Nuclear plants are the worst possible way to reduce energy costs. They are also incredibly massive single points of failure, so they tend to reduce reliability compared to more distributed smaller generation units. Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level.
As we shift to more renewables and start to install more and more grid storage, and even home storage, reliability will increase massively. Those people with solar and batteries that can island their homes are completely fine the past few days.
We have a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable set of technologies now than we did in the 1970s. I don't see how nuclear can compete on any level, as it's incredibly inefficient and has proven that it can't scale in the modern world.
> Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level.
That’s a blatant lie.
According to the Bundesnetzagentur which is the local regulator for the electricity grid, the number of times where they have to intervene on the electricity grid to stabilize it has dramatically increased due to the higher share of renewables:
Did you consider the future impact of CO2 pricing in Germany?
Coal plants will shut down very soon and that will "surprisingly" make Germany look much better.
After all, the strategy that is currently being pursued is very erratic. The emission reductions are not going to follow a smooth curve like the CO2 emissions in 2020 showed. It's very difficult to make sense of what is going to happen. An us vs them comparison might not show the whole picture.
I can't read your link, so I don't know what you mean by "intervene to stabilize," but that actually sounds like a good thing, since the German grid has the least amount of downtime of any of its neighbors and is far better than the US. Here's an IEEE article:
> Germany’s energy sector causes 350 million tons of CO2 annually, 50 France’s just 50 million tons CO2 annually.
What is the relevance here? Germany has always burned lots of coal. Adding renewables, just like adding nuclear, reduces that.
> The kWh in France costs 17 Euro Cents, while it costs over 31 Euro Cents in Germany.
Again, what is the relevance here? Germany bought a ton of solar when it was super expensive, driving the industry forward and permanently lowering costs for everyone. It also charges residential consumers a lot more in order to subsidize industry.
>I have no idea why some people on HN keep spreading such lies about nuclear and the so-called Energiewende in Germany.
>You should get your facts straight!
I would insist that you do the same. Misrepresentations and cherry picked bad numbers are not helpful or informative.
That's really not justifiable unless you assume nuclear construction costs in the out-of-practice west apply everywhere, always and forever. To think this is to completely disregard the amazing nuclear builds in China (see Hualong One), the UAE (3 APR-1400s build by the Koreans), Russia (lots of VVERs), etc. At the costs they're delivering, current low-carbon 24/7 nuclear is a rock-solid choice.
Solar photovoltaic and wind are much older technologies than nuclear, to be fair on the "modern" quip.
> Solar photovoltaic and wind are much older technologies than nuclear, to be fair on the "modern" quip.
To be completely fair, the development of nuclear power took governments and would have been impossible otherwise. Solar and wind, not so much. The problem with nuclear is only cost, not NIMBY and before it is said so, it certainly is not the regulations jacking the cost of nuclear so high. If nuclear power was economically viable, you could not beat off the investors. The trouble is, the investors don't want to pay the $15B or so it costs to build a single plant, nor the cost of decommissioning, nor for the cost of storing the waste effectively forever, plus the cost of securing that, and certainly not for any accidents, as improbable as they may be. They just want to sell electricity and profit, and leave the government with the responsibility of paying for all the things.
And really to be fair, the cost of R&D for nuclear power has never been paid back. Pay the US and UK taxpayers back for the R&D and you can have all the nuclear power plants you want.
The German government spent like $500B buying expensive solar PV which was instrumental in allowing the manufacturing efficiencies to reduce prices to what we see today in solar.
Similarly, we know that serial construction of standard nuclear is cost effective from the examples cited.
Germany spent closer to $26B on Solar since 2016. Meanwhile, the US alone expects to spend $36B on storing nuclear waste. Half of the first generation of nuclear power plants being constructed were abandoned because of insurmountable costs.
If nuclear power was economically viable, no one could stop it. But investors do not want to pay for plant construction without massive subsidies that are now absent, nor for the decommissioning, nor for the storage of spent fuel; they just want to sell electricity and keep the money without any overhead. Where are the private investors! Bring them on and get it done! They're simply not interested. "Electricity too cheap to meter" never materialized. Renewable energy is a far better return, and today, nuclear power can not compete against renewables. Consider that if a tiny portion of the investment in R&D for nuclear energy had instead been invested in renewables, nuclear energy would have died in the 1960's.
Nuclear is a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable tech today than it was in the 70's as well. France has one of the highest levels of nuclear utilization, and one of the lowest energy costs in europe
The costs are all hidden. Removal and dismantling of nuclear waste and the decommissioning power plants is ridiculously expensive in places like the UK. When you factor that in also, nuclear ain't so cheap at all. Those costs only rise also.
The cost of dismantling and recycling solar panels, wind turbines, etc. is also hidden, using that same logic. And will present a huge problem in 20-30 years. We've already had 50 years experience decommissioning poorly designed reactors. We should know how to do it at least slightly better in the year 2021
The costs also do not rise per unit power. As with anything, the more you install, the cheaper it gets to install them.
It’s actually not expensive at all and fully paid by the energy companies.
The costs are always inflated by the anti-nuclear movement, but when you talk to actual nuclear engineers you will learn that these costs have never been a problem.
I have visited multiple decommissioned nuclear plants in Germany and the guides talked about the decommissioning costs which were 6 billion Euros for the two plants of former East Germany.
And keep in mind that a single nuclear reactor produces electricity worth more than one million Dollars - per day - with the NRC already having licensed plants for an 80-year lifetime such as the Turkey Point station.
And don’t forget that solar and wind will _always_ need a backup solution such as natural gas. You have to include these when comparing costs.
As we shift to more renewables and start to install more and more grid storage, and even home storage, reliability will increase massively. Those people with solar and batteries that can island their homes are completely fine the past few days.
We have a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable set of technologies now than we did in the 1970s. I don't see how nuclear can compete on any level, as it's incredibly inefficient and has proven that it can't scale in the modern world.