Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well yes, but I'm a bit skeptical that nuclear is also cheaper.
It is cheaper as long as you don’t ignore the necessary backup power plants that solar and wind need.
It's cheaper even if you don't ignore that.
Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
351–360 of 435 posts
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#352Oof, I see a lot of infighting in this thread over whether nuclear or wind/solar is better. It's so sad to see proponents of renewables fight amongst themselves while we keep burning fossil fuels. Can we agree to build as much nuclear AND renewables as we can first, and then fight over which ones to keep after fossil fuels are dead?
Nuclear and renewables don't play well together. It really is an antagonist relationship for fundamental reasons.
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will go down to 0% in Germany in several months. Germany is shutting down its last six nuclear power plants and no new ones can be built. Italy, Switzerland and Belgium also want to shut down their nuclear power plants. Shameful, unscientific public opinion in Western Europe despite more people realizing the danger of global warming.
Not being able to eat certain mushrooms or animals for decades in whole regions because of radioactive rain does that to a population yeah.
I still remember the teacher in med school showing us how exclusively eating mushrooms and wild boars[1] while living in a poorly ventilated granite house (radon gas) in eastern France still wouldn’t reach the levels of exposure one would get from the soil in some western parts of France.
It was enlightening, to say the least.
But then, it isn’t really a risk worth taking in any case.
[1]: because one can’t just live on mushrooms, but boars do eat a lot of those
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except Hinkley Point C would require those high prices persist for a decade in order to pay off. That's unlikely to happen.
Well, I don’t see why it shouldn’t happen. It’s not like the UK is currently building nuclear power plants like China or Russia do.
High prices like that will bring in a flood of new renewable capacity. It cannot last.
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, £1/kWh is pretty high, but it's not totally outrageous and it appears to have been capped by some kind of regulatory limit. 42¢/kWh is the standard retail price in California during peak demand hours, and that's not a huge difference.
You pay $0.42/kWh real time peak price in CA on a normal day? That's an absolutely bonkers number to me. Normal peak real time prices in Texas are like $0.12/kWh
We moved from California a few years back. We lived in an area that they had tier usage based on $DATA. That meant that you went out of the most affordable tier after you ran a refrigerator and a lightbulb. We always were charged over a dollar per kWh. Moved out to the PNW and I'm paying under $0.07/kWH now. It's fantastic.
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Rosatom trolled EU on twitter: "So apparently you cannot build your entire electricity system on weather-dependent energy sources. Who would have thought?" https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1438395621648572418
Lots of people blaming the shockingly high gas prices on the wind not blowing these days it seems.
That... Does make sense? Weather issues -> increased demand -> gas consimption increases
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I understand the fear of nuclear, especially in Europe where Chernobyl took place, I find it kind of silly that countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, etc are shutting down THEIR nukes, while bordering France (and other countries) who aren't shutting them down. Do they imagine that the radiation / fallout from their neighbor's catastrophe would respect national borders?
I'm pro-nuclear but your argument is the same used by people saying "what's the point of my country reducing its CO2 emissions because it's only contributing to X% (X Some of France's neighbor are asking for the shutdown of some nuclear plants. It's much easier to ask this when you don't have any yourself
I'd say the co2 emissions example you quote makes more sense. That's simply "you're asking me sacrifice X in exchange for a benefit Y where Y is very small [because my country emissions are less than 1/30 of China's]".
Co2 emissions are also global and influence some areas of the world more than others; a nuclear fallout would hit primarily France, even though neighbours would be affected as well.
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not being able to eat certain mushrooms or animals for decades in whole regions because of radioactive rain does that to a population yeah.
I still remember the teacher in med school showing us how exclusively eating mushrooms and wild boars[1] while living in a poorly ventilated granite house (radon gas) in eastern France still wouldn’t reach the levels of exposure one would get from the soil in some western parts of France. It was enlightening, to say the least. But then, it isn’t really a risk worth taking in any case. [1]: because one can’t just live…
Do you mean the other way around?
This map suggests that western France is fine:
https://www.wsl.ch/en/2020/07/new-map-for-radioactive-soil-c...
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
French generation is ~70% nuclear (10% wind/solar) and German is ~10% (~40% wind/solar). Yet their prices track each other closely. So I think this explanation is too simplistic. Possibly there are large interconnects between the French and German grids levelling out wholesale prices, but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power for this imagined scenario where nuclear makes a big difference.
There's no "French and German grids", most of EU is a single grid (see map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... ) and there's no meaningful difference between "interconnects" linking France and Germany and power lines within France, though there are a bit fewer of them than internal lines. There are some limited interconnects linking continental EU with UK and Scandinavia with some trade ha…
Calling it one grid is kind of misleading. There is nowhere near enough transmission if all power production in say Spain failed even if in theory there is enough excess capacity across the EU to provide power to Spain.
Limits on transmission result in individual countries generally having significantly different wholesale prices.
Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's nothing special or magic about nuclear. Apart from the technology, safety profile and generally being the cleanest source of energy ever discovered. And being able to stockpile enormous amounts of energy in a small heap if necessary ^^. And if we could just convince people to accept it only causing say, half as much damage as coal it would be ridiculously cheap too. These appallingly high safety standards a…
Half as much damage as coal is a pretty low bar! Natural gas also meets it, for example. Your broader point is strong though, and there's no reason 4th-gen nuclear power plants being designed now couldn't deliver a quarter (or less) the damage of coal while still being economical.
Could they really be economical though? There is potential for harm (including terrorism) that must be insured against, you also need to pay a premium for the land compared to solar/wind since few want to live nearby. The construction timelines are huge compared to solar/wind and you don't have the economies of scale that drive prices down.
Nuclear easily beats coal if we include the environmental costs but it's also up against solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal options which have seen huge efficiency gains in the last decade.