Comment on Rural counties ask Gov. Hochul to slow down on renewable energy projects
Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 3 weeks agoIn general, electricity prices are significantly lower in France compared to Germany. France’s electricity prices are about 40% lower than Germany’s. This difference is due to a combination of factors, including France’s reliance on nuclear power and different electricity generation mixes and tax policies.
Sentau@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Yes that is true. Electricity in Germany is far more expensive than in France. But that is not because nuclear is cheaper than other renewables. France’s power grid is established, the reactors were paid for and built many years ago. In Germany on the other hand, they are actively adding new renewable sources so a lot capital expenditure is underway.
As you can see from this report, the cost of adding and operating a new nuclear energy is way more than wind or solar. So it is clearly not the better renewable energy option.
Nuclear has a role in replacing coal and gas for cases where they cannot be replaced by wind, solar, etc. but it should not be replacing wind or solar projects. Hopefully we have a future where the grid is renewables supplemented with nuclear.
Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Solar and wind have lower direct cost. When the wind does not blow, you get no electricity. When the sun does not shine, you get no energy. Nuclear power has the best capacity factor. It is the most reliable energy source. The indirect costs of solar and wind are their intermittency. Their intermittent issues cost money. For a company that promises to deliver electricity, and the wind does not blow? That cost money. If you have an abundance of electricity produced, and nowhere to send it, you lose money. In the case of California, they desperately jettison energy across to Arizona, while Californians pay for the expensive portion of solar energy. California has expensive electricity. That is an example of an indirect cost. To want more distribution paths for wind and solar, you need to build costly transmission lines that need to be replaced every 40 years. You need batteries to store oversupply for times of low supply, just to smooth out the price level across time. If you don’t have batteries for them, you need natural gas plants as back up. Nuclear energy has stability and reliability. You get what you pay for, which is cheap, unpredictable, and unreliable energy.