At the end of the day, the retail cost of electricity in many EU member countries can be two to three times the cost of electricity in the US.
Ultimately that’s what matters to consumers and businesses.
Also, Trump called out the idiotic decisions by greenies such as shutting down nuclear power plants and make long your industries less competitive as a result.
> in many EU member countries can be two to three times the cost of electricity in the US.
Yup, I wonder why that might be, perhaps its due to our main supplier of gas and oil invading a country. Not sure though, if only the price graphs reflected that. oh wait.
> shutting down nuclear power plants
Germany fucked up there. but france and Finland haven't done that.
Spain has cheap electricity because of solar power its wholesale price is currently lower than the US, in winter.
If this is true, it has nothing to do with solar or wind but rather strange decisions in the past in some countries that they (and their neighbors) pay for now (looking at you Germany).
Nuclear does not cause prices to be lower. Putting that aside, political discourse here in Germany was "interesting" to say the least.
The shift to renewables started off pretty well in the early 2010s before it came to a grinding halt thanks to some wierd debates around the topic. For the past few years, buildout of solar has been remarkably fast, especially considering the slow pace of other projects. In 2025, 16.4 GW of solar power went live.
The biggest issue that drives prices here is the grid. New high voltages transmission lines have faced intense local oppsition, so transmision between North and South is limited, which is problematic given the focus of the north on (offshore) wind and the south on solar PV. Since Germany is a single electricity price zone, the low to negative electricity prices from wind turbines do not reflect the reality of grid capabilities, resulting in significant redispatch costs.
The solution would be obvious. Split Germany into n electicity price zones (with n>1). However, there is a lot of political opposition, specifically from the conservative CDU/CSU against this.
So yeah, Germany is struggling with relatively expensive electrcity prices, complaining about it, but refusing to implement a borderline free solution for it.
Nuclear that was built a long time ago would probably have lowered the prices in DE right now, if they weren't shut down. I understand that building new ones right now makes little sense.
Refurb costs are for the entire fleet which is 50+GW and are in fact dirt cheap. Refurbs are in 1-3bn/unit range. CF of say solar in this region is roughly 10-12%. To have same average output as a single 1GW npp you would need about 10GW solar and much more if you want to achieve firm generation. French refurbs will happen anyway. In fact, carenage is already undergoing.
You need to read precisely what's happening. Ontario wants to front finance all refurbs and SMRs instead of spreading the financing over years like it's usually done.
BWRX is expensive for sure. It'll cost more per GW than the failed french FLA3 or Vogtle. To me this seems a mistake considering Canada had Candus, an own authentic design that doesn't rely on enriched fuel and they did some very serious refurbs recently on time and on budget. On the other hand, bwrx is american tech and needs enriched fuel and SMRs will always have worse economics than large units, there's a reason humanity scales everything up, be it nuclear, be it wind turbines or solar fields
Again. Refurbs are extremely cheap. At 1-3bn/unit you get 1GW of firm power. That would be vastly cheaper vs deploying say solar, that would have the same TWh/y averaged even with China's costs. And this doesn't even account for firming.
Heck, even Barakah built as new by Korea is competitive vs renewables in the west. And it's understandable considering they spent per unit 1/3 of what FLA3 did cost... In under half of the time
The question is rather why they want front financing. But I have some clues considering who is their current head of govt
> The question is rather why they want front financing. But I have some clues considering who is their current head of govt
I assumed it was, like the UK, because it let them avoid committing to a specific price like all the other competing technologies so they could raise the price later once the project was too far along to cancel.
Maybe for smr, but for refurbs it doesn't make sense - all recent refurbs were either on time or ahead of planned timeline and on budget. Heck, even if refurbs would suddenly triple in price it would still be dort cheap vs any alternative for 1GW of firm power.
And they kinda committed to a price with Hitachi, that's why we can say it'll be worse even than recent failed big projects.
UK has other problems to tackle, mostly heavy overregulation. UK's HPC and french FLA3 are very different in many aspects, ranging from more concrete &steel use, up to a parallel analog system on top of a parallel digital system because UK regulation is 'special'. Maybe things will change, we'll see
To me this front financing looks like a cash grab from political entities since nobody guarantees money will be used in this direction, especially with current Ontario's 'governor', that dude is local trump equivalent but maybe a bit more tempered. Another possible reason is political - this frontload means project can't be easily cancelled if relationship with US gets even worse, since Hitachi GE is an US company. So who knows. Either way, IMO bwrx decision wasn't smart and front loading isn't smart too. But this has nothing to do with refurbs cost which are dirt cheap
I know about it, affected components were replaced. They still built it relatively on time and on budget
"On 7 February 2014, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission declared that its investigation since mid-2013, they found eight cases out of 2,075 samples of foreign manufactured reactor components that were supplied with fake documents."
Nope. 7 years late (plan: 2017, last reactor diverged in 2024).
Total cost not known, at least 24.5 billion USD and maybe up to 32 according to Bloomberg (plan: 20). Koreans are even fighting: KHNP (a subsidiary of KEPCO, the company building the plant) officially seeks for about 1.2 billion USD in compensation ( https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=... ) and it may worsen up.
8bn/unit is successful considering fla3 was 23bn. 8y/unit is successful, several in parallel with 1y distance, considering fla3/vogtle took about 20y.
Yes. It is a success.
Korea also announced they plan to build two additional reactors domestically by 2038
I've seen what a success Energiewende was. Really top notch execution to spend more than the entire french fleet and after 25y to have much worse emissions, while planning to have 80GW gas firming per Fraunhofer ISE to cover under generation periods
> 8bn/unit is successful considering that FL3 was 23bn.
Yes, a failure is better than a disaster. As we say in France, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
> Korea also announced their plan.
For 25 years, numerous announcements of this kind have been made by many nations, without any real intention of following through, and for various reasons (electoral considerations, will to create competition for renewable energy suppliers, etc.).
Only projects that are actually starting (on the ground) provide a good indication.
> Energiewende
> spends more than the entire French fleet
On the one hand, France's transition to nuclear power began with the first industrial nuclear power reactor (dubbed "EDF1") in 1957. In 1959, the project for the power plant that would be completed in Chooz in 1967 began, and as early as 1964, nuclear power was presented to the public as the energy source that would take over in 1975 (correctly predicting that in Europe it would produce 25% of electricity 20 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Xfu8u3Yqw).
This nuclearization lasted approximately 40 years.
Furthermore, nuclear power did not replace a huge set of existing electricity-producing sector, such as coal in Germany, because in 1970 France produced about four times less electricity than at the end of its nuclear power deployment: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by...
In short: comparing France's nuclearization with the Energiewende is extremely difficult, and a direct comparison absurd.
> planning to have 80GW of gas-fired power plants
In early 2026, Germany announced it would deploy new gas-fired power plants. The impact depends on the corresponding emissions. If they are only all active for a few hours a year to get through critical periods and (as planned) replace coal or primarily burn green hydrogen, for example, then it will be progress (reducing emissions). The best-case scenario is a full renewable fleet but Rome wasn't built...
1- 8bn/unit is pretty acceptable if you adjust for capacity factors and compare to solar projects in say Germany that would on avg deliver same power per year and even better if you want firm power.
2- announcement is recent and made by a somewhat antinuclear PM which changed the course seeing that ren alone are not sufficient. It's in the context when Korea will soon finish 2 units locally. In fact if for some reason govt will change there, plans will probably accelerate
Why should I read a nonsensical antinuclear article by a rando on the internet when there are official numbers from court of auditors? The numbers of french nuclear program are available. And even if you bump them by 50%, it'll still be cheaper than german EEG expenditure alone and the difference only grows
"This nuclearization lasted approximately 40 years." But messmer plan took much less. We are talking about accelerated deployment and spending. France beat Germany in both. Or maybe we should start counting for germany from the moment first solar panel was deployed there instead of Energiewende proposal? It'll make things look even worse. A direct comparison isn't absurd. Numbers are known in both cases and you clearly want to ignore them. Talking about french prosperous period when DE is biggest EU economy is strange too.
To say gas plants will burn hydrogen when merely 25% mix is already worse economically than failed nuclear projects like Vogtle is at least laughable. The announced gas plants dont match the numbers demanded by Fraunhofer, mostly because EU rules dont allow that. So basically germany is stuck in a strange position where it needs firming but it cannot build it.
Again, France spent considerably less and did the job much faster while Germany still struggles while it's best hope is to have some magical cheap hydrogen to replace gas...
Deeming dispatchable power necessary was valid as long as the technical means (long-distance, high-capacity transmission, smart grids, energy storage, network management software capable of reacting quickly enough and optimizing the system, voltage stabilization and current frequency synthesis tools, etc.) that would have allowed for a mostly non-dispatchable way to generate electricity were too expensive, insufficient, or simply nonexistent.
Now these means exist, and experts assert that it is no longer necessary to deploy a large proportion of dispatchable generation capacity. Therefore, from a technical standpoint, an electrical system based on renewables with the largest resources (wind and solar, which are not dispatchable) is feasible: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/25/will-renewable-energy-d...
> compare to solar projects
"With the cost of storing electricity at $65/MWh, storing 50% of a day’s solar generation for use during the night-time hours adds $33/MWh to the total cost of solar. The global average price of solar in 2024 was $43/MWh. Turning this cheap daytime electricity into a dispatchable profile that is closer to an actual demand profile, would therefore result in a total electricity cost of $76/MWh."
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/how-cheap-is-batter...
The total cost of nuclear power, even when building and managing waste without exceeding the budget, even without accidents, even without uranium supply problems..., is already much higher than that.
He's dead, Jim.
> 2- announcement
> plans will probably accelerate
> Why should I read a nonsensical antinuclear article by a rando on the internet
It is sourced (or you may pinpoint what isn't).
> when there are official numbers from court of auditors?
The referenced article quotes thems!
> even if you bump them by 50%, it'll still be cheaper than german EEG expenditure alone
The cost of the energy transition in Germany is sometimes cited as €300 billion, €500 billion, or even €1.5 trillion.
These figures are worthless because no reputable source publishes a specific figure along with its scope (some aspects of the investments needed for the electricity grid are independent of the energy source) and at least a timeframe.
These figures are actually projections published by various sources, covering distant timeframes (2050, etc.) and encompassing the entire electricity system (including non-renewable energy sources).
We had the same sort of propaganda in France, then EDF (Big Chief of the French nuclear sector) boss stated in public that about 50% of the projected network-related costs are not tied to renewables ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEdQz3hGlf0&t=328s ).
> "This nuclearization lasted approximately 40 years." But messmer plan took much less.
> Numbers are known in both cases and you clearly want to ignore them.
The afore-referenced articles states and sources facts and data. You don't.
> Talking about french prosperous period when DE is biggest EU economy
'Prosperous' is more-or-less 'density', not extension. This past prosperity (massively benefitting to the Messmer Plan) is an historical indeniable fact ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses ).
> gas plants
> hydrogen when merely 25% mix is already worse economically than failed nuclear projects like Vogtle
This is not valid as in this context those hydrogen plants are prototypes, while Vogtle (and other recent projects aiming at building nuclear reactors) are theoritically mastered since the 1970's (Messmer Plan...).
> The announced gas plants dont match the numbers demanded by Fraunhofer, mostly because EU rules dont allow that. So basically germany is stuck in a strange position where it needs firming but it cannot build it.
Indeed, and it may imply that more coal will be burnt. This is ridiculous.
> magical cheap hydrogen
This is indeed a bet, but a non-inept one ( https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... ), especially as the amount of electricity overproduced by renewables, reflected by episodes of low or even negative spot prices, is constantly increasing.
Nuclear was cheapest firm power in the german merit order. So yes, nuclear does have an impact, especially if it outplaces higher cost units
There is a lot of opposition because zone split would mean erasing southern industry and I may be wrong, but southern regions are pumping most of the money into state budget. Cutting those means cutting own legs.
The high voltage DC transmission lines from north to south are being built right now and for example SuedLink is expected to be operational in 2028. Their transmission capacity will be more than enough. Why would you split Germany into electricity zones now, if in a few years the transmission problem will largely be fixed?
Also, Trump called out the idiotic decisions by greenies such as shutting down nuclear power plants and make long your industries less competitive as a result.