all
| the risk (economical but also PR, or the cost of educating
| experts, ...), and if they succeed, they will provide import
| energy very cheap that can fill the gaps the country did not
| wanted to invest in.
|
| So it is not clear if there is just one stream of lobbying. The
| reality is probably that every "sides" does somehow contain
| manipulative discourse from foreign countries.
| terespuwash wrote:
| You mean "Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, say lobby
| groups to members of the EESC to influence the Commission and the
| Council".
| raverbashing wrote:
| Well, every cloud has a silver lining
| solarengineer wrote:
| Per the International Energy Association: What is the role of
| nuclear power in clean energy transitions? Nuclear power
| accounts for about 10% of electricity generation globally,
| rising to almost 20% in advanced economies. It has historically
| been one of the largest global contributors of carbon-free
| electricity and while it faces challenges in some countries, it
| has significant potential to contribute to power sector
| decarbonisation.
|
| Why does it matter to energy security? Nuclear power plants
| contribute to electricity security in multiple ways by keeping
| power grids stable and complementing decarbonisation strategies
| since, to a certain extent, they can adjust their output to
| accompany shifts in demand and supply. As the share of variable
| renewables like wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) rises, the
| need for such services will increase.
|
| What are the challenges? Nuclear power faces a contrasted
| future despite its ability to produce emissions-free power.
| With large up-front costs, long lead times and an often-poor
| record of on-time delivery, nuclear power projects have trouble
| in some jurisdictions competing against faster-to-install
| alternatives, such as natural gas or modern renewables. It also
| faces public opposition in many countries. Its uncertain future
| could result in billions of tonnes of additional carbon
| emissions.
|
| https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/nuclear-power
|
| Do note: There are countries other than the US and France who
| license nuclear technologies and build-outs. There are
| innovative technologies by US companies that work with modern
| regulations and are faster and less expensive to build. We must
| stop citing US nuclear build times that are largely due to
| outdated regulations and hostile review processes.
| solarengineer wrote:
| I am a former nuclear opponent. I used to think that nuclear
| waste was glowing green like they show in the Simpsons and in the
| Doom 1 game. Once I had access to the Internet in this century, I
| learned better.
|
| Here are some sources of information that helped me understand
| the two oft-cited nuclear disasters better.
|
| The World Nuclear Energy write up on the Fukushima incident:
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...
|
| Some information on the Chernobyl incident: The infographics
| show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uJhjqBz5Tk
|
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...
|
| A lecture in the MIT Courseware on the incident:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijst4g5KFN0
|
| This lecture is way more informative where the professor explains
| how the workers took the system beyond the rated capacity as part
| of a test.
|
| There have been many lessons learned, and the World Nuclear
| article linked above shares some of these.
|
| Here is a writeup of the Three Mile Island incident:
| https://world-nuclear.org/Information-Library/Safety-and-Sec...
|
| One regular complaint is the costs of nuclear energy. This is
| likely true in the US due to regulations that have not been
| revised for newer technology, but such high costs are cited
| around the world.
|
| Likewise, the amount of waste and the danger of the waste is not
| well understood either, and certainly lots of education is needed
| here. For e.g., most people do not know that the volume of waste
| is limited and that the same waste can be reused in reactors of
| other designs.
|
| I do believe that national ego issues get in the way of fixes. I
| believe that such ego issues got in the way of honest repairs
| (Fukushima) and timely action (Chernobyl). Certainly, nuclear
| inspections are still treated with suspicion and hostility, but
| in fact full transparency and integrity should be the norm.
|
| Corruption and profit-centric thinking are two other problems
| that plague the nuclear industry. South Korea has had lots of
| corruption and shortcuts
| (https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-
| greed...). One of the accusations in India against France was
| that France licenses outdated nuclear reactor technology despite
| having newer technology. I am unable to locate a link supporting
| this accusation.
|
| With thorium reactors and Small Module Reactors, there are many
| modern solutions to safety.
|
| ThorCon's Thorium Converter Reactor - Lars Jorgensen in Bali
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB1IrzDDI9g
|
| Here is the full training by Thorcon on their reactors:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkvEXm-rMW4&list=PLuGiwaUJYE...
|
| We need to stop citing and quoting US-based costs and problems
| that are linked to outdated US regulations. There are other
| countries that have more modern regulations and modern
| technologies.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Nuclear might be a good idea but for after the war. For now
| Europe needs distributed power generation and storage that russia
| can't easily nuke.
| throwpoaster wrote:
| No doy.
| Archelaos wrote:
| Why is HN so full of nuclear energy trolls?
| laurencerowe wrote:
| It's hard to see how non-dispatchable generation like nuclear can
| be competitive in Northern European markets dominated by
| intermittent wind power. So much wind capacity has already been
| built in Denmark that it sometimes meets 100% of electricity
| demand. Britain will be there soon, certainly long before
| substantial numbers of new nuclear reactors could conceivably be
| built.
|
| I suspect the UK will only build the nuclear capacity required to
| keep the industry around on national security grounds.
| accidc wrote:
| I think nuclear has parallel to mainframes. Capital intensive,
| long lead time, expensive to operate/maintain/dispose and
| practically irrelevant in the day of distributed (computing)
| generation and storage.
|
| It's uncanny how the narrative rhymes: we have insanely capable
| portable computing devices at price points that are accessible to
| every person across the planet. Similarly, distributed generation
| (and storage) are already bringing electricity to people who have
| no real chance of being on the grid ever.
|
| I see no way the economics working out for nuclear, except for
| niche uses.
|
| I can even imagine the grid being something relegated for long
| range / high intensity applications (instead of household
| distribution) in a few hundred years
| Rygian wrote:
| Consider Poland. 80% of its electricity production (as of this
| moment, almost midnight) is coal + gas (and it imports from
| Germany). Its generation mix results in 855 grams of CO2 per
| kWh.
|
| Consider Germany. 50% is coal + gas, 22% is wind + biomass. At
| 490 g/kWh.
|
| Italy: 60% gas at 386 g/kWh.
|
| Then compare them to France: 75% of the electricity comes from
| nuclear, at 47 g/kWh.
|
| All of this despite abundant wind+solar capacity installed in
| Germany, France, Italy, and Poland.
|
| There is a strong need to remove CO2-intensive generators and
| replace them by something that does not send CO2 into the air.
|
| There is also a strong need to build up capacity to store
| energy.
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/PL/live/fifteen_min...
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