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Comment by Moldoteck | Hacker News Reader

No, it's included and is dirt cheap. German nuclear provided for about 5ct/kwh, similar to Switzerland https://www.kkg.ch/de/uns/geschaefts-nachhaltigkeitsberichte... or other countries.

In Germany liability was covering 2.5bn+ full assets of owners. I still find it funny how germans are concerned about nuclear when each 2y the same nr of ppl die as total estimation for Chernobyl (if we assume LNT is correct at low dosages). Yet nobody demands full cars ban. Even funnier considering Germany is still burning coal and approved subsidies for new gas peakers

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Your document shows 10.9 ct/kWh normalised production cost for 2025 (roughly double the ~5 ct of a normal year, because the plant was offline half the year). That shows how exposed such a plant is when it's offline; and running an existing, paid-off plant built in the 1970s, like the one you linked, is a very different thing from building a new one today.

Burning coal sure is stupid, but so is being stuck in the outdated idea that we need either coal or nuclear for baseload. Solar, wind and storage are much cheaper, more flexible and far faster to build (a year or two, not 15+). IMO that's a much better answer than starting some SMR pipe dream now. 10 or 20 years ago it would have been different, but there's no point clinging to a solution just because it made sense back then, and was rejected for the wrong reasons.

So you see that avg opex price is cheap, thanks for acknowledging. That was the statement, not that in new plants power is more expensive because they need to repay loan (which is balooned due to delays)

We need firm power. This isn't outdated. That's also why Germany approved subsidies for new gas plants, which were recommended even by Fraunhofer ISE

Basically either you build a mix like france/nordics and get very low emissions or you are stuck with vre+bess+gas combo like Germany.

Or, if you are convinced VRE are enough, provide an estimation/simulation for German grid based on existing data of last decade (capacity factors/demand)- how much vre+bess is needed to ditch firm fossils fully

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