Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, says EESC
98 comments
·December 12, 2025DarkNova6
sailingparrot
> So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired.
This is an article about Europe. Do you really believe France alone is operating 57 nuclear reactors, and producing 70% of its energy via fission, without the industry, the knowledge, and with no experts left? Is chatgpt running everything?
DarkNova6
If you are so smug about this, answer me:
1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing end-of-life?
2: How many reactors has Europe built since 2005?
3: What's the overrun time of reactors in Europe, compared to China?
The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the industry has existed. It was world class, but the institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist and would need to be rebuilt for the new generation of reactors. And we are not even talking Generation 4 here.
sailingparrot
Yes, very few new NPP have been built in Europe recently. Quite a few have been built by Europe however. The french company Framatome alone, with 18k employees, is actively building 2 EPR reactors in the UK (+ preliminary studies for 8 more), one reactor has been finished last year in France and recently multiple were built or being built in China, India, Russia (although I guess that might be canceled).
Its also already operating the 57 french reactors as well as operating reactors in South Africa, China, Korea, Belgium, Finland.
Sure, the industry will need to grow, but claiming it basically has to start from 0 is ludicrous.
pyrale
> 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing end-of-life?
> The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the industry has existed. It was world class, but the institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist and would need to be rebuilt for the new generation of reactors. And we are not even talking Generation 4 here.
The only reasonable conclusion from your logic is that it would have felt like an even worse idea to build nuclear reactors in the 1970's. Yet, using today's hindsight, it was a great idea.
Airbus would have been a terrible idea: no one had built commercial airliners before, and only the US had the know-how. Today, we know otherwise.
etc.
sigmar
These questions are inane. No, "all existing experts" did not retire. not making new plants was a decision made by politicians.
Europe has never stopped working on creating new and better nuclear reactor designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
nine_k
France in particular connected a new nuclear power station to the grid as late as 2024 [1]. But the previous reactor was put online in 1999 or so.
Three more were built in EU since 2000: one in Finland (Swedish/Finnish design) and two in Slovakia (Soviet/Russian design).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
godelski
> If you are so smug about this, answer me:
But I'll answer what I can, assuming your are genuine.
> 1: How man reactors were built in the 1970s and are nearing end-of-life?
I think this is a more American-centric comment than you realized... France had a bigger rollout in the 80's and a few from the 90's so there's another decade (*making this time key!*) before a slow decline. Also remember that France is a lot smaller than America so needs less power.
Not to mention, France exports a lot of electricity[0]. I want you to look pretty closely at that graph again. It says they exported 81.8TW this year. What's France's nuclear capacity? 380TW[1]. France exports about 15% of its total energy, more than all its hydro (it's next biggest source). You may be interested to see where that electricity goes....[2]
France can lose those reactors and be fine, Europe is a different story...
> 2: How many reactors has Europe built since 2005?
> 3: What's the overrun time of reactors in Europe, compared to China?
> the institutional knowledge to bring it back to this quality does not exist
Besides, I'm not sure this fear even makes sense. What, China could "start from scratch" but "France" (or anywhere else) couldn't? What would make China so unique that such things couldn't be replicated elsewhere? This is a fallacy in logic making the assumption that once skills atrophy that they can never be restored or restore more slowly. If anything we tend to see skills restore far quicker from atrophy than from scratch! So why paint a picture of "give up"? Isn't that just making a self-fulfilling prophecy?
[0] https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/exchanges/import...
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
tokai
>If you are so smug about this, answer me
Is this satire?
locallost
If you had followed the crisis from 2022 when a quarter of the reactors were out of service, you wouldn't ask that question. They had to fly in welders from the US because they were not able to fix the problem... Also, every new nuclear project done by the French in this century has been a complete disaster. Flamanville, Olkiluoto and now Hinkley Point C.
BigTTYGothGF
> But the world has moved on.
China's got 27 reactors under construction right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
DarkNova6
You are naturally correct and I have corrected my statement. I intended to refer to the West but my wording was factually incorrect.
China has invested so much for so long into nuclear technology that they now have the industry which Europe once had. And to rebuild the same type of industry would take the same amount of effort that China had to do. Meanwhile, the US can't even build their own warships anymore.
derriz
In the first 5 months of this year, China added 198 GW of solar PV and 46 GW of wind. Nuclear is a small side-hustle for them.
pyrale
nameplate capacity of different generation sources can't be compared, if only because capacity factor is not comparable.
ViewTrick1002
China has been scaling back and delaying their nuclear program in favor of renewables since Fukushima.
At saturation, given current nuclear build out and China’s grid size, China will end up with 2-3% nuclear power in the grid mix.
Enough to sustain a civilian industry to complement any military ambitions, but it does not move the needle.
In terms of electricity China is all in on renewables and storage with a backstop of locally sourced firming coal.
nixass
> Look, I love nuclear technology. But the world has moved on.
Come again?
derriz
The technology of electricity production has advanced since nuclear peaked in the mid 1980s.
We have better/cheaper ways of producing electricity than attaching a heat source to tank of water, boiling the water to produce steam, then forcing the steam through a turbine, capturing the kinetic energy in order to turn the rotor of an alternator. Whether that heat source is coal or nuclear, you're still looking at what is fundamentally a 19th century design - attach a steam engine to an alternator.
Gas turbines remove the boiling water/steam engine part. Wind turbines remove heat from the process completely and solar PV removes the mechanical part.
All 3 technologies are base on mass production - particularly solar PV. And so all have seem massive price decreases which is expected to continue. Meanwhile nuclear gets more and more expensive.
Globally, nuclear peaked about 2 decades in terms of energy production ago, 2.5 decades ago in terms of number of operating turbines, 3 decades ago in terms of share of electricity production and 4 or 5 decades ago in terms of plants under construction.
iknowstuff
We deploy 10x the capacity in renewables and batteries than we do in nuclear and its only accelerating. We are trending towards 1/10th the cost of nuclear per GW. There is no going back just due to the sheer scale of mass manufacturing renewables.
We are below $1B/GW for solar. China just opened a $100/kWh ($100M/GWh) battery storage plant. All deployable within a year.
Contrast this to $16B/GW for recent nuclear plants, and you don’t benefit from starting a build for another 20 years
solarengineer
I am a small-time investor in renewable energy businesses, but I am also a believer in nuclear energy.
Consider a city like Mumbai that needs about 3.8 GW per day. One would need lots of windmills and large solar farms that would need to be positioned in a different state having more sunlight throughout the year. Mumbai often experiences cloudy weather and intermittent wind. I cannot imagine only wind and solar supporting the needs of Mumbai.
There are countries other than the US who do not take 20 years to build a reactor. Out-dated regulations, punitive paperwork, and perhaps poor project management are the reasons for the oft-cited delays in the US. Other countries complete their builds in 6 to 7 years. https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...
mpweiher
Since you use China as a comparison for solar: China builds 1.4GW nuclear power plants in 5 years for $3.5 bn.
And of course the capacity factor for PV is about 10%, so you need 10x the capacity to get the same output even on average. Never mind that you get nothing at night, and very little in winter.
nine_k
The problem is that much of Europe lies pretty far north. Certainly, Spain can deploy solar power with high efficiency, but Netherlands can't grab as much sunlight no matter what, to say nothing of Sweden or Norway. Wind power helps, but it's way more expensive than solar.
jandrewrogers
That cost is a property of the regulatory environment, it isn't intrinsic.
You can buy a floating nuclear power plant in the form of an aircraft carrier for a lot less than $16B. The US Navy builds these things as a matter of course in a few years using standard designs they crank out by the dozens.
mpweiher
Since the capacity factor is so much lower, 10x in capacity just about matches the energy production of nuclear. Never mind the dispatchable power.
And since nuclear power plants last about 4x longer than renewables, you actually have to install 4x the production to have an equivalent fleet over time.
So by your numbers, the world is shifting towards a nuclear fleet.
nixass
Use case: Germany
It's going great!!!11
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
goatlover
That's great, but what percentage of decarbonization will it stall at due to lack of energy density and relying on the wind/sun?
DarkNova6
Look at the boom of nuclear in the 70s. The industry wide and deep expertise from production, to planning, to logistics. Particularly the french did this par excellence. But nuclear has first languished and is now almost non-existent in Europe.
Contrary to capitalist believe you cannot solve all issues fast by throwing unreasonable amounts of money at it. You must built industries that synergies with each other, have deep institutional knowledge and capable workers that can deliver the tiny tolerances required to make nuclear safe and effective.
We simply do not have the (intellectual) capacity for this anymore and the effort is better spent on battery technology if Europe actually wants to have any stake in future of EV and renewables. It is significantly less capital intense too.
nunobrito
Plenty of comments here are disproving that baseless argument.
null
scythe
>So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.
You could say most of the same things about batteries. There is a little lithium in Europe. But Europe doesn't have a battery industry. It's in China. And you could buy batteries from China, but we aren't doing that and the political trends don't support more energy dependence on China. You could also buy nuclear reactors from China, but of course Europe doesn't want to do that either.
What they are proposing is that Europe is going to pivot from not making batteries to not building nuclear plants. They will, however, write lots of papers about the reactors (neé batteries) they would like to build, if only the prevailing wage or regulatory regime or other economic excuse du jour wasn't stopping them.
It has increasingly become my impression after watching these debates unfold that the core technology is not the real problem. The problem is a lack of political will to encourage the growth of new industries in green energy, failing both at regulatory and industrial policy. Solar is succeeding, not because it is the best form of energy (though it is) but because it is mostly paid for and installed by individuals and small businesses (with a little capital you can own your own solar farm!).
belorn
Sweden had a major company try to make lithium batteries but it was not economical viable without major and continuously infusion of government subsidies. The company Northvolt is the largest bankruptcy in modern Swedish industrial history.
goatlover
But that means it's not a completely new industry since the French already have nuclear power plants and working experts.
DarkNova6
Oh yeah, the EPR is going super great. Delay after delay after delay.
The Finnish EPR only took 18 years of construction. What a marvel of engineering and planning.
mpweiher
Er...what?
There is a massive nuclear renaissance in-progress.
According to the following tracker:
https://globalenergymonitor.github.io/maps/trackers/nuclear/
There are currently 419 reactors in operation, 76 in construction, 140 in pre-construction and 290 planned/announced. I have a slightly older version of that chart, where those numbers were 69, 92 and 178, respectively.
Note that both the numbers are pretty large compared to the installed base (more than doubling the installed base), that they are increasing for the earlier stages (indicating more is in the pipeline than is currently being built), and that all the pipeline stages are increasing over time.
Which is of course consistent with the fact that 34 countries have now signed the international pledge to triple nuclear output that was first agreed at COP28. These countries include: France, the United States, China, Japan, Poland, Sweden, etc. India has plans and is on track to triple by 2032, but hasn't signed the pledge.
I am also not sure why you think that "all existing experts" have retired and there is no nuclear industry. The World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris November 4-6 of this year had over 1000 exhibitors, and more than half of those were from Europe.
https://www.framatome.com/en/evenements-clients/world-nuclea...
Even phase-out-Germany still has substantial nuclear engineering capacity, there's even a nuclear fuel factory in Lingen. And of course the actual nuclear component of a nuclear power plant is only around 20%. About the same effort/cost goes into the steam turbines, of which Siemens is a major worldwide supplier.
And of course civil nuclear programs have next to nothing to do with military nuclear programs. There are many more users of civil nuclear power than there are military nuclear powers, and the military nuclear powers invariably got the bomb first, and added a civil program later, with some like Israel only having a military nuclear program, not a civilian one.
In fact, there's a fun anecdote from the beginnings of the French nuclear program, since you mention France: when the Messmer plan got started, the military wanted to deploy an indigenous type of reactor for the civilian program that was more suitable for military uses, but in the end the government decided to standardize on a US Westinghouse pressurized water reactors that was not useful for military purposes.
klipklop
This is what anybody with a brain has been saying since at least the 1980's.
esafak
Halleluia! Better late than never.
retrac
Here in Ontario, residentially we pay about 0.09 USD per kWh at night and 0.18 USD with demand peak pricing on weekday afternoons. Or if you have flat rate it's about 0.13 USD per kWh. This is considered very expensive by Canadian standards and it's due to our nuclear power program where about 55% of electricity is from nuclear, the rest from a mix of wind/hydro/solar/biofuel and gas. The increased price during the day is due to the need to burn a bit of gas at peak demand. The grid is otherwise nearly carbon neutral, and the long-term plan is to phase out the gas with a mix of wind, nuclear and pumped storage.
We pay less in practice than the rates given above for power, because the government also subsidizes it. But even without that I understand such rates would be relatively cheap in most European countries.
throw0101a
> Here in Ontario, residentially we pay about 0.09 USD per kWh at night and 0.18 USD with demand peak pricing on weekday afternoons.
Provincial regulatory report from 2025-2026:
* https://oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20251017...
Search for "RPP Price Report" for previous ones:
* https://www.oeb.ca/consultations-and-projects/policy-initiat...
tokai
Relative cheap? More like ridiculously cheap.
belorn
Is that the commercial price to the end customer with tax and connection fees, or is it the gross price at the power exchange?
retrac
Consumer price of the energy. Doesn't include connection fees, but those are a minority of the cost. Includes special energy taxes. But not sales tax.
For a real example, I'm on flat rate and if I use 1000 kWh my monthly bill will be 211 CAD (effective rate 0.21 CAD / 0.13 EUR per kWh) including taxes, connection, delivery, everything, but without subsidy. The amount I pay after the subsidy is applied would be less at 165 CAD.
belorn
Consumer price for here in South of Sweden during October was for me €0.22 per kW/hh which include tax. On top of that I also had additional fixed connection fee and an fee based on peak consumption rate (combined those two were an extra €125 for that month). No subsidy.
The reason for the high kW/h is because limited wind/solar during that month and high gas prices which result in high market price at the power exchange. The given reason for the fixed fees is because of the need to expand transmissions and build out more reserve energy to handle the increase variability of the grid as a result of the increase use of renewables and the outcome of decommissioning a few nuclear reactors in the south of Sweden.
hvb2
Is the subsidy just to lower cost of living for the lowest incomes?
Would be very curious about the rationale for it if not. Why would you subsidize increased energy use
nine_k
End customer tariffs, I suppose. IDK if they include delivery.
Bulk prices at exchanges are way lower, like 2.2¢ per kWh: https://www.ieso.ca/Power-Data/Price-Overview/Ontario-Market...
ViewTrick1002
Existing nuclear power is something to keep around as long as it is safe and needed.
The problem is that new built western nuclear power requires ~18 cents/kWh (Vogtle, FV3, HPC etc.) when running at 100% 24/7 all year around, excluding backup, transmission costs and taxes.
Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV and maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room.
This does not even take into account that new built nuclear power requires ~15-20 years from political decision to working plants.
As soon as new built nuclear power’s costs and timelines are confronted with reality it just does not work out.
0x457
> Now try sell that electricity to a home owner with solar PV and maybe a battery and you will get laughed out of the room.
In EU, the split between flats (apartments) and houses is roughly 50/50, depending on how densely populated the country is. In the US, it about 1/3 in apartments. Canada is roughly 50/50, with a slight detached-house bias.
Not that it doesn't mean houseowner vs renter. Landlords have next to zero incentive to install solar PV because renters pay for electricity. In the US about 7% of homes have solar, I don't know about EU and Canada.
Solar can't provide baseline and even in sunny SoCal, you will go back to the grid often enough that being off-the-grid isn't reasonable for the typical household.
Anyway, we still need new nuclear power plants.
mpweiher
Where are you getting 18 cents/kWh? Lazard?
Anyway, even if that were correct numbers, it would misleading on several fronts, as the only new western reactors were unrepresentative FOAK builds, and also troubled beyond just regular FOAK status.
Furthermore, the costs tend to be calculated for the period while they are repaying the loans, so it's mostly capital costs. Once the plant is paid off, the price drops dramatically.
The average build time is currently 6.5 years, median slightly less, trend downwards.
ViewTrick1002
The currently proposed handout from tax money for the French EPR2 fleet is 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans. Sum freely.
That is with the first reactor coming online 2038 with a perfectly executed project.
I suggest you referencing unsourced statistics when the topic at hand is new built european nuclear power.
Edit - toned it down
solarengineer
As I understand it, the technologies exist by which home owners who already have solar can draw only as much grid energy as they actually need. There are multiple uses of nuclear energy beyond home usage and there would be those who do not have access to adequate solar or wind energy. Apartment residences in large cities are one of the target segments.
terespuwash
You mean “Nuclear energy key to decarbonising Europe, say lobby groups to members of the EESC to influence the Commission and the Council”.
solarengineer
Per the International Energy Association: What is the role of nuclear power in clean energy transitions? Nuclear power accounts for about 10% of electricity generation globally, rising to almost 20% in advanced economies. It has historically been one of the largest global contributors of carbon-free electricity and while it faces challenges in some countries, it has significant potential to contribute to power sector decarbonisation.
Why does it matter to energy security? Nuclear power plants contribute to electricity security in multiple ways by keeping power grids stable and complementing decarbonisation strategies since, to a certain extent, they can adjust their output to accompany shifts in demand and supply. As the share of variable renewables like wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) rises, the need for such services will increase.
What are the challenges? Nuclear power faces a contrasted future despite its ability to produce emissions-free power. With large up-front costs, long lead times and an often-poor record of on-time delivery, nuclear power projects have trouble in some jurisdictions competing against faster-to-install alternatives, such as natural gas or modern renewables. It also faces public opposition in many countries. Its uncertain future could result in billions of tonnes of additional carbon emissions.
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/nuclear-power
Do note: There are countries other than the US and France who license nuclear technologies and build-outs. There are innovative technologies by US companies that work with modern regulations and are faster and less expensive to build. We must stop citing US nuclear build times that are largely due to outdated regulations and hostile review processes.
raverbashing
Well, every cloud has a silver lining
mrweasel
Modern energi consumption confuses me. There has never been more wind and solar, coal fired plants are almost a thing of the past. Everything is becoming increasingly energy efficient, yet we produce more CO2?
Where is the fossile fuel being burnt?
mandevil
Mostly, what you are seeing is that the half of the world living in the India-SEA-China circle [1] are living much better lives, which requires far more energy then living as subsistence farmers did. In the G7, CO2 emissions have declined (but not as fast as they need to stay below the 2C target) but the rest of the world is emitting more: during the negotiations for the Kyoto Accords in 1998 G7 countries produced about half of the world's CO2 and now they produce about a quarter. That's mostly because the rest of the world started emitting more and only a little because of drops in the amount produced by G7 countries.
There is obviously major ethical issues here. The rich, already developed world- having emitted enormous quantities of CO2 to get there- telling poor, undeveloped people living as subsistence farmers that they can't use any more energy because of all the CO2 already in the atmosphere is a really hard argument to make, locking them into being poor forever while the developed world benefits from all that CO2 consumption. But on the other hand, by skipping right to large scale solar, maybe those inside the circle can do a better job?
iknowstuff
Roughly, greenhouse gases are, a quarter from (animal) agriculture, quarter from energy, quarter from industry (cement/steel etc), and a quarter from transport.
thegrim33
For some reason it took this long to hit me.
If you take as axioms:
1) Countries have major political interest in whether other countries have nuclear reactors
2) Countries are already, at large scale, manipulating discourse across the internet to achieve their political goals
Then of course it follows that any comment thread on a semi-popular or higher site about whether a country should build more nuclear reactors is going to be heavily manipulated by said countries. That's where (most) of the insane people in such threads are probably coming from.
How are we supposed to survive as a civilization with such corrupted channels of communication?
solarengineer
I am a former nuclear opponent. I used to think that nuclear waste was glowing green like they show in the Simpsons and in the Doom 1 game. Once I had access to the Internet in this century, I learned better.
Here are some sources of information that helped me understand the two oft-cited nuclear disasters better.
The World Nuclear Energy write up on the Fukushima incident: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...
Some information on the Chernobyl incident: The infographics show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uJhjqBz5Tk
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...
A lecture in the MIT Courseware on the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijst4g5KFN0
This lecture is way more informative where the professor explains how the workers took the system beyond the rated capacity as part of a test.
There have been many lessons learned, and the World Nuclear article linked above shares some of these.
Here is a writeup of the Three Mile Island incident: https://world-nuclear.org/Information-Library/Safety-and-Sec...
One regular complaint is the costs of nuclear energy. This is likely true in the US due to regulations that have not been revised for newer technology, but such high costs are cited around the world.
Likewise, the amount of waste and the danger of the waste is not well understood either, and certainly lots of education is needed here. For e.g., most people do not know that the volume of waste is limited and that the same waste can be reused in reactors of other designs.
I do believe that national ego issues get in the way of fixes. I believe that such ego issues got in the way of honest repairs (Fukushima) and timely action (Chernobyl). Certainly, nuclear inspections are still treated with suspicion and hostility, but in fact full transparency and integrity should be the norm.
Corruption and profit-centric thinking are two other problems that plague the nuclear industry. South Korea has had lots of corruption and shortcuts (https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-greed...). One of the accusations in India against France was that France licenses outdated nuclear reactor technology despite having newer technology. I am unable to locate a link supporting this accusation.
With thorium reactors and Small Module Reactors, there are many modern solutions to safety.
ThorCon's Thorium Converter Reactor - Lars Jorgensen in Bali https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB1IrzDDI9g
Here is the full training by Thorcon on their reactors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkvEXm-rMW4&list=PLuGiwaUJYE...
We need to stop citing and quoting US-based costs and problems that are linked to outdated US regulations. There are other countries that have more modern regulations and modern technologies.
throwpoaster
No doy.
softwaredoug
I think Fukushima rather than Chernobyl looms over us as a more realistic disaster that could happen again.
When you look at the data though, its political fallout was much worse than the actual toll on human life, etc. Fukushima released a small about of radiation into the environment. But modern reactors don’t have the same runaway reactivity flaws that Chernobyl did.
Not zero risk. But not the level of risk resulting in half a continent potentially being uninhabitable.
BurningFrog
Fukushima was the result of the biggest earthquake in 1000+ years of Japanese history occurring where the resulting tsunami knocked out the backup generators at the plant.
Such an extreme set of outlier events could happen again, of course, but it's not very realistic.
goatlover
Would Chernobyl have realistically made half a continent uninhabitable had the Soviets not taken all measures to contain it? Or is it more worse case fear mongering nuclear has always had, while oil tankers s[ill into oceans, pipelines leak into national parks, people die from polluted air, and climate change continues to grow worse?
null
mandevil
I mean, the basic problem at Chernobyl was the lack of a big heavy containment vessel that essentially all other reactor designs have. That containment vessel (and a couple of other design features, e.g. negative void coefficient in a PWR) has, so far, largely prevented Chernobyl like issues at other, better designed reactors. So far a TMI/Fukushima Dai Ichi/Chalk River is about the worst that has been observed in a reactor with a containment vessel.
And as for how realistic it was that it would make large areas unlivable, the threat was of a melt-down going far enough down to hit the water table and contaminating the groundwater. That would make large areas only livable if you brought your own water, even for bathing, basically making the area impracticable. Obviously it didn't happen, but I'm not clear whether it was a 0.5% chance, a 5% chance or a 50% chance.
scotty79
Nuclear might be a good idea but for after the war. For now Europe needs distributed power generation and storage that russia can't easily nuke.
IlikeKitties
Nuclear Energy is incredibly expensive and has a lot of other issues like long term waste storage. It's arguably better than Coal and Gas but the KEY to decarbonisation is and always will be renewables. The Headline is rather misleading in that regard.
Anyways, solar is also cheaper
belorn
As long there is no need to use gas during periods of non-optimal weather, then solar and wind is great.
The lithium battery plant in northern Sweden went bankrupt so its difficult to say how to solve the storage solution by both being cheap and financial viable. New battery solutions are being made, but in the end it need to be cheap enough over the long term. The current use of gas for non-optimal weather means prices jump up by a factor of around 100x of what it is during good weather, and the average price in nordpool (the northen pan-European power exchange) is about 20x than what you get with good weather. That should illustrate how much variability there is in the energy price right now, and how much people are paying for that gas powered electricity in periods of non-optimal weather conditions.
A lot of fossil fuel subsidies goes directly to support the high variability power grid, and they more than doubled during 2022 when the gas prices went up. It is incredibly expensive, likely more than nuclear, to have a grid supported by renewables during optimal weather conditions and fossil fuels during non-optimal weather conditions. It also generate a lot of waste in term of pollution which has a bigger issue both short and long term than nuclear waste.
jltsiren
Nordpool prices are not true market prices, as much of the demand does not participate in the market. For example, many residential customers still have fixed-rate contracts, and some power companies sell the power they generate to their owners at cost price.
exabrial
> Long term waste storage
This is pretty far from the truth. Exactly One Swimming Pool is all that is needed to store the entire "waste" for a country.
If you don't recycle it.
Or if you don't put it concrete.
exabrial
Also, be sure to elaborate on the massive waste problem that Solar and Wind create:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...
ViewTrick1002
I would suggest finding more recent information than articles that already were disinformation back in 2020.
In recent news we are seeing the fossil lobby ally with new built nuclear power since wasting money and opportunity cost on new built nuclear power potentially may stymie renewable development.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-e...
EricE
Duh!
So you want to create a completely new industry. From the ground. With all existing experts having retired. Demanding high quality, no-fault tolerance production. Dependent on resources not found in Europe.
Look, I love nuclear technology. But time has moved on. The costs to rebuild this industry is astronomical and means we lose out on key-future technology like batteries.
Edit: But then there are bombs. And especially French love their nukes due national security. This is the only reason to keep pushing for nuclear, since Russia, the US and China are not gonna change direction on this either. But the very least we could do is be honest about it.
Edit 2: Changed from "World has moved on" to "time has moved on", since evidently China has invested for a good 2 decades to build their own fully functional nuclear-industry. Proving my point that it takes dedicated investment, network effects and scale to rebuild this industry. After all, they too want to mass produce nukes.