Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC

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.

> So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired.

This is an article about Europe. Do you really believe France alone is operating 57 nuclear reactors, and producing 70% of its energy via fission, without the industry, the knowledge, and with no experts left? Is chatgpt running everything?

If you are so smug about this, answer me:

1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing end-of-life?

2: How many reactors has Europe built since 2005?

3: What's the overrun time of reactors in Europe, compared to China?

The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the industry has existed. It was world class, but the institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist and would need to be rebuilt for the new generation of reactors. And we are not even talking Generation 4 here.

> 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing end-of-life?

> The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the industry has existed. It was world class, but the institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist and would need to be rebuilt for the new generation of reactors. And we are not even talking Generation 4 here.

The only reasonable conclusion from your logic is that it would have felt like an even worse idea to build nuclear reactors in the 1970's. Yet, using today's hindsight, it was a great idea.

Airbus would have been a terrible idea: no one had built commercial airliners before, and only the US had the know-how. Today, we know otherwise.

etc.

> The only reasonable conclusion from your logic is that it would have felt like an even worse idea to build nuclear reactors in the 1970's. Yet, using today's hindsight, it was a great idea.

If the competition was renewables and storage rather than plants running on imported oil during the oil crisis it would have been.

75% of all new capacity in TWh (I.e. adjusting for capacity factor.) globally are renewables and storage. There’s no need to swim against the river.

Intermittent renewables have capacity factors in the 10-20% range. So divide by 5.

34 nations have committed to tripling nuclear capacity, including the US, China, France, the UK and many others. And they are acting on this as well.

The tide is nuclear, no need to swim against it.

And no, countries also doing renewables in no way negates this.

Both you and ViewTrick have it wrong.

The tide is neither nuclear nor renewables.

The tide is "we've become advanced enough to know that there is no one-size fits all solution for energy generation and are taking a more nuanced approach to address the local and different energy needs of differing regions/grids".

I hate these online debates that frame things like "renewables vs nuclear" when the reality should be "zero-carbon emission sources vs carbon emission". The only part of nuclear is in that is if it should be on the table or not. But it is absolutely idiotic from that framework to take nuclear off the table because you're not saying "nuclear everywhere" you're saying "if nuclear makes more sense for this setting, then use nuclear".

Don't oversimplify things, it makes everything too complicated.

The problem is that we can’t be wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc on handouts from tax money to new built nuclear power.

As soon as zero fuel cost renewables enters the picture the mix of extremely high CAPEX and acceptable OPEX for new built nuclear makes it the worst companion imaginable.

The problem is that the setting nuclear power makes sense in is for the people living north of the arctic without abundant hydro or a transmission grid.

We’re now down to a handful communities in Russia, the US and Canada and Svalbard.

If these communities pertaining a few hundred thousand people keep running on fossil fuels while we achieve larger impact elsewhere that’s perfectly acceptable.

  > The problem is that we can’t be wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing

I agree. FULLHEARTEDLY. That is at the very root of my message, isn't it?

  > on handouts from tax money to new built nuclear power.

But this is where I disagree. For 2 reasons

1) You don't seem to be applying this same measure to other energy sources like renewables, storage, and so on.

2) "Government money" works differently than "people money". I am not the best person to explain this but I'll summarize what my girlfriend and her dad constantly say, both having PhDs in economics (who teach this stuff and work with governments) "An economist can only tell you how much something costs, not if you should do it or if the results are worth the cost." Like a economist can tell you how much a hospital will cost and how many lives it might save, but at the end of the day they can't tell you if that's the right choice or not.

# Costs

You really should check out the Lazard report[0]. They get pretty detailed.

Jump to page 8 and you'll see a table like this (let's see how well I can format this here lol. Won't look nice on mobile)

  Solar (Comm & C&I)            $81----------------------$217
  Solar (Util)          $38----$78
  Solar + Stor (Util)      $50-------------$131
  GeoTherm                   $66-------$109
  Wind (OnShore)       $37--------$86
  Wind+Stor (On)          $44------------$123
  Wind (OffShore)             $70----------------$157
  Gas                                $108^5  $149-----------------------$251
  Nuclear             $34^5                $141--$169^6--$200  $228^6
  Gas Comb Cyc       $31^5 $48-----$107^7-$109

  ^5: Reflects cot of opperating fully depreciated facilities, includes decommissioning, salvage, restoration
  ^6: Based on Vogtle nuclear power plant with "learning curve" being ~30% between units 3&4. Based on 70 year lifespan

So there's important things here.

  1) *Existing Nuclear* is the cheapest zero-carbon source
  2) Vogtle is Lazard's *ONLY* source of data for new nuclear
    2.1) Removing the "Learning Curve" costs from Vogtle puts competitive with renewables ($118-$160)
    2.2) Including the "Learning Curve" Vogtle is already competitive with rooftop solar 
  3) (Page 9) Renewable prices are much cheaper thanks to subsidies.
    3.1) Solar
         $81-$217 --> $51-$178
         $38-$78  --> $20-$57
         $50-$131 --> $33-$111
    3.2) Same for wind but you can look
    3.3) *NOTE* Trump is ending subsidies

You're also going to be very interested with pages 19-20 for storage costs. In particular the cost of residential storage.

  > The problem is that the setting nuclear power makes sense

This is just not true! You've vastly oversimplified the setting. I'd agree, there's probably no reason for nuclear in the American Southwest. There's lots of sun, lots of open land, and lower environmental impacts. But this isn't true elsewhere. Hydro is great, but you forget that it has pretty heavy environmental impacts as well. You have to create a reservoir, meaning you have to put land under water. Not to mention how it changes the water.

There's no free lunch!

# "[Costs] can't tell you if that's the right choice or not"

And that's the reason I said what I said! You both are vastly oversimplifying things to the point where you think there's one right answer. THERE ISN'T. The whole point of the renewables movement isn't to make cheap electricity, it is *to make the environment better* while still producing the energy we need and at affordable prices. If this was just a price discussion then we wouldn't be where we are and gas and coal would be the cheapest option. *BUT we care about the environment*. Not just the carbon in the air, but the carbon in the ocean, the animals it impacts, the forests and lands (both of which are also a vital part of natural carbon sequestration!), and making the planet a better place not just for humans but all life.

Get out of your internet armchair and go find out what actual experts are saying. Not the dumb science communicators on YouTube. Not the clickbait like "IFuckingLoveScience". Go watch lectures online. Go watch lectures in person! I don't know how to tell you this, but you can straight up email any professor at any university. People respond! Not only that, but you can go sit in on their classes (I'd suggest you ask first, but nobody fucking takes attendance). Go grab actual books (those people will recommend those books to you too!).

Take your passion for arguing on the internet and make sure it is at least equal to the passion you have for learning about the actual subject matter. If your love of arguing is greater than your love of the actual subject then I promise you, you are harming the very community you believe you are fighting for. You can even go ahead and ask those same people I'm requesting you reach out to and I'm sure plenty will tell you the same. I mean for Christ's sake, you got so caught up in me calling you out that you didn't even recognize I called out the person you were arguing with and instead put me into the same bucket! Clearly putting me in the same bucket as mpweiher is a categorical mistake!

[0] https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...

Thank you for that.

I'm always tired of the anti-nuclear zealots that make it look like it's an either/or situation.

We can (and should) do both. Even if renewable plus storage ends up being sufficient in some places, it is extremely unlikely that will apply everywhere. And at the current production rates, it would take multiple decades to transition everything. Even if we take forever (10 years+) to build new nuclear, as it happens to be right now, it would still be beneficial. And there is no good reason we can't build fast like China manages to do right now.