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Comment by esarbe | Hacker News Reader

There's no false information there. Nuclear is complex and so expensive that despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel. It's also slow, with building times up to more than a decade.

France tried it. Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives, makes about €3 billion per year in profits and has to invest about €150 billion in new reactors, upgrades, refits and infrastructure.

Nuclear is just not worth the hassle.

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It always amuses me when nuclear power is the one area where the left becomes Very Concerned about excessive government spending.

despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel

Except for France which came up with the clever strategy of "not banning it", but that was apparently a mistake and they should have just used fossil fuels?

Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives

€50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.

I'm not actually that concerned about excessive government spending. I just don't like wasteful spending, and that's what nuclear is.

Wind and PV build up much faster, are orders of magnitudes less complex and provide cheaper electricity.

There is just no reason to build nuclear.

> €50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.

No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all.

So you are concerned about EDF having 50bn debt and France spending 120bn to build it's entire fleet but you are fine with Germany spending almost 400bn on EEG alone till now to have far worse emissions and still drive coal? This is your concern?

"No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all." - french households have lower prices vs german ones per Eurostat too

No, my concern is that France will have to spend around €150-200 billion in the next ten years just to keep their current capacity.

I guess that's the reason that they went for renewables for capacity expansion - it's much cheaper to build and operate renewables rather than nuclear.

Those are part of EDF financials. Again, EDF already did Great Carenage for over half of reactors. And it didn't have CFD's for that - only own budget. And it was despite stupid ARENH law that got replaced this year.

Germany is about to spend over 600bn for grid expansion till 2045 and EEG subsidies for the next 10 years will too, be about 200bn (if not cancelled by govt which is unlikely unless AFD is elected)

France downscaled ren deployment plans while pushing for 6 new EPR2's + another 8 if there aren't major delays.

So not only France needs to spend/subsidize less in this period - it'll also still have cleaner grid and lower household prices than Germany in parallel

Now you are just throwing everything at the wall and hope it sticks. You're essentially shifting to a "sure, reactors are expensive, but the whole-system price is lower" argument.

Well, we'll see, I guess.

Yes, Germany is going to spend about €600 billion in infrastructure. That has more to do with electrification than renewables - France too need another €250 billion for grid upgrades until 2045.

As for the "6+8" program - EDF still hasn't produced an official cost estimation for the for the full fleet and the original estimate for the first six (€52 billion) is has already been pushed upward to €72.8 billion.

Electricity prices in France have for a long time been a political matter, not market decision. That's a different approach than that of Germany, so the two really cannot be compared.

France also produces less CO2, sell electricity at reasonable and stable cost.

If fossil fuel weren't massively subsided (impact the environment for free, wars with taxpayer money), Nuclear would have made a massive dent.

Producing the same with other sources will have a massive immediate impact on the land / environment.

I like the idea that fossil fuel should take the hit from the impact on the environment, but don't see why nuclear should at the same time get a free pass for Chernobyl and Fukushima. Surely nuclear needs to take the hit from those as well in order to make the comparison apples-to-apples?

nobody gets a free pass but the amount of damage is incomparable. Most evacuation zones in Fukushima are lifted. Nobody died from radiation due to low dose. Chernobyl became equivalent of a protected national park where animals thrive https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260424-chernobyl-wildli...

Coal in the US alone kills one Chernobyl of people each year.

(using estimates for Chernobyl --- so, in coal's advantage, as Chernobyl's confirmed deaths are actually very low)

Nuclear should also take the hit. Wars and CO2 are orders of magnitude worse.

Nuclear helped France decarbonize in 90's while Germany still has coal. EDF profits are closer to 10bn, the 3bn nr is nonsense. 50bn debt with EDF ebitda means it's a healthy debt. The amount is what Germany is subsidizing EEG+transmission each 2 y. More than half of the fleet already went through Great Carenage upgrades.

It hasn't made a significant contribution because of panic after the various accidents and the "environmentalists" deciding to advocate against it when it was the clearest path to accomplishing their stated goals.

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