New research shows renewables are more profitable than nuclear power

Chasing profit is how we got here. This shouldn't be the basis of the decision. If it's the only thing we can use to drag conservatives along though, I guess it'll have to do.

Yeah no shit. We already knew nuclear was not profitable, but it’s clean & makes tons of power, so it’s a good deal for everyone that isn’t a business & wants cheap & clean energy.

The question has always been what does one do when the renewables aren't providing enough power (ex: nights, etc). The current solution is natural gas. It would be a big improvement if we would use a carbon-free source like nuclear instead.

Profitability is so much not the point here and also, there's no reason for different energy production sources (especially ones that are base power vs incidental power) to be in conflict. Do both of them.

That's not difficult. Nuclear is extremely expensive.

With renewables you just sell it to the grid for whatever gas generated electricity is going for. Which is currently still a fucking lot. Thanks Russia.

Nah, the power company likes the profits from nuclear way better.

The secret is that they can bill the ratepayers for all the cost overruns, while keeping the extra profits on the cost-plus construction contract for the shareholders.

(Source: I'm a Georgia Power ratepayer being absolutely reamed for Plant Vogtle 3 and 4, and the Georgia Public Service Commission isn't doing a single goddamned thing to hold Georgia Power to account or to help people like me.)

Stop all the hate for nuclear. It's just a way for the fossil fuel industry to cause infighting among those of us who care about the climate. If we can make energy free or close to it, we should. The closer everything comes to being free the better.

K, but this isn't about profits. This is about not destroying the environment, which nuclear can help with (you know if nobody bombs the plant)

Nuclear is the future. Stop trying to deny it. We should all be running it by now this shit was made like 60 years ago. But no, we'll just eat smog I guess. Damn my feeds are kind of depressing today.

More profitable AND safer. Humans are too stupid, lazy and bureaucratic to use nuclear.

Until we are able to sort out the cost/tech to make a green-sourced grid (such that the role of utilities is to capture surpluses from when the sun shines and the wind blows and sell it back when transient sources aren't producing) nuclear is going to be an important part of a non-carbon-producing energy portfolio.

Already it's cheaper to bring new solar and wind online than any other sort of electrical production; the fact that those are transient supply sources is the last major obstacle to phasing carbon fuels entirely out of the grid. If nuclear can be brought safely online it could mean pushing the use of fossil energy entirely into use cases where energy density is critical (like military aviation)

With newer nuclear reactors that use helium or thorium to contain the temperature (the type that do not need water to regulate reaction)

You can produce plasma from anything and run it through a giant magnet (like in fusion) but with nuclear to generate electricity directly.

What about when the grid is almost entirely renewables? Is nuclear cheaper than just storage? What about storage one it's already been implemented to the point of resource scarcity?

Its a relatively recent development however since the panels and turbines got quite a bit cheaper. Nowadays solar/wind ends up fairly similar and Nuclear is about 3x the price (with gas being more and coal being nearly 7x more). That is only some of the story as you need some storage as well but it doesn't end up in favour of Nuclear. 15 years ago Nuclear was a clear win, its just not anymore the price of Solar come down fast.

This is such a weird thing to research because a government (or governments) can directly or almost directly control what is profitable in a society based upon what is needed.

If we had an energy system owned by the people and not ran for profits, nuclear would be a viable, and probably even the preferred, option. We do not. We're probably going to have to fix that to get a practical and reliable clean energy grid.

Gotta love anti nuclear activists getting more and more desperate. You're being decarbonised. Please do not resist.

Who fucking cares about profit, our planet is dying.

If we measured the amount of destruction to our environment that fossil fuels cost long-term I bet they'd stop being profitable really quick.

I am sorry but this is bs. Saying renewables are the only thing we need to do is downright dangerous for our future. We need nuclear more than ever. Several reasons here :

1. If we do 100% renewables, we need to have a backup source of energy when wind/solar can't produce enough (at night/when no wind). Excluding large scale batteries that would be a total ecological disaster and apart from hydroelectricity (that couldn't be expanded further in most of Europe) the only decarbonised energy source capable of serving this role is nuclear. Else it's coal/gas.
2. It is not cheaper. According to RTE (the french "company" that maintains and builds France's electricity infrastructure), a 100% renewables scenario by 2050 costs 20 billions euros more PER YEAR than 50% nuclear 50% renewables. I'd rather spend them on decarbonising other parts of the economy. I can't say for the rest of the world (I'm French), but in EU this shouldn't be too far off. The only case where nuclear costs the same as renewables would be if new reactors are as expensive to make as the first french EPR (european presurrized reactor, the latest generation) in Flamanville, which is highly unlikely. We can see it right now. Germany spent 1.5x more money building their solar/wind plants than France spent on its reactors. Yet Germany emits 10x more CO2 with its electricity. (+ I think (would need to cross check this) a that a lot of this money was used to buy chinese panels and was way less beneficial to their economy than France's nuclear industry). And like most of the EU they are now dependant on Russia's gas for their electricity.
3. And more importantly we'd be bottlenecked by our possible production of renewables, even if we reach our very ambitious targets. If we need more capacity than anticipated we wouldn't be able to respond to the demand (that is not an unlikely scenario, as large parts of the economy need to be electrified). But nuclear doesn't rely on the exact same industry. To summarize, we can build x nuclear and y renewables, but we can't build x+y only nuclear nor only renewables.

And there are many other important points that I don't have time to highlight. The good part of the article is saying relying only on nuclear would be a mistake. Of course we need to make renewables (as said in 3). I really feel like the nuclear debate is totally pointless and driven more by ideology than facts. I sincerely don't see downsides to nuclear that are not worse for any other form of energy.

Profit doesn't equal good. Renewables take a lot of materials and fabrication to upkeep. Im sure theres more money to be made in renewable than there is in nuclear, that doesn't imply one is better than the other.

I wonder how this determination is affected by the boondoggle that is the public funding of nuke plant construction with huge overruns paid for by consumers.

100% renewable energy is not possible on our current electrical grids. We usually use more energy at night where renewable does not cover our peak energy requirements, therefore, as a carbon neutral energy source nuclear covers that peak perfectly.

If renewables were subject to the same regulatory ratchet we impose on nuclear, they wouldn't be profitable either. Basically, whenever they figure out how to operate cheaply and efficiently enough while meeting existing safety requirements, regulators react by toughening the requirements.

Oh shit, can you imagine if you don't exclude all the fckn costs your fckn process causes you might fckn be mire expensive? Really? Surprise?

Everyone seems to be focused on electricity production, but ammonia production (ie nitrogen fixation) for fertilizer is often overlooked. Right now it is accomplished mostly with natural gas. If we're supposed to do it instead with wind and solar, we're going to have to rely on simple and inefficient electrolysis of water to generate the hydrogen needed for the Haber process. Nuclear power plants have the advange of producing very high temperature steam, which allows for high temperature electrolysis, which is more efficient.

When you consider our fertilizer needs, it becomes clearer that nuclear power will have to play the predominant role in the transition away from fossil fuels.

Really interesting and quite easy to read article. In fact, the french energy policy is to invest in new "little" nuclear plants. I'm not sure our politics will consider these scientifical comments...

Is simple mathematics now "research"

So first off, the source of this article being pv-magazine makes me immediately skeptical about unbiased reporting. This part really gets me though:

The availability of this electrical source is also questioned in view of the increasingly frequent droughts expected in the coming years, causing, in particular, low river flows and therefore associated problems of cooling power plants.

And availability is not a problem with renewables then? If not the central problem? Hydroelectric is probably the most reliable of the renewables, but then we have the aforementioned problem of low river flows. Droughts could even affect pumped hydro: a much-touted solution to availability problems with wind and solar. For crying out loud, present both sides of the argument fairly! /end rant

At any rate, I can get on board the idea that in terms of adding new generating capacity, renewables may be the most competitive option at the moment? They have come a long way in a short time, though they still face major challenges on the energy storage front.

But in terms of getting away from existing fossil fuel-based power generation, is nuclear not an attractive option? The infrastructure is already there, and would essentially have to be largely abandoned as sunken assets by power utilities switching to something like wind or solar right?

Consider your average coal plant. It is a centralized heat source powering steam turbines connected to large generators and a giant transformer station feeding power out over a network of high voltage transmission lines.

What is a nuclear plant then? It is a centralized heat source powering steam turbines connected to large generators and a giant transformer station feeding power out over a network of high voltage transmission lines. I'm thinking at least some of the existing hardware could be repurposed for nuclear to leverage what already exists? Am I wrong?

That's pretty damn cool to hear.

I wish my country (Germany) hadn't crash-shutdown the nuclear power plants we still had after Fukushima and instead shut down the coal/gas ones but eh... at the time, I even agreed with them, but that was at a time when climate disasters were far less prominent on everyone's minds. That now renewables are starting to pull ahead in most things is amazing.

A big problem to solve now will be how to swap the majority of the world away from coal/gas.

The point of this research is that renewable are cheaper. So why would we invest our money in the more extensive option?

Profit 😵

Ok but how viable are those renewables? In Louisiana, dispite all of our water and river, hydroelectric power is impossible, because the elevation is to gradual. In normal weather new orleans is often cloudy for solar panels on a large scale.

The point I am saying is that cost doesn't account for a lot of things

If you want profit, why not pick coal or natural gaz?

I mean really?

Renewables don't make money they cost money. They generate revenue because of subsidies and because manufacturing green energy technology is a dirty and extremely lucrative business. The part they dont tell you is that if u wana make solar panels u need to destroy the environment to do it. If u wana build a windmill its millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of precious minerals strip mined out of the earth. Thats your profit.

And? Who gives a shit? We need whatever is cleanest.