What is it with framing this in terms of nuclear power. Many of the nuclear plants are being shut down because they are either end-of-life or were recently shut down because they were uneconomical.
Sure we can argue that we were not prepared for the recent uptick in energy demand as well as exceptionally low wind last year. However, one can just as well argue that this was a failure not to build more wind and solar capacity.
The bigger issue is that nobody wants to build nuclear power without massive subsidies, because it is simply not economical. So shouting now, "you should have build more plants" is easy, but that would have meant higher electricity prices, because that's what would be needed to economically run nuclear power.
> Many of the nuclear plants are being shut down because they are either end-of-life or were recently shut down because they were uneconomical.
This is simply not true. The main reason plants are being shutdown is because Germany, Belgium and Spain are closing them before end-of-life due to political pressure.
Is there a good source for the economics surrounding large scale nuclear fission reactors?
I'm interested to see what part is the gearing cost vs building at larger scale. A large part of the cost, some nuclear engineers told me, is that there is no more large scale industry in building large nuclear reactors. Investments have dried up essentially, so next generation plants pay a steep gearing cost.
I'm from a country with about half nuclear mix. The managing company has made around 1-2B EUR in profits last year, and that is with a special 1/5 tax agreement for keeping the nuclear reactors open for longer. So those reactors built in the 70-80s appear to have been massively profitable over their lifetimes. It remains to be seen how much the decommissioning factors in.
It's being framed in terms of nuclear power because the original arguments that led to this situation were also framed in that context. The anti-nuke movement of the last century directly resulted in this situation by preventing the construction of new nuclear power plants and in some cases cancelling existing ones such as the Zwentendorf in Austria[0][1][2]
Those decisions made almost half a century ago were shortsighted, emotional, and led by ideologues lacking the ability or the desire to realize the consequences of their actions which we are now reaping in the form of an energy crisis and an environmental crisis that has become much worse than it need have been.
Also don't forget to calculate the cost for maintenance, dismantling and safe storage of nuclear waste for probably hundreds/thousands of years.
We currently do not have _any_ viable solution other than "put it somewhere in a mountain" to get rid of nuclear waste. Nobody would propose a technology or product where this is the only solution to take care of the waste, nevertheless this seems to be fine for nuclear power.
What we really need to do is invest heavily in research and developement of storage systems of all kinds, building a more decentralized power grid (solar on every roof where possible e.g.) and getting rid of fossil fuels along the way. Everythings needs to run parallel, not one after another.
> We currently do not have _any_ viable solution other than "put it somewhere in a mountain" to get rid of nuclear waste
What's the problem with that? Radiation goes away, eventually.
The main thing that we should do is to reduce the amount of "nuclear waste". Spent rods are one thing, gloves that touched a facility with some amount of radioactive materials are another
> What's the problem with that? Radiation goes away, eventually.
Well, seems like a proper problem to me. What if something happens to those "safe" underground storages? What if radioactive material leaks into the groundwater reservoirs? There might be problems we can fix and control for say 50 years or so, like a generation long. But what after that? Maybe somebody has found a solution, maybe not. So bury it for another generation and hope the generation after that finds a solution? I don't like that as a "plan".
>What's the problem with that? Radiation goes away, eventually.
A property that makes it a lot less toxic than all sorts of nasty industrial byproducts that humanity generates in similar quantity.
Imagine you poised a watershed with radiator. 100yr later it's probably mostly fine depending on how much you poisoned it in the first place. Now try that with a heavy metal laced chemical...
Wind and solar also have large subsidies right now, although the subsidies are decreasing. Nuclear should have been given the same chance as the other carbon-free forms of energy: subsidize it on its way up the S-curve, then drop subsidies after the technology is mature.
I've seen the left (which is also the main culprit, coincidentally) push for this lie. Try asking someone high up in the nuclear industry, who wasn't politically appointed, and they will tell you.
Sure we can argue that we were not prepared for the recent uptick in energy demand as well as exceptionally low wind last year. However, one can just as well argue that this was a failure not to build more wind and solar capacity.
The bigger issue is that nobody wants to build nuclear power without massive subsidies, because it is simply not economical. So shouting now, "you should have build more plants" is easy, but that would have meant higher electricity prices, because that's what would be needed to economically run nuclear power.