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Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

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Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#251

Post by kccqzy »

vlovich123 wrote: post #98
kccqzy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a case where the supply was about to be gone and Google provided funds to keep it operating (the original nuclear reactor began operation in 1977 and it now needed EUR 700M to extend the service life). And one can probably guess that this supply just wasn’t cost competitive in the first place, but Google increased the demand so much that it now becomes cost competitive.

Source? The provider had requested to extend the lifetime of that particular reactor to 2050 2 years ago (something they’d started considering 8 years ago). Now maybe they did this contingent on expecting this Google deal to materialize, but it’s not clear to me these Google funds are strictly the only reason they’d keep operating the plant.

From https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-signs-up-for-...

> Currently, about 80% of the projects required to extend the service life and investments of EUR700 million still lack an investment decision. Fortum said the PPA with Google will generate a predictable revenue stream, enabling it to complete the life extension investments at Loviisa.

I think they requested the operating license extension before the actual decision to extend was made.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#252

Post by epistasis »

sfn42 wrote: post #179
epistasis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is the most expensive form of clean energy. It is likely to bankrupt at least one company. When Finland contracted with France to build their latest reactor, they wisely had a fixed price contract where the French company would pay for const overruns. At groundbreaking in 2005, they planned for a 2009 completion. In 2016 it bankrupted Areva, with the French government owned EDG saving parts of the company cru…

> new nuclear is not a serious technology It seems to me the main problem is we build so little of it that we don't have the people, skills, supply chains etc to do it well. China generally builds it's reactors on schedule and within budget.

China is only building a token amount of nuclear compared to storage wind and solar. It makes a lot of sense for a large nation like China to waste a bit of money on nuclear power just to provide support for the core national security interest: nuclear weapons.

On time, yes, because China is great at construction. On budget, almost certainly, but we have very little visibility into true costs. China's labor costs are getting far higher as it becomes richer, and there's a good chance that it will reach a state of higher economic development where its costs for nuclear mirror those high costs in present day France.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#253

Post by epistasis »

machomaster wrote: post #228
sfn42 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> new nuclear is not a serious technology It seems to me the main problem is we build so little of it that we don't have the people, skills, supply chains etc to do it well. China generally builds it's reactors on schedule and within budget.

Russia builds a lot of reactors as well. Hence, they were hired to build the Hanhikivi one in Finland, after the French disaster. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled for moronic political reasons.

When your supplier is threatening to invade and kill your people, and has critical control over supply of parts of your reactor, and regularly commits acts of nuclear terrorism such as droning the newly completed sarcophagus around Chornobyl:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_...

Well, avoiding business deals with that neighbor is the only rational action. Building a Russian nuclear reactor as one of their neighbors is suicidally stupid. At least go to South Korea instead.

The US is also finding out that when it threatens its neighbors and allies that it will lose out on crucial industrial deals, such as Canada and Europe moving away from US military contractors.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#254

Post by throwaway2037 »

mitxela wrote: post #163
kennywinker wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a community's usage is say 60% of what a plant can produce, and $TECH_GIANT comes and buys the other 40%, what happens next? Power prices will go up, since any growth will exceed the available power generation capacity. Power will become dirtier, since diesel generators will fill in when there is high demand. Then the community will spend a huge amount of money building out more capacity. I think we will all soon…

Pretty much anyone sharing anything with a megarich person ends badly for the people who are not megarich.

This is a weird take. Before the rise of AI/LLMs, a lot of Finland's industry was paper products and high-end manuf'ing. Both of these require a lot of electricity. Did people say the same before? No (or much less).

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#255

Post by epistasis »

SoftTalker wrote: post #106
epistasis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is the most expensive form of clean energy. It is likely to bankrupt at least one company. When Finland contracted with France to build their latest reactor, they wisely had a fixed price contract where the French company would pay for const overruns. At groundbreaking in 2005, they planned for a 2009 completion. In 2016 it bankrupted Areva, with the French government owned EDG saving parts of the company cru…

This is Finland. A third of the country is above the Arctic circle. In the winter the sun barely gets above the horizon. Nuclear makes a lot of sense there.

Agreed, it makes sense for Finland, one of the very few places it does. But in the future of global energy supply, nuclear will be a far less serious player than it was in the 20th century.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#256

Post by throwaway473825 »

happosai wrote: post #238
throwaway473825 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has a large problem with carbon leakage from electricity generation to oil and gas use. For example, gas heating is exempt from the EU carbon trade, so people are encouraged to use that rather than electric heating. In countries like Germany, gas heating is popular largely for tax reasons.

Gas heating is a pre-existing issue in Germany. While there is handful on anecdotes of someone switching back to gas, the big trend is opposite. Majority of heating refurbishments are gas/oil -> heat pumps, and almost every new build is heat pumps. carbon leakage is mostly industrial and data centers (why do so many europeans run code at us-east-1 ?)

If you study the heat pump adoption in various European countries, you will quickly notice that it's connected to the price ratio between electricity and gas.

The EU has a carbon tax on electricity but not gas. This pushes people towards gas heating. Germany has much higher taxes on electricity, although it does at least have a carbon tax on gas.

If a carbon tax on electricity makes people use gas heating, that's carbon leakage.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#257

Post by throwaway2037 »

machomaster wrote: post #228
sfn42 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> new nuclear is not a serious technology It seems to me the main problem is we build so little of it that we don't have the people, skills, supply chains etc to do it well. China generally builds it's reactors on schedule and within budget.

Russia builds a lot of reactors as well. Hence, they were hired to build the Hanhikivi one in Finland, after the French disaster. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled for moronic political reasons.

    > Unfortunately, the project was cancelled for moronic political reasons.
From Wiki[1], I see:

    > In March 2022, in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Finnish Government declared that a rapid independence from Russian energy production is desired, and that the construction of the plant should not continue. Mika Lintilä, Finland's Minister of Economic Affairs, declared that he would not issue a construction permit.
Why is this "moronic"?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#258

Post by kennywinker »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #254
mitxela wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much anyone sharing anything with a megarich person ends badly for the people who are not megarich.

This is a weird take. Before the rise of AI/LLMs, a lot of Finland's industry was paper products and high-end manuf'ing. Both of these require a lot of electricity. Did people say the same before? No (or much less).

Did any one factory in those industries (paper and high end manufacturing) use 50% of the output of a nuclear power plant?

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#260

Post by vlovich123 »

jryle70 wrote: post #136
vlovich123 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you read this? What I read is that Fortum was considering extending to 2050 as early as 2018 and finalized those plans 2 years ago. I read nothing that indicates the survival of this plant is dependent on this Google deal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652346

> Those decisions would otherwise have been made year by year, but the long-term deal with Google ensures Loviisa will keep running through the end of its operating license

It's important to be able to read through PR in planted pieces. There's no indication that Loviisa was actually going to struggle. It's a guaranteed revenue stream which removes some risk for them, but Finland has seen a boom in data centers and such which is why Fortum went after the 2050 extension in the first place. They even wanted to build a third reactor which the government declined to authorize. That doesn't speak to them wondering if there's enough demand to keep the plant alive. It's highly unlikely Loviisa was going to close down even without the Google deal.

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