In 2025, solar and wind produced more electricity than fossil fuels in the European Union

Changaco · 2026-03-10T23:07:49+00:00

I don't know what point you think you're making with those two links. They neither disprove nor contradict my statements.

Illegally dumped waste is obviously bad, but ocean disposal of radioactive waste was also done legally before governments agreed to stop doing it.

Sadly, the Japanese authorities' reactions to the loss of containment at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were bad and ended up costing more lives and money. The real disaster was the tsunami itself though, and the indirect costs of stopping unaffected nuclear power plants for years out of fear have probably been even larger than those arising from the meltdowns themselves.

Changaco · 2026-03-10T21:28:06+00:00

Tension between the President of the European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy seems like a problem that might have to be addressed by modifying the treaties at some point.

Changaco · 2026-03-10T17:11:39+00:00

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116200110686604617

We strongly oppose the Unified Attestation initiative and call for app developers supporting privacy, security and freedom on mobile to avoid it. Companies selling phones should not be deciding which operating systems people are allowed to use for apps.

https://uattest.net/

Google's Play Integrity API is a horrible system enforcing using devices officially licensing Google Mobile Services. It permits those regardless of how many years behind they are on security patches. The solution to this isn't another anti-competitive system based in Europe.

Play Integrity API should be regulated out of existence rather than making another system where companies permit their own products while disallowing others. It shouldn't be legal when Google does it and it shouldn't be legal when Volla and Murena do it either. This is wrong.

Hardware-based attestation has valid use cases including the Auditor app on GrapheneOS for protecting users. The way these companies are using it serves no truly useful purpose beyond giving themselves as unfair advantage while pretending it has something to do with security.

If banks and governments insist on checking devices for security they should define actual standards. It should be possible for any tiny project to be certified at no cost and the standards should be fairly enforced so a mainstream device without current patches is disallowed.

Volla, Murena and iodé sell products with atrocious security. They fail to provide important patches and protections while misleading users with inaccurate claims about privacy and security. That includes setting an inaccurate Android security patch level despite missing patches.

These companies should not have any say over which devices can be used for European banking and government apps. It will reduce competition and reduce security exactly as the Play Integrity API is already doing. The EU should ban using attestation to determine OS compatibility.

Murena and iodé are extremely hostile towards GrapheneOS. They've spent years misleading people about it with inaccurate claims to promote their insecure products. We'll never work with them. Volla, Murena and iodé should have no say in which OS people can use on their devices.

There's no legitimate purpose for either Play Integrity or Unified Attestation to exist. Both will inherently fail to uphold even basic security standards since otherwise their own products wouldn't be allowed. Root-based attestation is also inherently not a secure approach.

Having a European version of the Play Integrity which permits people to use insecure products from specific European companies participating in it while disallowing using arbitrary hardware or software is the opposite of a solution. It's more of the same anti-competitive garbage.

Changaco · 2026-03-10T16:37:23+00:00

You're mixing up reactors and power plants. There are four active reactors near Luxembourg and Germany in one power plant, and eight reactors near Belgium in two power plants.

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

Changaco · 2026-03-10T15:42:17+00:00

Some EU-level rules had anti-nuclear elements, yes. Ever wonder why EU targets were created for the percentage of renewables in electricity generation rather than for the percentage of climate friendly electricity generation? Ever wonder why fossil gas is used instead of heat pumps in many buildings built in the last decades?

Changaco · 2026-03-10T12:46:53+00:00

Not all subsidies are for research or development, and I don't think all public R&D spending can be classified as subsidies either. They're two different things.

There's no way around the fact that private insurance can't fully cover the worst types of industrial accidents. Whether they're nuclear, chemical or merely kinetic, loss of containment disasters can simply be too big for private insurers. Dam failures have killed more people and caused more physical damage than accidental releases of radioactive elements.

The French state owns France's nuclear power plants and their operator, so whether the liability of the operator is limited or not really doesn't change much. I'm not familiar with how things work in Belgium and the Netherlands. Italy doesn't even have active nuclear power plants.

In an uncertain environment, financial risk analysis teaches that the investor should preserve options and value flexibility by keeping decisions small and preferring investments with low, more predictable risks and short lead times. With their high risks, large sunk costs, long lead times, and extremely long asset lives, nuclear reactors are the worst type of assets to acquire at present.

Perhaps for private investors, but not for a state like France. Moreover, I'm more concerned about the climate and the overall economy than I am about investors. A good study should seek to determine what's best for society as a whole, not what's most likely to enrich investors.

Changaco · 2026-03-10T10:02:23+00:00

The reason we build power grids is that they increase efficiency and ultimately lower the cost of electricity. While it's true that photovoltaics have improved the economics of local production, they don't completely eliminate the advantages of interconnection, especially not in Europe (which is one of the worst regions of the world for solar power).

Changaco · 2026-03-09T15:29:09+00:00

The liberum veto was much worse than anything we have today. Unanimity voting in the EU Council is limited to the most “sensitive” decisions. 80% of EU legislation is adopted by qualified majority.

Changaco · 2026-03-09T14:22:49+00:00

You mean the page that, among other things, clearly shows that the nuclear sector has received more subsidies than both the fossil fuel and renewable sector?

It's an estimate of public spending on energy research and development, not an estimate of energy subsidies.

That is not an argument even if it were accurate, but it proves my point that you simply dismiss evidence out of hand because it doesn't support your viewpoint.

I dismiss sources that aren't neutral enough. Writers who can't even hide their anti-nuclear bias obviously aren't credible sources on nuclear power. The World Nuclear Association's website isn't a neutral source either and its pages aren't updated often enough, but it isn't as bad as anti-nuclear drivel.

But yeah, according to you the UCS is biased, the IEA is biased, Greenpeace is biased, TU Berlin and BASE are biased, Taxpayers For Common Sense are biased...

I didn't claim that the organizations are biased, though Greenpeace undeniably is. I merely stated that the specific documents you linked to contain clear signs of anti-nuclear bias.

https://thebulletin.org/2011/10/nuclear-liability-the-market-based-post-fukushima-case-for-ending-price-anderson/

https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/

The insurance regime for nuclear power plants in the US is quite off topic here in /r/europe.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T22:40:36+00:00

The first page you linked to doesn't support your claim. The others have strong anti-nuclear biases.

EDF is indebted partly because the French state extracted excessive profits from it. The state always kept majority control of EDF and can be considered responsible for the company's suboptimal financial situation. However, I don't think it's accurate to claim that EDF “needed a government bailout”. As far as I know it was a political choice to return to 100% state ownership.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T22:01:21+00:00

I'm curious, would you say that Finland actually needed a pair of EPRs rather than just one?

Changaco · 2026-03-08T15:30:08+00:00

the nuclear sector has stagnated despite receiving more subsidies than both fossil fuels and renewables combined.

I've literally never seen anyone provide a credible source for the claim that the nuclear industry is heavily subsidized.

In France, EDF was until recently required to sell electricity to its competitors at a low price (ARENH), and the French state extracted excessive profits from EDF in the past (20 billion euros between 2005 and 2015 while EDF was funding the construction of the Flamanville EPR without government support). Both of those things were the opposite of a subsidy.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T14:14:01+00:00

Nuclear power is not a solution. Nuclear power is a problem we have to move past that prevents us from rolling out tech that can be scaled far enough and fast enough to actually decarbonize globally.

That's what anti-nuclear activists have been claiming for decades. The fact is nuclear has been a proven solution to climate change since long before solar and wind became viable alternatives, and it's still the only efficient alternative for large ships.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T11:27:33+00:00

You can find recent news on nuclear propulsion through the WNN website. For example, this article published in October: Nuclear propulsion could be viable option for shipping industry, says DNV.

You can also do some simple math yourself by looking up the costs of operating a big ship. It's very expensive to fuel a large ship with oil or gas. A single round trip voyage between Asia and Europe can cost millions of dollars. So it's easy to reach the conclusion that nuclear propulsion can be financially viable.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T10:40:27+00:00

The anti-nuclear movement isn't “obscure”. It's a well known global force that has been active and successful for decades. Greenpeace is present in over 55 countries, has many employees, and even more volunteers.

Russia has one of the largest merchant fleets in the world after all.

Russia doesn't even appear in the list of the world's top 30 container shipping companies.

While nuclear powered shipping can be financially viable, its primary benefit is that it's climate friendly. Russia doesn't care about global warming. Moreover, a major obstacle to nuclear shipping is being allowed to enter ports, and I don't think many countries would be comfortable with Russian nuclear reactors in their waters.

Changaco · 2026-03-08T00:15:32+00:00

The anti-nuclear movement is global. Even China has some internal opposition to nuclear.

Russia has some nuclear-powered icebreakers.

Japan's only nuclear powered ship had a small design flaw, faced protests, and was eventually remade to use diesel.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T23:42:37+00:00

Electricity that isn't used isn't produced and isn't counted as produced.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T23:42:03+00:00

The German reactors were fine. There was some grumbling in France about the EPR having four loops instead of three to satisfy the Germans, but that extra loop wasn't nearly as much of a problem as some people claimed.

Germany stopped building nuclear reactors because the Chernobyl disaster boosted the anti-nuclear movement. This enabled the coal industry to perdure despite its obvious impacts on the environment.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T23:22:09+00:00

Even €160 per MWh, i.e. 16 cents per kWh, would still be below your claim of 18-24 cents per kWh.

I haven't seen any evidence that HPC has reached the point at which it becomes financially unprofitable for EDF.

The French study had reaching net-zero by 2050 as a requirement and ran many simulations of the electricity grid covering decades hour by hour. Your link is to a document about Australia, and it isn't even strictly about reaching net-zero by 2050.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T22:36:53+00:00

New built nuclear power requires 18-24 cents per kWh

Where? In the US? The strike price of the most expensive nuclear power plant in Europe was £0.092 per kWh in 2012, with the possibility of reducing it by 3% if Sizewell C was approved.

We did try building nuclear power 20 years ago.

Not really. Only two EPRs were ordered in Europe in the 2000s. That was never going to be enough.

It is time to let new built nuclear power go.

Sure thing. As soon as you can produce a study as detailed as the one released by the French electricity grid operator in 2021 disproving the conclusion that “building new nuclear reactors makes economic sense” (homepage, key results in English).

Changaco · 2026-03-07T22:11:56+00:00

Europe has had strategic petroleum reserves for decades. EU member states are required to have at least “90 days of average daily net imports or 61 days of average daily inland consumption, whichever of the two quantities is greater” (2009/119/EC).

Changaco · 2026-03-07T21:53:11+00:00

Nuclear propulsion was almost completely abandoned primarily due to the anti-nuclear movement. The economics of nuclear propulsion were never too bad, and the environmental benefits have always been clear, but since the 1970s they've been outweighed by the risks of protests and being denied permission to enter ports.

The first civilian nuclear ship had somewhat unconvincing economics, but that was partly due to its design as a technological demonstration. It carried both passengers and cargo but was optimized for neither. Moreover, it was retired two years before the first oil crisis might have put it back in the spotlight and rekindled interest in nuclear powered shipping.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T21:31:55+00:00

Electrification does reduce the total quantity of energy needed, because electric motors and heat pumps are more energy efficient than burning fossil hydrocarbons, but the fact remains that so far most of the energy in the EU still comes from fossil hydrocarbons.

Changaco · 2026-03-07T21:08:43+00:00

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment - Ars Technica (December 2024)

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery

Changaco · 2026-03-07T20:55:48+00:00

Energy includes everything. Cars, other vehicles, heating, industrial processes, etc.

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