It is sad that this has become a topic of the culture wars. Nothing good comes out of this, certainly not a rational weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power.
I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally allow the building of new reactors but then fail to find investors. But perhaps they plan on using them as some sort of strategic assets and will just run them at a loss?
> certainly not a rational weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power.
Nuclear has no real cons other than time/cost of deployment, and it should be a no brainer for a place like Europe without significant energy resources. Once the power plant is built, it provides 50+ years of nearly free energy. It's that or buying gas from Russia.
>Nuclear has no real cons other than time/cost of deployment,
That's not true. It's extremely expensive to operate for one, so expensive in fact that nobody in the private sector wants to do it without having nation states basically guarantee profits for the lifetime of the plant or accept all liability. Which in several countries means that he operator is the nation state. Like in France.
The profits are guaranteed by collecting extra taxes from the population, not by increasing the price of electricity. Which is why people believe France has cheap electricity when they really don't.
Also of course each nuclear plant carries a nonzero chance of a trillion dollar incident (we've had two so far) as well as a nonzero chance of millions of casualties. Both these cons are entirely unique to nuclear power plants. No hydro plant, solar plant, wind farm, coal, oil or gas plant can cause as much damage as a nuclear plant.
>t's that or buying gas from Russia.
Not at all, there are many options (including buying gas from someone else). Some options got viable so recently people still haven't realized it. Like batteries. They're cheap now, you know, and China can build as many as we want. China has also caused a severe drop in the cost of hydrolyzers, used to create e-fuel. E-fuel means you can use solar power in winter and during night, which removes the remaining weakness of renewable sources. Europe should spend every eurocent in that direction instead of nuclear. That's the path to true energy independence.
And anyway, europe still gets 70% of it's nuclear fuel from Russia. How is that better than gas?
It's cheap to operate. See <a href="https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte...
The statement about getting 70% from Russia is total bullshit
What non zero chance of millions of casualties? Chernobyl, a shit design that weren't allowed in the west even then is estimated to kill about 4k in total. In Fukushima the number is zero or 1 deaths from radiation due to low dose. And that's old gen2 reactor striken by tsunami and earthquake
I've seen what antinuclear europe does to remove the weakness of renewables - subsidies for new gas peakers in Germany
>It's cheap to operate. See <a href="https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte" rel="nofollow">https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte...
It's not, the estimated production cost for existing swiss nuclear plants is 4-6 centimes per kWh, which is already expensive electricity and frequently higher than the market prices today. That is also the self-cost price, meaning whenever the market pays less for electricity, ch nuclear plants lose money.
And as always, swiss taxpayers cover that loss so you won't ever see it in the operators financial reports.
Also worth noting is that EDF in France sells for 7 cents after being bailed out when sellng at 4 cents. This is not cheap electricity.
> What non zero chance of millions of casualties?
Just to take one trivial example:
If nobody is able to refill the water in spent fuel pools at any nuclear plant, they will catch fire. Assuming a radial spread of the fallout it will be near guaranteed lethal for at least 50 miles, probably lethal for some 500 miles, and you "won't want to live there" for even further than that. And this will remain the case for millennia to decades, depending on weather and distance.
So basically 500 miles radius, uninhabitable for several generations if you run out of water.
Then consider that Switzerland is covered by a circle of some 120 miles, and has a population of several million.
Do you think the 4-6 centimes per kWh covers a scenario like that? I don't. Good thing Switzerland has lots of water...
4-6ct/kwh is dirt cheap. It's so cheap that even curtailing renewables to let it run more instead of using gas peakers is cheaper
And it's far from being higher than avg market prices today in Switzerland, where did you get this nonsense?
The price includes their profit margin. Even if they sell at lower, they'll still make profit, just less.
The claim about swiss taxpayers is bullshit, please stop spreading it, there's no proof to this whatsoever. Swiss nuclear plants operation is not subsidized.
Edf was not bailed out. It was renationalized (albeit state was always majority owner) to push for construction of epr2. EDF debt to EBITDA is healthy. It made profit pretty much every single year despite arenh, except 2022. EDF could definitely operate their npp more profitable but that's another story.
But even if we assume that 9bn transaction was a subsidy, do you realize it's merely half of what Germany is spending for EEG alone EACH YEAR?
"If nobody is able to refill the water in spent fuel pools at any nuclear plant, they will catch fire. Assuming a radial spread of the fallout it will be near guaranteed lethal for at least 50 miles, probably lethal for some 500 miles, and you "won't want to live there" for even further than that. And this will remain the case for millennia to decades, depending on weather and distance."
Please refrain from spread utter bullshit again. Not only you don't comprehend under what conditions used fuel catches fire or that if by some absurd reason nobody can cool the spent fuel to avoid boiling, something much more terrible happened, but catching fire/melting doesn't mean it'll be a fallout. It's clear you are antinuclear person and enjoy fossils. You don't need to invent bullshit to firm your position.
Land is not uninhabitable. Heck, even in freaking Chernobyl animals are thriving. Try saying the same about german coal mines
>And it's far from being higher than avg market prices today in Switzerland, where did you get this nonsense?
It's not nonsense but you made a different statement than I.
Switzerland doesn't use market prices. Electricity in Switzerland is regulated so they pay vastly more than the european market at most times.
This Sunday for example, Germany enjoyed spot wholesale prices of 2 centimes per kWh while Switzerland had 12. You can verify the German prices on nordpool and an equivalent swiss energy market site.
Citizens in Switzerland pay much more than wholesale, averaging over 20 centimes last year. They are forced to do so by regulations.
When you force your population, aka the taxpayers, to pay 5-10x as much for electricity as it costs in the open market you using taxpayer money to subsidize electricity.
You follow?
>Edf was not bailed out. It was renationalized
Thats synonymous, and it was actually the second time EDF were bailed out, France had to pay for the overruns on the plant in Finland too. Lucky Finland!
The mechanism varies by country, but the bottom line is that taxpayers always have to pay for nuclear. They have no choice.
There is no option to walk away, you can't leave it, it has to be taken care of. Every other power plant you can shut down and walk away but nuclear is, again, unique in this respect.
When all the swiss nuclear operators go bankrupt, the swiss will still have to pay people to operate the plants, or decommision them, and then store the waste, for longer than Rolex has existed as a company.
Nobody else will. So it's the taxpayers, always.
>by some absurd reason nobody can cool the spent fuel to avoid boiling,
Absurd reasons are not that uncommon. War for example. Also, landslides, earthquakes, terrorists, pandemics, sinkholes. Stupid politicians. Lots of things. Non-zero.
>something much more terrible happened,
The spent fuel fire will be the most terrible thing that happened that day, unless the cause was an actual nuclear weapon strike.
Or well, since it's Switzerland I guess CERN could have come up with something worse but I can't imagine what. ;-)
adrianN · · focus · HN ↗
I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally allow the building of new reactors but then fail to find investors. But perhaps they plan on using them as some sort of strategic assets and will just run them at a loss?
drnick1 · · focus · HN ↗
Nuclear has no real cons other than time/cost of deployment, and it should be a no brainer for a place like Europe without significant energy resources. Once the power plant is built, it provides 50+ years of nearly free energy. It's that or buying gas from Russia.
Kon5ole · · focus · HN ↗
That's not true. It's extremely expensive to operate for one, so expensive in fact that nobody in the private sector wants to do it without having nation states basically guarantee profits for the lifetime of the plant or accept all liability. Which in several countries means that he operator is the nation state. Like in France.
The profits are guaranteed by collecting extra taxes from the population, not by increasing the price of electricity. Which is why people believe France has cheap electricity when they really don't.
Also of course each nuclear plant carries a nonzero chance of a trillion dollar incident (we've had two so far) as well as a nonzero chance of millions of casualties. Both these cons are entirely unique to nuclear power plants. No hydro plant, solar plant, wind farm, coal, oil or gas plant can cause as much damage as a nuclear plant.
>t's that or buying gas from Russia.
Not at all, there are many options (including buying gas from someone else). Some options got viable so recently people still haven't realized it. Like batteries. They're cheap now, you know, and China can build as many as we want. China has also caused a severe drop in the cost of hydrolyzers, used to create e-fuel. E-fuel means you can use solar power in winter and during night, which removes the remaining weakness of renewable sources. Europe should spend every eurocent in that direction instead of nuclear. That's the path to true energy independence.
And anyway, europe still gets 70% of it's nuclear fuel from Russia. How is that better than gas?
Moldoteck · · focus · HN ↗
The statement about getting 70% from Russia is total bullshit
What non zero chance of millions of casualties? Chernobyl, a shit design that weren't allowed in the west even then is estimated to kill about 4k in total. In Fukushima the number is zero or 1 deaths from radiation due to low dose. And that's old gen2 reactor striken by tsunami and earthquake
I've seen what antinuclear europe does to remove the weakness of renewables - subsidies for new gas peakers in Germany
Kon5ole · · focus · HN ↗
It's not, the estimated production cost for existing swiss nuclear plants is 4-6 centimes per kWh, which is already expensive electricity and frequently higher than the market prices today. That is also the self-cost price, meaning whenever the market pays less for electricity, ch nuclear plants lose money.
And as always, swiss taxpayers cover that loss so you won't ever see it in the operators financial reports.
Also worth noting is that EDF in France sells for 7 cents after being bailed out when sellng at 4 cents. This is not cheap electricity.
> What non zero chance of millions of casualties?
Just to take one trivial example:
If nobody is able to refill the water in spent fuel pools at any nuclear plant, they will catch fire. Assuming a radial spread of the fallout it will be near guaranteed lethal for at least 50 miles, probably lethal for some 500 miles, and you "won't want to live there" for even further than that. And this will remain the case for millennia to decades, depending on weather and distance.
So basically 500 miles radius, uninhabitable for several generations if you run out of water.
Then consider that Switzerland is covered by a circle of some 120 miles, and has a population of several million.
Do you think the 4-6 centimes per kWh covers a scenario like that? I don't. Good thing Switzerland has lots of water...
Moldoteck · · focus · HN ↗
And it's far from being higher than avg market prices today in Switzerland, where did you get this nonsense?
The price includes their profit margin. Even if they sell at lower, they'll still make profit, just less.
The claim about swiss taxpayers is bullshit, please stop spreading it, there's no proof to this whatsoever. Swiss nuclear plants operation is not subsidized.
Edf was not bailed out. It was renationalized (albeit state was always majority owner) to push for construction of epr2. EDF debt to EBITDA is healthy. It made profit pretty much every single year despite arenh, except 2022. EDF could definitely operate their npp more profitable but that's another story.
But even if we assume that 9bn transaction was a subsidy, do you realize it's merely half of what Germany is spending for EEG alone EACH YEAR?
"If nobody is able to refill the water in spent fuel pools at any nuclear plant, they will catch fire. Assuming a radial spread of the fallout it will be near guaranteed lethal for at least 50 miles, probably lethal for some 500 miles, and you "won't want to live there" for even further than that. And this will remain the case for millennia to decades, depending on weather and distance."
Please refrain from spread utter bullshit again. Not only you don't comprehend under what conditions used fuel catches fire or that if by some absurd reason nobody can cool the spent fuel to avoid boiling, something much more terrible happened, but catching fire/melting doesn't mean it'll be a fallout. It's clear you are antinuclear person and enjoy fossils. You don't need to invent bullshit to firm your position.
Land is not uninhabitable. Heck, even in freaking Chernobyl animals are thriving. Try saying the same about german coal mines
Kon5ole · · focus · HN ↗
It's not nonsense but you made a different statement than I.
Switzerland doesn't use market prices. Electricity in Switzerland is regulated so they pay vastly more than the european market at most times.
This Sunday for example, Germany enjoyed spot wholesale prices of 2 centimes per kWh while Switzerland had 12. You can verify the German prices on nordpool and an equivalent swiss energy market site.
Citizens in Switzerland pay much more than wholesale, averaging over 20 centimes last year. They are forced to do so by regulations.
When you force your population, aka the taxpayers, to pay 5-10x as much for electricity as it costs in the open market you using taxpayer money to subsidize electricity.
You follow?
>Edf was not bailed out. It was renationalized
Thats synonymous, and it was actually the second time EDF were bailed out, France had to pay for the overruns on the plant in Finland too. Lucky Finland!
The mechanism varies by country, but the bottom line is that taxpayers always have to pay for nuclear. They have no choice.
There is no option to walk away, you can't leave it, it has to be taken care of. Every other power plant you can shut down and walk away but nuclear is, again, unique in this respect.
When all the swiss nuclear operators go bankrupt, the swiss will still have to pay people to operate the plants, or decommision them, and then store the waste, for longer than Rolex has existed as a company.
Nobody else will. So it's the taxpayers, always.
>by some absurd reason nobody can cool the spent fuel to avoid boiling,
Absurd reasons are not that uncommon. War for example. Also, landslides, earthquakes, terrorists, pandemics, sinkholes. Stupid politicians. Lots of things. Non-zero.
>something much more terrible happened,
The spent fuel fire will be the most terrible thing that happened that day, unless the cause was an actual nuclear weapon strike.
Or well, since it's Switzerland I guess CERN could have come up with something worse but I can't imagine what. ;-)