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| ▲ | sndcr 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It’s not either or, you need both. We haven’t solved energy storage so renewables can’t be the only source of energy. If you look at Value-Adjusted Levelized Cost of Electricity (VALCOE) it changes the calculation quite a bit. We have negative energy prices a few times per year in Europe as it is. |
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| ▲ | ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | We’ve solved both. The research has moved on from VALCOE to whole system modeling. Including transmission, storage, backup, firming and modeling it hour by hour. Studies are converging on renewable energy systems being cheaper in climates ranging from Australia to the Nordics: Some recent ones: Finland, 2025: nuclear scenarios 71–84% higher system cost; unrestricted least-cost optimization builds zero new nuclear.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422... Denmark, 2026: system-level LCOE including storage, flexibility and system integration; renewables substantially cheaper than nuclear.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422... Australia, CSIRO + AEMO GenCost 2025–26: whole-system modelling including transmission, storage and firming; renewables + storage remain the lowest-cost net-zero pathway.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Ele... | | |
| ▲ | Flip-per 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm interested in why people think this is wrong, in case this is the reason for the downvotes. | | |
| ▲ | K3UL 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Because what is true for these 3 countries is not true for all countries. There are counter-examples where nuclear is cheaper. In most countries which don't have the advantages of Australia or Finland, you do need a mix as the OP was saying | | |
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| ▲ | gignico 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The idea is to go to new-generation SMRs, not revive decades-old plants, which is actually impossible. |
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| ▲ | icantevenhold 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Aren’t SMRs essentially unproven? I think only Russia and China built some working facilities, and the rest is still under construction. I mean anything could happen but seems like a long shot | | |
| ▲ | gignico 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They are, but if the country has a law forbidding you from doing anything, things cannot move forward. If they'll not work, of course they won't be built. And large classic reactors are unlikely to be built either, even with this new law. | | |
| ▲ | icantevenhold 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Gotcha - yea I think it’s a good idea to try out these things.
I just hope it doesn’t become a ideological fight to make something work at any cost to fit a certain narrative (same goes for renewables of course) |
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| ▲ | teamonkey 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | In a nutshell, yes. The argument is that small-scale nuclear reactors have been built for military and scientific applications so the tech is not especially novel. What I think is unproven is whether SMRs can be built and run safely while being cost-effective to other forms of power. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if it actually costs less to build and run one full-scale reactor than it does for multiple SMRs of the same output. That doesn’t mean they won’t have a use. |
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| ▲ | thegabriele 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| About the last question, i don't think the old plants will play any part in this eventual return. |
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| ▲ | icantevenhold 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fair - but using new (unproven) technology imo only increases the cost/time/risk overall? |
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| ▲ | cpill 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| can you link to data to prove the economics are bad? |
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| ▲ | AlexandrB 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Whether it's more expensive or not depends on how you measure "cost", and including intermittency and storage costs for renewables seems to favor Nuclear in many cases[1][2]. Based on real-world examples of countries that traded one for the other, like Germany, renewables look quite bad economically. I know there's a lot of hand waving about how this has to do with how electric auctions work, but this seems like a convenient excuse. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... |
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| ▲ | icantevenhold 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thanks for sharing those links, very interesting. I guess ultimately the nuclear vs renewables discussion is coloured a lot by feelings nowadays. Resources like this help a lot to form a more nuanced understanding grounded in reality - but otoh I have to admit that a lot of this goes over my head - like even trying to understand how the economy works around this is mind boggling complex. I’ll need a deeper look to understand it better and build a more informed opinion tbh | | |
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| ▲ | rotringlvr 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [dead] |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's cheaper if you stop caring about safety, right? In the USA it's now illegal for reactors to have adequate shielding - "as low as reasonably possible" is officially "woke" |
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| ▲ | cloudie78 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Two words: base load And no you’re not solving it with a buffer (batteries or any kind of other energy storage for that matter) |
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| ▲ | Rebelgecko 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Is there something unique to Italy that makes it an intractable problem? Where I live we've been able to shift a huge amount of our fossil fuels over to batteries in a relatively short time. It's nice that nuclear has power production 24/7 but it seems unnecessary when there's already a glut during the daytime | | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The fact that nuclear is good at the easy part of power production is not a point in favor of nuclear. Grids are built to peak needs; any grid that can handle peak load can handle base load. | |
| ▲ | yifanl 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you use more than 2 words in your explanation next time? Reciting known talking points offers little. | | | |
| ▲ | fnwbr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | lol because nuclear reactors are so damn stable: https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/13/france-shuts-down-nuclea... |
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