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Comment by Herz | Hacker News Reader

The cost of nuclear energy is reflected in the electricity bill, not the initial investment. If you look at countries like France or Finland, the cost is very low. And in Finland, it's not "old technology." In contrast, German bills, heavily reliant on renewables, are among the highest and most unstable in Europe.

> "unsolved problems"

Do you mean the intermittency of renewables?

> they have/use mostly government run industries.

I don't think in French nuclear is mostly used for gov industries. So I dont understand this point.

It's amusing how your arguments against nuclear are purely ideological and filled with intellectual dishonesty.

I don't understand your connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

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> I don't think in French nuclear is mostly used for gov industries.

It is OWNED by the French state. The French government rescued its nuclear industry from bankruptcy.

> It's amusing how your arguments against nuclear are purely ideological and filled with intellectual dishonesty.

Personal attacks don't support your point of view.

I'm out.

> It is OWNED by the French state. The French government rescued its nuclear industry from bankruptcy.

Okok, your statement wasn't clear to me. Sure, it's definitely true what you say, but what exactly is your point? What are you trying to prove or say with "French nuclear is mostly used for gov industries"?

I said "If you look at the countries which deploy nuclear, they have/use mostly government run industries."

The nuclear industry in these countries is mostly owned and fullydirected by the government: electricity providers and companies selling&building nuclear powerplants.

Nuclear power is especially strong when central governments direct & pay for the the industry, which is far from a free market. China: authoritarian dictatorship with centrally planned economy. France: government owned. Japan: government directed, TEPCO rescued by the government.

Nuclear: big government. Centralized. State-owned monopolies.

Renewable energy: lots of energy producers, strong local ownership, distributed industry, distributed grid, markets for energy, ...

I understand your perspective, but it's important to address some misconceptions.

Firstly, the notion that the nuclear industry is predominantly government-owned and directed is somewhat outdated. While it's true that historically, many countries relied on state-run entities for nuclear power, the landscape is changing. Countries like the United States have a mix of private and public involvement in their nuclear sectors, with significant contributions from private companies.

Secondly, the argument that renewable energy operates within a "free market" is misleading. Renewable energy industries, especially solar and wind, receive substantial government subsidies globally. In 2021 alone, global renewable energy subsidies exceeded $120 billion, highlighting that renewables are not thriving purely on market dynamics. Moreover, the renewable sector is heavily influenced by government policies, incentives, and international competition, particularly from countries like China, which dominates the solar panel market through state-supported enterprises.

The claim that renewables foster "local ownership" and "distributed industry" oversimplifies the reality. While small-scale renewable projects do exist, the production of critical components, such as solar panels and wind turbines, is concentrated in the hands of a few major players, often backed by significant government support. This centralization can lead to market distortions and dependencies, similar to those seen in the nuclear sector.

Lastly, suggesting that support for nuclear power equates to endorsing "big government" overlooks the complexity of energy policy. Effective energy infrastructure, whether nuclear or renewable, requires substantial investment and regulation to ensure safety, reliability, and sustainability. Both sectors depend on a combination of public and private investment and face significant challenges that require coordinated efforts beyond simplistic free-market solutions.

In summary, both nuclear and renewable energy sectors involve significant government intervention and investment. The debate should focus on how best to balance these investments to achieve a sustainable and reliable energy future, rather than framing it as a binary choice between free markets and government control.

https://www.statista.com/chart/24687/solar-panel-global-mark...

https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2023/08/china-leads-race-bot...

https://www.energy.gov/articles/restoring-americas-competiti...

"the U.S. Government will move into markets currently dominated by Russian and Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOE) and recover our position as the world leader in exporting best-in-class nuclear energy technology, and with it, strong non-proliferation standards"

Russia and China have state owned enterprises. Now the US government will move into their markets...

"The U.S. has ceded its leadership position to countries with state-owned-enterprises, including Russia and China,"

The US government is the actor who is directing the US industry.

> The claim that renewables foster "local ownership" and "distributed industry" oversimplifies the reality.

The topic was that "we", Germany, don't want this. We want to strengthen local ownership of energy production. There are a lot of examples here. Nuclear power plants are so far large (large plants are more cost effective) and based on large monopolies (granted or even owned by the government).

Example: Before the movement towards renewable energy, the grid and the electricity production was owned by only four large companies each occupying a region in Germany.

The electricity grid was then taken away from them and opened to many players. Now (basically) everyone has the right to be a producer and to feed electricity into the grid. Now we have a large landscape of energy producers, with the goal to establish this across the EU.

Nuclear power plants (owned by very few companies in protected markets) are dinosaurs in the effort to create dynamic energy markets.

Nuclear power demands long-term contracts and guaranteed prices for huge monopolistic players. See for example the new nuclear power plants in the UK...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

"EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C under a government sanctioned Contract for difference (CfD)."

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-seeks-more-uk...

"PARIS, Jan 25 (Reuters) - France wants the British government to contribute more money to two new nuclear plants its state-owned energy utility EDF was contracted to build in the UK, given delays and spiralling costs, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters."

A state-owned French company builds for the British government a nuclear power plant.

We are not talking about a distorted "free market". There is no market at all, it's all government controlled: building and financing.

Cherry-picking and pseudo-Marxist rhetoric. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not interested in entertaining your moralistic arguments.

Your position is very transparent; it’s a celebration of ideologies that prefer "good" inefficiency. Even though goodness is a completely subjective factor and communicates nothing except a political position, to me, the goodness of a technology, especially in this time of extreme climate urgency, has only one valuable metric: pollution. I understand that this might not be your priority, and for this reason, I have no intention of continuing this discussion with you.

Taking the disaster of the Energiewende as a virtuous example is laughable, given that it is one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters. And of course, the Energiewende is also financed with state money. Your problem is very simple: if the money goes to nuclear power, it's bad; if it goes to renewables, under the guise of collective and decentralized well-being, it's perfectly fine. What's "free market" about this? Absolutely nothing.

You don't like state-owned nuclear power but completely ignore my argument that every solar panel bought is equivalent to the same thing, just at a higher level. Instead of the French buying electricity from the French government, you have the Germans (like you and me, as a non-German living in Germany) buying electricity from German fossil fuels and Chinese-made panels. Are you content with this? Honestly, I prefer to give money to the French state rather than the Chinese state if I had to choose. Besides, we are talking about a democratic state that has also decarbonized. You criticize, but they are decades ahead of any European state.

Meanwhile, as we are writing, France is polluting at 18 gCO₂eq/kWh, and Germany at 210 gCO₂eq/kWh with a daily peak of 510 gCO₂eq/kWh. Moreover, if German pollution is so low, it’s also because you're importing 2.2 GW from France's "bad and evil" government-financed nuclear power. Not to mention that the French have the lowest electricity bills in Europe, and the Germans almost always have the highest. It's up to others to make their own considerations.

"pseudo-Marxist" ? LOL, you have no idea what you are talking about. I'm arguing for a smaller-scale energy landscape, for privately owned enterprises, individuals, etc. If that is Marxist, you are seriously confused.

EVEN if I were to buy solar panels from China, then I'm still financing them, I'm buying them, I'm installing them, I'm operating them, I'm selling the energy and the profits from solar electricity is MINE - over the full lifetime. Solar energy production is more than "chinese panel manufacturing".

The nuclear reactor Flamanville/France, which has massive cost overruns and delays:

  * controlled by the state
  * financed by the state
  * bought by the state
  * constructed by the state
  * operated by the state
  * energy sold by the state

EDF (Electricité de France) is government owned and builts and operates the power plant, it also sells the electricity to the customer.

ALL, literally all, of the electricity production and distribution from French nuclear power plants is owned by the state. That's Marxian!

If I see where I live, the Wind Farms serving the region:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in...

The construction firms for Wind Turbines are Vestas, Siemens, etc. These are not state owned. They are private enterprises.

Example, the German Wind Farm "Kaskasi". The Turbines were built by Siemens. The Wind Farm is owned by RWE, a private enterprise. https://www.rwe.com/en/the-group/countries-and-locations/off...

> Energiewende is also financed with state money

The Energiewende had established a mechanism where the consumer pay higher prices (which you have lamented about), which finances the build-up of renewable energy -> the money goes to the renewable energy electricity providers, which are private enterprises and individuals.

The energy companies, the grid, the construction companies, etc., none are owned by the German state. These are all private enterprises or local municipal utilities.

I'm still trying to understand why EDF is considered problematic despite its ability to provide affordable and clean electricity nationwide. EDF outperforms other major European countries in this regard. While I support free competition and acknowledge that French nuclear energy might not be the best example of that, the fact remains that it delivers reliable, cheap, and clean electricity. This should be our primary focus, with room for improvement always available. An honest discourse should start with these facts, rather than solely moral viewpoints.

> The German Wind Farm "Kaskasi". The Turbines were built by Siemens. The Wind Farm is owned by RWE, a private enterprise

So I suppose you have been against the closure of German reactors, right?

Like for example the one in Emsland, built by Siemens, and owned by RWE, exactly like the wind plant you take as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emsland_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Clean? Ever looked at uranium mining and nuclear fuel production? Many countries still work with Russian Rosatom (even France), which has a track record for environmental catastrophes. Btw., with Russia military attacking a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. In Ukraine there is the constant danger of a second Tchernobyl, due to the Russian war against the Ukraine and its power plants : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Pla... .

If this thing blows up, then what happens?

> fact remains that it delivers reliable, cheap, and clean electricity

That's your opinion, it's not a fact. Don't think that your opinions are facts and thus automatically what other people say is wrong. Be honest in communication with other people, so that your opinions are just opinions. You can argument in favor of your opinions, but they remain opinions and are not facts, just because YOU believe in them.

> So I suppose you have been against the closure of German reactors, right?

I'm for closing of nuclear reactors. You ignore the other things I said: nuclear power plants work only in a political environment, where they got a state-support/owned monopoly. Who do you think insures them? Who do you think sets up the regulatory environment that the get a large part of the market, who do you think is setting up the environment for waste storage. Hint: it's the government. We have extremely costly state financed clean-up operations for nuclear waste storage. These are old reactors.

To massively reduce the world co2 production, there is currently only ONE way known: massive scaling of renewable energy. The contribution of nuclear energy is neither cheap, nor clean, nor safe. It also does not scale. Nuclear energy stagnates since decades. Remember: China is bringing new coal power plants online, each week there are new ones.

Thus the industrialized countries have the responsibility (and the opportunity) to develop and share renewable energy technology, to be able be much faster in deployment, with improving technology. It's the only cost effective way known, which also can make a sizeable contribution.

> Ever looked at uranium mining and nuclear fuel production?

90 percent of solar panel production is in Chinese hands, between slavery in Xinjiang and environmental impacts of rare earth mining.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

https://www.antislavery.org/latest/solar-panel-industry-uygh...

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/03/28/solar-panel-productio...

And on the transparency of China emission...

https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2023/7/3/solar-pa...

Do you have any data regarding uranium? Consindering that a typical 1,000 MWe Light Water Reactor (LWR) produces 20 to 30 tons of spent fuel per year.

> Many countries still work with Russian Rosatom (even France), which has a track record for environmental catastrophes.

Which catastrophes?

> If this thing blows up, then what happens?

Ahahaha you have to study nuclear energy more.

> That's your opinion, it's not a fact. Don't think that your opinions are facts and thus automatically what other people say is wrong.

Its cheap and clean, its a fact.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

> nuclear power plants work only in a political environment, where they got a state-support/owned monopoly.

German nuclear power worked, and you decided to shut it down, you certainly didn't shut it down because it didn't work. Your arguments are self-contradictory.

Your comments are now indefensible, now you are self-contradictory, bring absurd arguments, and even deny facts.

> Do you have any data regarding uranium?

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/08/04/h...

> https://www.dw.com/en/are-nigers-uranium-supplies-to-france-...

"He added that some 90% of Niger's population has no electricity, and price exploitation means Niger today also receives too little income for its exports."

https://reliefweb.int/report/niger/niger-uranium-blessing-or...

"Instead, say local and international organisations, uranium mining by foreign-dominated companies has caused environmental damage and health problems in the far north of the country."

"Niger is the world's third to fifth-ranking producer of uranium, producing over 3,000 tonnes of uranium a year. However, the UN Development Programme's 2006 Human Development Index considers Niger the poorest country in the world, where life expectancy is 45 years old, 71 percent of adults cannot read, and 60 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day."

These things don't look good, I would say.

> > If this thing blows up, then what happens? > Ahahaha you have to study nuclear energy more.

You have to do that. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a nuclear power plant, which is in the war zone in the Ukraine. Russia is attacking for months the electricity production and distribution in the Ukraine. If the cooling of the nuclear powerplant gets destroyed, then we have a possible meltdown or other scenarios. We already have a million refugees from the Ukraine in Germany. If a nuclear powerplant in the Ukraine gets destroyed (for example because Russia decides to bomb it), then we potentially will see millions more refugees.

So much for safe energy. There are nuclear powerplants in a warzone in Europe, and this affects us all. Direct or indirectly.

> Which catastrophes?

You really can use Google? Just recently in the news: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/04/22/russias-record-flo...

We have here former uranium mines, which were exploited by and for Russia. Google for "Wismut". It costs us many billions to clean up the russian legacy.

> Its cheap and clean, its a fact.

Selective data does not make it "cheap" and "clean". It also does not make it a fact. Consumer prices are also not "facts" about the complete cost structure of nuclear power. Consumer prices are designed by energy policy. Much of the costs of nuclear power are not payed by consumers, but by tax payers (Nuclear Power Plants can't be insured, unlike solar panels -> the tax payer will pay for these events -> for example a single Earth Quake in Japan causes costs the tax payer of several hundred billion dollars -> TEPCO, the owner of several damaged powerplants lacks the money to pay for that...

Reading what you wrote makes me feel a bit sympathetic. I can clearly see your illogical and blind fear in your reasoning.

You don't care about renewable energy, despite all the data confirming that it has significant flaws as a technology.

Your only concern is that there shouldn't be nuclear energy, regardless of how much it can reduce carbon emissions or how many lives it can save. For you, nuclear energy is inherently harmful.

And honestly, I feel sorry for you. I can only imagine the fear from decades of media misinformation and collective anxiety about incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, especially in Germany.

Have a nice day!

Unfortunately that's not a correct summary.

I care about renewable energy (for example for many years my electricity contract is from a local provider of 100% renewable energy).

Nuclear energy will save much less lives, than a rapid expansion of renewable energy, which is the only viable way to make a large impact on global CO2 emissions. I also think that Nuclear energy is inherently harmful in general, such that it best is avoided, especially given that it does not scale for the challenges ahead.

Here is a task for you: xy graph the following, on a time axis: share of nuclear powered electricity from the last 20 years and the yearly electricity production.

Then graph the yearly renewable energy installations and produced electricity over that period.

Then compare.

With a little math knowledge you can deduce that the situation to use nuclear energy for reducing CO2 worldwide is hopeless, renewable has been scaling much quicker and will accelerate even more in the current future.

The numbers you can collect are mostly facts and then you can find out for yourself which technology scales better. You would not fall victim to desinformation, if you collect reliable data and try to analyze it. There is only a little math needed.

Good luck!

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