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Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

bloomberg.com

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Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#391

Post by cycomanic »

roenxi wrote: post #286
belorn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to both sides, the electricity prices at the time when the decision was made was very different from today. We had prices in the south of sweden 2020 that was as low as around €0.02 per kw/h, compared to over €0.3 in 2022, and in 2020 the price trend was looking to be going downwards. If prices had continue to go down and let say had landed at €0.01 per kw/h this year than we would not be discussing nuclea…

I bet what is going on isn't that surprising to industry insiders, or the people who make profit-loss decisions about whether to fund power plants or not. This is the issue with politics and the power market, the language gets locked into "what should we do" which is then interpreted as "well, the government should do it!". The problem with nuclear power isn't what the government is funding, it is that the government…

Yes let's just go free for all and the market sort it out. When was that a good idea when it came to safety critical infrastructure?! The whole let the current generation reap the profits and the market will magically figure things out got us into the current mess in the first place. The nuclear industry is not being held to higher standards relatively than other means of energy production. Wind farms must jump through significant buerocratic hurdles despite the fact that the potential dangers are massively lower.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#392

Post by sampo »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #19
tpmx wrote: post #7

The new coalition government has pledged $40B (approximately the market cap of Twitter, heh) in loan guarantees for nuclear power construction. They have also pledged to create legal guarantees that future politicians will not be able to shut down functioning nuclear power reactors without suitable monetary compensation to the owners/operators of these reactors. In addition to this, they are commissioning an urgent s…

The previous government didn't stop the shutdown planned 40+ years ago (due to a national referendum), in part because the owners (Vattenfall) said it's not economically feasible to run them anymore without subsidies. It's complex.

> (due to a national referendum)

That was an interesting referendum. There were 3 options to vote for:

1. Nuclear power would be phased out

2. Nuclear power would be phased out, with added support for low income groups

3. Nuclear power would be phased out in 10 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Swedish_nuclear_power_ref...

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#393

Post by cycomanic »

yxhuvud wrote: post #281
lostlogin wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how it was made unprofitable or point me at something?

So for example, laws around nuclear has changed so that the owners are now liable for any damages in case of a major accident.

citation required

Currently no insurance is willing to insure against major disaster. So how are companies going to pay for it? You can look at the cash reserves and immediately see that this cannot be correct.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#394

Post by belorn »

elihu wrote: post #215
belorn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define externalities. Is a balanced grid part of the externalities, ie the work needed to make sure that supply can always match that of demand?

The grid can be balanced by the application of market forces. (If there's an electrical shortage, prices go up. If there's a surplus, prices go down. The incentives are all there to encourage producers to produce power during shortages.) I was thinking more about pollution or nuclear waste management. A coal plant that just buys coal at market prices and sells electricity at market prices isn't paying for externaliti…

You could balance it that way but people don't like it when there is a power out, nor do they like when a electrical shortage causes prices to rice 10-20x that of normal prices. At that point people will vote on politicians that will fix the problem using tax money to bail out the situation, similar to how people expect government to fix the problem when banks crashes.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#395

Post by cycomanic »

Akronymus wrote: post #357
dieortin wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that does make a sense, I don’t see the problem

So make the owners of renewables liable too? From what I know ONLY nuclear has that stipulation.

A solar plant is certainly liable if accidents happen on its grounds. They don't need insurance against a major disaster like a meltdown because it can't happen.

Nuclear is NOT liable for a major nuclear disaster. No insurance would cover it. So I don't know where you got your knowledge from but it is not based on fact.

Edit: OK I should have been clearer. They are liable like everyone else. They have (unlike solar installations I suspect) strict liability which means the damaged person does not have to prove fault. However, the amount of liability is limited (in time and amount) and the state takes over. This is what I was referring to with they don't have liability (admittedly incorrect the way I wrote it).

Source:https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#396

Post by IntelMiner »

kalleboo wrote: post #372
throwaway473825 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden isn't exporting electricity for free. The money is there - it just needs to be redistributed from companies to the people.

Especially since the Swedish power company - Vattenfall, is 100% owned by the Swedish state.

I'd say other countries should take note. But privatization of infrastructure assets is a lie that has been sold to millions across the world

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#397

Post by markvdb »

tpmx wrote: post #16
_Microft wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the economics of nuclear power somehow more favorable in Sweden? That seems to be the major issue elsewhere from what I understand.

No, not really. It makes a lot of sense in all stable countries.

There is no such thing as a stable country on the time scale required for nuclear energy safety. That requires decades. Humanity cannot provide that.

Enerhodar is not the only example. World war two ended roughly 77 year ago. The US civil war was less than 160 years ago.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#398

Post by cycomanic »

cycomanic wrote: post #393
yxhuvud wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for example, laws around nuclear has changed so that the owners are now liable for any damages in case of a major accident.

citation required Currently no insurance is willing to insure against major disaster. So how are companies going to pay for it? You can look at the cash reserves and immediately see that this cannot be correct.

Edit:

I should have said they will not insure fully for the consequences of the disaster, in particular not long term effects. Nuclear has limited liability and does not need to cover the full cost of a disaster.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#399

Post by lawn »

ncmncm wrote: post #124
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another factor affecting the price is that, while there's a lot of hydropower generated in northern Sweden, there's not enough capacity for transferring energy to the south where most consumption is. The investors building industry in the north that can use cheap renewable energy don't seem to mind though. :)

That is, surely, fixable by constructing transmission lines massively cheaper than nukes.

It doesn't in any way solve the increasing electricity need in the future though, even assuming it would be fast and cheap to fix (it's not).

That said, the coalition also wants to improve the transmission lines.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#400

Post by kzrdude »

adrianN wrote: post #381
tored wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the direction the world is going, the breakdown of globalization, every country will be required to be self sufficient.

Lucky for Sweden then that they already are?

Time to increase generation capacity by +50% to feed everything we want to use electricity for.
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