Sweden recently did the same: in order for companies to agree to make new reactors, the government had to promise them a price floor for the electricity they produce. The price floor suggested is more than twice the current price on the spot market. That means that, for the lifetime of those reactors, Swedish taxpayers will be subsidizing production of nuclear power. I thought the idea was that they would be profitable? What happened to the political right’s love of the free market? When politicians go fixing prices with this kind of ”advance bailout”, it just makes it look like they are trying to get a nice retirement job in the nuclear power sector…
You’re right, the total system costs include a lot of things, including disposal of spent fuel. Which is apparently so expensive, nuclear can’t compete with renewables fairly.
That's not true. Disposal of spent fuel was always included in the price of electricity (for example in Germany, but many/most others as well) and is negligible in cost.
Finland just built a spent-fuel repository for ~ € 1 billion. For the entire country. Just the single EPR at Olkiluoto 3 will produce electricity worth €100 billion over its lifetime if you assume a price of 10 cents/kWh.
So at 10 cents, it would be 1% of the price of electricity if Olkiluoto 3 had to finance the whole thing by itself.
What part isn’t true? That disposal of fuel is part of the total systems cost?
Or that the new nuclear can’t compete without subsidies? I think both are evident truths.
I see I implied that the disposal was a major part of the the total cost. Sorry for that, I was being facetious when answering your statement that spot market prices are not total system costs.
Clearly there are many other costs than disposal, which are contributing to its none-competitiveness.
Regarding cost competitiveness: if new nuclear is cost competitive in Sweden, how come it needs to be so heavily subsidized?
1. Once again, when you take full system cost into account and not just spot prices (marginal costs), nuclear is absolutely competitive, even compelling.
2. Nuclear is not heavily subsidized. In fact, it is intermittent renewables that are and must be heavily subsidized pretty much everywhere. In Germany, for example, just the EEG is more than €20 billion per year. And that's not the only subsidy by far.
Within these non-competitive markets that feature heavily subsidized intermittent renewables, other sources may need guarantees, though last I checked the biggest guarantee in Sweden is the one protecting from the risks of government action.
What do you mean by 2), ”it’s not heavily subsidized”?
Remember we’re talking specifically about Sweden now, so I’ll discard any arguments about Germany or elsewhere. I don’t know the background there at all.
The Swedish authorities are right now processing requests for subsidies from prospective owners of future nuclear plants. You can read their announcements here for instance. See the little summary fact box at the bottom. https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2026/06/ansokan-o...
The aforementioned subsidies aren't just for the electricity it produces, it is also for the electricity it could produce. The nuclear plant has a right to sell electricity to the grid at a certain price. Market price too low? The government pays the difference. No demand? The government buys the unused production capacity.
In practice this means that during periods of excess you are shutting down dirt-cheap solar and wind just so you can run a heavily-subsidized nuclear power plant. Nuclear doesn't pick up the gaps left by solar and wind, solar and wind pick up the gaps left by nuclear!
It’s literally the definition of a straw man argument. You state a proposition that nobody proposed, because it’s easy for you to tear it down. While others are arguing about your straw man, nobody is looking at or following up on the proposals *actually* on offer.
Nobody in the thread has proposed turning off all nuclear, hence you were building a straw man. Please don’t do that on HN.
