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Re:Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018) by orwin on Monday March 01, 2021 @04:55AM (#26301187)
Okay, so let's dig in:

1: Electricity is roughly 25% of a country energy expense. If we want to fight climate drift, electricity should become 80% of the total energy expense at the very least. That mean multiplying the number of power plants by 3.5 roughly, if we want to keep the same level of comfort (and by two if we accept to loose 40% of our GDP).

2: here are the cost of a 100% renewable mix: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191...

The land usage cost is ignored, but as 80% of the agricultural surface in the EU is used by animal or for animal feed, let's say we all divide our consumption by 7 (eat meat once a week), and the fred agricultural land can be used for biomass and solar.

The need in rare earth and how much of the worldwide production europe would take in this scenario isn't sustainable, but let's believe in an infinite earth with infinite ressources, so the extraction rate isn't an issue and is done solely with renewable. Europe still need more than 40% of the world future production.

3. So now, using the information you got with 1/, in a scenario with merely doubling the electricity output and reducing GDP by 40%, expand the data on 2/ (still without nuclear plant).

Draw your own conclusions, look at the data yourself, i only did order of magnitude calculations and it seems obvious to me. If one of my point is wrong, please explain why.

Okay, now in the price category: EDF is forced by France to sell its electricity to its competitor at a low price, and basically give it for free for some institution. Also, it is forced to cover the cost of an industrial failure it did neither start nor want, and to bear the cost of political choice (fessenhein closure). Despite that, i'm pretty sure electricity is cheaper in France than in most other European countries with no access with cheap hydro. Oh, and EDF bear the full cost of future nuclear plant decommission, so the "ït will cost more in the future" shit is wrong and already accounted for.

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