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British nuclear revival to move towards energy independence (www.gov.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Also it works so flawlessly for the French (not*), why not do it too?

*France is slowly overcoming stress-corrosion problems (35 out of 56 reactors were down, drought is another problem), and Finland celebrates the commissioning of a new reactor (albeit 14 years late), while on the other hand monthly German nuclear generation will be zero for the first time in over 50 years.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The real thing is the cost, the cost per kWh is falling so going nuke and locking in to a price that's already above market makes no sense at all.

The Tories are ideologically opposed to renewables because of some weird culture war thing, plus they hate the idea of locally sustainable communities not being totally under the control of billionaires - people are a lot easier to scare into obedience when you can tell them their power might be shut off. The main reason though is huge projects can only go to huge companies, they don't want lots of little solar farms they want their oil baron buddies to maintain their monopolies, that's the only reason we still hear so much about this now allbut obsolete technology.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I totally agree and it is the same for Germany. That's why especially wind energy for South Germany was held back for so long, how dare communities go energy independent. It seems the resistance there is broken now, at least I hope it is and not just an election promise that gets broken after the Bavarian election.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Germany's logic for energy is wild.

"Our biggest supplier for fossil fuels is imploding from failing to conquer a neighbor a tenth their size, let's become even more reliant on them for energy"

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago

The cost of burning fossil fuels isn't measured in pounds or dollars. Nuclear is the only tech we have that can meet current and future load. We must pair it with renewables. There is no other option right now and if we wait for fusion, it'll be too late.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And Germany added 36M tons of emissions because they replaced the decommissioned reactors with fossil gas.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, if you tell that lie often enough it will surely become true one day... Seriously, it will happen. Just another ten thousand times or so. By current rates that should be doable by the nuclear-cult on social media in only a few weeks, so you are sooooo close to changing reality...

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This happens all the time. It happened to New York State after the decommission of Indian Point, it happened to Germany, it literally happens everywhere nuclear reactors are decommissioned, because fossil fuels provide the reliable and tunable capacity of nuclear power with explicit domestic and foreign subsidies driving down its cost. We keep talking about renewables displacing fossil fuels but German fossil gas consumption is going up, not down.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The last three nuclear power plants generated 6.7 TWh until their shutdown on April 15. In the first half of 2022, the figure was 15.8 TWh.

Coal-fired power generation also fell: Lignite-fired power plants generated about 41.2 TWh, a sharp decline of 21 percent from 2022 (52.1 TWh). Net production from coal-fired power plants also decreased by 23 percent, from 26.2 TWh in 2022 down to 20.1 TWh in 2023. Electricity generation from natural gas decreased only slightly from 24.3 TWh to 23.4 TWh. In addition to gas-fired power plants for the public power supply, gas-fired plants in the mining and manufacturing sectors also supply the industrial own consumption. These approximately produced an additional 24 TWh for industrial captive use.

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2023/german-net-power-generation-in-first-half-of-2023-renewable-energy-share-of-57-percent.html

And we are getting the fossile gas consumption down by laws made towards changes for the industries and private households that will have to have other means of heating in the near future, although it is not an easy process. We also lead when it comes to home insulation and other means of saving energy, even our stubborn automobile industry is finally turning.

We are not going back to nuclear energy and we are going towards renewable energy more and more and it has already proofen that not even a war in Europe can change that. We will sit and watch when you fight for uranium and pay 10+ times more money than planned for the next nuclear plant that's 14 years late and will not add to the grid, but just be finished in time to replace an old nuclear plant that is falling apart and then you pay for that and pay for the old plants because they aren't sustainable by themselves, like these in New York:

New Yorkers are paying $40 million every month to subsidize nuclear power – over $480 million in the first year alone, nearly 200 times as much as the state is spending to develop renewable energy. And the nuclear costs will take a big jump in April 2019, because the subsidy is scheduled to increase every two years – even while solar and wind power keep getting cheaper and cheaper.

It is not working. It is not the future. It is not even a good investment anymore. And I don't even have to talk about nuclear waste or uninsurable risks to proof it.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We are not going back to nuclear energy and we are going towards renewable energy more and more and it has already proofen that not even a war in Europe can change that.

Yeah because America opened our strategic reserve wide open to keep you from freezing to death last winter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Gas import from LNG (US) ist the lowest of all imports we do and don't pretend it is a gift, you had too much of it and didn't know what to do with it. It makes your country a lot of money: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Gasversorgung/aktuelle_gasversorgung/_svg/Gasimporte/Gasimporte.html

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Gasversorgung/aktuelle_gasversorgung/start.html

To secure gas supplies for the coming winter, a storage level of 75 percent must be reached by September 1, 2023. The storage target was already reached in June 2023.

Gas imports are way down and our reserve is filled to the brim for Winter and Germans actually know how and are willing to safe energy. You can't beat the numbers with words. It is not going to happen.