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| ▲ | toomuchtodo 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | They dabble in nuclear, but it is not their focus. China can do what the developed world cannot because they are a command economy with less expensive labor, which will only last for a bit longer due to their structural demographics. Unless the developed world no longer has labor regulations, developed world wages, and capital based allocation systems, my statement stands with regards to investment. If capital and labor does not matter, certainly, anything is possible (Paraoh demanding pyramids, for example). Your citation comes from an organization with pro nuclear bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Institute Can China Break Nuclear Power’s Cost Curse—and What Can the US Learn? - https://rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/can-china-break-nuclear-... - September 17th, 2025 China built more solar power in the last 8 months than all the nuclear power built in the entire world in the entire history of human civilisation. And even if you adjust for utilisation rate to compare against nuclear utilisation China built more solar power generated per hour than all the nuclear power currently in operation generate in an hour - and did so in 12-18 months - https://bsky.app/profile/climatenews.bsky.social/post/3lggqu... - January 23, 2025 China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week - https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewa... - July 15th, 2024 Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China Deployments - https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la... - January 12th, 2024 Nuclear Energy & Free Market Capitalism Aren’t Compatible - https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/06/nuclear-energy-free-mar... - November 6th, 2023 https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1910780131318374524 | https://archive.today/iu9jx (China demographics citation) | | |
| ▲ | yawaramin 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If France–a country known for its strong labour laws and unions–could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any Western country can do it. Even if the Western world lags behind due to labour regulations, the cost still pays off in the long run due to overall less complex infrastructure and stable, AC baseload power. You are thinking only about the cost of building. What about the cost of maintaining all that infrastructure? Huge solar and wind farms spread out over vast areas, essentially destroying the local ecology? NPPs have a relatively tiny footprint. Every cited source has a bias. You think 'Clean Technica' is unbiased? Come on. | | |
| ▲ | nagisa 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The options in the '70s were much different from those of today. And for France specifically what they have underground (lots of uranium, no oil, no gas & no coal) strongly suggested exactly one way forward. | | |
| ▲ | cbmuser 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wind and solar existed in the 70s as well. Plus, Germany invested 500 billion Euros in its energy transition and is STILL heavily dependent on coal. | | |
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| ▲ | toomuchtodo 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > If France–a country known for its strong labour laws and unions–could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any Western country can do it. France had to nationalize EDF because they could not afford the costs associated with their nuclear fleet. The 70s are 50 years in the past, and are not what the future will look like. This is also why Spain plans to retire its remaining nuclear generators, and go all in on renewables. EDF fleet upkeep will cost over 100 billion euros by 2035, court of auditors says - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-fleet-upkeep-wil... - November 17th, 2025 French utility EDF lifts cost estimate for new reactors to 67 billion euros - Les Echos - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-utility-edf-l... - March 4th, 2024 Explainer-Why a French plan to take full control of EDF is no cure-all - https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/07/07/edf-nationalistion - July 7th, 2022 Spain’s Nuclear Shutdown Set to Test Renewables Success Story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/spain-s-n... | https://archive.today/4fB7K - April 11th, 2025 (“Spain is a postcard, a glimpse into the future where you’re not going to need baseload generators from 8am to 5pm” with solar and wind providing all of the grid’s needs during that time, said Kesavarthiniy Savarimuthu, a European power markets analyst with BloombergNEF. Still, she said, there is a reasonable chance this goal may take longer than expected and “extending the life of the nuclear fleet can prove as an insurance for these delays.”) (My note: As of this comment, Spain has 7.12GW of nuclear generation capacity per ree.es, and assuming ~1GW/month deployment rate seen in Germany, could replace this capacity with solar and batteries in ~28-36 months; per Electricity Maps, only 17.25% of Spain's electrical generation over the last twelve months has been sourced from this nuclear) Tangentially, Europe has enough wind potential to power the world, for scale. |
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| ▲ | cbmuser 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | »Your citation comes from an organization with pro nuclear bias.« Go and throw all your money into renewables stocks and ETFs if you’re so convinced. I bet you’re not doing that because you realize that the industry isn’t doing well and it’s nuclear power nowadays where all the money goes. | | |
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