Well yea, countries keep buying nuclear from France because it’s clean, cheap, and they don’t want to suffer the political backlash from the science lacking environmentalists which come forward when they talk about building nuclear on their own land
German green party
Nuclear plants:🤮
Carbon plants (that actually produce more radiation that nuclear plants): 🥰
They have spurred on the solar/wind movement successfully though, albeit whilst using coal as a crutch. Even so, without the greens, alternative energy might never have been a discussion in a country like Germany which is positively obsessed with gas and cars
Germany co2 emission for energy is 3 times that of France thanks to ecologists!
The problem is replacing nuclear with renewables does nothing to combat climate change. We need to be reducing fossil fuels. At the very least, they should have phased out coal before nuclear. While france was busy reducing its dependence on coal, Germany remains the largest producer of coal in Europe.
You’re certainly right that their handling of nuclear was inefficient for reducing carbon output.
I’m pretty pro nuclear, but I don’t think that really takes away from their success in pushing renewables forward, they were a very early adopter of solar thanks to their very generous subsidies and probably helped fuel its growth at a faster rate, so regardless of their unfortunate paranoia around nuclear, they do deserve some praise. Perfect is the enemy of good, and given the speed the world has responded to climate change, Germanys mixed and painful transition was certainly not the worst.
The nuclear ship had sailed long before the Green Party became part of the current government. While I also think that nuclear power is a much better alternative to coal power plants it’s simply not feasible to revert Germany’s decision when wind and solar is as cheap as it is now.
I’m not familiar with the German politics, but are you saying that Germany got rid of nuclear despite environmentalists?
These decisions are mainly rooted in the peace movement of the 80s (fueled by the nuclear missiles in Germany installed by the US) and the direct experience of Tschernobyl. Its supported by the majority in the public.
The current political decision was made by the more conversative government.
Thanks for the clarification!
I think there is also an important cultural difference between Germany and France that led to different nuclear program.
In the German political system there is strong regional and local governments and a weaker federal government that holds all that together.
In the French political system there a very strong centralized government and regional or local government don’t have much power.
Nuclear worked very well in France because of that. Nuclear energy need to be organized at a national level, German prefer energy that can be deployed locally or regionally.
The problem with solar is going to be scaling it to meet power demands. Never mind the fact that solar companies are cutting down trees to make way for solar fields.
Nuclear energy and hopefully nuclear fusion will be the future
It’s too late to start new nuclear projects. The quickest Gen 3 reactor build in the US was 14 years. So starting now, you’re looking to finish near 2040. And for those 14 years of construction, you’re pumping huge amounts of CO2. Over its lifetime it will emit less CO2 than many other forms of power, but that’s too slow. We need to be reducing emissions now, not reducing emissions in the 2050s and beyond.
It’s literally never too late to start them. It’s too late for them, alone, to reverse the damage to the climate change but make no mistake that until we’re dead and buried it’s not too late to make more. The KW/h per measurement of CO2 that nuclear plants produce is incomprehensible. It surpasses even renewable energy, that causes pollution from the broken panels and other e-waste. Fission has always been the answer and it needs to be pushed through no matter how fucking late it is so they can then be repurposed into fusion based when we make that advancement.
The life-cycle emissions from nuclear are better than PV, but it’s still not as good as wind or hydro. But the issue is that it’s massively front loaded - you have huge emissions during construction that are slowly undone over the decades of operation. But we can’t afford to ramp up emissions for the next 14+ years (both the emissions of building a nuclear plant, and the fact that the existing coal/gas plants will have to run for another 14 years). If you switch to renewables, you can reduce emissions this year, not in the 2050s.
And there is absolutely no way you’re going to repurpose a fission plant into a fusion plant. They have basically nothing in common apart from the name.
This might be true for large reactors but I don’t think it will hold true with small modular reactors. We need the stability of nuclear too, as power demands overall rise.
Renewables should definitely be a priority still, but nuclear shouldn’t be kicked out of the conversation.
What? Is there a good alternative? If we could magically make the world 100% renewable+nuclear in only 14 years that would be amazing I think. It would not solve everything, but sometimes it takes a bit to stop the bleeding before healing can start (carbon capture and planting trees during nuclear construction maybe?)
Is there a faster way?
Not too late if we make small modular reactors a thing. Once you build one, every one after it will become cheaper and faster to build. Link 10-20 SMRs together and you could have a plant. Or just put 1 or 2 where they are most needed. SMRs are the future of nuclear, no doubt. But the current big reactors will mostly be around for a while, too.
There was a successful nuclear fusion reaction experiment with a positive energy output just the other day…
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/scientists-repeat-major-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough/
So we’re going to be using nuclear, just in exciting new ways.
Yes. Regulatory overreach has made it 14 years to build nuclear plants. Almost all of which is interminable red tape. We should fix that, not pretend it’s a feature of the technology.
I like the the Greens, but they actually initiated the phase out the last time they ruled 20 years ago. One of their core ideologies was the opposition of nuclear power.
But they were also for a coal phaseout. They aren’t responsible for how atomic plants got replaced and that the phaseout got changed into specific dates, they implemented a more flexible phaseout.
A later government decided to slowly replace coal plants with gas plants and keep those coal plants in standby for emergencies for some time. Which is what triggered last year, as those standby plants fired up again when gas plants became unreliable.
Why would you oppose nuclear and renewable? Except if your an ecology fanatic that is.
See also: the “Atomkraft? Nein Danke” sticker that has a cartoon picture of the biggest nuclear reactor in the solar system on it. Irony: it’s good for the blood dearie.
Fusion is way better than fission
For starters more Helium really improves the World by facilitating the making of Daffy Duck impressions.
Agreed. There is a problem we have about where to put the fission waste but the actual generation process is cleaner than carbon.
cheap
It’s literally the most expensive power of any of the major options.
Yesterday the price of electricity was -1.16 c/kwh here despite having all those expensive reactors.
Levelized costs of electricity are different from the spot price. Market price doesn’t tell you anything about cost efficiency of nuclear (or any other source).
And yet germany with no nuclear plants consistently pay more than the rest of the world for electricity.
Please have a look for statistics that are adjusted for purchasing power, first of all. Then please compare the LCoE of nuclear power to for example wind energy - it’s only comparable (and comparably low) because decommissioning and waste disposal is not factored in - you pay for that via taxes. Also, at least in Germany there is the Merit-Order system im place, which artificially creates a price for electricity with the explicit goal to make it more independent of the costs of each individual source. While you are correct that prices have been high (also after adjustment for pp, but not as much), the price shock in recent years was due to gas, for instance, and would have been high even if many nuclear power plants were still on the grid.
I am just saying that things are not as simple as some comments on this thread make them out to be. The statement that nuclear is cheap (it is only if you ignore the expensive part of the costs) because my electricity bill is small is just not reasonable.
I just realized I engage in a discussion on a shitposting community. I guess I am kind of new here.
It kind of does tell you the state of the grid, which is mostly nuclear in France.
"In December 2020 IEA and OECD NEA published a joint Projected Costs of Generating Electricity study which looks at a very broad range of electricity generating technologies based on 243 power plants in 24 countries. The primary finding was that “low-carbon generation is overall becoming increasingly cost competitive” and “new nuclear power will remain the dispatchable low-carbon technology with the lowest expected costs in 2025”. The report calculated LCOE with assumed 7% discount rate and adjusted for systemic costs of generation.[79] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
The IEA is a bad joke that has been notoriously wrong in its projections for decades. Nobody in the industry takes them seriously.
How so? I am in the industry and everyone I work with take them seriously.
Edit:
Even if you refute predictions made by the IAE, nuclear is still not as expensive as other sources of electricity. For a more specific example, the University of Waterloo released this report analyzing the Ontario grid in 2017.
If you look at Table 1, you will find that nuclear costs between hydro and wind while gas and solar cost more. This is one example but it does illustrate that nuclear is not necessarily the most expensive. Things have improved for renewables since then but I believe they have for nuclear also.
That page shows nuclear being way more expensive than photovoltaic solar with batteries, more expensive than wind power and more expensive than coal. So it exactly backs up my point.
The graph on the global studies page does seem to indicate that. However, if you actually read the data and how the graph was prepared, it uses one dataset for renewables and a different dataset for nuclear and coal. Additionally, these numbers significanly differ from the IEA data which shows that nuclear is one of the least expensive. As I said in a comment below, there are other, more localized studies that show nuclear is one of the cheaper ways to produce electricity. I would hesitate to say that nuclear is the cheapest option since there are different studies with different results, but to claim that it is the most expensive would be just as misguided for the same reasons. At the end of the day, more electricity is needed as countries look to decarbonize there energy needs. Hydro, wind, and solar are effective and renewable but a stable, carbon-free solution is needed where there is insufficient hydro or geothermal and I believe nuclear fits that bill perfectly.
But the IEA is a lobby group. It’s not like their numbers have any credibility. Like I said, nuclear is way more expensive by all numbers except fake ones.
How is it a lobby group? Do you have any sources to back up your claim or is it simply based on your bias because you do not agree with the data they put together? Again, even if you discount their data, there are plenty of other studdies that corroborate the fact that nuclear is not the most expensive method of producing electricity, are all of them somehow wrong? What you need to understand is that there are different factors that can be included which can dramatically change whether one way of producing electricity is better or worse. Nuclear has a high up front capital cost but a very low operating cost per MW. Solar and wind are cheap initially but require replacement every 10 years or more and also generally need a way to store energy if they make up a bulk of the grid. If you factor in the lifecycle and energy storage costs, they are comparable to well designed nuclear plants. I am from ontario, and nuclear has been an incredible benefit to the province.
France has been importing more electricity than exporting in 2022 because their nuclear reactors can’t perform in the heat resulting from climate change. And this is more likely to happen again as each year becomes hotter.
I’m not sure where this fetishism for France‘s nuclear energy is coming from.
- France has been a net exporter for 40 years straight before that, as well as being the top exporter most of that time in Europe.
- Also they’re back to Top 1 right now.
- Last year’s gap in electricity production was not due to heat (only a few reactors were slowed down for a few hours, and we’re talking about less than 0.5% loss due to these shutdowns over the year).
Besides, it’s not a technical limitation on nuclear power, it’s an ecological measure.
The hole in production was due to a corrosion problem detected in several reactors, which occurred at the same time as maintenance work in other reactors that were behind schedule because of COVID. This would have had no impact if nuclear power had not been left virtually abandoned for 30 years because of the anti-nuclear movement.
It’s the classic story: anti-nukes shoot nuclear power in the foot, then claim that nuclear power doesn’t work, despite reality.
Genuinely curious here… what about the concerns of nuclear waste? My understanding of it is based on the Simpsons so ELI5 how modern tech resolves the waste issues?
The question of nuclear waste is an extremely minor problem compared to the ecological issues we’re facing, and which we’ve been addressing for decades.
Anti-nuclear people just prefer to cover their ears and pretend it’s an insolvable problem.
Most of it can be recycled (as in used for other nuclear products or services like MRI machines), but it doesn’t because of fear of weaponization. What can’t be recycled can be buried.
See these videos for more info on nuclear energy. The first one includes a nukeE’s commentary. His intros are a bit dry, but he’s very informative on kurzgesagt’s content.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/SXq2oLfS2gk
https://piped.video/Jzfpyo-q-RM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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You’re quoting 2022 because that year >30% of the reactrors were taken offline for maintenance. The French government is also shutting down nuclear reactors due to lack of funding & outdated technology.
This is not an inherant problem with nuclear, but because the French government hasn’t invested since the 70s.
If funding wasn’t cut (due to environmental activists), the output would be more than needed.
Nuclear is still our best bet for combatting climate change and reducing carbon emissions.
Im quoting 2022 because this was last year. As in, the most recent year.
I don’t disagree that we should have phased out coal instead of nuclear first. But what has happened has happened. I do disagree that we need a „nuclear renessaince“ now, because neither the economics nor the timelines work out at this point in time. Solar and wind is cheaper, faster to build, and more flexible as you can iterate on their designs MUCH more quickly than nuclear plants. That’s the main reason why solar panel efficiency is going through the roof.
Why cannibalize the investments in what obviously works?
You only solve one part of the problem: what do you use when there’s no sun and no wind? Coal? Gas?
As far as I can tell, there is no time with no sun AND no wind: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_statistics_-_latest_trends_from_monthly_data
In fact, there are multiple studies claiming that you can very well supply base load with renewables, for instance this one:
https://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf
One other problem with nuclear is that it has to run at a fixed output level, and can’t be scaled down if there is eg. lots of solar power being generated. In this case, you have to scale down renewables to make sure you can use the nuclear power, which makes it clash with the eventual goal to power everything with renewables.
Maybe it comes from France exporting the cheapest energy in Europe in the last 20 years. But yeah, 2022 means nuclear energy is worthless I guess.
What do you mean by cheapest energy? Nuclear is more expensive than renewables, if you factor in construction and maintenance cost. It only works because it has been massively subdisidized.
Or do you have some source that this energy is „cheaper“? Please be aware that France caps their electricity prices internally and subsidizes them with taxes (which is fine, but makes the prices incomparable to other countries).
„The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.“
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSKBN1W909J
Are you pretending that renewable are not subsidised? Renewable are young yet, how will the prices do in 10 years when they will start to be maintained and replaced? What about the energy you need to complement renewable? Is it considered in their price or not? Do you consider the price of renewable when they’re cheap because of overproduction?
https://4thgeneration.energy/the-true-costs-of-nuclear-and-renewables/
You’re like “did you consider factors a, b, c, d?” and then link to an article that explicitly ignores all of those factors and compares only the amortized cost of the construction of the plants, omitting all other operating costs.
We omit the higher operational costs for the nuclear power plant as they are an economic benefit as well. These costs are recycled back into the economy through wages and taxes.
On top of that, this argument is a classic economic fallacy. It’s a little bit like saying “breaking windows is an economic benefit because people will pay glass makers to fix them and so money flows back into the economy.” It completely ignores opportunity costs.
I haven’t seen any levelized cost of electricity study that makes nuclear competitive with wind and solar power. Now I’m not against nuclear power in principle, and as the renewable share goes up grid operators might be willing to pay a premium to subsidize reliable nuclear base load generators.
However the economic proposition I just cannot see. The long lifetime is actually working against nuclear plants here as potential investors assume much greater risk, combined with enormous up-front construction costs. Who wants to invest billions of dollars to bet on electricity prices 60 years into the future? Lots of things can happen in that time.
That’s why small reactors are developed. So these parasites of investors can finally be useful to society.
Now I linked the first article I found. It’s hard enough to find any relevant information. You chose to answer that only. Fine.
In Europe the market is not free. And any sane country would subsidised energy production. I would bet USA also does it. In Europe ARENH means all énergies are helped by nuclear energy production, a system meant to help other energies to compete with it. Renewable are funded by states for decades now, and they’ve been so eventhough they were far from competitive 20 years ago.
nuclear reactors can’t perform in the heat
I’d love to see the science behind why the reactors couldn’t perform in the heat seeing as how essentially all regular power generation involves spinning a turbine with steam. Temps might be hot in Europe, but they aren’t quite 100C/212F hot.
Nuclear plants are cooled with river water, and that water is getting too hot:
“Reactor production is limited during times of high heat to prevent the hot water re-entering rivers from damaging wildlife.”
So it’s not due to any physical limitations but an environmental protection issue.
Also in the article
“… at a time when half its reactors are offline due to maintenance and corrosion issues.”
So they are doing maintenance and found some issues requiring more work.
Why don’t they build them in cold places then? They don’t have any cold areas north? Can they build em next to glaciers before those melt too. If they all melt, we may be too dead for it to matter anyways.
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The fetishism for nuclear was just imported 1:1 from Reddit
Or you know, it just makes sense and wasn’t imported from anywhere? Some of us actually prefer real data and science instead of sensationalism and fear mongering.
It’s just so apparent that the pro nuclear brigade is not preferring all real data, just the one it fits. I am not against nuclear per se, I just find it hilarious how at reddit and here as well, people are just SO pro nuclear that nothing else should even be considered. Which made me think if all that is just a very persistent astroturfing campaign
very persistent astroturfing
To suggest that the nuclear industry is capable of any kind of lobbying activity is utterly laughable, given its history. We’re talking about a sector which, for over 40 years, has been unable to prevent the cancellation of almost all its research projects or new reactor construction projects, and which still sees very strong opposition all over the world, as well as in the European Parliament.
The only reason why nuclear power’s reputation has been partially restored in recent months is that electricity prices in Europe have soared as a result of the common market, and countries that have opted for renewable energies have become dependent on Russian fossil fuels.
Actually, the nuclear power industry did / does indeed run astroturfing campaigns. For example the “pro-nuclear civil society” in Japan. If you read up on nuclear power online you will find an abundance of websites and groups which offer very one-sided information and are tied to the nuclear power industry.
Nuclear fission power had huge investments and substitutions but turned out to not be economically feasible in most cases. There is a lot of money to be lost and made in this industry.
Between scientists there is also no consensus whether nuclear power (in its current application) is a good thing.
Then look at the data. Vogtle was just completed for over $30/watt. You could build solar with 16x the nameplate capacity and 24 hours of lithium battery storage to make it baseload for that same amount.
Does this take into account the value of the land? Solar notoriously takes up space so I’m curious how much space you’d need for a solar farm that could produce as much power as Vogtle…
Lemmy was pro nuclear long before the Reddit migration
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Yup, just like Vegans, environmentalists come up with an answer they like and find some shakie science to back it up.
What do you mean by this?
The groups I spoke of only like to use science that supports their narrative. If there’s any studies/experiments that refute what they belive in, they’ll usually disregard it.
(Unironically) good neighbor indeed. If I was Belgium, I want that sweet nuclear energy.
Just that france has nuclear power plants that are often not well maintained. We had issues with one close to the german boarder as well
Power plants that are not well maintained ? What event are you taking about ?
Minimizing the NIMBY effect by corner placing the reactor plant.
Sim City strats FTW!
I, too, like to place my garbage dump on the border so my neighbor can enjoy the aroma.
we like to share :)
Quite literally. It’s a shared project between Belgium and France.
Chooz A only. And it’s closed since 1991 cause it wasn’t anymore profitable.
Isn’t this being a good neighbour?
I’m betting they are sharing the power with Belgium. So if thats the case they are being a great neighbor.
France is one of the only net electricity exporters who don’t use fossil fuels to make that electricity. Unfortunately lack of funding has seriously degraded their nuclear infrastructure and it is now at risk of collapsing, leaving the country and their export partners with severe power shortages.
As always, the issue isn’t with nuclear power as a technology, but with mismanagement.
if anything this is a win for belgium since they get all that sweet local electricity production without paying for the nuclear plant.
Not sure if you are joking, but the customer is paying for the plant. And you can be damn sure you’re paying premium prices for imported energy.
nonetheless they benefit from having local production as that reduces the need for electricity from further away, which reduces the amount of transmission losses.
This effect is significant enough that even just rooftop solar in sweden means you’re owed a rebate from the energy company, as you’re saving them money.
Better than buying oil from Saudis and Russians
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And in case they accidentally pull a Fukushima, they can just secede that part of the country and say “it’s YOUR problem now, suckers”
Plot twist: they create another Bir Tawil
Classic french
Belgium actually wanted this plant built
Oh cool, more power to them
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Actually, the nuclear power industry did / does indeed run astroturfing campaigns
Which nuclear power industry? Given the sheer scale of a nuclear power plant project, most research and reactor projects are public projects, with only SMRs seeing any recent interest in the USA. So you think it’s the States that are conducting astroturfing campaigns? The same states that have been sabotaging nuclear power everywhere since Chernobyl? Is there any evidence of this?
For example the “pro-nuclear civil society” in Japan.
The only thing I have found about this is a study which I have to pay 43€ to read.
If you read up on nuclear power online you will find an abundance of websites and groups which offer very one-sided information
You can find that kind of content for about any other subject you can think of. That doesn’t make it proof of astroturfing.
and are tied to the nuclear power industry.
Same question, what is exactly the “nuclear power industry” you’re talking about?
Astroturfing campaigns promoting solar and wind power can be directly linked to the oil industry, as when Jay Anthony Precourt, head of oil and energy start-ups and a major investor in gas, swung a total of $80 million over three years at Stanford University to finance the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, which later published a glowing report on a 100% renewable future. (If you don’t see the link between fossil fuels and renewables, take a look at Germany: when there’s no wind, they burn coal and gas. Fossils are very compatible with renewables.)
Can you find the same with nuclear?
Nuclear fission power had huge investments and substitutions but turned out to not be economically feasible in most cases. There is a lot of money to be lost and made in this industry.
This is factually incorrect. What’s expensive is investing to build a cutting-edge industry, then dismantling it before it becomes profitable under the pressure of public opinion.
The French Court of Auditors has estimated the total cost of French nuclear power at around 130 billion euros between 1960 and 2010, including research, construction and maintenance. At its peak, a 1000MW unit of French nuclear power cost 1.5 billion euros, and the French nuclear industry produced two 900 to 1300MW reactors a year for two decades.
Everything came to an abrupt halt in the 90s, not because it wasn’t profitable, not because it didn’t work, but because the Russians made a mess of their power plant, which didn’t even have the same design as the others, killed a few hundred/thousand people, and traumatized hundreds of millions.
Between scientists there is also no consensus whether nuclear power (in its current application) is a good thing.
There is no definition of “a good thing”.
On the other hand, we know that nuclear power is the least polluting, least resource/space-consuming and safest form of controllable energy.
The increase in nuclear power is an essential of the 4 scenarios of the IPCC reports, and the European Union, based on these reports and other studies, has recognized nuclear power as an energy with a positive impact on the environment. and they incorporated it into the green taxonomy.
For context, wind generally blows eastward across Europe
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