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Comment by DataDaemon | Hacker News Reader

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Germany build the equivalent solar-capacity to the sum of every nuclear reactor it ever operated in the last 3 years.

Our _green_ minister of the economy and energy continued running the reactors even past their agreed run-time because the Ukraine war happened, but they simply reached end-of-life.

So we've replaced the small amount of nuclear we had with renewables already. Now you might ask why we don't build new ones to move away from fossil fuels faster. But why should you? It's impossible to argue that it would be economical given this chart:[1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...

I don't think the parent's criticism was limited to the last three closures, but the whole fleet that was shut down starting 2011.

The 3 year solar capacity includes every reactor ever build in germany, including those decomissioned _before_ 2011.

That's very impressive amount of solar capacity, but the nameplate power is not super useful measure in solar, as the capacity factor for solar is somewhere between 10-15% in Germany, while for nuclear it's more like 90%. To get rid of fossil fuels in Germany, a ton of natgas heating would need to be replaced with electric heat pumps, driving up the power consumption during winter. Solar hardly produces any energy during the winter.

Is that nameplate or actual usable solar? In Texas or Spain the solar capacity factor is about 0.2, in Germany it's probably 0.15 or less.

So if it's nameplate equivalent but with nuclear capacity factor of 0.9 or more you'd have to 6x the solar to produce the same amount of energy to the grid over a year.

10.1% capacity factor in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Generat...

Prices have been going down for about a year, and are now lower than before the war, despite massive shocks and transformations.

Also, if you care about low prices, nuclear is among the worst options.

Would love to understand more about your last statement.

Nuclear reactors take a long, long time to recoup the investments. During that time the cost of electricity generated by them is quite high compared to renewable sources like wind and solar.

This compounds when cheaper sources are being added to the grid, pushing prices down and making nuclear even less viable economically. For nukes to work, economically speaking, electricity prices need to be stable over a long period of time or they become perpetually in the red.

For this to work you can't have liberalised electricity markets, you need the government take the brunt of the risk of new nukes when it's economically not viable and have a design that spans a lifetime of 50-70 years so future generations can benefit from the lower cost after the capital costs are paid off.

I see, makes sense.

Nuclear is dead in EU.

It's a capital intensive project that should run 24/7 to recupe the cost.

What will happen when solar is cheaper than nuclear 50% of a year(that is going to happen, we can charge batteries for a day and solar will have enough capacity)?

Thanks to electricity pricing, it won't be bought and thusprice from nuclear will have to be double in remaining time.

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