Yep, France has cheaper energy than Germany. France went nuclear, Germany went solar/wind (and even had to re-online some coal plants due to shortages).
The pushback on nuclear from anti-fossil advocates never ceases to amaze me.
Additionally, why it is stupid to build new nuclear plants (keep the old ones as long as the maintenance is not too high).
If you now decide you need 1 GW in 10 years
Then you can plan your nuclear power plant and start to build it. However as we know it will now take 30 years to build it and costs 10 times as much, while your demand is now 4 GW.
Also what do you do in the meantime? Hope that the power is enough for 10 years?
Nuclear is expensive, not scalable, and takes way too long to build.
It is pretty safe. Especially new reactors. Also the atomic waste should be recycled in different nuclear reactors, which can use it as fuel, but those are still in research.
Yeah. A series of fucktarted decisions caused Germany to fuck themselves:
Germany turned off all their nuclear plants (why?!)
Germany turned off all their coal plants (good)
Germany vastly increased natural gas imports and tied themselves at the hip to Russia (they were publicly told this was a bad idea. Germany laughed it off)
Germany ramped up solar/wind production (good)
Germany did not invest in grid-scale storage to go with that solar/wind (Just going whole-hog on trusting Russia)
Russia invaded Ukraine and held natural gas exports to Germany’s throat (boy, who would have guessed Russia would fuck over Germany?!)
Germany had to emergency expand their LNG imports amid record-high prices and with hastily-built LNG terminals (LNG is also the most expensive way to import natural gas)
Germany had to online coal plants due to shortages (boy, those nuclear plants would have been damn helpful!)
Germany now has some of the highest priced electricity anywhere
They really, really, really should have kept those nuclear plants like France…
Going away from nuclear without a good plan b to replace the power was stupid.
We basically replaced nuclear power with wind and solar, but the new power demand that was coming since the turning off of the nuclear plants, was achieved by building gas turbines. So fossil fuels again.
And now our energy minister is a lobbyist from the gas energy sector…
The amount of high level nuclear is overstated and over-exaggerated it’s common for people to refuse the actual figures.
This is what 20 years’ worth of spent nuclear fuel looks like safely stored at the former Maine Yankee nuclear plant.
The plant generated 119 billion kilowatt hours of reliable power from 1972-1996, which is enough to power half a million homes each year.
20 years for half a million homes. And that’s an old generation reactor which is less efficient with fuel usage and not even considering that something like 98% of it can be reprocessed into useable fuel if the incentive was there. The reason its not is the same reason old solar panels aren’t reprocessed into new panels: It’s cheaper and easier right now to just produce new ones.
Nuclear waste is a problem for the most like any other. Given enough investment it can be solved, and no I’m not talking about finding better ways to store it.
China has made major advances in this regard, their newest reactors generate waste that is much less long-lived (hundreds rather than tens of thousands of years), and they can reduce the volume of that waste through recycling.
I’m not saying nuclear waste is not a hard problem to solve, it is and we must be careful as a society to make sure it is managed well.
In the meantime, we have a climate catastrophe which is much more pressing. Coal plants, which provide base-load electricity, are a prime target for conversion to nuclear, because their steam turbines can be reused. This could decarbonize a large part of the electricity mix of many countries.
Why not nuclear?
Most expensive way of heating water
Russia is doing it and their electricity costs are cheapest on the planet
Yep, France has cheaper energy than Germany. France went nuclear, Germany went solar/wind (and even had to re-online some coal plants due to shortages).
The pushback on nuclear from anti-fossil advocates never ceases to amaze me.
France is heavily subsiding nuclear power.
Without it, it would be the most expensive one.
I am all in for nuclear power, as long as it is waaaaay cheaper than it is right now.
Even buying the uranium is today more expensive than building a solar plant. (compared to resources per power generation)
Additionally, why it is stupid to build new nuclear plants (keep the old ones as long as the maintenance is not too high).
If you now decide you need 1 GW in 10 years Then you can plan your nuclear power plant and start to build it. However as we know it will now take 30 years to build it and costs 10 times as much, while your demand is now 4 GW.
Also what do you do in the meantime? Hope that the power is enough for 10 years?
Nuclear is expensive, not scalable, and takes way too long to build.
It is pretty safe. Especially new reactors. Also the atomic waste should be recycled in different nuclear reactors, which can use it as fuel, but those are still in research.
Isnt Germany’s costs are absolutely outrageous? Like the most expensive in Europe
Yeah. A series of fucktarted decisions caused Germany to fuck themselves:
They really, really, really should have kept those nuclear plants like France…
Yeah Germany fucked it really hard.
Going away from nuclear without a good plan b to replace the power was stupid.
We basically replaced nuclear power with wind and solar, but the new power demand that was coming since the turning off of the nuclear plants, was achieved by building gas turbines. So fossil fuels again.
And now our energy minister is a lobbyist from the gas energy sector…
Radioactive waste storage.
I do think that goal power plants need to be turned off before nuclear ones, but neither is sustainable.
The amount of high level nuclear is overstated and over-exaggerated it’s common for people to refuse the actual figures.
20 years for half a million homes. And that’s an old generation reactor which is less efficient with fuel usage and not even considering that something like 98% of it can be reprocessed into useable fuel if the incentive was there. The reason its not is the same reason old solar panels aren’t reprocessed into new panels: It’s cheaper and easier right now to just produce new ones.
Nuclear waste is a problem for the most like any other. Given enough investment it can be solved, and no I’m not talking about finding better ways to store it. China has made major advances in this regard, their newest reactors generate waste that is much less long-lived (hundreds rather than tens of thousands of years), and they can reduce the volume of that waste through recycling.
I’m not saying nuclear waste is not a hard problem to solve, it is and we must be careful as a society to make sure it is managed well. In the meantime, we have a climate catastrophe which is much more pressing. Coal plants, which provide base-load electricity, are a prime target for conversion to nuclear, because their steam turbines can be reused. This could decarbonize a large part of the electricity mix of many countries.