EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

I am not sure people understand the implications of this.

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...

Nuclear + gas is the climate friendly solution.

Gas isn’t climate friendly just because of its debatable attractiveness vs coal. And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate. Let’s not pretend it’s some panacea. Renewables are better than both.

Fun fact: The US achieved more for the climate with fracking gas than Germany did with its "Energiewende".

Do you care to explain more, id be interested :)

In 2005, both the US and Germany had specific emissions of around 600g CO₂/kWh.

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.

Shutting down nuclear was a pretty popular policy. But that aside, what the Energiewende was not about was removing obstacles to building out energy infrastructure rapidly (e.g., the delay on the north-south connections).

Well, populism is no good reason to do something dumb. Maybe laymen should not directly have a say over experts in deeply technical discussions.

Yes, not supporting energy infrastructure construction better was a mistake.

Removing what would be nasty targets in a war perhaps in the current light not so much.

No shutting down cheap, reliable, CO₂ free and already paid for energy infrastructure was.

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.

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.

> Germany could have decarbonized faster by maintaining its nuclear power

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.

The money Germany "wasted" on renewables brought down prices a lot, triggering massive investments, which was the plan. My prediction is that even France will scale down nuclear power for fiscal reasons alone - they would need to build new reactors now as a long-term replacement - but it does not look too good.

France keeps talking about the EPR2 program but the government just collapsed because they are underwater in debt and can't agree on any cuts or increases in taxation.

At this moment to go on a massive spending spree for a dead-end nuclear project is not a very sane policy.

Investing in the futur when you have a hard time creating more value than you consume is exactly what you need to do. Reducing investment is precisely the way to reinforce the downward feedback loop. If they want to keep taxing the common man, they need them to create more value otherwise to are just taking larger and larger share of vanishing small value.

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.

Which means you need a return on the investment for it to work. Creating self sustaining industries that don’t need subsidies.

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.

Er...nuclear is already self sustaining and has a great ROI for the French (and pretty much everyone else).

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.

I’m not sure where to begin. Please stop straight up lying? Nothing in this comment is correct.

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.

My comment is exactly correct.

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.

> 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...

Once again: EDF receives subsidies for their renewables projects.