natmaka

> It's the best business model ever

In France the Cour of Audit concluded that electricity produced by the EPR must be sold at 138€/MWh (2023 value) in order to obtain a tiny ROI (4%). This is a financial disaster. Proof page 29: https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/la-filiere-epr-une-d...

Renewables, on the other hand... While many reactors were down in France (intermittency, anyone?) they did cope: https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-j...

Renewables: a modest gain... 7 billions €! Source: official Commission in charge in France, page 4 https://www.cre.fr/fileadmin/Documents/Deliberations/2024/24...

> When you consider long term, it gets even worse for intermittent renewables. Nuclear, on the other hand is a license to print money

Non-backed-up nonsense.

> With all due respects to your "analysis", the French auditors came to a different conclusion.

Once again: source? The reality is that the French Cour of Audit officially declared 5 years ago that there could be no more nuclear project without a financial direct public guarantee. Proof: https://www.challenges.fr/top-news/nucleaire-la-cour-des-com...

Its last report on nuclear, published last January, is TITLED: "DES RISQUES PERSISTANTS" (persistent risks). Proof: https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2025-01/20250114...

> The graph you linked to proves my point: the reduction is laughable

Nope, 538 geqCO2/KWh (2013) to 344 (2024) with a huge coal industry which cannot be quickly phased out and while shutting down all nuclear reactors is very good.

> France's specific CO₂ emissions are less than 1/10th of Germany's per kWh.

The reasons are well-known (France, during the 1960's, had no other option): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl...

> at a fraction of the cost.

Nope (TCO), as already exposed (along with sources): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....

>> France ("Flamanville-3" reactor) and the US (Vogtle, VS Summer) did so, and it failed.

> Again, the opposite is true

OMG. According to you they are successes, and even official reports conclude that they failed.

> compared to intermittent renewables. The standards are just so different.

That's patently not the trend: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...

> those projects "failed" (relative to other nuclear projects) precisely because far too little was being built.

Nope, this appeal to some strong and persistent benefit induced by batching projects is void, and the industry knows it for quite a while: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

> They are all First of a Kind (FOAK) builds

The EPR is explicitly and officially very similar to existing reactors, it only is an evolution of existing designs and not a new concept. Proof: https://recherche-expertise.asnr.fr/savoir-comprendre/surete...

> and built in countries that built little to no new nuclear in the last 20-40 years.

The projects started 15 to 25 years ago, just a few years after the last reactor built before them. Moreover those nations have active reactors fleets and massive public nuclear R&D budgets, therefore the fable "no-one worked on all this" is ridiculous.

> most of the cost is financing, i.e. interest payments

True, but only because the projects were extremely late.

> China builds

Renewables. Facts (sourced! just try to do so): https://sites.google.com/view/nuclaireenchine/accueil

> They are now building

Very few reactors. Their EPR were officially late and overbudget.

> France's primary problem was lack of maintenance

Source? Not at all. The nuclear authority is very, very picky here.

> due to the de-emphasis of nuclear during the Mitterand years

Nope. Mitterrand heavily helped nuclear, and this is now a well-known fact. M. Boiteux, EDF boss at the time, also did reckon it. French ahead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rvP1zstk68

> and deferred maintenance during COVID.

Source? Not at all, in practice, as many 'Grand Carénage' subprojects were completed in due time while respecting budgets (this is very rare in this industry and was touted). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage

> to achieve steady state you can't build out your entire fleet in 10-20 years, because then you industry has nothing to build for the next 80-90 years and withers.

In France the solution was to try to sell reactors to various nations, and

>> Even the official report about it states explicitly that this building project was a failure.

> No it didn't.

Wrong, once more. Proof: "La construction de l’EPR de Flamanville aura accumulé tant de surcoûts et de délais qu’elle ne peut être considérée que comme un échec pour EDF". Source: conclusion of the official report analyzing the EPR at Flamanville, page 31

https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/media/organes-parleme...

> "modest" profitability. Which, once again, is better than the best intermittent renewables projects.

Source?

> And FV3 is not "the nuclear industry". It is that particular project.

Granted. Which project succeeded since year 2000?

>> There are claimed intentions to build at least 2 new reactors since 2022, nothing else.

> The current plan is to build 6 EPR2

Yes: it only is a plan. Nothing more. And "6" is "at least 2". Right now we only know where 2 of them can theoretically be built (at the existing plant at Penly).

> Sites have been selected for the first 6

Which ones? Sources?

> engineering contracts for the first 2 have been awarded

Yes, for preparatory work. There is a long route ahead...

> If that's "nothing"

Compared to renewables? Nothin' indeed! https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...

See also the "Catalog of fantastic things" (J. Carelman).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Carelman

... and it many cases comes at a very low cost as quite often an index enabling to satisfy the usual "quickly find something" standard need exists, and most of them let us immediately obtain a sorted list.

> solved problem due to fast breeder reactor

For this we need an industrial model of breeder reactor. Please name it. There is none.

Many nations (US, France, Germany, Japan...) engulfed huge amounts of money on this quest, during decades.

TLDR: this works on lab reactors cajoled by scientists. It doesn't work industrially.

Russia has (by far) the most advanced potentially pertinent reactors ("BN"), and they work so well that this nation pauses on this architecture (sodium) and is back to the lab (300MWe) with another architecture (lead) named "BREST".

> the quantity of waste is drastically reduces

Therefore it would not solve the problem (we would have to put this waste somewhere then pray that nobody ever mingles with it).

>> The money Germany "wasted" on renewables brought down prices a lot,

> It massively increased the price of electricity in Germany.

We all have to consider the total cost on the long term. I analyzed it for France. I wrote it in French, sorry, but AFAIK software does not distort it: https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....

> And it did remarkably little for CO₂ emissions

Nope: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...

> massively increased our dependence on cheap Russian Gas thus emboldening Putin

True, sadly, however consider that nuclear didn't save France which is even more dependent (while less industrialized). French ahead: https://sites.google.com/view/avenirdunucleraire/transition-...

> Had we spend the same money on nuclear power plants

France ("Flamanville-3" reactor) and the US (Vogtle, VS Summer) did so, and it failed.

> Except we would have found it difficult to spend that much on nuclear power plants, because even at the price of the messed up EPR prototypes, the same money would have bought us over 50 reactors.

Once more: source? The most serious allegations published state about official investments previsions until 2050, and not only for renewables (grid maintenance is a)

> don't make every new one different like we used to do

... therefore if a potentially dangerous defect is discovered you will have to shut them down all. No more juice, yay! It nearly happened in France recently, and the shock was alleviated by the fact that the fleet is NOT made of identical reactors, and therefore a fair part could produce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Crisis...

> France is increasing its fission fleet again

Not really. The last project (Flamanville-3) started in 2004, work on the field started in 2007, the reactor was to be delivered in 2012 for 3.3 billion € and only started a few months ago (it did not yet reach full power) for at least 23.7 billion €. https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/01/14/epr-de-fl...

Even the official report about it states explicitly that this building project was a failure.

There are claimed intentions to build at least 2 new reactors since 2022, nothing else.

> Not shutting down the existing nuclear plants is a pure positive

Ask Japan, and especially Fukushima's residents, about this.

> building out renewables and/or nuclear plants in the east.

Germany chose renewables and cannot quickly phase out its huge coal industry.

> For the money we wasted on intermittent renewables so far

Source (with investments' perimeters and maturities)?

> Nuclear power is well-suited for district heating and industrial heat applications

If, and only if, it is designed for it, and with the appropriate networks. France nuclear does nearly 0 district heating and 0 industrial heat.

> Germany shut down its reactors for idiotic reasons:

Reason: "Fukushima"

> All West German reactors would have survived the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake

In Japan until 2011, officially "all reactors will survive..."

> we don't have Tsunamis in Germany

Tsunamis are not the sole cause potentially triggering a nuclear accident.

> How does shutting down those plants make sense again?

Refusing nuclear-induced challenges (risk of major accident, waste, dependency towards uranium, difficult decommissioning, risk of weapon proliferation...) while another approach (renewables) is now technically adequate makes sense.

> Japan is reactivating its nuclear plants.

Some sing this song since 2015. In the real world Japan, just like China, massively invests on... renewables! Surprise! And very few reactors were reactivated: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...

>> or that only a minority of environmentalists decided to do so is misleading as,

> Again, such a good thing that that claim wasn't made in this thread

It is nearly always made, in a form or another, in each and every thread about nuclear energy. In this very post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45230099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45227025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228712

> Who "closed" reactors

Read on: https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561

> The law that required nuclear reactors to be closed was passed by the Red/Green coalition in 2002.

Don't omit anything: "The phase-out plan was initially delayed in late 2010, when during the chancellorship of centre-right Angela Merkel, the coalition conservative-liberal government decreed a 12-year delay of the schedule."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Chang...

Then the Fukushima accident changed it all. Exactly what I described.

>> Furthermore, this nuclear potential would result in higher costs and dependency

> That is also not true.

Germany burns its own coal, and by doing so maintains a huge sector. By letting reactors run it would have had to phase coal our more quickly, leading to massive unemployment and dependency towards uranium. This is sad but true.

I'm not an expert not pretend to be one.

IMHO your "They are extremely tough targets, and fairly easy to defend" is quite different from what I quoted.

> doubling every decade

Uranium deposits mined under the right conditions can supply the current stock for at best two centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium

To extend this beyond that, we must hope for a revolutionary production process (pursued in vain for decades: breeders...), the ability to exploit less promising uranium deposits, thus tolerating increased emissions and costs, or the discovery of a large deposit.

Hoping for such a discovery is risky because intensive prospecting began at the end of the Second World War (the quest for nuclear weapons), and the rapid and sharp rise in the price of uranium (a bubble) that occurred around 2007 triggered a massive investment in prospecting, the results of which (15%) are very inadequate.

Therefore, multiplying the stock by five would leave at best 40 years of uranium certainly available under current conditions, and would therefore be an inept investment (one needs to amortize the plant).

Moreover there are geostrategic considerations: many nations don't have any reserve not want to have to buy uranium (creating a dependency) or technical expertise.

Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody knows for sure, however after each of these click/bang the "there will be no more problem!" thesis seems less and less prominently published.

I wrote "During the past 25 years"

Please describe any nuclear reactor which was successfully built in France or Germany during the past 25 years.

France: https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl...

A problem with nuclear waste is that living being (especially human beings) must not be exposed to it.

It depends upon nuclear accident victims' estimation one choses to consider.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...

Moreover pretending that the words nuclear accident is not more dangerous than the worst wind turbine accident will be difficult.

It is not about blackouts but about the risk induced by a nuclear plant in a warzone.

That's what International Atomic Energy Agency's (UN agency in charge of civilian nuclear) boss said about it: "Director General Grossi reiterated his deep concern about the apparent increased use of drones near nuclear power plants since early this year, saying such weaponry posed a clear risk to nuclear safety and security"

"any military attack on a nuclear site – with or without drones – jeopardizes nuclear safety and must stop immediately"

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-303-iae...

Deploying a continental renewable mix (wind, solar...) reduces the effets of 'intermittency' on electricity production.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09601...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13640...

It is possible because interconnecting grids at continental-level is The Way for quite a while, even without any renewable, because it enables operators to optimize (preferring less-emitting and cheaper production units) and also to obtain a better service guarantee (less blackouts!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...

It also enables over-produced electricity to power electrolyzers. 'Green hydrogen' thus obtained can power the backup/peakers (producing electricity to load-follow and also when other intermittent equipment cannot produce enough on-the-spot), further reducing 'intermittency' effects. This isn't sci-fi ( https://www.gevernova.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydroge... ), many can burn a mix (methane, hydrogen...) and some recent models can be retrofitted into burning hydrogen (no major investment nor need to reform existing heavy resources/organization).

Storage will also more and more prominent in electrical systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45182026

Nuclear will be trounced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45196328

Patent holes in the most hyped nuclear-favorable approach show that there is no issue on sight for it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45182003

The trend is clear: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa... (explore many nations/regions)

He will soon be dead, Jim.

A nuclear plant may be hit by despair, even if it isn't the target, and in any case finding who hit it may be difficult. Right now in Ukraine...

Germany could have decarbonized faster by maintaining its nuclear power, but only to a limited extent because the bulk of the coal (especially lignite, a high CO2 emitter) is burned to generate electricity in the former East German regions, which have been devoid of nuclear power since 1995 (Soviet reactors were shut down due to their unsafety). Therefore, all active reactors were located in West Germany, and there is no adequate high-voltage line capable of transporting their output to the East.

At its peak (in 1999), nuclear power produced only 31% of Germany's electricity, itself less than 25% of the energy consumed (even considering primary energy, it only provided 12.7%), and by 2011 (Fukushima...), it was producing less than 18% of the electricity.

Moreover, in the East, coal-fired power plants have long produced high-pressure steam for district heating (industry and heating many premises), which a remote reactor cannot provide.

To claim that Germany shut down its reactors for no reason (after Fukushima...) or that only a minority of environmentalists decided to do so is misleading as, in Germany, all political parties close reactors, and most reactors were not closed by "Greens".

Furthermore, this nuclear potential would result in higher costs and dependency since it would have replaced part of the huge coal industry, which is very difficult to get rid of.

> it's not just nuclear, it's also Natural gas

No, it can be a continental renewable mix + storage, with a "backup" made of green hydrogen turbines.

Agrivoltaics (dual use of land for solar energy and agriculture) is gaining ground in many nations. This is heavy industry, the pace is slower than in most sectors (IT...).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

After decades of R&D and numerous lab and prototypes reactors able to do so (mainly fast breeders)... there is not a single industrial model ready to be deployed.

The point is not about "someone may not err" but about "someone may err", or more precisely "someone WILL err", coupled with the effects of such mistakes.

Failing to correctly design, build, exploit or maintain a wind turbine or solar panel isn't a big deal. Failing to do so on a nuclear reactor can become a huge and lasting disaster for many.

> Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily

TLDR: it doesn't work this way.

Detailed version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41796580

In many Western nations bury them is now forbidden. Most are burnt in cement kilns (producing useful heat).

In France, 95% of the mass of a wind turbine must be recycled (legal obligation), the concrete base is not spared and the law requires wind farm operators to lock (upfront) a financial guarantee (deposit).

Recyclable blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones are being considered: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-che...

According to EDF (multinational electric utility company owned by the government of France, the giant in France, owning and operating all nuke plants) 94% of a solar panel is recyclable. In France most of it is already recycled.

> From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem

When it comes to nuclear waste repositories real experts official publish: "Internationally, it is understood that there is no reliable scientific basis for predicting the process or likelihood of inadvertent human intrusion."

Source: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/201...

During the past 25 years there were projects aiming at building industrial nuclear reactors. They all ended badly (canceled, way over budget or delay...).

> South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.

Barakah (delivered March 2024) was late (by about 3 years?), undersold (KEPCO hadn't any other ongoing project and the Korean government at the time wanted a nuclear phase-out) and various tricks are now known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

> Flamanville 3 failed because of screwups in the design and construction

Indeed, and it is so undeniable that it is the official conclusion. Source (French): https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/media/organes-parleme...

At least 5 times, indeed: it was due to cost 3.3 billion euros, its cost to date is 23.7, it it not running at full power and a major update (reactor cover) is already planned.

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/01/14/epr-de-fl...

Most Russian Roulette games have many 'clicks' before the 'bang'.

I doubt so: 416 industrial nuclear reactors are deployed in the world today. They produce 10% of the electricity, itself 20% of the final energy, so nuclear power produces at best 2% of the energy consumed.

Nuclear power would provide 10% of the energy, which would be far from sufficient since it is necessary to electrify uses (in order to reduce the quantity of fossil fuel burned) and therefore produce more electricity, if we could multiply the power of the fleet by 5, therefore building around 1500 new reactors and keeping the existing fleet active. Hoping for this before 2100 would be absurd.