Schon während seiner Kanzlerschaft sei die damalige Bundesregierung der Auffassung gewesen, die deutsche Energiepolitik aus der Abhängigkeit der Kernenergie zu befreien. "Wir fanden deshalb, dass es Sinn macht, auf Gas zu setzen."
Uranium is cheap, widely available (largest known reserves in Australia, 3rd in Canada, also Sweden recently had a large find), compact, solid, storable.
Giving a preference to intermittent renewables is not a law of nature, but a rule that is irrational and needs to be removed.
Denmark is just now hitting problems with their wind strategy, and of course dependent on being a transit land between large producers and consumers. And currently looking at nuclear. As is Norway.
One of the reason is that intermittent renewables are pro-cyclical, that is once they reach a certain level of saturation, they cannibalize each other even more than they cannibalize steady suppliers.
The current plan is to quadruple nuclear power in the UK.
> Nuclear power is dispatchable, unlike renewables.
While you can turn nuclear up and down a little bit the fuel costs are negligible so it costs the same to generate 80% or 100% of rated output. It's done in France because nuclear makes up so much of their generation capacity they have no other option.
> Giving a preference to intermittent renewables is not a law of nature, but a rule that is irrational and needs to be removed.
I think carbon-free generation options should be considered dispassionately with a focus on minimising cost and reducing CO2 emissions as quickly as possible. But there is path dependence at this point. The wind generation capacity will already have been built out before many more nuclear plants come online. I think this will make the economics of expanding nuclear power generation unattractive because we will already have made the commitments to buy the wind generation and we will instead look for the lowest priced options to fill the gaps.
> Denmark is just now hitting problems with their wind strategy, and of course dependent on being a transit land between large producers and consumers. And currently looking at nuclear. As is Norway.
>
> One of the reason is that intermittent renewables are pro-cyclical, that is once they reach a certain level of saturation, they cannibalize each other even more than they cannibalize steady suppliers.
The fast decreasing cost of batteries will help smooth out fluctuations in wind generation across a day or two. That should reduce the level of cannibalisation between wind projects substantially, though does not remove the need for backup power for longer periods of little wind.
I suspect the proposed SMR projects in Norway and Denmark will depend on whether anyone is able to get SMR build costs down sufficiently to make them attractive. It certainly makes no sense to ban them outright.
> The current plan is to quadruple nuclear power in the UK.
That was the 2050 target from the last government. In terms of actual commitments the only planned plant after Hinkley C is currently Sizewell C. At the same time 4 of our 5 remaining nuclear plants will be decommissioned by early 2030. I think the target is highly unlikely to be met.
There is a £2.5 billion investment in SMRs (if you can call reactors around a 1/3rd the size of existing nuclear power plants small...) but will they really have reduced costs?
> In terms of actual commitments the only planned plant after Hinkley C is currently Sizewell C.
Well sure, they only got those commitments through this summer. At around the same time as they were getting the commitments for Sizewell-C (and pre-construction work has commenced), they also designated the next site.
And, yes, they also selected the winner of the SMR competition.
Here current statements from the government:
"Starmer pledges to ‘build, baby, build’ as green groups criticise nuclear plans"
Radiophobia is an irrational or excessive fear of ionizing radiation, leading to overestimating the health risks of radiation compared to other risks. It can impede rational decision-making and contribute to counter-productive behavior and policies.
I think the concern most people have is not necessarily the long-term health effects of nuclear vs other forms of power, but the risks of a catastrophic incident
That Tsunami also knocked out most of the Tsunami walls it encountered, because it was so much bigger than expected. Nevertheless, a nearby power plant of the same design survived a slightly higher crest than at Fukushima unscathed and even served as an emergency shelter for Tsunami victims.
That plant had always had the higher wall due to one engineer who insisted, and Fukushima actually had a natural barrier that was higher, but lowered during construction for convenience. And TEPCO dragged their feet on increasing the height to the new norm that had recently been made mandatory. My understanding is that this is one of the reasons TEPCO got dinged.
And even with all that, a German reactor, for example, would have remained undamaged due to various mandatory safety features even without a sufficiently high tsunami wall. For example, multi-sited and bunkered diesel generators, so no flooding. Also Hydrogen recombinators, so none of those lovely hydrogen explosions that blew the roofs off.
But of course Germany had to shut off its nuclear plants due to the regular occurring 1000-year Tsunamis in Germany that German plants would have survived.
We're crazy.
Oh, and still exactly 0 radiation deaths from Fukushima, and no measurable health impact expected. All health effects, including deaths were due to the unnecessary evacuation. And not just unnecessary in hindsight, this was known beforehand, gut officials panicked.
Did I mention that Japan is restarting their reactors and considers nuclear an essential part of their future energy strategy, as it is the cheapest baseload power source? The monetary cost of importing Gas exceeds even the vastly inflated cleanup and compensation costs (due to the unnecessary evacauations) by at last an order of magnitude. And of course the health impact of those fossil fuel plants during normal operations is higher than that of the nuclear accident.
> 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.
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 £200 billion. Which does put the cost of £41 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.
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 €5.5 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 £92.50/MWh in 2012 prices (£128.90 in 2024 prices). At the last auction wind prices were £54.23/MWh in 2012 prices (£75.68/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.
> Now those prices for intermittent wind exclude the cost of providing backup power with gas
Yes, let's just handwave those concerns away, it's not like the grid needs power 100% of the time or anything. Two weeks without wind? No problem, just burn gas :) It's so cheap, independent of foreign supply, doesn't leak out of pipes and isn't a huge environmental hazard at all.
But then also be honest that nuclear can't solve that problem either. It's extremely slow to ramp up and down so it cannot keep the grid stable either.
So the only way to power your grid with all nuclear is to produce at the daily peak load + margin all day. Every day
This is completely false. Nuclear plants can and do ramp up quickly, thought not from/to 0, but that's generally not necessary.
And they provide grid stability by having rotating masses on the grid, and thus combine pretty nicely with small to medium amounts of intermittent renewals that can provide some of the peak power.
> And they provide grid stability by having rotating masses on the grid, and thus combine pretty nicely with small to medium amounts of intermittent renewals that can provide some of the peak power.
We already have grids operating without traditional baseload. This is a 2015 talking point.
See for example South Australia keeping either 40 MWe or 80 MWe fossil gas in standby (I would presume this is the lowest possible hot standby power level for said plants). They are aiming to phase this out in the near future as storage comes online.
Inertia is trivially solved in 2025. Either through grid forming inverters which today are available off-the-shelf or the old boring solution of synchronous condensers like the Baltic states used to have enough grid strength to decouple from the Russian grid.
This truly shows your ignorance. Please show curiosity rather than redditesque comments like this.
First. The final report of the Iberian blackout is not completed yet. It is taking longer than expected due to how complex the situation was.
They did release an interim factual report in which they specify the facts. The full root cause analysis and recommendations on how to prevent similar events is coming in Q1 2026.
From the factual report we learn that:
1. The cause was a lack of voltage control. Do you see inertia here?
2. They did expect traditional power plants to provide this, without verifying.
3. They did not expect renewable power plants to provide this, therefore they did not.
In about all other grids like, like for example the US, renewable plants are expected to provide voltage control. It is trivially done by extremely cheap off-the-shelf components.
But if the expectation does not exist then it will not be provided since the cost is non-zero.
My point was that, just like with renewables, a 100% nuclear grid doesn't work either.
They can adjust power but they're typically used as he load with some other source dealing with the peak load needed a short time a day. Typical peak capacity can be off in the middle of the night for example. Nuclear doesn't like that.
> At 10 pence/kWh the two reactors at HPC will produce electricity worth £200 billion.
2 things, 10 pence is a lot. Not for retail but no power plant gets anywhere near that. It's mostly like 6 or 7.
Aside from that, the money you put in today is not spent on other things so there's an opportunity cost there too. That 40 billion at 2% interest is 60 after 20 years for example
> 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.
What do you mean? Plenty of renewables are built without any government backing..
It is quite telling that you are spamming this entire submission with extremely strong opinions about how amazing nuclear power is, ignoring any contrary facts. Taking any mention of renewables close to a personal insult.
Then turning around and not understanding that ”TWh” is already adjusted for capacity factor.
In my eyes it is hard to take you seriously when you don’t comprehend even basic physical properties of our grid and energy systems. Let alone economics, timelines, opportunity cost etc.
The tide is "we've become advanced enough to know that there is no one-size fits all solution for energy generation and are taking a more nuanced approach to address the local and different energy needs of differing regions/grids".
I hate these online debates that frame things like "renewables vs nuclear" when the reality should be "zero-carbon emission sources vs carbon emission". The only part of nuclear is in that is if it should be on the table or not. But it is absolutely idiotic from that framework to take nuclear off the table because you're not saying "nuclear everywhere" you're saying "if nuclear makes more sense for this setting, then use nuclear".
Don't oversimplify things, it makes everything too complicated.
The problem is that we can’t be wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc on handouts from tax money to new built nuclear power.
As soon as zero fuel cost renewables enters the picture the mix of extremely high CAPEX and acceptable OPEX for new built nuclear makes it the worst companion imaginable.
The problem is that the setting nuclear power makes sense in is for the people living north of the arctic without abundant hydro or a transmission grid.
We’re now down to a handful communities in Russia, the US and Canada and Svalbard.
If these communities pertaining a few hundred thousand people keep running on fossil fuels while we achieve larger impact elsewhere that’s perfectly acceptable.
> The problem is that we can’t be wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing
I agree. FULLHEARTEDLY. That is at the very root of my message, isn't it?
> on handouts from tax money to new built nuclear power.
But this is where I disagree. For 2 reasons
1) You don't seem to be applying this same measure to other energy sources like renewables, storage, and so on.
2) "Government money" works differently than "people money". I am not the best person to explain this but I'll summarize what my girlfriend and her dad constantly say, both having PhDs in economics (who teach this stuff and work with governments) "An economist can only tell you how much something costs, not if you should do it or if the results are worth the cost." Like a economist can tell you how much a hospital will cost and how many lives it might save, but at the end of the day they can't tell you if that's the right choice or not.
# Costs
You really should check out the Lazard report[0]. They get pretty detailed.
Jump to page 8 and you'll see a table like this (let's see how well I can format this here lol. Won't look nice on mobile)
Solar (Comm & C&I) $81----------------------$217
Solar (Util) $38----$78
Solar + Stor (Util) $50-------------$131
GeoTherm $66-------$109
Wind (OnShore) $37--------$86
Wind+Stor (On) $44------------$123
Wind (OffShore) $70----------------$157
Gas $108^5 $149-----------------------$251
Nuclear $34^5 $141--$169^6--$200 $228^6
Gas Comb Cyc $31^5 $48-----$107^7-$109
^5: Reflects cot of opperating fully depreciated facilities, includes decommissioning, salvage, restoration
^6: Based on Vogtle nuclear power plant with "learning curve" being ~30% between units 3&4. Based on 70 year lifespan
So there's important things here.
1) *Existing Nuclear* is the cheapest zero-carbon source
2) Vogtle is Lazard's *ONLY* source of data for new nuclear
2.1) Removing the "Learning Curve" costs from Vogtle puts competitive with renewables ($118-$160)
2.2) Including the "Learning Curve" Vogtle is already competitive with rooftop solar
3) (Page 9) Renewable prices are much cheaper thanks to subsidies.
3.1) Solar
$81-$217 --> $51-$178
$38-$78 --> $20-$57
$50-$131 --> $33-$111
3.2) Same for wind but you can look
3.3) *NOTE* Trump is ending subsidies
You're also going to be very interested with pages 19-20 for storage costs. In particular the cost of residential storage.
> The problem is that the setting nuclear power makes sense
This is just not true! You've vastly oversimplified the setting. I'd agree, there's probably no reason for nuclear in the American Southwest. There's lots of sun, lots of open land, and lower environmental impacts. But this isn't true elsewhere. Hydro is great, but you forget that it has pretty heavy environmental impacts as well. You have to create a reservoir, meaning you have to put land under water. Not to mention how it changes the water.
There's no free lunch!
# "[Costs] can't tell you if that's the right choice or not"
And that's the reason I said what I said! You both are vastly oversimplifying things to the point where you think there's one right answer. THERE ISN'T. The whole point of the renewables movement isn't to make cheap electricity, it is *to make the environment better* while still producing the energy we need and at affordable prices. If this was just a price discussion then we wouldn't be where we are and gas and coal would be the cheapest option. *BUT we care about the environment*. Not just the carbon in the air, but the carbon in the ocean, the animals it impacts, the forests and lands (both of which are also a vital part of natural carbon sequestration!), and making the planet a better place not just for humans but all life.
Get out of your internet armchair and go find out what actual experts are saying. Not the dumb science communicators on YouTube. Not the clickbait like "IFuckingLoveScience". Go watch lectures online. Go watch lectures in person! I don't know how to tell you this, but you can straight up email any professor at any university. People respond! Not only that, but you can go sit in on their classes (I'd suggest you ask first, but nobody fucking takes attendance). Go grab actual books (those people will recommend those books to you too!).
Take your passion for arguing on the internet and make sure it is at least equal to the passion you have for learning about the actual subject matter. If your love of arguing is greater than your love of the actual subject then I promise you, you are harming the very community you believe you are fighting for. You can even go ahead and ask those same people I'm requesting you reach out to and I'm sure plenty will tell you the same. I mean for Christ's sake, you got so caught up in me calling you out that you didn't even recognize I called out the person you were arguing with and instead put me into the same bucket! Clearly putting me in the same bucket as mpweiher is a categorical mistake!
I'm always tired of the anti-nuclear zealots that make it look like it's an either/or situation.
We can (and should) do both. Even if renewable plus storage ends up being sufficient in some places, it is extremely unlikely that will apply everywhere.
And at the current production rates, it would take multiple decades to transition everything.
Even if we take forever (10 years+) to build new nuclear, as it happens to be right now, it would still be beneficial. And there is no good reason we can't build fast like China manages to do right now.
For example, French nuclear capacity factors are currently rising. One reason, as far as I can tell, is that they can now use intermittent renewables for at least some of the peak load, meaning they don't have to ramp their nuclear plants up and down.
Win win!
Also, PV is absolutely fantastic for hot deserts: lots of sunshine and a lot of load that correlates almost perfectly with that very same sunshine.
French capacity factors are rising because half their fleet was offline [1] in 2022-23 and they are finally getting out of that. But apparently nuclear power is 100% reliable and does not need any backup since that would add to the already unfathomably large costs for new built nuclear power.
In terms of total energy produced France is far off their earlier peaks. [2] They just keep shrinking the nuclear share.
Until March of 2023, decreasing the nuclear share was the law in France. The law said that the nuclear share was to be decreased to below 50%.
In addition, the absolute capacity of nuclear power was not allowed to increase.
So in order to build even just one new nuclear power plant, for example to maintain industrial capacity, they had to shut down two existing plants.
Which generally makes very little sense. And it precluded building nuclear power plants the way we know how to build them quickly and cheaply: multiple units of the same design, slightly overlapping.
So the law forced France to build Flamanville 3 the exact way we know how not to do it.
I think you're ignoring what actually happened. In 2022 half the reactors were down for repair and maintenance. This didn't have anything to do with the French's move to becoming less reliant upon nuclear power[0]. This had to do with scheduled maintenance being delayed due to covid, causing it to all happen at once. Then there was a rush on it due to the war in Ukraine breaking out. France was importing energy from Germany at that time (a rare thing in of itself) but then Germany being highly dependent on natural gas caused a big squeeze for energy all across Europe. Germany being the #2 exporter of electricity in Europe (France typically being #1)[1]
So while I agree with part of your response that ViewTrick is missing, but you are also ignoring a critical part of the reality and that makes it so you don't actually address their comment. You completely missed their first point and why it happened. You also completely miss the big reason for why there's a large increase of nuclear share post 2022. You're instead focusing on one plant which isn't representative of the reality of things. So you're not answering their misunderstandings because you don't actually address the data they are looking at.
[0] Which is a good thing! I want new nuclear power, but I also want a diversified portfolio of energy sources.
> Even if we take forever (10 years+) to build new nuclear, as it happens to be right now, it would still be beneficial.
Why would it be benifical to waste multiples more money on less results taking longer time to delvier? This seems like zeolotry rather than logic speaking.
1. France decarbonized their electricity sector in 15 years. Cost was €228 billion.
2. Germany has been trying and failing to decarbonize their electricity sector for the last 20+ years, the "Energiewende". Cost so far: €700 billion and rising. Specific CO₂ emissions for electricity are 10x worse than France (2024 numbers, 2025 isn't over yet, but so far it looks like little or no change).
Which is faster and cheaper, in your humble opinion: (1) or (2)?
These are typical disingenuous pro-nuclear arguments trying to frame it as a comparison between two non-existent options in 2025 because rooting our future in reality makes your so position untenable that even you can't bring yourself to type it out.
1. We pay 2025 (soon 2026) costs for renewables and storage today. Thus a total sum calculated by adding up costs for 2010 solar subsidies is not applicable.
2. We pay 2025 (soon 2026) costs for nuclear power today. Thus a total sum calculated on half a century old French data is not applicable.
But thanks for the admission that as soon as new built nuclear power costs and construction times face our 2026 reality it becomes economic and opportunity cost lunacy to invest in it, unless you have extraneous motives like military ambitions.
> I'm always tired of the anti-nuclear zealots that make it look like it's an either/or situation.
Same BUT I'm also tired of pro-nuclear zealots doing the same thing. There's a lot of armchair experts on both sides and neither are helping us solve the climate problem. They just cause fighting and ignore the complexities of the situation. It should not be controversial that climate change is one of the most complex problems humanity has ever faced, yet it is. We have tons of issues about the climate, tons of issues about the environment, tons of issues about each technology, tons of issues with manufacturing, and so on. It is mind boggling how complex this all is if you just start to build out the graph of dependencies.
Unfortunately public opinion matters, as every one of these power sources needs government subsides and funding to progress. From direct construction to funding of further research. *That is political*. It shouldn't be, but is because we decide where money gets allocated and with any complex issue it is easy to oversimplify and create malinformation to portray spending as wasteful when it isn't.
I'll make an analogy to programming since we're on HN. People are posting as if they have read all the code their computer is running. There simply isn't anyone that has done that, even the experts. We can only have a narrow understanding and hope that there's an overlap of people who have complete coverage over all the code. So we need to stop arguing "facts" and instead argue "my understanding" as it is just too fucking complex. I mean how many people have even run a very basic weather simulation?
It's totally fine to have opinions. I want people to have opinions! But I want the passion of peoples opinions to be directly proportional to their passion of understanding the things they're talking about. The worst fucking thing we can do is have very strong opinions on things we are not making an integral part to our lives. By having unsupported strong opinions we just drown out the real experts. The opinions that matter the most. For the love of god, it is absolutely apparent with the issue of climate as we're constantly raising voices that have no legitimate experience in the field and calling them experts. We've seen such disinformation campaigns happen for decades! Yet we're still here and we do the same fucking thing with a million topics. I'm just pissed off at everyone having strong opinions about everything. I'm pissed off at everyone wanting to be a know-it-all. Get your passions and dive into them, but recognize your own limits. You're not dumb for not knowing something and your opinion isn't a reflection of you, but rather the information you have. We don't have to waste so much time with all these dumb fights.
In fact, Lazard themselves are very aware that their numbers are not representative for nuclear (as indicated by the footnote) and they themselves are very bullish on nuclear.
Renewable energy and storage are built without subsidies all over the world? 75% of all new capacity in TWh (i.e. corrected for capacity factor) is not built on feel good environmentalism. It is pure market economics.
I am applying the same measure to both. What renewable subsidies can do is speed up our uptake by stranding fossil assets faster. Which is why the fossil lobby is allying with nuclear power since it knows any money redirected to the nuclear industry will prolong the life of their fossil assets.
I think you got lost in the statistics. Your figures are for the US which are some of the highest in the world due to tariffs and a complex regulatory regime.
> 2) Vogtle is Lazard's ONLY source of data for new nuclear
Adding Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, the proposed EPR2 fleet, Virgil C. Summer and the countless started but then unfinished projects does not paint any prettier picture for western new built nuclear power.
> If this was just a price discussion then we wouldn't be where we are and gas and coal would be the cheapest option
That is where it started. Today renewables are the cheapest energy source in human history. It is cheaper all-in than the cost to run fully depreciated coal and gas plants.
What we are seeing is that for the first time in centuries we are lowering the global price floor for energy. From fossil fuels to renewables.
We’ve seen this happen in the past with hydro. Which famously is "geographically limited" after we quickly dammed up near every river globally
Nuclear power was an attempt at this starting 70 years ago. It didn’t deliver. It’s time we let go.
The renewables movement started as a way make our world better. Now we’re at the cusp of unlocking the next step of available energy for humanity while keeping it green.
Celebrate that rather than locking in useless handouts for new built nuclear power.
The time to invest in all alternatives was 20 years ago. We did that with for example the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The starting of Gen 3+ reactor projects all over the western world and similar measures.
We also started to really invest in renewables.
Based on this investment we can unequivocally say that new built nuclear power is a dead-end waste of taxpayer money while on the other hand renewables and storage are delivering way way way beyond our wildest dreams.
> Large scale storage is down to $50/kWh. Home storage less than $100/kWh.
Thank you. I too can read the data from the graph I reproduced in my comment. I know in a day of AI people might not read all the text they produce, but I did.
No need to provide another example, especially when your example includes subsidies.
Given this, I cannot take you as engaging in a serious conversation so I'm going to leave you to it now. It is clear you've treated the data with as much care as you gave to reading and understanding my own comment.
I am very familiar with the Lazard LCOE/LCOS/LCOH reports and have read them cover to cover every year since ~2018.
The data and examples I pointed out are nowhere to be found in your graph. For residential storage, which you mention when pointing to pages 19-20 they base it on data from page 43.
Where they find an initial battery cost of: $721 – $1,338 per kWh.
I linked you to residential batteries at a cost of $66.1/kWh. Available off-the-shelf today in Europe. Unsubsidized.
This is unsurprising given that you can buy individual A-grade LFP cells for $50/kWh in Europe.
Don't you think lowering the cost by a factor of 11 to 20 is enough to completely rethink the calculus compared to your "graph"?
The western residential storage market is completely out of wack. You can often get a BEV at a lower price per kWh than home storage. And that includes a car.
> No need to provide another example, especially when your example includes subsidies.
>> 2) Vogtle is Lazard's ONLY source of data for new nuclear
> Adding Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, the proposed EPR2 fleet, Virgil C. Summer ...
...doesn't broaden the data on which you base your conclusions nearly enough to make any broad predictions. Even if things were normal, a couple of hand-picked examples don't show much of anything. But things are not "normal" with that selection.
All of these projects are of just two reactor types, the Westinghouse AP-1000 and the French EPR.
One of these has even been discontinued by its manufacturer, because it was too difficult to build. Do you know which?
All of these builds were also First of a Kind (FOAK) builds. Westinghouse had submitted plans for the AP-1000 to the NRC that were not actually buildable. Do you think that generalizes to future AP-1000 builds, now that they have modified the plans to make them buildable and have, you know, built them?
Speaking of the different between FOAK and NOAK builds (Nth of a Kind): China's first two AP-1000 reactors took about 10 years to build. They are now building a slightly uprated version, the CAP-14000 (so 1,4GW electric instead of 1,0GW), in 5 years. For $3.5 bn.
Coming back to FOAK builds: Hinkley Point C had 7000 changes applied by the regulator to the design while it was being built.
Are you saying we need to broaden our data to imaginary reactors the west did not build to pad the numbers?
The currently proposed handout from tax money for the French EPR2 fleet is 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans. Sum freely.
> Do you think that generalizes to future AP-1000 builds, now that they have modified the plans to make them buildable and have, you know, built them?
Yes. The total cost for the proposed three Polish AP1000s is $47B. The final cost for Vogtle was $37B. A near equivalent cost per GW. Poland haven't even started building and thus haven't begun to enter the long tail of cost increases for nuclear construction. Only beaten in size by the
Olympics and nuclear waste storage.
> Coming back to FOAK builds: Hinkley Point C had 7000 changes applied by the regulator to the design while it was being built.
Lets blame everything on ”FOAK”. Despite Hinkley point C being reactor 5 and 6 in the EPR series. But that is of course ”FOAK”.
Then allude that the next UK reactor will be cheaper. Despite the projected cost for Sizewell C is £38B before even starting compared to the current projection at £42-48B for Hinkley Point C.
Sizewell C will be two EPR reactors. You know, the reactor you called discontinued. Despite it not being discontinued.
The framing of an either/or situation is one that renewables advocates (commonly) make, it is not shared by nuclear advocates. Almost all industrialized nations are doing both.
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.
Delays and cost overruns for nuclear are absolutely not atypical. Pick anywhere in the world you want and you’ll find them building reactors easy 50% over time and budget, and many >100%.
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.
>>It is important to note that within Germany’s generation data, Ember’s analysis has identified an unusual trend of declining solar irradiance-adjusted performance over the past several years. We do not yet have a definitive explanation for why this is, but it could be related to challenges in measuring behind-the-meter solar generation, exacerbated recently by high levels of residential battery storage. Regardless of the cause, it is possible that there is under-reporting of German solar generation.
Why did you try to completely change the subject to "baseload" solar rather than your previous point of "cannibalizing/curtailment"?
I will take that as an admission that storage will unlock the curtailed/cannibalized renewables and further reduce the economic outlook for any fuel driven electricity generation like coal, gas and nuclear power.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/worlds-dumbest-energy-policy-11...
Yep, the Gas that was needed due to ... the World's Dumbest Energy Policy.
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/mecklenburg-vorpommern/nord-s...
Schon während seiner Kanzlerschaft sei die damalige Bundesregierung der Auffassung gewesen, die deutsche Energiepolitik aus der Abhängigkeit der Kernenergie zu befreien. "Wir fanden deshalb, dass es Sinn macht, auf Gas zu setzen."
Uranium is cheap, widely available (largest known reserves in Australia, 3rd in Canada, also Sweden recently had a large find), compact, solid, storable.
Security:
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-gigantic-unregulated-p...
In Ukraine, nuclear is what's keeping the lights on.
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