• lwe@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    And I assume the energy companies will be footing the bill from construction till deconstruction and long term storage, the later two as a trustee deposit, on their own without any state subsidies. Given that all the pro-nuclear folk always tout so many benefits to nuclear, this should be a non-issue and be very profitable.

    • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      And I assume the energy companies will be footing the bill from construction till deconstruction and long term storage, the later two as a trustee deposit, on their own without any state subsidies. Given that all the pro-nuclear folk always tout so many benefits to nuclear, this should be a non-issue and be very profitable.

      I don’t really see profitability being a factor if there is already a universal understanding that reducing carbon emissions will always come at a cost anyway. Or am I misunderstanding your point?

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Here’s the issue: do other power sources need to do this? Coal doesn’t. It puts CO2 into the air and we all pay for it later. Solar mines and refines material that polluted the environment, and we have no method of recycling, but they don’t pay for it. Wind has no method of recycling the blades, but they don’t pay for what happens when they’re done.

      I think they should all be on equal footing. They should all have to pay for their waste, and they should all be subsidized equally based on energy produced. However, only nuclear contains and stores all of its waste, which is good an important but unfair that other sources don’t have to.

      • lwe@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        It’s a fair point to argue from that perspective. But at least in Europe I don’t hear a lot of people planning to build new coal power plants. Germany certainly wants to continue mining coal for some asine reason but definitely no new plants. Solar requires materials but recoupes relatively quickly and wind has also quite a few noise and light pollution issues. But they are both better alternatives to any nuclear generator, even if we add the energy storage on top.

    • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I doubt the point will be to build traditional old style reactors. I assume they’d be for Gen 4.

    • Ebber@lemmings.world
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      2 months ago

      Those are not unsolvable problems though, and they stem from political issues rather than the technical problems we still have with the scale of energy storage that we will need with 100% renewable.
      And that is not to say that we shouldn’t use renewables, we should just also use nuclear.

      • excral@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        What “political issues” do you mean? Requirements to safety and environmental standards? Sure, nuclear energy could be way cheaper if those pesky politicians would just allow to forgo safety standards and to dump nuclear waste into landfills, but that cannot seriously be what you’re suggesting.

        • Ebber@lemmings.world
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          2 months ago

          No I mean the NIMBYism that people present when debating the location of long term storage. What I mean is that the method to create these is not the issue, but rather the public opposition.

      • Melchior@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        We mostly do not need too much storage today. For that we first need an overproduction of renewables at certain points to actually store and that is unforuntatly not the case today.

        As for scale the key technoliges seem to be batteries for shorter storage and hydrogen for longer dunkelflaute. The first is pushed mainly by EV developement, which is going to push down the price for battery packs and built enough factories to have the scale necessary. Hydrogen as a product is needed for chemical and steel production anyway. So we need to built the infrastructure for that including some storage. But development cost will mainly be meet by that.

    • felykiosa@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Idk for germany but nuclear power is super profitable in france. In fact its soo cheap that our producer of electricity is obligated by EU to sell a part of his production to other brand of electricity to equilibrate with other companies who produce electricity with gas.

      • Lachs@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Nuclear Power is heavily subsuidezed in France. Most in france related to nuclear are state institutions. Including the Energy Company EDF and the scientific institute CEA. It is often phrased as a state-in-state with a lot of undisclosed structures and money funds. They were created when France saw in the 60s that they need also a nuclear bomb and hence developed a state-close structure that until today in not giving out too much informations. The French citizens pay with their taxes for their nuclear power plants. Heavily. And they hide it behind a lot of structures. Who is paying for the construction? The Repair? The Decomission? - Right: French citizens. If if calculate all these cost into the bill, Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive energy forms there are.

        • Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          Nah, fossil fuels are the most expensive energy there is, hands down.

          Climate change isn’t cheap.

          Paying a tax to help prevent that is much better than dealing with it. Solar and wind should get subsidies too. Treating climate change like it’s a capitalist rather than a socialist won’t solve it.

        • felykiosa@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Even with the deconstruction cost , the repair cost and the cost of the nuclear waste it still way more environmental friendly than gas/coal produced energy. Also you need way less place for the same production of energy than solar pannel or eolian. i dont think than we have been fooled on this subject .

          • Saleh@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            You claimed it to be cheap. It is evidently not, the costs are just hidden.

            France has large coastal areas for reliable offshore wind energy. These don’t compete with any uses and are much cheaper than nuclear power. The land use of solar power seems hardly to be an issue in France. I have been to southern France many times and there is a lot of unused land. Also you will need to combined solar power and agriculture soon enough as the direct sun is becoming too much for many crops to handle. In these areas solar power will allow for land use instead of competing with it. And again solar power is much much cheaper than nuclear power.

            • felykiosa@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Unused and protected land , we habe the biggest natural reserve in europe. Also I never said that intermittent energy was a thing to ban just that you could do both. Would love to quote my sources but unfortunately its ib french . a lot of it is summarized by Jean marc jancovici a french engineer who s job is to make reports on the state and solution for the energy grid in France.

          • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            Well for starters you have to take out billions in credits over at least 20-30 years and pay interest on it, until the plant is built and you can start selling power and make any money from it.

      • Don_alForno@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Your old reactors are producing “cheap” energy if we ignore indirect subsidies like state guarantees for project risks and replacing insurance for uninsurable power plants, costs of eventual decommissioning, waste storage etc. . But many of them are end of life. They are kept running because building new ones even to replace the existing capacity takes ages and is far too expensive to be profitable under the price regulation (i.e. Flamanville, which would require 12-17 cents/ kWh to be profitable while the regulated price is 7 cents which wind and solar can achieve natively. Similar problems with international EDF projects like Hinkley Point).

        • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
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          2 months ago

          Do you mean how much it costs to make in a nuclear plant, or how much the consumer pays on the electricity bill?

            • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
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              2 months ago

              This doesn’t make the electricity cheaper for you. It just means a lower number is printed on your power bill, and a higher number on your sales-, income or other tax bill that the government then gives to the power plant owner.

  • barsoap@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Berlin’s concerns in part stemmed from concerns that French industry would gain a competitive edge thanks to its 56-strong fleet of reactors, while German industry still struggles with the impact of high gas prices following the cut-off from cheap Russian fuel.

    How about we force the French to finally build proper links to Spain so that their nuclear plants have to compete with Iberian renewables.