I’m pretty sure it’s not subsidies, but safety standards. I’m not trying to pretend to understand Lazards “levelized cost of electricity”, and their graphs are seem to be off by 20 or I don’t read them correctly, but they are at least very clear that subsidies are taken out when they make their comparison. Nuclear is still the most expensive no matter how you slice it (except rooftop residential solar, but I think that gets around paying energy providers or something). Anyway, I’m more willing to trust them than the world nuclear association on if nuclear is price competitive.
I’ll grant you a better argument for next time: Nuclear is incredibly safe compared to other energy sources, but is uniquely held to a way higher safety standard than anything else. And reducing the cost of nuclear by reducing safety standards actually is unpopular, so politicians don’t do it and the cost keeps rising.
I’d still disagree on loosening safety restrictions, but at least that would be true.
chillhelm@lemmy.world 5 months ago
This is just not true. Nuclear plants receive subsidies in the US and most European countries. The big exception being Germany, where the current government tried to reenter nuclear energy production, but they could find any private sector partners that wanted to build new plants without significant subsidies.
Subsidies for nuclear plants are usually payed out during construction and decommission of plants, but that’s still subsidies.
sga@piefed.social 5 months ago
but in most places, the official policy is not to expand their infra. it is either maintainance only, and/or decommision at end of life.
true.
but for other renewables, the actual material is subsidised. for example, in many places, solar panel installation recieve govt subsidies - 10-50%.