Also, solar production and heating needs are anticyclical.
Also, the European grid is big (the biggest!), but not so big it can deal with seasons and weather patterns. Yet. Or ever.
The idea was that gas would fill in the gaps, until energy storage at scale becomes a thing (no, it is still nowhere near scale, only gas reserves can fill that role right now). Germany is investing heavily in hydrogen to fill this gap, but barring fundamental breakthroughs, I think it's a pipe dream. A 90% (roughly) total efficiency loss means 1000% oveprovisioning of generation capacity. That's expensive, even when cheap.
I think you’re wrong.
This is not true, since you still need to pay for capex and depreciation. The reason it appears to be free is not because its production doesn’t cost anything, but because at times of a glut there‘s just no one willing to pay much for it. Please make some good will effort to acknowledge the difference between cost and price.
Now, about your question, why people should buy „expensive“ nuclear power: for the same reason that people buy health insurance for: volatility increases risk, and you’re willing to pay an ongoing premium to reduce systemic risks. Over- and undersupply of electricity are risks for a lot of businesses and lots of them spend a lot of money on capex to avoid them, e.g. hospitals that have diesel generators. Generators are for a different failure mode (rare, longer duration outages), but for the high frequency, short time interruptions and/or price spikes caused by unbalanced generation volatility, contracts with a nuclear power company are similar; the capex is just shifted to the power company, and the customer might pay a premium during those times that other sources would deliver energy „for free“.
That said, this is not a black-and-white scenario. Of course we can benefit a lot from solar and wind. I’m not very positive about large scale batteries and lean more towards having flexible consumers, e.g. H2 production for the chemical industry. But right now, we don’t have the choice of nuclear vs. renewables, it’s (renewables + nuclear) vs. (renewables + turbines run with Russian gas or LNG from the US and Qatar). My choice here is clear, and it should not be muddied by the Russian propaganda of nuclear power clogging our electricity grids.
I'm sorry, but WTF?
This is the most unhinged drivel about German nuclear I have ever read on HN, and that's saying something.
There no problem with "trust in electricity", whatsoever, nor is there any lack of a "solid base". There has been no electricity grid collapse in Germany for decades(in stark contrast to the US, or f.e. Spain). Any problems with electrcity have been due to terrorism or building errors.
Even with that, in case you haven't noticed, EV cars run on batteries and don't need constant power. Perhaps for "preppers" or people living in remote areas it would be a factor, but I have never in my life heard anyone connect the use of EV power with the power station the charging comes from or how reliable the grid is.
Germany is not in a position to continuously meet its own electricity needs, but is dependent on daily aid deliveries of electricity from abroad. The electricity needs of industry cannot be met in a market-oriented manner, but taxpayers have to spend additional money so that industry can continue to produce at all.
The absurdly high prices for electricity in Germany prevent any competitiveness. Ignoring all of this can only be described as WTF – what country do you actually live in?
Most countries choose either cheap and dirty or expensive and clean for electricity but Germany chose expensive AND dirty.
With coal. And gas imported from Russia and by boat from the USA.
The problem is that other countries also have solar and wind power during the day and don't need this electricity at all. That's why Germany has to “sell” this surplus electricity, even though no one needs it. To ensure that the electricity is still "purchased", Germany has to pay money for it. In the evening, Germany has to pay money to buy back the missing electricity.
Paying money to have something purchased is generally referred to as garbage fees.
I realise my post was unnecessary inflammatory and I'm sorry for that. Enough Internet for today.
That's ironic. And no, money is not flowing in one direction only. As I already wrote, Bavarian industry is effectively massively subsidized by the north investing massively in renewable energy production and overpaying for their own energy because demand is driven by the south (who is fighting tooth and nails against building their own wind turbines for ideological reasons).
Greetings from Hessen (another Geberland, just like Bavarian, but without the Bavarian exceptionalism, which most of Germany just sees as arrogance)!
A grid running 70%+ renewables needs massive storage, transmission overbuild, and firm backup capacity costs that don't appear in solar/wind LCOE figures but are real and substantial. Nuclear provides firm, dispatchable, carbon-free baseload with a ~90%+ capacity factor. Solar capacity factors are 20-30%, wind 30-45%.
The OECD's 2020 Projected Costs study shows that at a 3% discount rate with a $30/ton carbon price, nuclear was the cheapest dispatchable option in most countries. Nuclear becomes comfortably cheaper than coal and gas under carbon pricing at low discount rates.
Not that nuclear power plants create weaponisable isotopes, they don't, but having a healthy functioning nuclear industry really helps.
The decision was made in response to Fukushima, 15 years ago. Generational trauma from Chernobyl probably played a role as well. How does this relate to nuclear weapons at all?
It's the only real deterrent against Russia. But nuclear power I'm not in favour of due to the long-term waste and potential safety impact.
Of course, this was just the final chapter of a story that began way back in 1986, when Chernobyl led to no further reactors being built in Germany and other countries shelving their plans for nuclear power. If you think the situation in Germany is curious, then look at Austria, who already in 1978 decided to "temporarily" mothball a 100% completed nuclear power plant, a decision which turned permanent in 1986 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria). Or Italy, which shut down all four of its nuclear power plants (from the 60s and 70s) by 1990 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Italy).
When I checked electricity maps today Germany was emitting 17 times as much CO2 per Watt of electricity as France. That is what idiotically shutting down nuclear reactors instead of coal plants does and German environmentalists should be ashamed of themselves. German electricity is also some of the most expensive in the world and is causing companies to close plants in Germany. BASF, a major German chemical company, has implemented plant closures due to high production costs. Germany's energy policy is a disaster that has made electricity both expensive and dirty.
Do you care to elaborate? AFAIK, the EU electricity market is... a market?
The design is debatable, as always with these things. Perhaps you wanted to say something precise about subsidies?
One important consideration is that Germany profited from cheap Russian gas, and continued building Nord Stream 2 post Russian operations in Ukraine in 2014. This is a bet that a huge geopolitical risk would not actualize, which it did in 2022.