simloo

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because production in a gas power plant is simply regulated by burning more or less gas. If you need more gas, you can likely buy more. While production in a hydro power plant can be brought up and down by draining the reservoir faster or slower, a hydro plant has a lot of external factors that a gas power plant hasn't.

The current water level in the reservoir, expected drainage and rainfall over the year, environmental regulations concerning water discharge and intake levels, fish, etc. all play into it. Note that a hydroelectric power plant doesn't just generate electricity, it also regulates water levels pretty far up- and downstream from the plant.

As I just stated, yes, that's called baseload power. It applies equally to hydro power, nuclear, coal, gas and all other baseload types. If you make them larger they can produce more. "Energy batteries" when talking about the electric grid are generally rechargeable, because as I stated otherwise the term is meaningless and just means "baseload power" in general.

Increasing capacity at hydro power stations or other baseload stations isn't as easy as just "putting a larger generator in". Everything needs to be considered and sized up: turbines, piping, outlets, new environmental assessments, etc., just as in any other type of power plant.

Not the parent, but I don't think you can seriously argue that all political decisions are for the good of the many. Most decisions have a vocal minority and the majority doesn't care left or right, which means the minority has sway.

And, it's generally accepted that carbon life cycle studies show nuclear has the least carbon footprint, including everything from uranium mining to waste disposal. Wind and (especially) solar has a larger footprint than nuclear, but wind can come close in some studies. The biggest reason for this is because the energy in nuclear fuel is so enormously concentrated that so little is required, that it offsets the carbon footprint from construction, waste management and everything else, while wind and solar power consume quite a bit of energy during construction (and mining for raw materials).

I've never heard of countries considering the entire danger zone from a large hydroelectric dam uninhabitable. They're so large that it's simply not feasible. Take the largest hydro station in Sweden for example, Harsprånget[1]. The government assessment for what happens when that dam breaks assumes it takes out a very large geographical area, among other things the entire city of Luleå (which is near the coastline).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harspr%C3%A5nget_hydroelectric...

No large chemical industry handlng dangerous chemicals, in developed countries or otherwise, has an insurance large enough to pay for huge expensive spills. That's why the company usually defaults when it happens and leaves the cleanup for the government later on. This has happened on numerous occations in the US, Europe, and over here in Sweden.

Yes, but by using that definition all baseload power generation (coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, etc.) are "energy batteries", which makes the term meaningless. By "energy batteries" when talking about the electric grid, people normally mean different kinds of large scale rechargeable energy storage solutions, such as pumped storage, molten salt, etc.

I countered this in another reply to you, but the levelized cost of energy is not a good way of comparing intermittent and baseload power sources since it completely ignores the costs associated with intermittency. Nuclear in particular is penalized heavily here. Since wind and solar are very intermittent, they look very cheap when you look at LCOE, but are very expensive in reality.

I know that this is a big issue for some people, and I understand that. However, the limits are set way below the level considered dangerous and are political. Countries with lower problems or that want to be seen as taking the problem seriously set lower limits.

To put some perspective into it, an average banana contains about 150 Bq/kg from radioactive K-40[1]. K-40 is pretty comparable to Cs-137 biologically but nobody even considers limiting the amount of banana eaten. Bananas are regularly given to infants (which are the population most vulnerable to radiation damage) from six months of age, but nobody bats an eye, because 150 Bq/kg gives you such an extremely low dose.

Wild boar is safe to hunt and eat in the entire country, so yes I'd say your original statement was preposterous. If I was a very prolific hunter and my staple food was boar, I'd be concerned if I lived in one of those areas, but not otherwise.

But then again, in Sweden we live in houses built on granite bedrock with walls made from radioactive lightweight concrete. The radon gas emitted from them gives you a dose magnitudes larger than eating wild boar, mushrooms and berries your entire life.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

To be fair, that statement was in the grandparent and not the post I replied to. However, I'd argue

> Large steam thermal baseload plants are increasingly uncompetitive, coal or nuclear.

is generally wrong, since gas power plants are "large steam thermal baseload plants" and they're very much competitive. Large baseload plants are just as necessary now as they used to be since we'll still need power when the wind doesn't blow. The problem is nuclear needs to run at max power all the time to be profitable.

I'm sorry, I have misread your source. It clearly states "unsubsidized". My bad.

I think my points about the LCOE still stand, though. The LCOE is not a good measurement for comparing intermittent and baseload power sources. Nuclear in particular suffers here since the capital costs are very high compared to operating costs. A nuclear power plant needs to run close to maximum power all the time for maximum profitability. This artifically inflates the numbers for nuclear while lowering the apparent cost for intermittent sources.

Regarding your second paragraph, I'm not sure if you're arguing that the EU spends half the amount on nuclear power R&D as solar power R&D, or if you're talking about subsidies for the plants themselves. I'd argue grants for R&D projects would be very hard to count in a meaningful way, and I don't think e.g. a research grant that results in more efficient solar voltaic cells should count as a subsidy towards solar power, nor nuclear fission research as a subsidy towards nuclear power.

The EU provides grants for constructing e.g. wind power farms. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with every country, but in Sweden, renewables are given a large cashback grant per kWh generated ("elcertifikat"). Nuclear power here has been profitable since the 70s, and didn't turn unprofitable until taxes on nuclear power were increased substantially a few years ago.

Ok, fair enough.

Not the parent, but if you look at what's currently replacing nuclear power world-wide it seems to be gas. Gas extraction is also not very environmentally friendly and releases a lot of nasty toxins into the air and surrounding areas, just not as much as coal mining does. I think the point still stands.

A hydro power plant can't be used as a battery, it must be purposely built as a pumped storage plant. The cable in question allows Norway to sell hydro power to Germany (and if Germany has a surplus, they can sell electricity back). There's no storage solution in it, though.

> These events release a lot more radiation than coal plants.

Unless you have data that supports this statement, I'd state the opposite. It's easy to think nuclear accidents release a lot of radiation, but the actual accumulated dose from nuclear power (including accidents) for the average individual over time is very low. Coal, on the other hand, continuously spews out radioactive ash in large quantities.

Granted, other sources of radiation (radon, cosmic rays, medical x-rays, etc.) are a lot larger, but if comparing the two I'd guess coal is the larger culprit even when including nuclear accidents.

That's true, but I think most other models assume there's a lowest dosage which is totally safe? For very low doses, even if LNT predicts a very low rate, it still a lot of cancer cases for a population of several million. Even if there would be very vulnerable groups, it's hard to imagine a model that predicts more cases than LNT for very low doses.

We've got the same problem over here in Sweden, granite in a lot of places. We also, just for good measure, constructed a lot of buildings in the 50s and 60s from radioactive autoclaved aerated concrete made from alum shale containing high concentrations of uranium. Fun days. Apparently there's still half a million homes here exceeding the radon limit of 200 Bq/m3 indoors.

That sounds surprising to me since different kinds of loan guarantees are common for large industrial installations and not unique to any trade. There are no specific ones for renewables that I'm aware of, so perhaps I gave that undue weight.

Over here, renewables are most heavily subsidised through elcertifikat[1], which is basically a tax per kWh on electricity brokers, given to producers of renewable energy. This cost is then passed on to the consumer. However, it's not a straight tax and it's a bit complicated, but a renewable source gets on average around 40% extra on top of the sale price[2]. We don't build new hydro power plants, and our climate isn't very suitable for large scale solar, so "building renewable energy" here basically means building a lot of wind power.

Nuclear power is then levied additional tax on top of this, which was raised quite substantially a few years ago by the Greens when in government. Note the nuclear waste disposal fee is separate to this tax.

Traditionally, our energy mix has been about 50/50 nuclear and hydro power, and some wind and others thrown in. Wind power is now increasing[3]. Nuclear power has historically been very profitable for us and our electricity prices have been very low by international standards, but there's an ongoing phase-out for wind power and the cost of electricity is steadily increasing.

That should give you some insight how and why renewables are heavily subsidied here and nuclear power heavily taxed. I'm sorry sources are in Swedish, a lot of the data seems to be unavailable in English.

[1] https://www.energimarknadsbyran.se/el/dina-avtal-och-kostnad... [2] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindkraft_i_Sverige#Elpriser_o... [3] https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/miljo/e...

Sorry, yes, "a handful" was stretching it, but it's not a big issue. Wild boar meat is hunted and sold all over Sweden and the radioactivity is measured.

If you look at the sources more closely, you'll see the "70%" figure was the number of wild boars that have measurably higher levels of radioactivity. Not the number above the limit.

This has been a big thing for the Hunters association since the limits are very low and fallout was very localized, hunters in some areas are very much affected since they could not sell the meat.

It's a pity, since even Livsmedelsverket themselves say 1.5 kBq/kg is safe to eat several times a month[1]. The limits are set very low. Granted, they state above 10 kBq/kg should not be eaten, but there were very few animals above that value.

[1] https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-innehall/oonsk...

Wait, how did you arrive at that conclusion? All nuclear accidents so far have resulted in very low doses to the average individual. Of course this doesn't apply to plant workers in the direct vicinity of e.g. the Chernobyl accident, but since those are very few compared to the population of a country, the number of estimated cancer cases should go down.

Yes, due to radon gas from the ground which is really a big problem in Scandinavia. Just making sure nobody thinks a big part of the accumulated dose when living here is due to Chernobyl.

You're ignoring one of the largest problems with renewables: they're not actually replacing fossil fuels, they're replacing nuclear power which was almost carbon neutral to begin with. The intermittency of wind and solar means the profitability of nuclear plants goes down (because the capital costs are enormous, they should be run close to max capacity 24/7).

Baseload power is still needed, just as before, but the new source replacing nuclear seems to be gas. This means, unfortunately, that the current trend prioritizing wind and solar power will mean a larger net carbon footprint when we need to reduce it. This is really bad for the future.

Don't forget Russian gas. Eastern Europe is still heavily reliant on Russia for gas supplies, and Germany is heavily expanding its use (look at the Nord Stream pipelines). Nuclear power phase-out means more reliance on Russian gas and Russia extending its sphere of influence. As a European, I really don't like that scenario.

Not the parent poster, but you should add what's actually being built: a lot of gas plants. They're cleaner than coal, but lets be honest, still not particularly good for the environment.

Those numbers simply don't make sense for several reasons. They are with subsidies (not without) as the web page itself states. The numbers for nuclear are likely based on the failed European projects as China and Russia are building a lot of new nuclear power plants cheaper than that.

The biggest issue, though, is LCOE completely ignores the costs associated with the intermittency of wind and solar power. The LCOE is artifically low for intermittent sources and vice-versa for baseload power sources (coal, nuclear, hydro, etc.). When the conditions are right, wind and solar produce a lot of power, but this is not correlated with power demand, and the market price per kWh goes down so much during that time that baseload power is not profitable. Baseload power production is reduced, but the total installed base must remain the same (because you need power when the sun doesn't shine), so LCOE goes up.

LCOE is, conversely, too low for intermittent sources because it only cares about total accumulated production, not if the power was produced when it was actually needed.

There's no insurance that insures a hydro power plant against dam failure either, nor large chemical industries. It's nothing abnormal.

All large power plant installations are given such loan guarantees, including wind power and solar power farms. It's a pretty good way for the government to make sure they are built.

A lot of countries, such as here in Sweden, have a separate nuclear power tax, and a large thermal power tax. Oil and coal, for example, only pay the latter here. These are in addition to the nuclear waste management fees. Nuclear power is the only power source that pays for proper waste disposal (coal, oil and gas just spews it into the atmosphere and wind power installations are simply buried after they expire).

So no, I'm not making it up. Nuclear power is heavily taxed which is the largest reason why it's suddenly turned uneconomical in the last decade.

Because the price per kWh for renewable sources is artificially low. To give you some examples: Renewables still have various subsidies (e.g. in construction) while non-renewables are taxed, wind power plants in particular have shorter life spans that predicted, and the wings cannot be recycled but the landfill costs are generally not included.

I don't get why you're being downvoted. China is building a lot of power plants, a lot of them are nuclear (and coal, etc.).

Nuclear power hasn't become magically more expensive in the last decade or so, it's because it's been hit with taxes and fees in a lot of countries while renewables haven't (or, in some countries, renewables are still even subsidised). Nuclear power is cheaper if politics stay out of it.

> The low prices you see today are almost entirely when wind is blowing and sun is shining.

Yes and don't forget all the different subsidies and government grants renewable sources still get. All other sources of power, including nuclear, are generally hit with extra tax in a lot of countries.

No, it's likely due to hydro power. Hydro has had several large scale accidents killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people, such as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam in China.

Coal kills slowly but is the power source that's killed most people over time. Nuclear has killed the fewest by far.