The only way you can pretend nuclear is "better for the environment" is if you ignore most of its supply chain and only point a finger to "what comes out of the stack." The fuel supply chain is incredibly energy-intensive, expensive, and environmentally unfriendly, and unlike the materials used for rare-earth magnets and lithium ion batteries which everyone here loves to bleat about...the material is not recycled (nor can it be without significant changes that will take decades) whereas rare earth magnets, lithium ion batteries, and now windmill blades, are all recyclable.

Nuclear has never been economically viable. It's been subsidized, enormously, for close to a century as the stepchild of the "defense" nuclear weapon and propulsion industries. It continues to get more expensive, whereas wind/solar/energy storage are plunging in cost.

Nuclear would also still require energy storage because it can only fulfill base load; nuclear takes days to change power levels, and running at anything other than full capacity drastically impacts its economic viability.

You can point to research all you like. US power companies are buying wind, solar, and energy storage. Not only are they not buying nuclear, they're shutting down plants because they are not economically viable.

It's funny how HN is all "free market!" when it comes to things like renewables and decarbonizing transit (ie "why muh tax dollars going to this?!")...but nobody seems to acknowledge that the nuclear industry is massively subsidized and Biden is proposing throwing billions more at the industry because of lobbying.

Also, that paper was published four years ago, which means it was based on even older data, and the cost of renewables and energy storage is plunging while nuclear goes up in cost...

Energy and emissions wise it's still fine even using a filthy open pit mine fuelled by coal and diesel in Nigeria.

An order of magnitude worse than the shills claim, but still fine.

Much worse for locals than imaginary cobalt mines for LFP batteries though.

Well, maybe not right now. Last summer France had 32 of their 56 reactors shut down for unplanned maintenance due to safety concerns. And also do to a lack of cooling water do to the drought. In 2022 France was a net importer of electricity.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/electricit...

Yeah, one year in nearly 40 years of massive nuclear use there was a problem that required maintenance and suddenly Germany's megatons of coal pollution are not a problem. Note that the maintenance is almost completely over (just a few reactors are off), but still.

Also, do you know how many people died in France over 40 years due to a nuclear power accidents? 0.

How many died due to German coal pollution? It's at least in the tens of thousands.

It was only a small jest on the word “now”. France certainly made the correct choice back in the 70s to go all in on nuclear.

Though they have a rough road ahead of them. The fleet is getting old. Most likely the share of nuclear power in France will drop going forward.

Again we should all applaud France for making the right call in the 1970s.

It's not like France would have excessive 'base load' nuclear generation in the first place. The base load power plants are not designed to respond to demands or serve as reserved capacity.

Nonsense. France became a net importer last year [1] because of faulty pipes in a quarter of their plants, and the problems are continuing this year [2]. Their output has been low this year again [3].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/sweden-tops-france-e...

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/03/08/france...

[3] https://mobile.twitter.com/LionHirth/status/1635363963058950...

Their output is low due to a strike. Let's stick to facts. [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/strikes-hit-french-n...

Fair enough, but it still doesn't mean Germany will import electricity from France, at least not on a level that is important for the system

My understanding is that that over the period of 2015-2022 Germany has imported anywhere from 2-8 TWh per year from France, which is up to 1.5% of total annual power draw. [1] I don't know if you consider that significant or not.

While the generation is fairly constant, if there is an excess of power (which there historically has been) then you can import a variable portion based on the European grid and electricity market right?

I could be missing something.

[1] https://www.energate-messenger.com/news/223699/nuclear-power...

At the same time Germany was exporting to other countries and was overall one of the largest exporters of electricity in Europe. Even France imported from Germany, but overall France exported more.

What people sometimes like to do is take a snapshot at a certain date and time and try to make a broader point, but overall Germany has been a net exporter of electricity for years and years in a row.