Liberté, égalité, Radioactivité(worksinprogress.co)
worksinprogress.co
Liberté, égalité, Radioactivité
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/liberte-egalite-radioactivite/
59 comments
Not that it's really hidden, but this article is biased toward pro nuclear point of few and carefully not mention when we (France) had to import electricity from other European countries right when the prices were super high due to Russia's war to Ukraine because half of our reactors were shut down because of technical issues...
Wouldn’t the outcome be similar to if France had used a lot of Gas generation instead of having those temporarily-shut down reactors?
A cheaper alternative could have been solar for example. I don't mind keeping our nuclear capacity (it's certainly better than coal) while we switch to renewable and find good (eco friendly) and cheap storage but I don't really see it as a good target for producing the majority of our energy given the downsides.
On this, another funny story that pro nuclear also don't mention: this summer when it was very hot (and electricity demand for AC was high) they had to shut down several reactors because the cooling river would have been over heated too much. People criticize renewable for not being available all the time (which is indeed a problem without storage) but here thankfully solar saved the day by being available when it was needed.
Last thing that people tend to forget when they criticize ecologists views on nuclear: part of many ecologist program is to make it so that we use less energy. Heating and cooling poorly insulated housing is wasteful and stupid. Having everyone having their own transportation mean rather than having collective and energy efficient transportation system or having housing too far from commodities such that people can't walk or bike to them is also wasteful. And AI... Bref, let's fix that then maybe we won't need that much nuclear power in the end.
On this, another funny story that pro nuclear also don't mention: this summer when it was very hot (and electricity demand for AC was high) they had to shut down several reactors because the cooling river would have been over heated too much. People criticize renewable for not being available all the time (which is indeed a problem without storage) but here thankfully solar saved the day by being available when it was needed.
Last thing that people tend to forget when they criticize ecologists views on nuclear: part of many ecologist program is to make it so that we use less energy. Heating and cooling poorly insulated housing is wasteful and stupid. Having everyone having their own transportation mean rather than having collective and energy efficient transportation system or having housing too far from commodities such that people can't walk or bike to them is also wasteful. And AI... Bref, let's fix that then maybe we won't need that much nuclear power in the end.
If environmentalists had adopted nuclear as one of the renewables we would be burning a tiny fraction of the gas and coal we burn today.
This is revisionist history.
We invested massively in nuclear power in recent decades? Vogtle, Virgil C. Summer, Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto, Flamanville were the west ensuring nuclear investment while at the same time investing in the nascent renewable sector.
In total something like a ~$100-200B investment in nuclear technology. The nuclear investment evidently did not pan out.
How much more should we have spent? Should we just push through no matter the cost even though we have cheaper alternatives?
We invested massively in nuclear power in recent decades? Vogtle, Virgil C. Summer, Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto, Flamanville were the west ensuring nuclear investment while at the same time investing in the nascent renewable sector.
In total something like a ~$100-200B investment in nuclear technology. The nuclear investment evidently did not pan out.
How much more should we have spent? Should we just push through no matter the cost even though we have cheaper alternatives?
Haha as if anyone cared about what environmentasist think. Gaz or nuclear are choosen for reasons that have nothing to do with environment (like whatever fuel is convenient to get for the given country and is pushed by the local financial interests). If environmentalists were listened a bit, we would be using a fraction of the energy we use, regardless of how it's produced. The only clean energy is the one we don't use / produce.
If we had invested all that public funding into renewables instead of nuclear since the 40s we would have had plentiful renewables decades earlier. Nuclear misadventures had a very high opportunity cost.
Why not just replace the CEO of the electricity company with someone who has less political connections, and accept that the primary function of EDF is not accounting, but making electricity work, and pick someone who is either an engineer or just has a little bit more experience with planning instead?
France has cheap electricity because of the nuclear buildout, in other words: because engineers saved 50% on the price, not because an MBA saved 0.1% on the price.
It's not like it took much planning to avoid that outcome, it just wasn't done. But I'm sure this saved EDF 5 bucks and the costs were carried by everyone else.
France has cheap electricity because of the nuclear buildout, in other words: because engineers saved 50% on the price, not because an MBA saved 0.1% on the price.
It's not like it took much planning to avoid that outcome, it just wasn't done. But I'm sure this saved EDF 5 bucks and the costs were carried by everyone else.
Yes, that's one of the issue with nuclear, it appears cheap because the cost are/will be carried by someone else. After all why take into account the waste management in many years or the price of dismantling old reactors into account when we have electricity now and we won't have to handle all that ourselves ^^
The issue in this case was management not properly planning (ie. don't repair all your plants at the same time), and doesn't have anything to do with nuclear versus any other source of power. If you disconnect all your generators at the same time, it will go down, no matter the technology.
Some of them were stopped for planned maintainance but some of them were stopped because they noticed some issues (corrosion I think?), so I'm not sure it was really a choice.
It was a choice delaying maintenance to save a few bucks every time for years, dozens of times by now. Then they got into critical trouble in a number of places at the same time. Wait, sorry.
I say "they got into trouble", which is true, they caused the trouble. But not financially, of course, WE got into trouble there. Given that the CEO is an accountant I'd bet my firstborn this was not lost on him. But all of France is paying for their systematically wrong decisions over a long period (which still leaves the power pretty cheap tbh).
I say "they got into trouble", which is true, they caused the trouble. But not financially, of course, WE got into trouble there. Given that the CEO is an accountant I'd bet my firstborn this was not lost on him. But all of France is paying for their systematically wrong decisions over a long period (which still leaves the power pretty cheap tbh).
There were some questions about some pipes condition indeed but it turned out to be a nothing burger.
The thing is that nuclear power is still a relatively new thing and we don't have historical experience to rely on. Since it is basically the first time reactors are this old and there are a lot of risks, it was decided to verify just to be sure.
But now we know they can run fine for much longer than was anticipated. That is something the anti-nuclear conveniently avoid, the reactors have cost a lot to build but they are still providing value and it's expected that their life will be extended by quite a lot.
The thing is that nuclear power is still a relatively new thing and we don't have historical experience to rely on. Since it is basically the first time reactors are this old and there are a lot of risks, it was decided to verify just to be sure.
But now we know they can run fine for much longer than was anticipated. That is something the anti-nuclear conveniently avoid, the reactors have cost a lot to build but they are still providing value and it's expected that their life will be extended by quite a lot.
Is that a problem with nuclear or with building almost no new ones in the last 25 years?
>France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
Today France takes more than a decade to build a single reactor (Flamanville 3) and the debts incurred nationalizing EDF, are now causing serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting. As clean and safe as nuclear power might be, I think the world will be fine not following that example.
Today France takes more than a decade to build a single reactor (Flamanville 3) and the debts incurred nationalizing EDF, are now causing serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting. As clean and safe as nuclear power might be, I think the world will be fine not following that example.
Flammanville is a prototype, and much of the talent that was used to mass-produce reactors is long gone to time. The dumb thing now that Flammanville is finished would be to not follow up on it.
The other early EPR project, OL3, took 18 years to build.
Or you know just just accept the sunk cost instead of wasting another €100-200B on subsidies for the EPR2 program?
Perhaps you should read beyond the first sentence.
What's causing "serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting" is billionaires not paying enough taxes, not taking back 15% of what was ours in the first place...
Is their somewhere a (honest!) exploration/essay on why there are so few nuclear power plants being build?
Like South Korea is building some, and China (but they invest way more in renewables).
All other countries are either building 0, building less then retire, or on the process of building very little but taking ages.
If nuclear fission is "cheap, abundant and carbon-free", why has nobody put their money where their mouth is?
If nuclear fission is "cheap, abundant and carbon-free", why has nobody put their money where their mouth is?
Extremely expensive because it is extremely expensive. The few projects in the west which get off the ground generally have:
1. Credit guarantees 2. Guaranteed extremely high electricity prices for ~40 years. 3. Direct subsides like zero interest loans 4. Subsidized accident insurance (the state takes all risk)
For example, in the UK they realized after Hinklkey Point C locking in extremely expensive electricity for 35 years that it telling the public how expensive it is was not a good political choice.
Therefore Sizewell C they instead foist the costs as a cost-plus contract on the ratepayers as the plant get built.
Pure insanity.
1. Credit guarantees 2. Guaranteed extremely high electricity prices for ~40 years. 3. Direct subsides like zero interest loans 4. Subsidized accident insurance (the state takes all risk)
For example, in the UK they realized after Hinklkey Point C locking in extremely expensive electricity for 35 years that it telling the public how expensive it is was not a good political choice.
Therefore Sizewell C they instead foist the costs as a cost-plus contract on the ratepayers as the plant get built.
Pure insanity.
The UAE just brought some new nuclear online (with a lot of help from the South Koreans): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Ar...
It takes a lot of engineering skills and you basically need to buy a pre-existing design because it's not something you can reverse engineer easily. Figuring things out yourself is basically too expensive for any countries that is already part of the rich few that can.
Then you have to deal with the geopolitics around nuclear material, since you could very much use it for military purpose (Iran problems, for example).
To finish, you basically need to build a specialized industry around it and it has to be very local. You would probably need to hire outside expertise for the first build to even be sure that all requirements/quality levels are met.
It's not something that you decide to buy overnight and just do. Since it benefits greatly for economies of scale (makes no sense to just build 1) you basically need to have full industrial planning for a very very long term. At the very least 15 years, but since you also need to deal with the waste and maintenance, you are basically committed for at least 50 years.
Which is exactly why once you know and can do it at the country level, it makes no sense to let go and do something else. You will have to deal with the maintenance of current reactors anyway and still have to deal with waste with no chance for potential repurpose.
But our current world is extremely dominated by neo-liberalism and that means short-term thinking and profit maximisation. This can be seen in the ever-changing political climate (at least in France).
I actually think this is the real major reason so many are infatuated with renewables: it can make money and they can profit from it. The funny thing is that this money-making is only possible thanks to the reliability of nuclear and coal/gas plants in Germany for example. From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
Then you have to deal with the geopolitics around nuclear material, since you could very much use it for military purpose (Iran problems, for example).
To finish, you basically need to build a specialized industry around it and it has to be very local. You would probably need to hire outside expertise for the first build to even be sure that all requirements/quality levels are met.
It's not something that you decide to buy overnight and just do. Since it benefits greatly for economies of scale (makes no sense to just build 1) you basically need to have full industrial planning for a very very long term. At the very least 15 years, but since you also need to deal with the waste and maintenance, you are basically committed for at least 50 years.
Which is exactly why once you know and can do it at the country level, it makes no sense to let go and do something else. You will have to deal with the maintenance of current reactors anyway and still have to deal with waste with no chance for potential repurpose.
But our current world is extremely dominated by neo-liberalism and that means short-term thinking and profit maximisation. This can be seen in the ever-changing political climate (at least in France).
I actually think this is the real major reason so many are infatuated with renewables: it can make money and they can profit from it. The funny thing is that this money-making is only possible thanks to the reliability of nuclear and coal/gas plants in Germany for example. From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
If those were real problems then nuclear power would get built. Capitalism finds a way if there is profit to be made. Less scrupulous countries would pounce on the opportunity to have cheaper energy. That evidently has not happened and even China is reducing their nuclear share of the electricity mix, going all in on renewables and storage instead.
The real reason is cost. Nuclear power plants produce extremely expensive electricity until they are paid off ~40 years later. For paid off nuclear plants the cost is acceptable as long as they can get paid for nearly all hours of the day, if capacity factors craters then paid-off plants become too expensive.
And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at €0 50% of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady state.
Who wants to lock in energy crisis prices until ~2080 factoring in construction time? The nukebro squad seems to think that is reasonable.
> From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
But this is the issue you guys never tackle. It is all about "baseload" without the slightest understanding about how the demand curve looks.
The real reason is cost. Nuclear power plants produce extremely expensive electricity until they are paid off ~40 years later. For paid off nuclear plants the cost is acceptable as long as they can get paid for nearly all hours of the day, if capacity factors craters then paid-off plants become too expensive.
And this can be a purely economical factor. Sure a plant may have a 90% capacity factor but if the market clears at €0 50% of the time they still need to recoup all the costs on the remaining 50%, pushing up the costs to what would be a the equivalent to a 42.5% capacity factor when running steady state.
Who wants to lock in energy crisis prices until ~2080 factoring in construction time? The nukebro squad seems to think that is reasonable.
> From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
But this is the issue you guys never tackle. It is all about "baseload" without the slightest understanding about how the demand curve looks.
And interesting, this is in stark contract to France's biggest neighbor: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-its-last-nuclear-po...
However, the opposition to nuclear is currently being reevaluated by the German government.
However, the opposition to nuclear is currently being reevaluated by the German government.
I still get annoyed when I think of this tweet by French Green party Senator Melanie Vogel after Germany shut down its last reactor: https://x.com/Melanie_Vogel_/status/1647352302171308036
> Sex is good but have you tried having your country shutting down its last nuclear power plants in 30 mn?
It's so absolutely horribly short sighted.
> Sex is good but have you tried having your country shutting down its last nuclear power plants in 30 mn?
It's so absolutely horribly short sighted.
We have the ecologists we deserve... and boy do we not deserve anything nice...
Afaik this is one of the least terrible of them we have...
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There is no reasonably safe solution for storing the active waste. Continuing with nuclear power will increase the size of the problem.
What do you mean by that? Deep geological storage seems to work pretty well, and the 'size' of the problem is so small that even if we were to 100x it it would still be minuscule when compared to e.g. coal ash runoff, which includes fun things like arsenic and mercury and is currently 'disposed' of by stuffing it in landfills or even uncovered open-air pools.
> Deep geological storage seems to work pretty well
Not well enough - the crystalline parts of earth's crust are still too porous to reliably keep it contained. It would - in the long term - leak like radon gas.
Not well enough - the crystalline parts of earth's crust are still too porous to reliably keep it contained. It would - in the long term - leak like radon gas.
Storing all of the highly active radioactive waste that France produced over a year takes about 47 40-foot shipping containers.
Small feeder shops can contain a few hundred containers. Actual container shops contain thousands.
47 does not seem like much?
Small feeder shops can contain a few hundred containers. Actual container shops contain thousands.
47 does not seem like much?
And what about the mid to low radioactive waste? Also let's not forget France does not have any long term storage facility for their highly radioactive waste yet. Why if it is so easy have they not managed?
Nuclear-level containment on geological timescales is potentially impossible.
Its not like you can put it into a dump and its "gone" like household trash. Radioactivity is ionizing, so it corrodes all materials and cannot be physically contained. The earth's crust is to porous (i mentioned the radon problem in another post) to keep it underground.
Its not like you can put it into a dump and its "gone" like household trash. Radioactivity is ionizing, so it corrodes all materials and cannot be physically contained. The earth's crust is to porous (i mentioned the radon problem in another post) to keep it underground.
A partial solution is to build reactors that can use that waste. Thorium reactors can do that and have the advantage that you can't make a bomb from it and that it is easier to control.
You're saying a flatly mistaken thing in absolutist terms from pure fucking igonrance, as if you knew what you were talking about, at that. There are many ways to store nuclear waste very safely, just as there are many ways to store all kinds of dangerous things safely and do all kinds of dangerous things we need to do as a civilization, safely. As for the size of the "problem" growing. Go look at how much space even all the world's known HL nuclear waste combined requires, and how slowly that space (hint: it's tiny, as in, fits-into-a-college-sports-auditorium with room to spare for a quick basketball game tiny) grows year over year, or would grow even if we exponentially increased our use of nuclear.
People such as yourself, just blandly stating plain nonsense with certainty are cause for many problems in the world, and for nuclear energy, they're as common as fruit flies, buzzing around any serious debate.
People such as yourself, just blandly stating plain nonsense with certainty are cause for many problems in the world, and for nuclear energy, they're as common as fruit flies, buzzing around any serious debate.
Just to give a little context: in Germany, which the OP was about, just the search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste started in 1999 with the formation of a working group of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety [1]. It is expected that the result of the search process will not be available until the year 2046 [2].
Maybe it's not quite as easy as the layman thinks, especially considering that Germany has a lot less space then, say, the US.
--
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150217045132/http://www.bfs.de...
[2] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/endlager-atommuell-1.569...
Maybe it's not quite as easy as the layman thinks, especially considering that Germany has a lot less space then, say, the US.
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[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150217045132/http://www.bfs.de...
[2] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/endlager-atommuell-1.569...
So we are waiting for the bureaucrats to find a solution for something that doesn't even have a real pressure to be done (meanwhile the stuff is stored on facility and it doesn't cause much problem).
The bureaucrats already take forever to do anything because they get paid regardless and they even have an incentive to make stuff look more complicated than they are (look how important the work is). Add to that your typical political nonsense, especially from a government that was readily hostile.
Add to that the typical nonsensical German overengineering, where they find ways to make stuff in an absurdly complex manner for what are generally little benefits. They briefly mentioned that problem in the article: Flamanville was very late, in large part because it was a collaboration with Siemens, who forced the use of stupid German regulations. The result is that nobody wants to buy this stupid design, because why would they, when there are perfectly viable alternatives without the German overengineering bullshit.
By the way, I have a strong feeling that this is industrial sabotage from Germany, using Siemens as pawn. Considering their reluctance for nuclear since basically forever, it makes no sense that they pretend to even be working on it.
So, if there is one thing that should be absolutely clear to anyone not ideologically corrupted, is that nobody should give two shits about whatever Germany does/think around nuclear power. They have proved to be largely incompetent and politically corrupt in the matter.
The bureaucrats already take forever to do anything because they get paid regardless and they even have an incentive to make stuff look more complicated than they are (look how important the work is). Add to that your typical political nonsense, especially from a government that was readily hostile.
Add to that the typical nonsensical German overengineering, where they find ways to make stuff in an absurdly complex manner for what are generally little benefits. They briefly mentioned that problem in the article: Flamanville was very late, in large part because it was a collaboration with Siemens, who forced the use of stupid German regulations. The result is that nobody wants to buy this stupid design, because why would they, when there are perfectly viable alternatives without the German overengineering bullshit.
By the way, I have a strong feeling that this is industrial sabotage from Germany, using Siemens as pawn. Considering their reluctance for nuclear since basically forever, it makes no sense that they pretend to even be working on it.
So, if there is one thing that should be absolutely clear to anyone not ideologically corrupted, is that nobody should give two shits about whatever Germany does/think around nuclear power. They have proved to be largely incompetent and politically corrupt in the matter.
... and this research is done by people like my partner, who is currently writing their thesis about that. I could cite their previous publications here but that would dox me.
Led by the same party who when not in power cried loudly about how important it is to keep nuclear running, but in the 16 years it was in power before, when there would've actually been time to change things, didn't actually do anything except a small flip-flop once that cost the state billions in damages to the energy companies. It's just deeply unserious. They'll talk about how we should be open to nuclear, cut funding for renewables, give some money to some startups or consultancy firms and nothing will actually be built.
One of the best things Germany ever did. We already have produced enough poison for a million years. Renewables and perhaps nuclear fusion is the future.
Can you expand? What is “poison” referring to? Surely, burning coal as Germany’s current pace can’t be seen as a success, can it?
Radiation poisoning. Fossil fuels fall into the same category. The alternative is not nuclear vs. fossil. We should focus entirely on renewable energies. Of course Germany is now in a transition period, and there are a lot of conservative politicians who have been shying away from the high investments required for a fast transition. I think the main problem here is that the fossil-nuclear advocates shift the main problems to future generations (climate change, long-term storage of nuclear waste), the general public (large subsidies, minimal security standards, no or unsufficient insurance of power plants against desasters) or other countries (placing nuclear plants or waste deposits at the border, relaying on other countries for long term storing of nuclear waste). Together with extremely optimistic estimates, this makes their energy costs appear low on paper, when in reality the overall costs are immense. In contrast, there do not appear to be many cost elements of renewable energy installations that can be concealed or embellished. The reserve funds for their demolition are perhaps the only exception. But these only account for a small part of the costs at any rate.
And nuclear could have drastically reduced that production of "poison" by the way. Arguments about how much we've contaminated with X are sort of immaterial to arguments in favor of a different thing with its own much more specific (and useful) dynamics.
It's a bit absurd, what you say, like arguing that it's good to stop using a stove in your apartment and just eat food raw, because one of your neighbors already did enough bad because they burned their entire house down while trying to make a bonfire with piles of coal in their yard.
It's a bit absurd, what you say, like arguing that it's good to stop using a stove in your apartment and just eat food raw, because one of your neighbors already did enough bad because they burned their entire house down while trying to make a bonfire with piles of coal in their yard.
I am not saying that. I am saying that you should use renewable energy to operate your (energy efficient) stove. The technology is here.
Using renewables makes a lot of sense, but the sun doesn't shine all the time, you can't control the wind or the rain, and batteries don't have unlimited capacity. You still need something that starts producing electricity at a flip of a switch. Fusion might do that in the future, but until then, you'll be burning coal or something like gas (which you don't have locally) because the alternative isn't perfect?
Geothermal energy is constantly available. Offshore wind parks can provide a stable basic supply. Energy storage and grids that connect distant places can mitigate local variability a lot.
I would not advocate against having some fossil emergency backups. I think the planet can cope with a few percent of that. If this were our only concern, then we would have basically solved the problem.
I would not advocate against having some fossil emergency backups. I think the planet can cope with a few percent of that. If this were our only concern, then we would have basically solved the problem.
Why do we need to look 50 years back when China is doing the same right now? Maybe we should start learning from them?
Yes learning from China is banking on renewables. Their nuclear build out is behind schedule and the ambitions are being reduced because it makes so much more sense to build renewables.
China added 277GWh of solar (45% increase) and 80 GW of wind (+18%) in 2024 compared to 3.9 GW of nuclear (+3%).
While the percentage of nuclear power of overall electricity generation was increasing between 2012 and 2020 it is falling again. The national plan was for 200 GW of generation capacity from nuclear by 2035, that less than what was added from solar alone in 2024 and unlikely to happen (approved projects would add another 60 GW to the current 60 GW total in the next 5 years, but it is not clear if they will be build).
Sources https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/chin...
https://energyandcleanair.org/analysis-clean-energy-contribu...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
China added 277GWh of solar (45% increase) and 80 GW of wind (+18%) in 2024 compared to 3.9 GW of nuclear (+3%).
While the percentage of nuclear power of overall electricity generation was increasing between 2012 and 2020 it is falling again. The national plan was for 200 GW of generation capacity from nuclear by 2035, that less than what was added from solar alone in 2024 and unlikely to happen (approved projects would add another 60 GW to the current 60 GW total in the next 5 years, but it is not clear if they will be build).
Sources https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/chin...
https://energyandcleanair.org/analysis-clean-energy-contribu...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
In your own sources they say +6,9% for nuclear (61GW) the three percent is for hydro, probably because they are maxed out in that matter like everyone else.
The direct comparison of solar/wind nameplate capacity with nuclear is extremely dishonest. They NEVER reach full capacity even with favorable weather and it's absolutely not comparable to nuclear if you don't have at least a decent amount of storage built alongside.
They are still using coal/gas predominantly (around 70%) so renewables are still peanuts. They are building solar/wind to supplement their other sources, since they can't build anything else fast enough. None of their other sources of electricity generation has gone down since they started investing in renewables. So, it's not replacing anything, and it still technically can't anyway.
In any case, they have 1408GW of installed solar + wind that generated 1836080 GWh (1836 TWh) of energy and they have 61GW of installed nuclear capacity that generated 450850 GWh (450 TWh) of energy. So, their solar & wind installation is 23 times larger but only generates about 4 times the amount of electricity, that isn't even reliable.
It doesn't matter if they hit a speed bump in their nuclear rollout, it doesn't have to be as fast to deploy as renewables because it fundamentally doesn't give you the same things. It is a true replacement for coal, which renewables aren't at this stage.
The direct comparison of solar/wind nameplate capacity with nuclear is extremely dishonest. They NEVER reach full capacity even with favorable weather and it's absolutely not comparable to nuclear if you don't have at least a decent amount of storage built alongside.
They are still using coal/gas predominantly (around 70%) so renewables are still peanuts. They are building solar/wind to supplement their other sources, since they can't build anything else fast enough. None of their other sources of electricity generation has gone down since they started investing in renewables. So, it's not replacing anything, and it still technically can't anyway.
In any case, they have 1408GW of installed solar + wind that generated 1836080 GWh (1836 TWh) of energy and they have 61GW of installed nuclear capacity that generated 450850 GWh (450 TWh) of energy. So, their solar & wind installation is 23 times larger but only generates about 4 times the amount of electricity, that isn't even reliable.
It doesn't matter if they hit a speed bump in their nuclear rollout, it doesn't have to be as fast to deploy as renewables because it fundamentally doesn't give you the same things. It is a true replacement for coal, which renewables aren't at this stage.
The article describes how France helped China reach that point. I did not know that.
France had their construction boom earlier, so they're ahead of the curve. The article suggests that the secret of cheap reactor construction is mostly economies of scale: if one reactor is too expensive, buy fifty instead.
China has been reducing approvals for new reactors in recent years, to the point where the share of nuclear electricity generation is actually going down. Maybe 40 years down the line, they'll want to build just one more reactor to deal with increased demand and discover that the supply chain has atrophied so the project becomes an expensive boondoggle.
China has been reducing approvals for new reactors in recent years, to the point where the share of nuclear electricity generation is actually going down. Maybe 40 years down the line, they'll want to build just one more reactor to deal with increased demand and discover that the supply chain has atrophied so the project becomes an expensive boondoggle.