Comment by Gwypaas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gwypaas | Hacker News Reader

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Such a success story that their nuclear company, EDF, had to be nationalized and is so indebted that they can not finance new nuclear without state aid.

>(Montel) French utility EDF is unable to self-finance the construction of new nuclear reactors due to its EUR 65bn debt and so needs state funding, CEO Luc Remont told a hearing of France’s lower house on Wednesday.

https://www.montelnews.com/news/1511372/french-state-must-fu...

Meanwhile Germany and the US is making billions by auctioning the right to build off-shore wind.

> Germany’s first dynamic bidding process, covering four offshore wind zones with a combined capacity of 7 GW, has generated EUR 12.6 billion in proceeds, according to the Federal Network Agency.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/07/12/breaking-germany-rak...

> U.S. Offshore Wind Power Auction Nets Record $4.37 Billion

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-offshore-wind-power-auction...

I have a hard time seeing France as a success story to emulate today. Choosing nuclear was the right choose to gain energy independence in the 70s, today the equivalent choice are renewables.

Such a success story that France didn't buy oil/gas from abroad to generate electricity worth 120B euro a year for 40 years in a row. Who cares about the financial management vehicle of the operation is 65B short at the end of those 40 years?

The wind farms are awesome, and I'm super happy that the current economic and geopolitical climate and the technological advancements are making them possible and financially attractive to build. But in the end success is measured in TWh delivered. And France has been delivering 300TWh+/y of clean electricity for 40 years straight. And the 7GW that's gonna deliver ~20TWh/year is cool, but we need a whole lot more of it before it can be deemed as much a success as France's nuclear endeavour has been.

Exactly as I said. Nuclear was the right choice in the 70s. At that time the climate as a question did not exist, it was only about energy independence.

Today the equivalent choice when rebuilding our energy systems are renewables.

Case in point, already in 2021 renewables delivered more TWh globally per year than all existing nuclear [1], we are still early in the buildout. The tender in 2024/25 for German north sea wind auctions will be ~10 GW. [2]

[1]: https://imgur.com/JYMNAWR

[2]: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

Nice thanks, that's a really cool graph. It is very promising and I like how windmill farms can probably be constructed to be a little bit more resistant to sabotage than nuclear power plants are, should it ever come to that level of strain.

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