Germany drops opposition to nuclear power in rapprochement with France
ft.com
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However, there is just no way new nuclear power makes any sense for German grid. Just last week we had negative prices for _every_ day during peak demand (yes, peak demand is usually around noon, it’s just not visible because there is so much solar self-consumption) https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.
Nuclear capacity and grid batteries do different things, so the word capacity is rather too imprecise. Otherwise one could argue that a lightning rod has higher capacity and is cheaper than a battery.
With Vogtles $36.9B we are able to build the equivalent supply in renewables (in TWh) and 10 days of storage at Vogtles 2.2 GWe output.
Spending nuclear money on storage leads to the same thing.
And it puts in context just have horrifically expensive new built western nuclear power is.
I can't see what you are proposing to do with the $36.9B. How does this break down into GW of wind and solar and GW (and GWh) of storage?
Batteries:
- $63/kWh [2] installed and serviced for 20 years = $0.063B per GWh
Large-scale solar:
- A range of $850-$1400/kW [3] = $0.85B - $1.4B per GW
- Capacity factor of 15-30%
Say $1B per GW and 20% for easy round numbers.
Large-scale onshore wind:
- $1300 - $1900/kW [3] = $1.3B - $1.9B per GW
- Capacity factor 30-55%
So say $1.5B/GW and a capacity factor of 40%.
Nuclear power has a capacity factor of ~85% so to match Vogtle's new reactors we need to get to 2.234 GW * 0.85 = 1.9 GW
Solar power:
- 1.9/0.2 = 9.5 GW solar power = $9.5B
Wind power:
- 1.9/0.4 = 4.75 GW wind power = $9B
Compared to Vogtle's $37B we have $28B left to spend on batteries.
- $28B/$0.063B = 444 GWh
444 GWh is the equivalent to running Vogtle for.... 444 GWh/1.9 GW = 233 hours or 9.8 days.
This even ignores nuclear powers O&M costs which are quite substantial. By not having to pay the O&M costs and instead saving them each year after about 20 years we have enough to rebuild the renewable plant.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
[2]: https://www.ess-news.com/2025/01/15/chinas-cgn-new-energy-an...
[3]: https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
> - $63/kWh [2] installed and serviced for 20 years = $0.063B per GWh
The Lazard source does provide costs for storage on page 44, ranging from about 3x to 6x the cost of that Chinese tender process. Using these numbers gives a rather different picture with storage of between 3.25 days and 1.6 days, insufficient to make solar really work. Alternatively the fair comparison would be within China.
Another data-point would be the UAE's attempt to firm solar; $6B for 1GW effective baseload output with 18GWh of storage [1]. So the cost of Vogtle could buy 6 of these, providing perhaps 3 or 4 days worth of storage.
[1] https://www.renewableinstitute.org/uae-unveils-6-billion-gro...
[1] https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batt...
[2] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/24/what-are-the-implicatio...
Germany would have one of the biggest batteries on the continent if they controlled Lake Geneva @ ~341bn liters of water.
Pumped hydro storage is infinitely superior to Li-ion battery storage where it is available. Batteries are good for instantaneous response but lack the stability of water turning a large mass.
Solar creates a difficult environment for base load generators such as hydro, nuclear and nat gas. When it's sunny they nuke the price down to zero or negative but produce nothing when it is not sunny. As evidenced by Spain's recent blackouts you need a healthy mix of generation because renewables are seasonal in nature and not very stable compared to a large mass spinning at the correct frequency.
I won't deny that solar and wind make things harder, but linking the recent blackout to renewables without the facts is only done by fossil/nuclear propaganda orgs and their useful idiots.
The Spanish network had much wilder days before and did not break down. First insights point to possible design flaws in the network.
"healthy mix of generation" is quite funny to read, thinking about nuclear and coal which are not too healthy for the people living close to the plants :-D
> fyi, the root cause of the Spain blackout (not blackout) is not yet known.
While the final official reports may not be out initial data has been released and indicates frequency and/or voltage oscillations got out of hand causing generation disconnection and cascading blackouts. Renewable penetration in that area of the grid likely contributed to the brittleness especially in voltage control and inertia management.
"Inertia management is increasingly critical for grids with high renewable penetration. Many such systems now implement inertia floors to limit the maximum rate of change of frequency during disturbances. While inertia is often considered primarily for frequency stability, it also plays a crucial role in preventing loss of synchronism between different parts of the grid. As conventional synchronous generation decreases, careful monitoring and management of system inertia becomes essential to maintain stability during disturbances." [1]
>"healthy mix of generation" is quite funny to read, thinking about nuclear and coal which are not too healthy for the people living close to the plants :-D
I'll give you coal as unhealthy but natural gas is much cleaner and nuclear is entirely clean, save waste management which is a solved problem.
How does nuclear effect residents living nearby? I'm not aware of any reporting of systemic illness near any of Europe's nuclear plants but, I may just be ignorant of the latest research. Care to provide a link?
[1] https://www.powermag.com/understanding-the-april-2025-iberia...
I.e. you can control the amount of thermal you're feeding your turbines, to get the electrical output characteristics you want?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
Looks like the first few oscillations were successfully mitigated. I'm not sure what type of generation got cutoff that led to the cascade. Not sure how reliable this infrastructure map is but that area seems to have a pretty good mix of Natural Gas, Hydro Storage and Solar. https://openinframap.org/#9.14/37.4625/-5.8656
Which unfortunately meant they were unable to support the "reboot" of the network. That was started in the evening to avoid working hours (we were lucky and hat our electricity back at 18:30, while some people had to wait quite a bit longer). The reboot used mostly hydro, gas, and as much electricity as possible from France and Marocco. (well summed up in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...)
I wonder whether there could be a safe mode during load shedding that would not require a complete reactor shutdown. If that were the case, nuclear could have a stabilizing effect same as gas or hydro.
I am quite eager to learn about what really went wrong. We enjoy really cheap consumer prices for electricity (we use it to heat and cool, like in the US), thanks to solar and wind. I hope investing in batteries and network reliability will be enough to mitigate the problems.
The shutdown is due to an abundance of caution and is regulatory (in the US). When the grid falls below a certain threshold of stability the reactors are programmatically shutdown. (At least that's how it worked 20 years ago.) They have significant inertia but that only goes so far, as you mentioned until we see the final report we won't know for sure if the shutdown was manual or programmatic.
Depending on how long the Reactors were shutdown down Xeon poisoning could have also been why they took longer to start back up. Xeon poisoning is one of the attributes of our current fission technology that makes Nuclear less able to cope with instability compared to combustion generation.
>I am quite eager to learn about what really went wrong. We enjoy really cheap consumer prices for electricity (we use it to heat and cool, like in the US)
Air conditioning is a great application of Solar especially in the sunbelt. It just makes so much sense. When it is daylight and the Sun is unobstructed A/C draws a lot of power likewise Solar is at peak efficiency. I've never been to Spain but, if you all believe in A/C I may have to stop by next time I'm sailing the Med.
Instead caused by plants tripping, bugs in software, lack of maintenance etc.
Again. Let’s wait for the final report before drawing any conclusions.
Regarding the nuclear risk - it is driven by incidents. If the plant had not incidents, there would be no risk.
E.g. the childhood leukemia risk is double inside a 5km radius, and there is no good explanation for this (except the occasional release of radioactive exhaust in case of incidents). (https://www.bfs.de/DE/bfs/wissenschaft-forschung/wirkung-ris..., link is in German, sorry)
Same is true for the nuclear plant workers. Their cancer risk grows linearly with their exposure - which I assume is also an effect of minor incidents, especially if you exclude lung cancer (smoking was quite popular in the 20th century...). See e.g. https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Medizin/Krebsrisiko-im-Kernkraf...
On the worker front it makes sense that there is some linear correlation. I wonder how radiation exposure for workers compares to say a fighter jet pilot with 10,000 hours. In a fighter jet you have very little if any protection from radiation present at higher altitudes.
https://www.ksbw.com/article/residents-moss-landing-battery-...
To be clear I'm not at all opposed to grid scale battery storage if it can be built out safely and economically. But let's not pretend that it's safer than nuclear power. Modern nuclear plant designs with proper containment and backup systems have an excellent safety record.
The safety mechanisms are part of why nuclear is so ridiculously expensive. I think every major power needs nuclear infrastructure for their nuclear weapons, but I don't think it is economically viable anymore as a power source, whatever the propaganda says. Maybe for the US, China, and Russia who have enough empty wastelands to dump the nuclear waste at low cost. Finland and Sweden their granite. Everyone else has to do sth. expensive.
Burning coal for negative prices is not a good thing.
What was the price at midnight? Afaik there were days last year when Germany peaked at 1000 EUR/MWh at night.
If we want to incentivize "clean" tech, we should go by an objective metric, such as co2 emissions per kilowatt-hour (where nuclear power is even less emitting than PV/Wind over its total lifecycle)
Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2. Handling of this waste is often overlooked when looking at the costs or CO2 footprint.
And that does not even touch the associated risks.
Blocking other countries tends to make member states hate each other, which isn't good for the EU.
> Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2
You literally just put them inside steel concrete casks [1] after they were in a pool for a few years. You can even hug those casks safely. Whereas the CO2 is in the air we breathe and in the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming.
How is this "more problematic"?
Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents in spite of them being much more likely to die in their own car.
This doesn't compute: avoiding being a victim of a plane accident is rather simple: don't hop on any plane and your are something along the .99999 covered.
Avoiding being threatened (and many generations after you) by a nuclear major accident or erring 'hot' nuclear waste is way (WAY!) more difficult.
Car or plane, the people most exposed to the risk have some choice in the matter - to fly, drive, or be around vehicles.
New considerations are introduced when those exposed to the risks of your choice maybe hundreds of miles away with no say, or even yet to be born.
You set the bar too high. Radiation isn't an all-or-nothing phenomenon; we are exposed to background radiation all the time, so expecting perfection is unjustified. Also a large portion of radioactivity that might escape comes from short-lived isotopes, making short term evacuation a possibility.
The LNT debate isn't settled, effects of added background radiation is difficult to assess. Moreover the dust escaping from a nuclear plant may be inhaled, ingested... ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committed_dose ).
A "large portion" isn't all, and at Fukushima the nuclear accident-triggered evacuation officially made around 2200 victims.
> A "large portion" isn't all
Setting the bar too high.
> The LNT debate isn't settled
Indeed the evidence for effects at smaller and longer term doses is at best weak. We also have a good idea of how DNA repair works. But LNT seems like the least unreasonable conservative way to treat radiation, which may be replaced by something in the up-coming ICRP modernisation.
> Moreover the dust escaping
What sort of dust is this?
> nuclear accident-triggered evacuation officially made around 2200 victims
In hindsight how many of these people needed to be evacuated? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171120085453.h... How many people died from overheating due to a lack of electricity in the years after Fukushima?
> Setting the bar too high.
The major underlying point is a comparison: renewables vs. nuclear. And on those accounts (effect of a major accident, waste...) renewables are clear winners.
>> The LNT debate isn't settled > up-coming ICRP modernisation
Not sure about this. This "modernisation" is, AFAIK, stagnant ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_on_Ra... ). Moreover quite different hypothesis are more and more widespread ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gofman ).
>> Moreover the dust escaping
> What sort of dust is this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionuclide
Some escape during a nuclear major accident, and very few want it in the air they breath, the food they eat, the water they drink... Even most of those believing this will cause no harm may prefer clean air, food, water...
>> Fukushima nuclear accident
> In hindsight how many of these people needed to be evacuated?
Nobody knew at the time, and they even considered that evacuating the entire region may be necessary! ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoto_Kan#Fukushima_nuclear_ac... ).
Moreover even obedient Japaneses may, during a major nuclear accident, not be willing to obey to "please stay and wait!", especially from those who previously said "the nuclear plant is safe, there will be no problem.'.
In any case even magnificent armchairs' experts babbling 'they could and should stay and wait" years after the event cannot change History.
> How many people died from overheating due to a lack of electricity in the years after Fukushima?
This perspective also leads to preferring renewables as the will to shut down nuclear reactors during such accident, for the lack of an immediate full explanation, and also the imperative to do so after discovering some generic defect), all play for renewables.
The pressing (financial) necessity of building reactors in series (of units as identical as possible, in order to reduce unit costs) reduces their heterogeneity and thus the robustness of the fleet, to the point of making a "generic defect" one of the industry's fears, as the discovery of a defect can coerce int shutting down all reactors of the model concerned.
This is what happened in France at the end of 2021 with the shutdowns of N4 reactors due to as recently in France after discovering stress corrosion cracking ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Crisis... ) is specific to nuclear. If all the reactors in the fleet were N4, they would all have been shut down!
During and shortly after the major nuclear accident at Fukushima, all other nuclear reactors in Japan were shut down as a precaution and remained so for years. Most of them are still down in 2025, some claim that they are restarting but, 14 years after the accident, the hard facts are clear: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear... , reflecting the lack of enthusiasm of the population.
Let's check the trend. Share of produced electricity in Japan:
2011: 75% fossil fuels, 15% nuclear, 10% renewables
2024: 68% , 8.3% , 23%
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-mix-bar?time=2011&co...
Wind, solar... sources do not pose such a threat because they cannot trigger a catastrophe, so discovering a problem does not mean shutting down all units of the type in question. The heterogeneity of renewable source types (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc.), that of equipment manufacturers and models (wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, etc.), as well as the unit sizes of the latter, which are smaller than those of a nuclear reactor, and their geographical dispersion, increase the robustness of the renewable energy fleet: the probability that a large part of the fleet will break down, develop a fault, produce nothing, etc., is minimal.
No lack of electricity => nobody dies due to the lack of electricity.
So this not dust escaping during normal operation. This is an important qualification to your original statement.
> Moreover quite different hypothesis are more and more widespread
I would expect the presence of strong data to reduce the number of viable hypotheses. Chris Busby was very creative coming up with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Busby#Second_event... but it looks like overfitting to scant data.
> If all the reactors in the fleet were N4, they would all have been shut down!
If they were all N4 they would have been kept running and had a rolling program of repairs. So I do not agree with your desire to have a heterogeneous fleet of reactors.
> nobody dies due to the lack of electricity
we estimate that the energy-saving campaigns could have led to nearly 7,710https://epic.uchicago.cn/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/...
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
Indeed, however past accidents now forbid to claim that "this dust will never wander around, everything is under control".
> If they were all N4 they would have been kept running and had a rolling program of repairs.
Nope, as the defect was considered (by EDF itself, the company owning and operating it, chief of the nuclear industry in France, and AFAIK experts agreed) as too dangerous for the reactor to continue to operate.
> your desire to have a heterogeneous fleet of reactors
I don't desire any reactor. I'm only pointing out a major dilemma intrinsic to the "nuclear" approach.
> nobody dies due to the lack of electricity
I explained why a mix of renewables cannot lead to such ordeal, which was induced in Japan by the decision to produce electricity thanks to nuclear reactors and the decision to shut them off after the Fukushima accident.
Iberian blackout: nobody knows the cause for sure, experts are analyzing the event.
Who pays decide (Germany is the first financial contributor), that's business as usual.
> Whereas the CO2 is in the air
In the UE the question is how much renewables and how much nuclear will be built, and their (dubious) compatibility. Very few want to see more fossil fuel.
The "nuclear waste is a solved challenge" is funny, as experts explicitly state that there is no safe solution (due to risks induced by seismotectonics, intrusions, casks imperfections...).
It's the "Asse II mine" joke all over again: "there will be no problem" followed by "Ouch! Err...". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine#History
What is their definition of safe?
> It's the "Asse II mine" joke all over again
It would be good to see the cost/benefit analysis of the proposal to remove everything from the mine
https://www.nwtrb.gov/docs/default-source/meetings/2018/marc... page 17 has backfilling as the preferred option in 4 out of the 5 assessment categories.
Some claim that nuclear waste repositories are perfect (0 risk), and experts disagree.
> backfilling
Yay, such a superb gift to our children, their children, their children...!
The underlying point is about how much renewables and how much nuclear may we build in order to tackle current challenges (climate, pollution...), one of the criteria is waste and renewables win hands down.
Disagreement is natural in science as well as engineering. And absolutes are not. Framing nuclear waste disposal, or in fact any enterprise, in terms of finding total agreement on total safety is not useful.
> one of the criteria is waste and renewables win hands down
In what terms are we to assess the waste? By volume, likely number of people killed over the lifetime of the waste, maximum number killed? Do we count the waste from manufacturing as well?
Indeed, my point was about a form of propaganda quite common in France, which states that long-term waste repositories (now work-in-progress) will be perfectly safe. They won't.
> assess the waste?
Most of renewables' waste is recyclable, and more and more is recycled, even wind turbine blades.
> likely number of people killed over the lifetime of the waste
The more types of waste and the longer the lifetime (nuclear...), the more difficult it is.
> count the waste from manufacturing
As far as I understand yes, an adequate life-cycle assessment ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessment ) has to do so, however this is a good point: it may somewhat be neglected.
https://www.ssk.de/SharedDocs/Beratungsergebnisse/DE/2016/20...
It was a political decision by the greens to waste money.
In not-so-ancient times "experts" were also OK with ocean disposal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...
AFAIK few experts now judge adequate to use such mines, and many nations build dedicated repositories.
Flat earthers exist too.
> In not-so-ancient times "experts" were also OK with ocean disposal.
The link you gave did not list the effects of ocean disposal; elevated and measurable are not the same as significant or harmful unless you are a firm believer in LNT, although at the bottom of the ocean the background radiation dose from cosmic rays will be less.
Whatever they believe or not isn't impeding others' lifes.
The underlying point is about how much renewables and how much nuclear may we build in order to tackle current challenges (climate, pollution...), one of the criteria is waste and renewables win hands down.
> ocean disposal
AFAIK no expert now states that ocean disposal is OK, this is a settled matter since at least 1972 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Convention_on_the_Preve... ), therefore a bunch of assessments of the current situation for stuff dangerous for at least hundred years doesn't seem pertinent to me.
The principle is that we don't seek unanimity before proceeding with something.
> this is a settled matter since at least 1972
Disposal of small amounts of radioactive material at sea and into the air happens (e.g. reprocessing plant water releases, power station tritiated water releases).
An international convention does not settle the science behind ocean disposal. The lack of supporters perhaps reflects the difficulty in carrying out such research, and the problems of trying to change international agreements.
> this is a settled matter since at least 1972
This is an opinion. My (dissenting) one is that the more someone is or could be impacted, the more we have to take his/her opinion into account.
> Disposal of small amounts of radioactive material at sea and into the air happens
It doesn't imply that it is an adequate way to dispose of it.
> An international convention does not settle the science behind ocean disposal
"The main objective of the London Convention is to prevent indiscriminate disposal at sea of wastes that could be liable for creating hazards to human health; harming living resources and marine life; damaging amenities; or interfering with other legitimate uses of the sea." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Convention_on_the_Preve... )
> The lack of supporters perhaps reflects the difficulty in carrying out such research, and the problems of trying to change international agreements.
Nuclear-waste long-term repositories projects are very expensive and difficult (to the point of many attempts failing flat) everywhere, therefore attempting to convince that ocean-dumping is OK would be useful.
> > Disposal of small amounts of radioactive material at sea and into the air happens
> It doesn't imply that it is an adequate way to dispose of it.
My point is that ocean disposal of radioactive material still happens, and experts are OK with this legal activity happening.
> the more someone is or could be impacted, the more we have to take his/her opinion into account
How do we take into account the unborn generations? Or the unemployed created by high energy prices?
As far as I know ''certain Annex I materials dumping may be permissible if present only as "trace contaminants" or "rapidly rendered harmless"'' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Convention_on_the_Preve... ), that is to say we are far, far away from the massive (hundred of tons) dumps from the previous era ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_... ).
> take into account the unborn generations?
This is by definition impossible. We may consider opinions of the current generation as reasonable approximations.
> Or the unemployed created by high energy prices?
It could be an argument in presence of a consensus promoting a single way to establish the total cost of a given type of energy source. There isn't, and it doesn't come as a surprise as some unpredictable event (nuclear major accident, nuclear waste wandering in some populated area...) may hugely raise the total cost.
Moreover the total production cost (LCOE) of renewables is already way (and more and more) below nuclear's, and there is no consensual way to assess the cost of firming those sources (cancelling the effects of 'intermittency' on production). Add the general movement towards decentralization...
Nowadays the low-and-ever-lowering-LCOE of renewables more and more threatens the very business model underlying the nuclear industry which finds its foundation in a high load factor.
Mass of material dumped is not the same as radioactivity or potential harm caused. It looks as if "de minimis" is the key phrase in the convention, in Annex 1.3 . However the IAEA defines "de minimis" in terms of effective dose to people (10 microSieverts/year) per [1] page 14. So point still stands, some level of radioactivity being discharged to the sea is deemed acceptable by experts. If it can be shown that radioactive materials will leach out of the containers very slowly, can this "de minimis" still be met.
> We may consider opinions of the current generation as reasonable approximations.
So we should be able to vote on it?
> Nowadays the low-and-ever-lowering-LCOE of renewables more and more threatens the very business model underlying the nuclear industry which finds its foundation in a high load factor.
Intermittent generators also suffer from cannibalisation (duck curve and all of that), hence the need for subsidies and/or guaranteed prices.
[1] https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_244_web.pd...
Doses now tolerated are way below those of ancient dumps. This is a classic ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison )
I wrote "we are far, far away from the massive (hundred of tons) dumps from the previous era" to subsume it.
Moreover the whole Linear No-Threshold and bioaccumulation of radioisotopes debate is far from settled, therefore some experts judge even low doses too dangerous.
> we should be able to vote on it?
IMHO yes. At the very least every citizen paying for it or exposed to some risk has a vote. Direct democracy and referendums let any of them take part, and experts have to convince a majority.
> need for subsidies and/or guaranteed prices
It mainly is an effect of (past and current) massive subsidies granted to other types of energy sources (nuclear, fossil fuels...), the difficult struggle of incoming quickly evolving tech (photovoltaic, wind turbines...) versus amortized plants, and the insufficient amount of energy-storage deployed equipment.
All those burdens are (slowly, this is heavy industry stuff) vanishing and it (more and more quickly) becomes perceptible: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
Do those old dumps generate high doses? Is there evidence of the high doses generated, and if so why isn't this on the wikipedia page? I'm not able to tell whether the dose from an old dump is higher than that from a fuel fabrication, reprocessing plant or nuclear power station.
> therefore some experts judge even low doses too dangerous
One wonders how they get to conferences. Also whether they think about the difference between timber framed and brick buildings, or the background radiation when deciding where to move to.
Nobody knows. A new exploration campaign is running (named 'Nodssum' https://www.myscience.org/news/2025/dechets_radioactifs_une_... ), targeting North-Atlantic zones.
> Is there evidence of the high doses generated, and if so why isn't this on the wikipedia page?
AFAIK it now is forbidden to dump highly dangerous waste in non-negligible amounts in the ocean not because there was some accident, but because experts judged that it may trigger one. An approach is to advocate the "let's do whatever please until something breaks", another one is to think about potential consequences THEN to decide.
> dose from an old dump is higher than that from a fuel fabrication, reprocessing plant or nuclear power station.
Those contexts are way more under human-control than an ocean floor.
> One wonders how they get to conferences.
This is a weird way to describe a real, ancient (and IMHO growing, since Fukushima) controversy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model#Cont...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis#Proposed_me...
Would have thought a long-term study of these sites would have already been underway, given their apparent potential hazard. Surely Greenpeace would want such a study to back up their perspective (or does the position not require such evidence). Anyhow, disposing of the waste ten+ metres under the sea floor would have been much better.
> another one is to think about potential consequences THEN to decide
It is not there was an absence of research into this subject. For instance, the work done by Charles D. Hollister ... https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-28-mn-4440-... & https://www.jstor.org/stable/26057623 .
> This is a weird way to describe a real, ancient (and IMHO growing, since Fukushima) controversy.
You mistake my sense of humour; I was referring to the increased radiation dose from flying to/from conferences.
As far as I know those studies are far from extensive and there is no permanent effort.
> given their apparent potential hazard
The good'ole "who is in charge, who pays?" is at play.
In many nations the nuclear industry just doesn't care (they dumped their waste, and good bye!) or disappeared after a phase-out.
A fair part of those who can pay those studies prefer to pursue their own endeavors (why would they have to work in order to cope with other's boo-boos?), for example the lack of resources available for oceanographers' core missions is well-known.
> Surely Greenpeace
AFAIK obtaining and maintaining a boat isn't easy for them. Doing so for some bathyscaphe (or similar equipment) and all the associated infrastructure and expertise for what nowadays is a mission (showing the bad effects of civilian nuclear) which is vanishing just as its mere subject is, while others (pollution, overfishing...) are more and more difficult, seems 'ambitious' without any very generous dedicated donation (are you interested in giving?).
> does the position not require such evidence
As already stated experts decided nearly 60 years ago to quit dumping waste in the ocean floor (London Convention), this seems sufficient to me.
> disposing of the waste ten+ metres under the sea floor would have been much better.
Maybe, maybe not. It would have been way more expensive.
> work done by Charles D. Hollister
IMHO the nuclear folks liked to be able to dump waste from a barge. Asking them to dig the seabed...
> You mistake my sense of humour;
Indeed, sorry.
> I was referring to the increased radiation dose from flying to/from conferences.
The point is: anyone decides upon hoping in any jetliner, or abstaining from doing so. A nuclear reactor can trigger a major accident which lets no such choice in a huge area, and for quite a while.
If someone lacerates the tattooed arm of someone else and says "hey, you already hurt yourself with this tattoo" I'm ready to bet that most, including any judge, will not support him.
There was plenty of anti-nuclear money floating about years ago; https://www.influencewatch.org/movement/opposition-to-nuclea... lists quite a few organisations interested in opposing nuclear power in the USA. As for the cost, surely a few weeks of boat/submersible time every few years would suffice.
> Maybe, maybe not. It would have been way more expensive.
I was coming from the radiation protection perspective; less liable to dose the denizens of the deep were they to swim next to the waste. Also in the mud is better from an immobilisation perspective.
> IMHO the nuclear folks liked to be able to dump waste from a barge. Asking them to dig the seabed...
Perhaps we are speaking cross-purposes; the digging would be for spent nuclear fuel (or the vitrified waste) where the vast majority of activity is. As for contaminated suits and the like, disposal on land is a good enough option.
> If someone lacerates the tattooed arm of someone else
It is more helpful to study what happens in industry as a whole. Industrial accidents do happen, after which investigations are performed. An intolerance of accidents isn't a viable approach, but reasonable steps must be taken to keep risk to workers low.
They had much more efficient targets than old waste dumped in the ocean, especially after Tchernobyl and Fukushima!
>> It would have been way more expensive.
> I was coming from the radiation protection perspective
It seems indeed less risky from this perspective, however my point was about the total cost for the nuclear industry: dumping from barges is a breeze, digging the ocean floor is way less easy (and therefore cheap).
Many in the nuclear industry maintain the (quite old and until now vain) hope of obtaining a model of industrial breeder reactor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor ), and therefore are opposed to any waste-disposal option which makes waste-recovery more difficult.
> Industrial accidents do happen
AFAIK in every industrialized nation each and every sector of the industry HAS buy an adequately insurance (civil liability). Nuclear power is the sole exception: it is insured mainly at the taxpayer's expense and the reimbursement limit is ridiculously low. In France a study published by the official nuclear institute (IRSN) showed that a major accident on a single reactor may cost more than 400 billions euros (French ahead: https://www.irsn.fr/savoir-comprendre/crise/cout-economique-... ) , and the limit is about 700 million €. 3 orders of magnitude... The local Cour of Audit periodically yells about this. In the USA the limit is set at 16.1 billion USD ( https://environmentamerica.org/media-center/statement-federa... ).
You know, we all know a compiler is actually a shell, :)
Will it really?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Level... is a little unusual, it shows the cheapest nuclear power to be as cheap as the most expensive PV+battery. Still, it's difficult for me to see how this policy change will really change anything.
A real change would require a commitment against market-based production/sale of electricity, e.g. a quota such that power generators using PV/batteries were allowed to produce at most x% of the power in the EO.
Also LCOE is just not adequate to compare these two, as you have additional storage and transmission costs for intermittent, weather-dependent sources, whereas most nuclear power plants can be online providing full capacity more than 90% of the time.
LCOE does not account for that.
This IEA report uses a metric that includes those system costs (value-adjusted LCOE, VALCOE) and it shows nuclear energy is definitely competitive. Especially if managed well and power plants aren't prematurely shut down due to political reasons, like they were in Germany.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
Definitely not true of offshore wind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012502
Also it seems like a fallacy of composition to believe that a cheap system is formed from cheap individual components.
The point is that cheap components may require the use of other components to compensate for its deficiencies, and so on.
Solar panels need batteries, synchronous condensers, more transmission capacity, electrolysers, hydrogen storage, backup power stations, demand side response, etc.
In Australia it was calculated that the extra grid upgrades for renewables comes out to $15B. That is less than the subsidies a single nuclear reactor needs.
To electrify society and industry we need to expand our grids by 1.5-2.5x. Stringing an set of wires, using thicker ones or stepping up the voltage higher is a minuscule cost when already having to uprate the grid.
Gas turbine emergency reserves would be $1B.
AEMO report from 2024 [1] page 13 note 2 very carefully draws the line around what the extra 16B AUD will pay for.
This value is the net present value of capital costs for transmission augmentation up to 2049-50 only, and does not include the cost of commissioned, committed or anticipated projects.
> Gas turbine emergency reserves would be $1B.
Gas turbines are now about 2400 USD/kW (3750 AUD/kW), so 1B AUD results in ~267 MW of capacity.
[1] https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/isp/202... [2] https://reneweconomy.com.au/deja-vu-on-transmission-project-... [3] https://www.energyco.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/... [4] https://www.energyco.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/... [5] https://gasoutlook.com/analysis/costs-to-build-gas-plants-tr...
The extra costs are what is needed when more distributed generation is added compared to the baseline.
It also not like the current renewable supply will stop existing.
> The CEO of NextEra Energy said that gas turbines have a multi-year backlog, leading to soaring costs for new gas-fired power plants. Renewables “are cheaper and available right now.”
> “There is a lot of demand for gas turbines right now. You have to get in a long line. It has pushed the prices up,” NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum said at CERAWeek. NextEra built 16 gigawatts of gas-fired power over the past two decades, and operates a fleet of 26 GW of gas capacity. It also builds renewable energy.
> “We built our last gas-fired facility in 2022, at $785/kW. If we wanted to build that same gas-fired combined cycle unit today…$2,400/kW,” he said. “The cost of gas-fired generation has gone up three-fold.”
Ahh yes, gas turbines are expensive because a supply crunch. Not because they inherently are expensive.
Will this get fixed in the 20 years it would take to build nuclear power? Yes. Will likely even see several cycles of boom and bust before said nuclear plant comes online.
Nuclear power simply is completely out of step with the current energy industry. Too expensive and too slow to build.
It is unclear that the grid needs to expand by that much if energy is consumed close to where it is produced, or if energy can be consumed at a less variable rate.
> It also not like the current renewable supply will stop existing.
There are examples of generation technologies getting dropped from the grid (by bans).
> Not because they inherently are expensive.
Before the crunch CCGTs were perhaps $1B/GW ($.7B/GW to $1.15B/GW for peakers according to Lazard 2024). So the $1B for backup isn't enough.
The US achieves over 90% capacity factor, as does Finland, and Germany used to.
Also capacity and availability are different things; getting pre-empted by solar should not count against the nuclear plant.
But it makes an already horrifically bad economic calculus even worse.
[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la...
China is coming from a huge (and still growing) base load of coal. Still 60%+ of electricity mix. [0]
So even with PV's growth, it's not a systemically problematic component.
Compare that to Germany's mix [1], and you realize that China is aiming their reactor building at a problem they'll have in 10 years. (Depending on how aggressively the rest of the world makes China and India stop burning coal...)
I.e. the thing that makes the grid as a whole reliable even with fluctuating renewables
For that, only a fraction of the total is needed.
But when it comes to reliability, storage absolutely is the alternative to generation like nuclear. China already has 57GW of pumped hydro storage (about equal to their whole nuclear fleet), and they added 42GW of new 2.5hr battery storage just in 2024 alone. Given the declining price of both types of storage, it's likely that these will dominate nuclear when it comes to short- and medium-term grid reliability.
As for the construction learning curve: the main element that made PV inexpensive was the ability to build it in factories at scale. For nuclear the equivalent is SMRs. China is building experimental versions of those too! To the extent that China perfects SMRs and brings the costs way down, they could definitely put nuclear back on track. In a world where cheap SMRs may be a few years away, I question whether building additional AP1000/EPRs is a cost-effective move (even ignoring the possibility of dirt-cheap storage.) China's relatively slow construction rate also makes me wonder if they've come to the same conclusion.
Yes, it will. As they are currently drafted, the EU energy regulation forces France to invest in renewable and shift away from nuclear it already has to avoid missing the mandated European target as nuclear is not considered renewable. Currently France is being routinely fined despite providing Europe with a ton of clean energy.
The situation is beyond silly.
I was only thinking about new investment.
Btw, not "all" nuclear is not considered renewable. Making use of the full fuel life cycle through breeder reactors would count as renewable nuclear energy.
There are perhaps two things being considered here, the EU Renewable Energy Directive [1] and the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities [2]. The former results in France being fined for using nuclear power (as nuclear is not mentioned as being renewable), the latter is a tool for investment categorisation, but weights towards closed cycle and Gen III+ reactors.
[1] https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/renewabl...
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/6989... page 5
Important Context: Power companies were paid by the state to shut down their nuclear power plants, of course they want free money for not producing anything.
It looks as if some citizens want it. https://anschalt-konferenz.de/english/
And so we come back to the point of the story. Hopefully Germany will stop indirectly funding anti-nuclear organisations that seek to influence other countries. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-00217...
German power generation is some of the dirtiest in the world. In 2024 321g CO2eq/kWh. Right now at the time of posting, literally they're emitting 1/2 a kilogram of C02 for one kilowatt-hour.
Meanwhile France, the country Germany claims is not producing "clean" energy: 2024 27g CO2eq/kWh. Time of posting, 95.7% of their electricity is from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar.
Sources:
- Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.)
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
- Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
- Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
If you can answer all these questions with a clear yes, continue to promote it. If not, please don't!
Those studies are about as credible as links between Autism and vaccines...
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
I would not care, there are no negative health benefits.
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
Absolutely. Tax revenue and jobs for the area with no negative effects that you wouldn't have with other construction either.
> - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
You are plainly misinformed, as a matter of fact EDF even had to sell their power at a loss way below market rate to their competitors due to the goverment.
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Nice cherry picking when Canada and Australia are even bigger exporters. Sure, why not trade with them.
Come up, stop with the BS. And Stop burning coal.
Do you just want to deny reality when it doesn't suit your preconceived notions? Though:
> Fascinating, given that I grew up near Burlington, Kansas, I just must be glowing at night?
doesn't give me much hope you're engaging seriously with this topic.
As opposed to subsidies of intermittents [0]?
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Russia has a large share of enrichment capacity [1], and conversion to HEX [2]. But they don't control the uranium resource, having only an 8% share of the market [3].
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
[2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
[3] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
I suspect a trade/swap: Germany will obtain something from France in return.
Protests weren't as strong as they used to be, and didn't change anything.
Then the Fukushima major nuclear accident happened (march 2011), the population demanded a quick nuclear phase-out, and no subsequent government even only attempted to neglect it ( https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 ).