First, it's not just nuclear, it's also Natural gas.
Second, lots of nations have incentives for "clean" energy. And now magically, all those incentives apply to nuclear and gas.
It's a money grab from nuclear and gas manufacturers. It's not that the courts were involved for nothing.
Still, we should use more nuclear. If only it was less expensive to build...
In 2015, due mostly to fracking gas, the US was down to around 450g CO₂/kWh.
Germany, with its Energiewende, was at around 560g CO₂/kWh.
Because, of course, the Energiewende was not about climate change. It was about shutting down climate-friendly (CO₂ free) nuclear plants.
Both could have done better. France is currently at something like 32g CO₂/kWh and has been at roughly that level for decades.
Removing what would be nasty targets in a war perhaps in the current light not so much.
That's about as idiotic as you can get.
And simply by not destroying this already existing infrastructure you wouldn't even have needed north-south links.
But why take the risk of fission reactors becoming targets in a war?
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.
Reactors in the US, on which the German designs are based, have already received their extensions to 80 years.
Experts see no particular problems in extending that to 100 years or even further.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-pla...
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-long-can-a-nuclear-plan...
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
Fission reactors are not very useful targets in war. In Ukraine, their fleet of nuclear reactors are what's keeping the electricity grid running. And they are building new ones. In war time.
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...
Precisely.
> 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,
Huh? Not shutting down the existing nuclear plants is a pure positive and does not prevent you from doing other things. Such as building out renewables and/or nuclear plants in the east.
For the money we wasted on intermittent renewables so far, we could have built at least 50 reactors even at the inflated cost of the EPR prototype at Olkiluoto 3. Or 100 inflation-adjusted Konvois. So way more than enough.
Nuclear power is well-suited for district heating and industrial heat applications, unlike solar and wind.
> To claim that Germany shut down its reactors for no reason
Nobody claimed that. Germany shut down its reactors for idiotic reasons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia
All West German reactors would have survived the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami perfectly fine had they been at the site of Fukushima. And we don't have Tsunamis in Germany. How does shutting down those plants make sense again? When answering, consider that Japan is reactivating its nuclear plants.
It's time for Germany to admit its mistake on nuclear energy
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/12/26/world/ger...
> 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. Or are you misleadingly claiming that it was?
> misleading as, in Germany, all political parties close reactors, and most reactors were not closed by "Greens".
Who "closed" reactors, now that actually is misleading for a change. The law that required nuclear reactors to be closed was passed by the Red/Green coalition in 2002. Germany happens to be a country with the rule of law, so successor governments can't just act on whim, they are bound by the law of the land. Oh, and it was the Greens who made the Atomausstieg the primary condition for their coalition with the SPD.
So while it is correct that all parties are somewhat to blame, to claim that they are equally to blame is ahistorical nonsense and quite misleading.
> Furthermore, this nuclear potential would result in higher costs and dependency
That is also not true.
At this moment to go on a massive spending spree for a dead-end nuclear project is not a very sane policy.
France does have money; it's just all concentrated in the boomer generation who is fighting hard to keep control. A large share of the debt is generated to keep this gerontocracy confortable at the expense of the youth and future.
It massively increased the price of electricity in Germany. And the same holds true of pretty much every other location that tried it.
And it did remarkably little for CO₂ emissions, massively increased our dependence on cheap Russian Gas thus emboldening Putin, cemented our fossil fuel dependence for reliable base load, entrenched our dependence on China.
On the whole, "wasted" is putting it kindly.
Yes, the prices of the generating equipment have come down from truly astronomical to only "not competitive without massive subsidies".
Had we spend the same money on nuclear power plants, we would have long been done with the decarbonization of our electricity sector, and probably well into the electrification and ensuing decarbonization of the other sectors as well.
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. At the price of the first three Konvois, around 100, adjusted for inflation and some increases. But when you build 50-100 reactors of the same kind (that's important: don't make every new one different like we used to do), the cost does go down.
France is increasing its fission fleet again, after repealing a law that made such expansion illegal beyond the then existing generating capacity 63.2 GW.
The goal of a reduction of the nuclear share to below 50% was also repealed. I do believe that the share of nuclear in France will decrease somewhat, because intermittent renewables can let the nuclear plants run at higher efficiencies by taking up some of the variability that is currently handled by the nuclear plants.
Tossing an absolutely mindbogglingly large subsidy to the 70 year old nuclear industry which never has delivered competitive products is not a good use of money. It is like saying we create value by going around breaking windows and paying people to fix it.
France’s problem is that if they don’t fix the spending issue on their own the bond market will do it for them. Maintaining the debt will be a larger and larger portion of the budget until the only option is solving the issue.
Cutting spending will lower GDP and push up debt as a percent of GDP. But it wasn’t real income when the debt you took on did not lead to productive outcomes. Just polishing a pig.
Even the most catastrophic nuclear construction project the French ever had, Flamanville 3, will have better ROI than intermittent renewable projects.
What doesn't make sense is throwing more good money after 25 years of subsidies at intermittent renewables that have yet to show a positive ROI.
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.
> 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.
In France the battle is over how large the subsidies needs to be to even get started on the EPR2 program. Driven by EDF is too financially weak to take on more projects after the recent boondoggles and that new built nuclear power simply does not deliver electricity at a price the market accepts.
That does not sound very self sustaining.
Regarding Flamanville 3 you are likely citing the report with a discount rate lower than the inflation and a 40 year pay back time, while comparing to the first ever off shore wind farm in France. You know, a prototype as regards to working with French industry and bureaucracy.
For anyone even having a slight economic understanding the writers of that report are shouting from the rooftops that investing in nuclear power is pure lunacy. But shrouded in a language allowing lobbyists and blindingly biased people to cite it.
I also love how the fastest growing energy source in human history, for which subsidies are being phased out as we speak, haven’t shown a positive ROI.
What do I now. All that private money going into renewables are calculated in making a loss.
> We all have to consider the total cost on the long term.
Yes, we do. When you consider long term, it gets even worse for intermittent renewables. Nuclear, on the other hand is a license to print money when you consider the long term.
> I analyzed it for France.
With all due respects to your "analysis", the French auditors came to a different conclusion.
> Nope [to having little effect on CO₂ emissions]
The graph you linked to proves my point: the reduction is laughable. France's specific CO₂ emissions are less than 1/10th of Germany's per kWh. Have been for decades, at a fraction of the cost.
> France ("Flamanville-3" reactor) and the US (Vogtle, VS Summer) did so, and it failed.
Again, the opposite is true. Those projects did not "fail". They all produce reliable power, which intermittent renewables cannot do, at better prices than intermittent renewables.
Of course, compared to other nuclear projects, they were massive failures, but not when compared to intermittent renewables. The standards are just so different.
And your reasoning is also wrong: those projects "failed" (relative to other nuclear projects) precisely because far too little was being built. They are all First of a Kind (FOAK) builds, and built in countries that built little to no new nuclear in the last 20-40 years.
FOAK builds are slow and expensive (and slow is extra expensive, as most of the cost is financing, i.e. interest payments). NOAK builds tend to go much quicker and be a lot cheaper. As an example, China builds much faster and cheaper. People incorrectly claim this is because they skimp on safety, labor, tech etc.
Not true. Their first AP-1000 took 9 years, almost as long as Vogtles, especially when you take into account the COVID years. They are now building their version in 5 years. Essentially the same reactor, certainly the same country. Half the time.
FOAK vs. NOAK is the ticket.
> .. therefore if a potentially dangerous defect is discovered you will have to shut them down all.
France's primary problem was lack of maintenance due to the de-emphasis of nuclear during the Mitterand years and deferred maintenance during COVID.
And you don't build just one kind. Build 2-3 kinds and 10-20 of each.
Oh, and don't build them too quick. These things last for 100 years, so 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.
> Even the official report about it states explicitly that this building project was a failure.
No it didn't. Relative to the standards of nuclear power plants it was horrific. But even under fairly negative assumptions for the price of electricity it will have "modest" profitability. Which, once again, is better than the best intermittent renewables projects.
And FV3 is not "the nuclear industry". It is that particular project.
> There are claimed intentions to build at least 2 new reactors since 2022, nothing else.
That is false. The current plan is to build 6 EPR2 and later on to build 8 more. Sites have been selected for the first 6, and engineering contracts for the first 2 have been awarded to the tune of several billion €.
If that's "nothing", then can I have just a bit of that "nothing" from you? Can send you my bank details.
EDF gets subsidies from the state for their renewables projects.
EDF pays nuclear profits to the state. And to the rest of French industry via the ARENH program.
Facts.
That private money going into renewables is great at getting guaranteed state subsidies.
It's the best business model ever.
Since the EPR2 program is in absolute shambles and the subsidy scheme hasn’t been finalized just pretend that it doesn’t exist!
They are only talking about CFDs, zero interest loans and credit guarantees! Those doesn’t cost money! Not until they start being paid out! Therefore does new built nuclear power does not need any subsidies. QED.
Or the French were talking about it. Until the government collapsed due to being underwater in debt with a spending problem they are unable to reign in.
We all know the one way to solve a spending problem is an unfathomably large handout to the dead-end nuclear industry!
Please. This is getting laughable. Facts be damned, just ignore reality and with a scalpel cherry pick a few disjointed facts.
Yes, let's ask Japan!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-16/japan-see...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/12/26/world/ger...
>> Germany shut down its reactors for idiotic reasons:
> Reason: "Fukushima"
QED.
> > Japan is reactivating its nuclear plants.
>Some sing this song since 2015
And it still happens to be true. And only in the weird minds of anti-nuclear activists are renewables and nuclear power incompatible. Almost the entire industrialized world is investing massively in both nuclear and renewables.
And once again: The law that required nuclear reactors to be closed was passed by the Red/Green coalition in 2002. Governments are bound by the law of the land.
Now other governments should have scrapped those laws, but they didn't. So they bear some responsibility for this disaster, but the main responsibility is still with Red/Green (2002) in general and the Greens in particular, because they were the ones pushing it.
It is also really telling that for some reason everyone wants to ascribe this huge "success" to their political enemies...
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...
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...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
"Jetzt müssen RWE und Co. die ausgedienten Gelddruckmaschinen sicher abwickeln."
But that was the well-known pro nuclear lobby group...greenpeace.
https://www.greenpeace.de/klimaschutz/energiewende/atomausst...
"Atomkraftwerke sind Gelddruckmaschinen."
But that was the well-known pro nuclear lobbyist...Jürgen Trittin
https://www.presseportal.de/pm/57706/1010574
Anyway, you are just regurgitating the same old counter-factual nonsense as before, and the irrelevant "but China is also building renewables".
Once again: nuclear and renewables are only a contradiction in the minds of anti-nuclear advocates. Industrial nations do both.
> Plan to build 6 then 8 more EPR2 → "only a plan"
That is incorrect. As stated before, the approvals are being sought, 3 sites have been selected and multi-billion € contracts have been awarded.
> Sites have been selected for the first 6
https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/bugey-chosen-to-host...
> [engineering contracts] → long road ahead
Newsflash: yes, nuclear power plants are big.
Once again: if multi-billion contracts are "nothing", please give some of that "nothing". I will send you my bank details.
Apologies about pointing at Mitterand, that was incorrect. I meant Hollande.
https://www.ewmagazine.nl/kennis/achtergrond/2022/10/bernard...
Translation: 'Green cabal paralyzes the nuclear industry’
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ePZUamAzNA4IzdR1dlkE2wtl...
That reliance on Russian gas was increased is complete BS. Only a very small amount of gas which is imported is used for electricity production (10% or so) and it is certainly not true that this (relatively small) amount increased. In 2024, 80 TWh of electricity were produced from gas. In 2010 it was 90 TWh. In that time frame, renewables increased from 105 TWh to 285 TWh. 1.
CO2 emissions went down with roll-out of renewables exactly as expected2) Coal use for electricity production went down from 263 TWh in 2010 to 107 TWh in 2024. In fact, CO2 emission went down faster than planned which is the reason Germany still managed to meet climate targets despite other sectors (heating and transportation) not meeting their targets. That Co2 emissions for electricity production are still higher compared to some others is that there is still a lot of coal in the system (and electricity from that was already exported a lot until recently). But once coal is pushed out completely then this will be gone. The only real conclusion here is that the energy transition was started to late and is not fast enough. The past, nobody can change, but it would certainly be much slower when building nuclear plants now.
France wants to double down on nuclear for political reasons and my prediction is that they will fail because they can not afford it. They have huge fiscal problems and they did not invest enough to renew their nuclear fleet in the past, sold electricity too cheap (so could not build up reserves), and would now have to invest a lot, but their nuclear industry is in a horrible state and their state dept is out of control already.
1.https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/STR... 2.https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/co2-emissionen-pro-kil...
> the irrelevant "but China is also building renewables".
No, I state the fact: China is building WAY, WAY MORE renewables than nuclear.
> nuclear and renewables are only a contradiction in the minds of anti-nuclear advocates. Industrial nations do both.
They try to do nuclear (with meager effects) just like many of them do coal: inertia, political pressure...
>> Plan to build 6 then 8 more EPR2 → "only a plan"
> That is incorrect. As stated before, the approvals are being sought, 3 sites have been selected and multi-billion € contracts have been awarded.
Here, also, only acts prove anything. Everything started in 2022 and, 3 years later, only one site preparation project has begun.
>> Sites have been selected for the first 6
> https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/bugey-chosen-to-host...
"Selected" is far from "nuclear-specific work is in order"!
> Apologies about pointing at Mitterand, that was incorrect. I meant Hollande.
Which action of F. Hollande did hurt the nuclear sector? Not a single one! No, not Fessenheim (French ahead, AFAIK a software translator does the job): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....
> Translation: 'Green cabal paralyzes the nuclear industry’
The interviewee, Bernard Accoyer, does not make any specific accusations; it is a conspiracy theory. He is well-known for this in France.
> the entire industrialized world is investing massively in both nuclear and renewables
Nope: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0xx8LA8-o&t=817s
"We got out of nuclear, during my time, and we also will get out of coal and we should count on renewables. But it won't be enough".
As a justification for Nordstream 1, which was kicked off shortly after the nuclear exit was made law in 2002, and for Nordstream 2, wich was initiated later.
Same story with that other tabloid reporter with no idea of what she's talking about, Angela Merkel:
"Sie verwies auf die damals schon hohen Energiepreise durch Förderung der erneuerbaren Energien, den Atomausstieg und den Beginn des Kohleausstiegs. "
She pointed to the already high energy prices at that time due to the promotion of renewable energies, the phase-out of nuclear power and the beginning of the phase-out of coal.
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Merkel-erklaert-wie-es-zu-Nord-S...
Nothing to do with the nuclear exit, no sireee.
Oh and more "tabloids", such as the Council for Foreign Relations:
"In the decade leading up to the February 2022 invasion, Russia became emboldened by the presumption that Germany valued its economic interests above all else. These interests were heavily tied to Germany’s significant reliance on importing cheap Russian natural gas."
"Russia rushed to finalize the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the months before the invasion and deliberately emptied German gas storages owned by Russian state energy company Gazprom to increase pressure on Germany."
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/one-year-after-how-putin-got-ge...
Or the Brookings institute:
"The argument centered on whether it was a commercial project, intended to meet Europe’s growing demand for natural gas, or a geopolitical project intended to deepen Russia’s dominance of European gas markets and to starve the Ukrainian economy of revenues from natural gas transit."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/europes-messy-russian-gas...
Or another German Chancellor:
"Putin’s plan to blackmail Germany with energy supplies has failed, Scholz says after one year of war
Russia’s attempt to blackmail Germany and the rest of Europe into giving up its support of Ukraine by cutting energy supplies has failed, chancellor Olaf Scholz has said on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion attempt of its western neighbour. "
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ukraine-war-tracking-im...
CO₂ emissions went down minutely, and by less than the switch to fracking gas in he US in he same timespan. Yes, even fossil fuels are better than the failed German Energiewende. And of course CO₂ emissions are still 10x worse per kWh than France's. For way, way more money.
This is such a failed policy, it isn't even funny. Or maybe it's funny again, I can't tell.
China is also currently seeing the bottom drop out of their renewables industry, with over a third of the workforce laid off and massive drops in installs and production due to a reduction in subsidies.
The EPR2 projects could not even have started in 2022, because he law that prohibits increasing nuclear capacity beyond the currently installed 63.2GW was only repealed in March 2023. And yes, reversing course so massively takes a little while, particularly when they still have to deal with a lot of the fallout of the failed "soft exit" policy.
As to site selection: you disputed, I showed. Then you change the subject.
The interviewee was the president of the French parliament, and he is quite specific.
And he is not the only source, this is really well known...unless you bury your head in the sand.
Here's a long look:
Japan has restarted at least 14 reactors.
https://www.modernpowersystems.com/analysis/re-establishing-...
https://pris.iaea.org/pris/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails....
Or even just Wikipedia:
"As of January 2022 there are 33 operable reactors in Japan, of which 12 reactors are currently operating.[87] Additionally, 5 reactors have been approved for restart and further 8 have restart applications under review."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Nuclear...
Your ourworldindata links says nothing about current investments. It is therefore not a repudiation of what I wrote about investments in nuclear and renewables.
Here's what ChatGPT says:
Is the industrialized world massively investing in both nuclear energy and renewables?
ChatGPT said:
Yes — there is strong evidence that in many (though not all) of the industrialized world, there is a massive investment push in both renewables (especially solar and wind) and nuclear, though the balance, pace, and scale differ a lot by region. Below are key takeaways, some of the caveats, and what seems likely going forward.
Nuclear energy
Interest in building new nuclear capacity has increased. Many countries are extending the life of existing reactors, and new reactors are under construction. For example: 63 nuclear reactors globally are under construction as of 2025, representing over 70 GW of capacity.
Annual investment in nuclear (both in building new reactors and extending existing ones) has risen by almost 50% since 2020, now exceeding USD 60 billion per year. (IEA)
Some countries are making major new commitments: UK’s investment in the Sizewell C plant, public & private funds for modular reactors, Canadian incentives for SMRs, etc.
Research indicates that global nuclear capacity might more than double by 2050 (from ~398 GW now to ~860 GW).
No: nuclear and renewables are electricity-generating equipment types, and all the debate is about the proportion of renewables and nuclear in the final system. Seeing them as disconnected (in different universes) is not even funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udJJ7n_Ryjg
> unless you don't understand the irrelevance of nameplate capacity with intermittent renewables.
This perspective dates back a time when transporting electricity was expensive (lines, losses...), storing it also was expensive ( ), fossil fuels and nuclear were the only way to obtain gridpower... all this is obsolete. Explanations: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/25/will-renewable-energy-d...
> China is also currently seeing the bottom drop out of their renewables industry
Source? (I lived in China from mid-2017 to mid-2025) The renewables industry there is, as in nearly every nation, in much better state than nearly any other one.
> The EPR2 projects could not even have started in 2022, because he law that prohibits increasing nuclear capacity beyond the currently installed 63.2GW was only repealed in March 2023
Nope. This law stated about active production capacity, and never forbade any reactor-building project. The very first EPR (Flamanville-3) project was running while this law was instated (2015) and did not stop. It simply forbade it to start without other reactor with at least a total equivalent powerplate value to be shutdown.
Recent news: https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/pas-d-epr2-en-service-...
> they still have to deal with a lot of the fallout of the failed "soft exit" policy.
No such thing as a "fallout": France was waiting for its first EPR since work started on the field (2007), it was due to launch a series, after being delivered in 2012, and albeit the project is a huge failure (12 years late, 23.7+ billion € spent with a budget of 3.3) it was not canceled. Moreover the huge 'Grand Carénage' project was not reduced. No reduction either on R&D budgets either (https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/politiques-publiques/energie-re... ) .
No "fallout", simply a massive failure (EPR Flamanville-3).
I already asked: who did hurt the nuclear industry, when, by doing (or not doing) what, what were the effects?
> Here's a long look: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isgu-VrD0oM
Which part (a few minutes only, please) of this unsubstantiated rant seems the most convincing to you?
It says clearly about the respective parts of renewables and nuclear in Japan gridpower, before and after Fukushima (which happened 14 years ago).
If a sustainable massive and very quick restart of such heavy industrial equipment seems possible to you after 14 years I stay alert, popcorn in hand.
Sizewell C seems a good deal to the UK because it will in practice the French taxpayer will have to pay for it. Let's see if it happens, or even will be possible. SMRs are an investment-luring ghost ready to explode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45182003
Sure, there will be some new reactors. Most will be built horrendously over budget and late, obtaining refined uranium and managing their waste will be a growing concern, will produce electricity at a high cost not compensated by any benefit as other ways to compensate 'intermittency' will be more and more effective, any incident will threaten the depreciation of investments, the decommission costs will skyrocket (see nuclear decommissions in the UK, right now)... Good luck with this!
My bet: in 40 years the nuclear industry of nations which expand it now what coal industry is to Germany.
This is your only solid assertion, and sadly there is no strong (nor even weak) counter-argument. Alas, it is true for nearly all nations.
Moreover this shows that either Germany isn't sound from an industrial standpoint (this would be ridiculous!) XOR Germany didn't consider nuclear as good for its economic interests.
Pretending that nuclear would majorly reduce its dependency towards fossil fuel is a joke: at its peak (in 1999), nuclear power produced only 31% of the electricity in Germany, itself less than 25% of the energy consumed (it only provided 12.7% of primary energy, and therefore about 35% of this in final energy), and by 2011 it was producing less than 18% of the electricity.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-mix-bar?time=1999&co...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
* Renewables did not cause an increase of gas usage for electricity production in Germany. The data clearly shows that it stayed around 80 TWh for last two decades despite a massive increase of renewables. (1) * It is also clear that gas usage for electricity is a very small part of overall gas usage in Germany. For example, total gas usage was 844 TWh in 2024 (2) * It is also a hard fact, that Germany stopped importing gas from Russia quickly after start of the war. (3)
In light of these facts, I think you are misinformed and should learn to critically evaluate information you find online, instead of trying to collect random confirmation for what you want to believe to be true. Note than none of the above means that there was no dependency on Russian gas, just that it was not caused by the use of renewables. The last point is interesting because most countries importing nuclear fuel from Russia did not stop imports, which would indicate that the dependency on Russian nuclear fuel is actually more problematic that Germany's dependency on Russian gas (which does not exist anymore since 2022).
1. https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/STR... 2. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung... 3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor...
Generating electricity for your country/citizen does not need to turn a profit whatsoever. It generates value in itself, by allowing people to have a more confortable life and enabling industries that can make use of the power.
If you contest that renewable makes even less sense. They only generate less externalities locally that is beneficial to the world equally while exporting a large part of the value creation (and the externalities associated, the major reason china dominate).
On top of that, nuclear was actually profitable and has already paid for itself nicely. Germany knows that very well, which is exactly why they have worked very hard on political sabotage since the 90s. There is a bunch of EU rulings where EDF is forced to sell its electricty at a set price only to be resold later at a higher price by private actors for a "competitive" market. Germany required that because the way it was going, with the opening of homogenized market in the EU, there was no way neighboring country could be price competitive with the cheap french electricity.
China is currently building 10 reactors per year and not only they successfully reducing the construction cost, they are also successfully reducing the build time.
It would serve you well you let go of your ideology just a bit and make some serious research.
I think there are also a lot of shiny new toy syndrome where they are unable to understand the limitations of the new technology because they are inherently believers, not unlike the religious freaks.
In any case if any of what they say was true, China wouldn't build a single nuclear reactor, it would not make sense. Yet this is not at all the case.
Renewables have to be built; they make a lot of sense for the low hanging fruit (even if it's just to spend less fuel on the good days). But arguing to rely only on them is just wishful thinking and just plain dumb.
Even if it becomes technologically feasible at an acceptable price, putting all eggs in the same basket is not a good strategy. No matter how big (overbuilding) you make the basket.
The good thing is that reality is catching up with the ideologues and they are losing a lot of political power along the way. The utter failure of German policy is a good lesson on arrogance and ideology.