this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Ngl, this is 100% the sort of project that the EU should support in its member nations
Why?
Renewables are cheaper, faster to deliver and better over all for the environment. There's every reason to believe this will just be a money sink that may not even see the light of day eventually.
Renewables are also intermittent and strongly tied to geography. Geography is especially limiting in much of Europe which isn't particularly sunny, and where much of the low hanging fruit for wind, geothermal, and hydro has already been tapped.
And even if you were able to keep building it, you will soon run into the storage problem which is still potentially more costly, especially when trying to provide baseline power for the whole year, where it's buildout may have to be many times more expensive to save power for months than a baseline solution like nuclear which can provide steady power all the time.
So, some mix of baseline solutions like nuclear and intermittent solutions like renewables will be needed to completely phase out coal, oil, and gas which provide our baseline power today.
Slovenia isn't a landlocked country and has all the same options that others do.
I will tell you a secret: Nuclear power doesn't work without storage either. That's just something they will not tell you as that's their biggest pro-nuclear/anti-renewable argument.
Nuclear is expensive and running the amount necessary in winter is only viable because you have an overproduction most of the year to export. But when everyone runs either on nuclear, nuclear and renewables or renewables and storage, there is no demand most of year (as everyone is overproducing) and also nobody to import from in a few especially cold weeks in winter (so you need even more nuclear power you won't need most of the year). That's completely unaffordable unless you put in storage in place to cover some of your winter demand and export time-independent when there is demand in other countries (which is why French models for 2050+ plan with huge capacities of hydrogen production - not the most efficient way of storage, but good for export).
Actually weeks. Wind and solar are quite complementary. So you only need to cover the rare circumstance of cloudy and windless... which doesn't happen more than may 3 weeks a year, barely more than a few days in a row (in a lot of countries even less if you geographically diversify).
Nuclear energy is backed by big business and a lot of money. It’s a big cash cow and there is a lot of money and effort spent to manufacture public support for it, and they use troll farms to push their agenda, no doubt. Am I the only one that finds it a little suspicious that it’s always the same few talking points whenever the topic is mentioned? Whenever there’s a discussion about investing in renewable energy, there are always nuke bros popping up, bombarding the thread, derailing the discussion.
So "You support X so you must be in the pocket of big business! But I support Y and I'm innocent and pure."? I find the same talking points with solar and wind too.
but this isn't a discussion about renewables, the topic is Slovenia's new nuclear plant which they're building to end coal consumption for power generation.
in fact, what you describe is exactly what is happening here to nuclear
It's weird that every time you read about nuclear power the truth hasn't changed? Do you also find it suspicious that every time math is discussed 1+1 continues to equal 2? Perhaps Big Business (who?) are employing troll farms whenever the topic is mentioned?
Funny how you equate 1+1=2 with the fairy tales totally unironically talked about regarding nuclear power and renewables constantly.
The simple truth is: Countries in Europe planning to build nuclear are failing their energy transition right now. Because none is building enough capacity to cover just the minimal base load for the projected demand in ~2 decades (that will massively increase because of electrification/decarbonisation). Why don't they plan enough? Because no one knows how to even foot that bill. (PS: France is close if they actually build 14 new big reactors... not the 6 they are openly talking about with 8 optional ones - the full set of 14. But even in basically THE nuclear country in Europe you can't tell the population honestly how massive the required investions are.) That is actually simply math...
I agree with the "simple truth" EU governments are planning infrastructure based on profitability and not on actual needs. The result is that coal use will continue to increase, renewables will be "scaled back" and a few thousand people will get richer in exchange for the destruction of the environment and eventually massive die-offs of not only plants and animals, but humans too.
When you are a government, the "bill" doesn't actually matter. The amount of money building a nuclear reactor costs is trivial compared to the size of these economies. Germany is almost 5trillion, France is almost 3trillion. If a nuclear raector after all it's cost overruns and other shit cost 1Billion a year for 10years to build that is 1/3rd of %0.01 of Frances GDP. The money exists, the prioritization does not.
“No, u”
Why do you think renewables are better for the environment? Nuclear is very clean and produces next to no emissions. In comparison, solar panels have a production process which produces considerable emissions, once they fail (which is in around 25 - 30 yrs), they basically turn into toxic waste. Similar goes for wind turbines, but they also totally ruin the landscape, since roads have to be built in order to access and maintain them. Additionally they're not viable everywhere and look ugly af.
Cost, as in dollars, can no longer be a consideration if you actually care about the environment.
Renewables are better for the environment though.