Gas peaker plants are also not cheap. People think they are cheap when looking at the theoretical cost, but having energy plants in stand-by mode costs a lot of money. Generally those are paid by either taxes or as part of the grid connection cost because governments will pay a lot of money to have grid stability. In theory we could remove those subsidizes and let the market pay to have grid stability, but no governments in Europe do this.
Europe also do not have any easy access to natural gas. The only country would be Norway. Being energy self-sufficient is important from a geopolitical perspective and I doubt anyone is unaware about the strong connection between current wars and fossil fuels. Nuclear fuel can be both mined and constructed in EU, the fuel is much less sensitive to geopolitical events, and the diversity in the nuclear fuel production chain is fairly good. Countries can much easier store up decades worth of fuel.
Right now the most important aspect of the grid is not price, it is the reduction of fossil fuel dependency. It is not sustainable to use fossil fuels in the short run and it is definitively not sustainable in the long run. Countries need to invest and start building replacement for existing fossil fuel power plants, and they also need at the same time increase capacity. On top of that we also need to start replace and remove part of the hydro energy production in order to prevent several extinctions.
It is also not morally or economically sensible to continue spend subsidizes on fossil fuel plants. A minimum requirement for government subsidizes should be zero green house emissions and geopolitical self-sufficient within the borders of EU.
The next problem nuclear faces is that the CAPEX heavy economic model requires them to run at 100% all the time, they used to be able to do that but renewables undercut them wildly.
Now you start to lower the capacity factor of the nuclear plants, which has now gone from $0.15/kWh to ~$0.3/kWh when operating at 50% capacity factor.
Who even wants electricity for that price? It's beyond what we today call an "energy crisis". This is locked in until that nuclear plant has paid of its initial investment after 40 years.
Every dollar spent on nuclear, or every dollar spent on gratuitous nuclear regulation? Renewables kill many more people and render far more land uninhabitable per kWh generated; if we normalized our safety requirements then we'd turn off more coal more quickly by going to nuclear.
Germany switched their policy away from nuclear and the result is they've spent more money (just look at the cost of the required grid upgrades alone from their renewable programme) and generated more CO2 (with coal plants being kept open past planned shutdowns, and in some cases even restarted).
There's plenty of space for renewables in the mix, but opposing nuclear doesn't mean more money gets spent on renewables and certainly doesn't mean more emission reduction; quite the opposite.
Ehh what. None of this is true.
> Germany switched their policy away from nuclear and the result is they've spent more money (just look at the cost of the required grid upgrades alone from their renewable programme) and generated more CO2 (with coal plants being kept open past planned shutdowns, and in some cases even restarted).
The great thing is that we are in 2023 and not 15 years ago. Germany spearheaded the renewable transition with the subsidies and huge buildout they enbaled. Today we can utilize the fruits of that.
We make choices based on the options today, not past results.
> There's plenty of space for renewables in the mix, but opposing nuclear doesn't mean more money gets spent on renewables and certainly doesn't mean more emission reduction; quite the opposite.
Then the money gets spent on other economic activity, rather than siphoning state subsidies to a pet nuclear project.
The problem that we have is that governments steps in to subsidize grid stability. Industries and citizens in general do no accept a government that allows for black outs, and they also do not accept a government that allow the energy price to reach the natural market price when supply is very low and demand is high.
A second major problem is that if cheap renewables can produce 90% of supply and we need to 10% of expensive storage to meet demand, the cost that customers will have to bear is as if 100% of the produced energy came from the expensive storage. This make it very expensive to customers to have a combination of very cheap and very expensive energy production.
And finally, EU law dictate that if a country has surplus energy production then they must sell it to countries that has a deficit in energy production. This makes grid stability an EU wide issue, and even if a single country has an very stable production they will still share the high costs of energy unstable countries.
All of it create a market where the cost of $/kWh of energy created within a country is just loosely connected by the real price that customers pay. This winter demonstrated that multiple times, and all the governments subsidizes and price roofs illustrated how ready governments are to pay when the real cost of grid stability lands.
We are. Marginal cost + paying for CO2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...
You are missing the time factor. Supplying 90% means that a vast majority of time they fulfill 100% and the expensive storage is not required. All based on the marginal price market Europe employs.
The storage would still be needed, but it is not the marginal cost and maybe storage is not the right path? Maybe it is sector coupling? Maybe it is demand response from hydrogen production for industrial use? Maybe it is not charging most cars for a couple of days?
As with all capitalistic systems a holistic organic approach will emerge. If it is not good enough adjust the market conditions. Sweden is already putting most stabilization services on an open market, with the goal to trade all day-ahead like power.
Pulling out a five-year plan of having nuclear solve it in 20 years will only lead to pain.
Sweden is a prime example of a country that is paying the cost of stabilizing the grid for the rest of the continent. They could have had one of the cheapest energy grid in EU thanks the the large stable production from nuclear and hydro, but because of how the EU system is setup the opposite occurred. The result is the highest inflation rate in EU coupled with a significant hit to the economy. Germany in contrast is using the profits they historically gained by using cheap natural gas from Russia and injected billions to their industry in the form of energy subsidizes, sheltering their economy from the same fate. Who cares if the energy prices reaches well above $1/kWh if the government foot the bill?
Massive subsidizes and huge difference between marginal cost and actually price is not a free market. There is nothing free about it.
It’s that simple.
Have a look at this crudely drawn graph to see the nuclear French cost over time with Flamanville 3 added as a cherry on top:
On the other hand Germany has gone from about zero to 50% renewables while spearheading the renewable market. Sure, personally I would prefer if they had closed fossil generation before nuclear, but Fukushima threw a wrench in that plan.
To not utilize the fruits of Germany's efforts today would be insane. We are making decisions 2023, not 2005.
Short of that transforming the electricity sector of Germany from all fossil and some nuclear to 50% renewables in 15 years is nothing short of incredible.
Add the current exponential growth in renewables to that, now when the cost side does not require subsidies anymore, and we have an incredible future ahead of us.
Or as wiki puts it, they choose after Fukushima to not use nuclear as a bridging technology.
> The key policy document outlining the Energiewende was published by the German government in September 2010, some six months before the Fukushima nuclear accident.[1] Legislative support was passed in September 2010. On 6 June 2011, following Fukushima, the government removed the use of nuclear power as a bridging technology as part of their policy.
We are now in 2023. This is how the cost for solar PV and wind have transformed, since that decision.
https://www.lazard.com/media/451886/grphx_lcoe-09.png
We are at the end of that graph. The outlook is not 2009, it is 2023. In 2023 renewables are the only choice, economically. When we hit 70-90% penetration depending on country there will be new problems to solve, but we are extremely far from that.
The current large build-out is off-shore wind, since that has higher capacity factors. We will see to what percentage of penetration that brings us. Then some sprinkling of solar on top because it is essentially free.
Nuclear and renewables both compete for the slice of the energy market being the most inflexible cheapest power source. Renewables win that by a landslide. Now nuclear becomes load following, and that horrific investment became even worse.
A stupid solution, which is cheaper than nuclear, is simply burning hydrogen in turbines like todays peaker plants. We are not at the point where it is needed, so everyone is instead looking for smarter solution.
The European grid is interconnected. UK awarded contracts to add 7 GW @ 60% capacity factor = 4.2 GW average last summer.
Germany seems to have added ~500 MW in off-shore wind in the last three years, so with that generations capacity factor about 230 MW in average power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in...
Not just wrong but backwards, we in fact need to REMOVE gigatons of carbon to avoid dangerous, possibly catastrophic warming of the planet.
I have heard that 3x normal load in renewables is enough for nearly all the time with storage for load-shifting during the day. That results in extra capacity most of the time which can be used for carbon capture, making hydrogen, and making legacy fuels.
> We don't have to get carbon production to zero. If we run the gas plants even as much as 10% of the time for no-sun-no-wind-flat-batteries conditions, you've still cut 90% of carbon emissions.
And now instead of paying for the expense nuclear power plant, you have to pay:
- Pay for 3x the raw capacity of the plant in solar and wind because they never run at peak capacity
- Pay for the battery for storage
- Pay for the Gas power plant that will never be cost effective because running 10% of the time.
And you still emit more CO2 than a damn nuclear power plant.
We don't have to get carbon production to zero. If we run the gas plants even as much as 10% of the time for no-sun-no-wind-flat-batteries conditions, you've still cut 90% of carbon emissions.
At that point it would be much cheaper to look elsewhere for more improvements. There's no need to invent a reason for massive new energy infrastructure. The gas plants already exist; no exotic solutions are required to give 100% continuous power supply.