You should take note that you’re uninformed or intentionally spreading false information and misrepresenting reality.
Fact of the matter is it takes a large upfront investment to build a nuclear reactor and it has a longer time horizon before it becomes profitable in comparison to something like a gas or coal power plant.
It comes down to whether or not the country, government, citizens and country have the ability to think beyond a 4 year horizon or not.
Everybody knows about the upfront cost, but the size and long tail of costs after the plant has been built, or when unforeseen events occur, is largely hidden from all financial statements. So much so that people actually believe that nuclear power is cheap, when it's not.
But the truth surfaces of course - you can look at the financials of EDF in France (nationalized in 2022 with 60+ bn euros in debt), KEPCO in Korea (145 bn in debt), or incidents like Asse II in Germany, Sellafield in the UK, Rancho Seco in the US.
Billions of taxpayer money covering costs caused by the nuclear industry, and not appearing anywhere in any statement of estimates of nuclear power costs. Large, double-digit plant operators basically or literally bankrupt.
This to me is the bottom line. If nuclear power was cheap and profitable, people would be in line to build them as soon as they get approval! Instead, they want money.
The truth is that the industry sees no way to profitability here, except when they get access to current and future taxpayer money. This has always been the case for nuclear power and still is.
EDF debt is 50bn now. And it's debt/ebitda is healthier vs german eon/rwe. Germany is subsidizing transmission+eeg by 24bn/y. I.E. Germany could repay entire EDF debt in 2y... Needless to say in capitalism debt is ok if ebitda is good, unless you think Apple is a failure
Asse was an experimental facility without a plan of what to do if experiment doesnt work out. 75% of the waste there is medical+research sectors. Nobody died from Asse incident nor will.
Most of sellafield costs are from weapons testing era
Vatenfall in Sweden said this because Sweden has already cheap electricity prices due to existing hydro+nuclear. More nuclear without proper demand means losses. Still, Sweden will have new nulcear https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/swedish-new-nucl...
The bottom line is France with nuclear has far lower household prices vs Germany without it, far better emissions, decarbonized far earlier, spent on entire fleet half of what Germany spent on EEG, the gap getting wider each year
you are acting like there's some race that needs to prove things. But the race already ended. A combo of ren+nuclear gives far better results. It was proven in Sweden. It was proven in France
This argument cherrypicks legacy cleanup sites and distressed utility balance sheets, then treats them as proof that nuclear electricity is inherently uneconomic.
The real issue is narrower: new nuclear is capital intensive and hard to finance without long term revenue guarantees, while old waste sites can impose large public cleanup costs.
Decommissioning and waste are included in serious cost models and regulatory funding requirements, existing nuclear life extensions can be among the cheapest firm low carbon power sources, and KEPCO/EDF’s debts reflect tariff policy, fuel shocks, outages, state interventions, and investment cycles. Not simply “nuclear power is unprofitable.”
The honest conclusion is that nuclear needs strong regulation and disciplined project delivery, not that nuclear is categorically fake-cheap.
Aka what I said earlier: you need the ability for strategic long term thinking and planning and execution.
There's no false information there. Nuclear is complex and so expensive that despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel. It's also slow, with building times up to more than a decade.
France tried it. Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives, makes about €3 billion per year in profits and has to invest about €150 billion in new reactors, upgrades, refits and infrastructure.
It always amuses me when nuclear power is the one area where the left becomes Very Concerned about excessive government spending.
despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel
Except for France which came up with the clever strategy of "not banning it", but that was apparently a mistake and they should have just used fossil fuels?
Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives
€50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.
I'm not actually that concerned about excessive government spending. I just don't like wasteful spending, and that's what nuclear is.
Wind and PV build up much faster, are orders of magnitudes less complex and provide cheaper electricity.
There is just no reason to build nuclear.
> €50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.
No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all.
So you are concerned about EDF having 50bn debt and France spending 120bn to build it's entire fleet but you are fine with Germany spending almost 400bn on EEG alone till now to have far worse emissions and still drive coal? This is your concern?
"No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all." - french households have lower prices vs german ones per Eurostat too
No, my concern is that France will have to spend around €150-200 billion in the next ten years just to keep their current capacity.
I guess that's the reason that they went for renewables for capacity expansion - it's much cheaper to build and operate renewables rather than nuclear.
Those are part of EDF financials. Again, EDF already did Great Carenage for over half of reactors. And it didn't have CFD's for that - only own budget. And it was despite stupid ARENH law that got replaced this year.
Germany is about to spend over 600bn for grid expansion till 2045 and EEG subsidies for the next 10 years will too, be about 200bn (if not cancelled by govt which is unlikely unless AFD is elected)
France downscaled ren deployment plans while pushing for 6 new EPR2's + another 8 if there aren't major delays.
So not only France needs to spend/subsidize less in this period - it'll also still have cleaner grid and lower household prices than Germany in parallel
Now you are just throwing everything at the wall and hope it sticks. You're essentially shifting to a "sure, reactors are expensive, but the whole-system price is lower" argument.
Well, we'll see, I guess.
Yes, Germany is going to spend about €600 billion in infrastructure. That has more to do with electrification than renewables - France too need another €250 billion for grid upgrades until 2045.
As for the "6+8" program - EDF still hasn't produced an official cost estimation for the for the full fleet and the original estimate for the first six (€52 billion) is has already been pushed upward to €72.8 billion.
Electricity prices in France have for a long time been a political matter, not market decision. That's a different approach than that of Germany, so the two really cannot be compared.
I like the idea that fossil fuel should take the hit from the impact on the environment, but don't see why nuclear should at the same time get a free pass for Chernobyl and Fukushima. Surely nuclear needs to take the hit from those as well in order to make the comparison apples-to-apples?
nobody gets a free pass but the amount of damage is incomparable. Most evacuation zones in Fukushima are lifted. Nobody died from radiation due to low dose. Chernobyl became equivalent of a protected national park where animals thrive https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260424-chernobyl-wildli...
Nuclear helped France decarbonize in 90's while Germany still has coal.
EDF profits are closer to 10bn, the 3bn nr is nonsense.
50bn debt with EDF ebitda means it's a healthy debt. The amount is what Germany is subsidizing EEG+transmission each 2 y.
More than half of the fleet already went through Great Carenage upgrades.
It hasn't made a significant contribution because of panic after the various accidents and the "environmentalists" deciding to advocate against it when it was the clearest path to accomplishing their stated goals.
Fact of the matter is it takes a large upfront investment to build a nuclear reactor and it has a longer time horizon before it becomes profitable in comparison to something like a gas or coal power plant.
It comes down to whether or not the country, government, citizens and country have the ability to think beyond a 4 year horizon or not.