- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
After years of wrangling, France has set out a new energy law that slashes its wind and solar power targets and drops a mandate for state-run energy provider EDF to shut down nuclear plants.
How is it a problem if something is expensive and takes time if over its life cycle it warrants the costs? Such a short-sighted way of thinking.
It will never warrant the costs though. Renewable energy will always be cheaper.
At times of peak production yes, but it’s an apples to oranges comparison because solar and wind do not produce 24/7. They therefore either need grid-scale storage, which isn’t accounted into their costs because it doesn’t currently even exist at the necessary scale, or supplementary load-following base generation. Nuclear is the cleanest option by far for the latter.
Nuclear is a terrible option for load-following base generation. You have to run a nuclear plant at full utilization as much as possible to get the cost anywhere close to renewables + gas peaker plants, since as soon as you start to throttle your nuclear plant, the cost explodes. And with the development of renewables + storage those peaker plants won’t be needed for very long.
Sure, give me a couple Gigawatt in 10 + (random number of delays here) years at guaranteed prices subsidized by the government which due to rampant overflow of costs caused by said delays kill any resemblances of cost-effectiveness for the public.
Or continue adding 6 nuclear power plants worth of solar per year?
You can’t compare wattpeak numbers with 24/7 all-year generation capacity… That’s like saying I should skydive to work because I’d get there 10 times faster faster than by riding a bike.
Because nuclear powerplants operate 24/7/52. Looking at you, France! /s
But indeed, that’s why we need to add more. In 2024 and 2025 even more nuclear power plant equivalents were added.
So even if those six times peak power translate only to one time of power average over the whole year: Tell me why I should wait decades for a single power plants worth of capacity, when I can add an equivalent amount every year that’s producing cheaper electricity. And most oft all, I don’t have to care about hazardous waste disposal for centuries to come.
It’s more like “A decade”, and i’ll explain, because it’s actually much less nice than these infographics show.
So, doing the maths for you: 1 Wp ~ 0.85 kWh over a year. So 10 gWp ~ 8.5 gWh per year. But they only produce about 3% of that in winter, so about 255mWh in januari or december. That boils down to about 1/8th of a nuclear reactor. So, in reality it takes it takes at least 8 years to match one nuclear reactors, assuming you like keeping the lights on during winter.
But it gets worse, because they produce that power over about 8 hours (being generous) and don’t do anything during the other 16. So on top of literally an entire nation’s worth of solar panel growth you need to also STORE that power for at least 16 hours. Thankfully, Germany also added about 7.3 gWh in 2025, which is enough to cover that with (some) room to spare.
You could, of course, build two reactors at the same though. You can’t really double a country’s solar growth. And nuclear plants have MUCH longer lifespans than solar panels and especially batteries.
Tell me, how much nuclear waste is there actually? Like, take a guess how much waste that takes centuries is actually produced per, I dunno, human-lifetime-of-power.
One nuclear reactor every eight years? Still better than any current reactor project to date. Where is your argument?
I mean, building a nuclear power plant where none operates at the moment (Germany) would also be an entire nation’s worth of nuclear growth. What sort of argument is that supposed to be. Add solar or add nuclear, duh?
As for the storage: companies are even building long term battery storages without subsidies because it’s worth it on an economical scale to buy the overproduction during peak hours. Show me a nuclear project without subsidies.
Sure, but over these lifespans maintenance and eventually disposal is a massive cost factor which is one of the reason the overall cost calculation is so negative and requires massive subsidies.
Too much, because at least here in Germany, nobody wants to store it permanently. So better don’t produce any waste at all. It’s funny that this argument “It’s so little waste” always comes up but completely fails the reality check.
Found the data source in English
In political unstable times, a controversial project taking time gives more opportunity for opposition to delay or cancel the project. It is not my thinking that is short-sighted.
It literally is. You just described how you are only thinking of the immediate short term.