Great, hopefully the ship is turning around slowly. I have been hearing from pro-carbon "environmentalists" for 30 years that "we should have built nuclear 20 years ago but doing so now would be pointless". Meanwhile we may have just reached peak-coal today if we are lucky. Well past time to stop listening to anything those grifting charlatans have to say.

▲

tacticus 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Well past time to stop listening to anything those grifting charlatans have to say.

Are you describing the "just build nukes" party here?

Cause we've been waiting a while for this nuke solution to actually ship but every example is far more expensive all while the nuke lovers block solar and wind for the same reasons.

	▲	Shitty-kitty 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There is no for-profit companies that are in it to save the planet, despite what the brochures say. Unfortunately for non-carbon power companies, their main competition is each other rather then fossil fuel sources.
	▲	stinkbeetle 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No.

▲

amanaplanacanal 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They got what they wanted. They are still successfully killing solar and wind projects.

I'll be surprised if this project actually gets built, though.

▲

hunterpayne 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think killing solar and wind projects is what the greens do. The problems with solar and wind are entirely due to the laws of physics. They get large advantages in the energy markets in most places. They have been very effective in preventing nuclear though which ironically does so much real world damage to their cause that all the rest of what they do is a drop in the bucket.

▲

croes 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Our problem isn’t energy production, it’s storage.

Nuclear power plants aren’t flexible enough for sudden changes in energy consumption.

▲

Moldoteck 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nuclear power is one of the most flexible sources of power, especially PWR's with ALFC or even more so - BWR's You can actually see how France is flexing in the summer on RTE website

▲

ZeroGravitas 2 hours ago | parent [-]

France's nuclear operators have been claiming this for years. But recently started claiming that wind and solar are bad because they force nuclear to flex which is too expensive.

> Electricite de France SA said growing solar and wind generation was increasing equipment wear and maintenance costs at its nuclear reactors, which are forced to reduce output when power demand is insufficient.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-16/edf-warns...

	▲	Moldoteck 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"France's nuclear operators have been claiming this for years. But recently started claiming that wind and solar are bad because they force nuclear to flex which is too expensive." - one doesnt disprove the other. French nuclear is extremely flexible https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/g... but it doesn't mean it's free. Solar and wind without proper bess to support them are creating problems for other generators, acting as grid parasites without offering proper firm generation

▲

mpweiher 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The storage problem is home-made, because our problem is intermittent renewables that can't produce on-demand.

With consistent producers like nuclear there is no storage problem.

And of course the Natrium plant has the buffer so it can ramp grid output up and down while maintaining the reactor at consistent power levels.

	▲	croes 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nuclear power plants and the electric networks have a big problem when power consumption has sudden big changes, like this https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-new-threat-to-powe... Storage would mean just to reroute the energy to storage, otherwise you need to lower the power plant‘s output what doesn’t happen fast in nuclear power plants
	▲	ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> With consistent producers like nuclear there is no storage problem. This tells me you’ve never looked at a demand curve. In for example California the demand swings from 18 GW to 50 GW over the day and seasons. The problem has always been economical. And this solution is looking like a bandaid to get taxpayer handouts. Why store expensive nuclear electricity rather than extremely cheap renewable electricity?

▲

chickenbig 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

France seems to work. They have plenty of nuclear power that is flexible. And you can have other forms of consumption flexibility; otherwise wind and solar are really in trouble.

▲

croes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

France is part of the EU power grid and flexibility comes from that not from nuclear power plants. And the government had to rise the subsidies for nuclear energy to prevent higher rises of the energy prices. The costs for the consumers still raised.

And their power plants were in trouble in the last hot summer because the rivers were too hot to be used for cooling. Won‘t be the last time. And that will be a big problem when people turn on their AC in a heat wave but the power plants can’t power up because they don’t have enough cool water.

And that was before drone wars were a thing.

People react nervously when unknown drones fly around airports and power plants.

And didn’t we learn from the internet that centralization is a bad thing? Nuclear power plants are exactly that.

Imagine a grid where every consumer is also a producer who can satisfy their energy needs at least partially for themselves even without the grid. Try to blackout that.

▲

Moldoteck 2 hours ago | parent [-]

"France is part of the EU power grid and flexibility comes from that not from nuclear power plants." - blatant lie. You can see in generation data they are flexing a lot in the summer. https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/g...

"And their power plants were in trouble in the last hot summer" - blatant lie. Cooling was fine, it's env protection law to avoid damaging the fauna(read - to not boil fish). Yet, it affects about 0.02% of annual generation and valid almost exclusively to NPP without cooling towers. Yet in those exact periods EDF was net exporting about 14GW to neighbors, again, data is public. French nukes can handle ppl's AC's just well, probably EDF even hopes for that to modulate their npp less and get more $

Why people always spread such nonsense without even checking the facts? Like https://www.vie-publique.fr/files/rapport/pdf/288726.pdf

"And didn’t we learn from the internet that centralization is a bad thing? Nuclear power plants are exactly that." France has a combination of centralized and decentralized power - npp's are distributed around the country but each can generate a lot of power. Even more distribution and you start paying a ton for transmission lines and maintenance. That's the reason Germany started subsidizing them from this year, with about 6bn/y. Full decentralization is not a feature and you still can't achieve it since transmission system is centralized, prime example being recent cascade blackout in Spain.

"Imagine a grid where every consumer is also a producer who can satisfy their energy needs at least partially for themselves even without the grid. Try to blackout that." - that'll mean having to need a fully parallel grid for firming. Besides, a lot of home solar are grid followers - if there's a blackout, it'll shut down too unless you have a special invertor+bess which many dont have (yet)

"And that was before drone wars were a thing." - a drone would do nothing to a NPP. Even an airplane impact can be tolerated depending how new is the NPP.

	▲	croes 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Cooling was fine, it's env protection law to avoid damaging the fauna(read - to not boil fish) You do understand what the point of environmental protection is? If you kill the flora and fauna you are not environment friendly.

▲

ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

France uses their own and their neighbors fossil capacity to manage nuclear inflexibility.

When a cold spell hits France exports turn to imports.

Now EDF is crying about renewables lowering nuclear earning potential and increasing maintenance costs.

The problem is that they are up against economic incentives. Why should a company or person with solar and storage buy grid based nuclear power? They don’t.

Why should they not sell their excess to their neighbors? They do.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-16/edf-warns...

	▲	Moldoteck 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No it doesn't. You can see it https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/g... French nuclear is more flexible than coal by design and as flexible as many older gas plants with ALFC system. They can reach up to 0.5%/second modulation (proved by Philipsburg) if the situation requires but it's rarely the case if you have a fleet. It's still not as fast as BWR's that can reach 1%/second but german coal is the slowest load follower and still meets min requirements imposed by the grid. "When a cold spell hits France exports turn to imports." - was true in the past, a bit, but afaik this and last winter France was net exporting a ton. And with FLA3 reaching full capacity this year it'll be even less of a problem. It's not like they have a problem now, they are the largest net exporter on the continent and it's unlikely to change soon. "Now EDF is crying about renewables lowering nuclear earning potential and increasing maintenance costs." - yes, because ren generation is acting like a parasitic source without proper BESS deployments - they eat into firm power profits without providing firm power benefits. "Why should a company or person with solar and storage buy grid based nuclear power? They don’t." - because in many places of the world solar+bess are not sufficient. It's also the reason why Microsoft signed a contract for TMI way above market prices instead of building a fully offgrid ren solution EDF is selling power to neighbors and makes money from it. It also is modulating it's npp a lot, which will maybe change when AC's will be more widely deployed and EV's will expand. It also is trying to schedule most maintenance works in summer, during lowest demand periods

▲

mpweiher 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Construction for the non-nuclear parts started a while ago and is proceeding.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/terrapower-break...

	▲	GolfPopper 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The non-nuclear bit is the key there. Site construction is not the challenge. Turning a theoretical reactor design into a working reactor design is. As far as I can tell, in its 20 years of existence, TerraPower has not built a reactor. nor had one of its designs built by someone else.