4 ms·

> It's so expensive that prices in France, which generates >60% of power with nuclear, are at the same levels (or lower) as Germany, while producing less carbon

by Krasnol 1mo ago

> It's so expensive that prices in France, which generates >60% of power with nuclear, are at the same levels (or lower) as Germany, while producing less carbon per kWh than Germany (a quarter from some articles I've found). Maybe you should take a closer look how those prices come to be. Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. Last time they wanted to play the free market game, they had to bring the company back into the forgiving hands of the French taxpayer. I have rather Germany invest into future tech then waste it on rotting reactors which are obviously unfit for the current state of global warming already. Nuclear was clogging up the grid with it's expensive energy. It is gone now and the grid is diversifying while it follows the path of complete decarbonisation. There is absolutely no reason to look back for Germany and only those whose ideology is "looking back" seriously do that currently.

cyberax 1mo ago
> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. So is everything else.
realusername 1mo ago
> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. You won't find any grid which isn't subsidized, remember Germany already spent ~2x the French grid and that didn't spend by itself.
- Krasnol 1mo ago
  Germany isn't setting a fixed end consumer price and hides all that happens behind the tax-cushioned curtains.
  - realusername 1mo ago
    They absolutely do, they are debating to remove it or not at the moment. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/government-agrees-phase-out-germanys-landmark-fixed-feed-tariffs-new-small-solar-pv https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/government-agrees-phase...
    - purerandomness 1mo ago
      You didn't read your own article. They're debating to end feed-in tariffs for solar panel electricity. Germany does not have set electricity prices like France does with the EDF.
      - realusername 1mo ago
        "cut compensation payments for electricity", that's called set electricity prices, the state is buying higher than the market And by the way, France also only has set electricity prices above market for renewables as well, same as Germany.
- uecker 1mo ago
  The difference is that Germany's investments in renewables at a time when they were still expensive helped to create an economy of scale, which brought down prices for everyone and helped trigger a huge amount of investments worldwide. France build an unsustainable nuclear industry that was forced to sell electricity below cost and had to be renationalized to survive.
hamper653 1mo ago
> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. This is just plain false. In the 1990s and early 2000s, EDF was generating a whole lot of profit, which it wanted to reinvest. The governments of the time (both left and right) said: "Nope! We’ll take that, thank you." As a result EDF stopped making new nuclear plants and, most importantly, new nuclear engineers and technicians. When the government suddenly decided to have EDF build a new plant 15 years later, the 1980s generation was all but gone, the industrial know-how had vanished, and thi construction costs very logically skyrocketed. Oh, and in the meantime EDF had been (and still is) forced to sell electricity to its competitors under production cost.

by Krasnol 1mo ago

cyberax 1mo ago

> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. So is everything else.

realusername 1mo ago

> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. You won't find any grid which isn't subsidized, remember Germany already spent ~2x the French grid and that didn't spend by itself.

Krasnol 1mo ago
Germany isn't setting a fixed end consumer price and hides all that happens behind the tax-cushioned curtains.
- realusername 1mo ago
  They absolutely do, they are debating to remove it or not at the moment. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/government-agrees-phase-out-germanys-landmark-fixed-feed-tariffs-new-small-solar-pv https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/government-agrees-phase...
  - purerandomness 1mo ago
    You didn't read your own article. They're debating to end feed-in tariffs for solar panel electricity. Germany does not have set electricity prices like France does with the EDF.
    - realusername 1mo ago
      "cut compensation payments for electricity", that's called set electricity prices, the state is buying higher than the market And by the way, France also only has set electricity prices above market for renewables as well, same as Germany.
uecker 1mo ago
The difference is that Germany's investments in renewables at a time when they were still expensive helped to create an economy of scale, which brought down prices for everyone and helped trigger a huge amount of investments worldwide. France build an unsustainable nuclear industry that was forced to sell electricity below cost and had to be renationalized to survive.

hamper653 1mo ago

> Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades. This is just plain false. In the 1990s and early 2000s, EDF was generating a whole lot of profit, which it wanted to reinvest. The governments of the time (both left and right) said: "Nope! We’ll take that, thank you." As a result EDF stopped making new nuclear plants and, most importantly, new nuclear engineers and technicians. When the government suddenly decided to have EDF build a new plant 15 years later, the 1980s generation was all but gone, the industrial know-how had vanished, and thi construction costs very logically skyrocketed. Oh, and in the meantime EDF had been (and still is) forced to sell electricity to its competitors under production cost.