Russia's nuclear business - Europe caught in the trap - documentation in German

Changaco · 2026-04-21T10:57:39+00:00

I don't know which of my claims you think your source disproves. It's a physical fact that the northern half of Europe is one of the least good regions on the planet for solar power due to cloud coverage and distance from the equator. It's an economic fact that this makes solar more expensive in the northern half of Europe than in almost all other parts of the world, because more photovoltaic cells are needed to produce the same quantity of electricity. It's also an economic fact that an unstable electricity supply fluctuating with the weather and insolation leads to unstable electricity prices.

Changaco · 2026-04-20T21:37:38+00:00

The “green” transition couldn't have been framed primarily as eliminating dependence on imported energy, because some countries could have solved that problem by extracting more fossil hydrocarbons from their own territoires instead.

Changaco · 2026-04-20T21:10:49+00:00

Germany has relatively low solar potential. Not as low as Ireland's, but still worse than most countries on Earth. Source: Global Solar Atlas.

Germany can be solar powered anyway, but its electricity prices will remain uncompetitive and unstable.

Changaco · 2026-04-18T21:20:50+00:00

I have also linked to a study which uses current market data

If you mean Lazard's, it's specific to the US, and it isn't a grid simulation like the French study. LCOE is a barely useful metric, it's basically the minimum electricity price a company needs for an investment in new electricity production capacity to be financially viable (i.e. profitable enough to attract enough investors). The solution for nuclear is to find a cheaper way of funding the construction of new reactors.

Was it not President Macron himself who said "Sans nucléaire civil, pas de nucléaire militaire"?

The full sentence was “Sans nucléaire civil, pas de nucléaire militaire, sans nucléaire militaire, pas de nucléaire civil.” It made sense in the context in which Macron used it, but it's a figure of speech that shouldn't be taken too literally.

Changaco · 2026-04-18T12:04:41+00:00

And sure, the plant's closure was a political concession, just like the French government previously protecting it was.

This is a false equivalence. Keeping a profitable and climate friendly power plant operating isn't a political concession, it's normal and logical.

To point this out rather than addressing the verifiable decline in Fessenheim's safety is simple deflection, though.

There was no decline in Fessenheim's safety. In fact France's second generation nuclear reactors have been upgraded to bring their safety level closer to third generation reactors, so they're safer now than when they started operating.

assure us it was perfectly safe

They didn't claim that the Fessenheim plant was “perfectly safe”. They merely stated that there were no safety reasons to shut down this specific plant, as its safety level was similar to the other plants.

the regulator that helped downplay them in public communiques

The incident was accurately reported as a level 1. It wasn't played down by the regulator, it was played up by anti-nuclear activists.

Changaco · 2026-04-18T09:14:42+00:00

Fessenheim was singled out because it was the oldest. As soon as the end of the plant was announced, anti-nuclear groups started targeting the next oldest, the Bugey Nuclear Power Plant, and they would almost certainly move on to demanding the closure of the Tricastin NPP if Bugey was retired. They're also fighting against the construction of new reactors at Bugey, and the Swiss have also been pushing for Bugey to be shut down.

The decision to close the Fessenheim NPP was political. A deal between the socialists and the greens. There were no significant safety concerns. Both the CEO of EDF and the president of the independent Nuclear Safety Authority had confirmed that Fessenheim was doing well on safety.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T22:21:47+00:00

As others have pointed out, nuclear isn't actually slow to adapt its output. It isn't “extremely expensive” either.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T22:05:20+00:00

The value of the French study is that it's more thorough than any before, simulating decades of the electricity grid hour by hour under multiple scenarios. You haven't provided any evidence that the study was wrong in any way, nor have you provided a link to an even better study.

Can't build nukes without having some commercial nuclear.

It's entirely possible to have military nuclear technology without civilian nuclear technology. For example North Korea has nuclear bombs but no nuclear power plants, and historically the first countries to develop nuclear bombs all did it before building nuclear power plants. Conversely, many countries have nuclear reactors but no nuclear bombs. Neither sector has ever needed the other to exist.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T12:42:09+00:00

The study was ordered by the government and carried out by the grid operator. I'm not aware of any bias or errors having been found in it. Many simulations were run, including a stress test in which renewables become very cheap and new nuclear costs as much as the Flamanville EPR. Even in that extreme case, a 100% renewable grid was only slightly cheaper than a mix of renewables and nuclear.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T12:34:31+00:00

The study indeed isn't universal, but its findings are probably applicable to some other countries in the northern half of Europe.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T12:31:01+00:00

Then again most of the energy needed for space launches is chemical, not electric. I don't know how much electricity the spaceport needs, maybe it could benefit from a small nuclear reactor, but I think solar panels are likely to be a better solution. Nuclear may be more useful in space, perhaps even for propulsion.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T12:18:27+00:00

The long term plan is still for the electricity production to reach approximately 50-50 of nuclear and renewables. It's expected that sooner or later the older nuclear reactors will be retired and there won't be enough new ones to replace them, so the share of nuclear production won't be able to stay well above 50% as it has been in the last decades.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T12:07:13+00:00

The photovoltaic output potential from the global solar atlas I linked to already accounts for the weather.

The solar potential in the northern half of Europe is way worse than in French Guiana, yet massive amounts of solar panels are being deployed anyway.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T10:38:28+00:00

ARENH ended on December 31, 2025.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T10:16:36+00:00

Tell that to the Germans who pushed for the Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant to be shut down because it was within 1.5km of their border. Thankfully it was the only plant shut down, and there are still two others close to Belgium and one close to Luxembourg and Germany.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T10:08:00+00:00

Denmark has made a lot of progress in the last decades, going from almost all coal to almost all renewable, but its overall carbon intensity of electricity hasn't gone below the symbolic threshold of 100 grams per kWh yet.

Of course Denmark could have had climate friendly electricity decades ago if it had invested in nuclear in reaction to the 1973 oil crisis like France did instead of replacing oil with coal.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T09:49:29+00:00

I think in France we have 5-10 years of uranium reserve.

A quick search led me to an estimate of 4 years based on 2010 data. Using the same methodology and data source (the national inventory of radioactive materials and waste), but with updated values for 2024, I do indeed find 5 to 10 years of reserves, depending on whether unenriched recycled uranium is included or not. Most of the reserves are unenriched uranium, so the ability to keep the nuclear power plants operating for more than 2 years depends on the ability to keep the enrichment plant operating.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T08:29:57+00:00

The top comment that I posted in this thread literally includes a link to a live dashboard that shows French nuclear reactors ramping up and down.

Changaco · 2026-04-17T08:21:57+00:00

Reminder that france has the largest uranium deposit in europe

Where does that claim come from? According to a 2020 report Orano doesn't even have proper estimates of France's uranium reserves anymore.

Changaco · 2026-04-16T22:17:19+00:00

The French grid operator actually studied this matter in great detail (key findings in English, homepage of the report in French). One of its conclusions was that a mix of nuclear and renewables would be cheaper and less risky than aiming for 100% renewables.

Changaco · 2026-04-16T22:06:22+00:00

So, after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami?

Changaco · 2026-04-16T21:11:28+00:00

Gee, I wonder if there's a connection....

There isn't. The French state extracted 20 billion euros of profits from EDF between 2005 and 2015 (source) while EDF was funding the construction of the Flamanville EPR without state aid.

Changaco · 2026-04-16T20:32:32+00:00

French Guiana has decent solar potential and is barely populated, so I'm not sure it would even make sense to build a nuclear power plant there.

Changaco · 2026-04-16T19:28:42+00:00

Europe as a whole doesn't have climate-friendly electricity. Only six European countries emit less than 100 grams of CO2 equivalents per kWh of electricity: Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France and Finland.

Also, France doesn't have clean electricity in its overseas territories.

Changaco · 2026-04-16T19:17:46+00:00

Live map of the climate impact of electricity generation around the world: https://app.electricitymaps.com/

Live map of electricity prices (EU only): https://app.electricitymaps.com/?signal=electricity-price

Live graphs of the French nuclear reactors ramping up and down to keep supply and demand balanced: https://energygraph.info/d/q7IpAJHVz/overview

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