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Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC

(www.eesc.europa.eu)
129 points mpweiher | 3 comments | 12 Dec 25 17:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.501s | source
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retrac ◴[12 Dec 25 19:57 UTC] No.46248101[source]▶
Here in Ontario, residentially we pay about 0.09 USD per kWh at night and 0.18 USD with demand peak pricing on weekday afternoons. Or if you have flat rate it's about 0.13 USD per kWh. This is considered very expensive by Canadian standards and it's due to our nuclear power program where about 55% of electricity is from nuclear, the rest from a mix of wind/hydro/solar/biofuel and gas. The increased price during the day is due to the need to burn a bit of gas at peak demand. The grid is otherwise nearly carbon neutral, and the long-term plan is to phase out the gas with a mix of wind, nuclear and pumped storage.

We pay less in practice than the rates given above for power, because the government also subsidizes it. But even without that I understand such rates would be relatively cheap in most European countries.

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belorn ◴[12 Dec 25 20:27 UTC] No.46248446[source]▶
Is that the commercial price to the end customer with tax and connection fees, or is it the gross price at the power exchange?
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retrac ◴[12 Dec 25 20:37 UTC] No.46248586[source]▶
Consumer price of the energy. Doesn't include connection fees, but those are a minority of the cost. Includes special energy taxes. But not sales tax.

For a real example, I'm on flat rate and if I use 1000 kWh my monthly bill will be 211 CAD (effective rate 0.21 CAD / 0.13 EUR per kWh) including taxes, connection, delivery, everything, but without subsidy. The amount I pay after the subsidy is applied would be less at 165 CAD.

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1. hvb2 ◴[12 Dec 25 20:56 UTC] No.46248832[source]▶
Is the subsidy just to lower cost of living for the lowest incomes?

Would be very curious about the rationale for it if not. Why would you subsidize increased energy use

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2. scotty79 ◴[12 Dec 25 21:40 UTC] No.46249316[source]▶
The argument against deregulation of energy prices is that poor people won't be able to afford it. But if you create a program that subsidizes some reasonable amount of energy per person per month the price of electricity can go as high as it needs to. I don't know if that was rationale in Canada but it's one possible rationale why government might want to aubsiduze energy usage.
3. retrac ◴[12 Dec 25 22:54 UTC] No.46250045[source]▶
It applies to most private residential and small-scale business electric use. Rationale would be getting quite political, as you might imagine. But I suppose there are several justifications that are given.

One is to offset the cost to the consumer for phasing out fossil fuels. Coal has been shut down and wind and storage and new nuclear is being built. Politically it has been presented as a matter of fairness; poor people are least able to pay for increases or to retrofit. A kind of wealth redistribution. (Though when you remember large corporately-run farms are included in the subsidy it's maybe not the most progressive form of redistribution.)

In Quebec where they have a great surplus of hydroelectric they also partly subsidize residential electricity with the profits of the surplus sale to the United States. The energy is so cheap there than resistive heating is cheaper than natural gas for home heating. Avoiding dependence on oil and gas imported from either the US or western Canada, or rather trying to lessen that dependence, is a standing issue for both Quebec and Ontario.