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Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC

(www.eesc.europa.eu)
129 points mpweiher | 2 comments | 12 Dec 25 17:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.017s | source
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DarkNova6 ◴[12 Dec 25 19:40 UTC] No.46247903[source]▶
So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.

Look, I love nuclear technology. But time has moved on. The costs to rebuild this industry is astronomical and means we lose out on key-future technology like batteries.

Edit: But then there are bombs. And especially French love their nukes due national security. This is the only reason to keep pushing for nuclear, since Russia, the US and China are not gonna change direction on this either. But the very least we could do is be honest about it.

Edit 2: Changed from "World has moved on" to "time has moved on", since evidently China has invested for a good 2 decades to build their own fully functional nuclear-industry. Proving my point that it takes dedicated investment, network effects and scale to rebuild this industry. After all, they too want to mass produce nukes.

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BigTTYGothGF ◴[12 Dec 25 20:46 UTC] No.46248710[source]▶
> But the world has moved on.

China's got 27 reactors under construction right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

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1. DarkNova6 ◴[12 Dec 25 20:52 UTC] No.46248790[source]▶
You are naturally correct and I have corrected my statement. I intended to refer to the West but my wording was factually incorrect.

China has invested so much for so long into nuclear technology that they now have the industry which Europe once had. And to rebuild the same type of industry would take the same amount of effort that China had to do. Meanwhile, the US can't even build their own warships anymore.

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2. bigbadfeline ◴[12 Dec 25 23:08 UTC] No.46250158[source]▶
> China has invested so much for so long into nuclear technology... And to rebuild the same type of industry in the EU would take the same amount of effort.

You're factually wrong.

China started from 0 but the EU has kept building reactors, the French Areva/EDF finished three advanced 1600 MW reactors just 6 and 2 years ago. They are also building two reactors of the same type in the UK as we speak. The EU has never lost the expertise necessary for building nuclear reactors, they have actually advanced the state of the art since the end of the initial European wave.

Don't be confused by the lack of finished reactors in the EU, 2 of the completed Areva plants are in China and were built for a third of the time and cost of the same type reactors currently under construction in the UK. Therefore:

1. Looking at completed reactors in the EU cannot be used for judging the level of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) expertise in the EU.

2. Cost overruns in Europe are due to politics and civil engineering chaos there while the EU's NPP expertise is the best in the world.

3. Technology-wise, a new EU buldout of NPPs won't start from zero but from the the very top of the NPP technology ladder.