I'm Italian and I'm super happy with this.
The referendum that made nuclear energy illegal in Italy was held right after the accident of Chernobyl; people voted with their gut, not with their mind.
Curiously enough, some Italian town signs still have a small sub-sign reading "denuclearized municipality" (example: <a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/1421/712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://live.staticflickr.com/1421/712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jp... )
As someone who thinks nuclear is both less efficient and much more expensive than renewable energies - would you mind sharing a bit why this makes you happy?
Since all plants in Italy are closed since the 90s won’t it take decades and billions of tax euros to get them back operational again?
It’s not either or, you need both. We haven’t solved energy storage so renewables can’t be the only source of energy. If you look at Value-Adjusted Levelized Cost of Electricity (VALCOE) it changes the calculation quite a bit. We have negative energy prices a few times per year in Europe as it is.
We’ve solved both. The research has moved on from VALCOE to whole system modeling. Including transmission, storage, backup, firming and modeling it hour by hour.
Studies are converging on renewable energy systems being cheaper in climates ranging from Australia to the Nordics:
Some recent ones:
Finland, 2025: nuclear scenarios 71–84% higher system cost; unrestricted least-cost optimization builds zero new nuclear.
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225042720" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422...
Denmark, 2026: system-level LCOE including storage, flexibility and system integration; renewables substantially cheaper than nuclear.
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226009837" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422...
Australia, CSIRO + AEMO GenCost 2025–26: whole-system modelling including transmission, storage and firming; renewables + storage remain the lowest-cost net-zero pathway.
<a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Electricity-transition/GenCost" rel="nofollow">https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Ele...
Or do you mean half the French nuclear fleet offline due to corrosion and cracking issues? Or the majority of the Eastern European due too hot or low rivers? Or half the Swedish fleet multiple times the last couple of years?
Please do tell what is wrong with the CSIRO GenCost.
There are scenarios where either can fail, that’s why it’s smart to have a multi pronged energy strategy. Maintain strong industries for being able to do both renewables and nuclear in house so you can hedge the tail risks of either of them. Not everything needs to have the most economically efficient model. As we’ve seen with the supply chain problems they happened during Covid, some things are more important than absolute cost.
"Multi pronged" works when different technologies complement each other. The problem is that renewables and nucelar power competes for the same slice, a battle nuclear loses with a mile. Any grid will include emergency reserves. But those optimize for lowest possible CAPEX and higher OPEX. Since they sit idle most of the time.
Nuclear power has the opposite spread of ruinously expensive CAPEX and acceptable OPEX.
I would say the pandemic shows that you do not need to account for every possibility. Humanity is amazing at adapting itself and finding new solutions to the problem at hand, rather than wasting all our resources trying to prevent the next made up disaster.
This is why we model with 10 year winters, X00 year floods or similar. Fix reasonable problems, leave the tail risk as tail risk. The worst that happens are rolling blackouts until the grid adapts, which is no different than any other outage due to grid maintenance or someone cutting a cable with a digger.
reddalo · · focus · HN ↗
The referendum that made nuclear energy illegal in Italy was held right after the accident of Chernobyl; people voted with their gut, not with their mind.
Curiously enough, some Italian town signs still have a small sub-sign reading "denuclearized municipality" (example: <a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/1421/712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://live.staticflickr.com/1421/712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jp... )
icantevenhold · · focus · HN ↗
Since all plants in Italy are closed since the 90s won’t it take decades and billions of tax euros to get them back operational again?
sndcr · · focus · HN ↗
ViewTrick1002 · · focus · HN ↗
Studies are converging on renewable energy systems being cheaper in climates ranging from Australia to the Nordics:
Some recent ones:
Finland, 2025: nuclear scenarios 71–84% higher system cost; unrestricted least-cost optimization builds zero new nuclear. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225042720" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422...
Denmark, 2026: system-level LCOE including storage, flexibility and system integration; renewables substantially cheaper than nuclear. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226009837" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422...
Australia, CSIRO + AEMO GenCost 2025–26: whole-system modelling including transmission, storage and firming; renewables + storage remain the lowest-cost net-zero pathway. <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Electricity-transition/GenCost" rel="nofollow">https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Ele...
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
Edit to add: heh, the CSIRO eh? That bastion of truth.
ViewTrick1002 · · focus · HN ↗
Please do tell what is wrong with the CSIRO GenCost.
lifty · · focus · HN ↗
ViewTrick1002 · · focus · HN ↗
Nuclear power has the opposite spread of ruinously expensive CAPEX and acceptable OPEX.
I would say the pandemic shows that you do not need to account for every possibility. Humanity is amazing at adapting itself and finding new solutions to the problem at hand, rather than wasting all our resources trying to prevent the next made up disaster.
This is why we model with 10 year winters, X00 year floods or similar. Fix reasonable problems, leave the tail risk as tail risk. The worst that happens are rolling blackouts until the grid adapts, which is no different than any other outage due to grid maintenance or someone cutting a cable with a digger.
toasty228 · · focus · HN ↗
It mostly happened because covid hit at the same time.