The new coalition government has pledged $40B (approximately the market cap of Twitter, heh) in loan guarantees for nuclear power construction.
They have also pledged to create legal guarantees that future politicians will not be able to shut down functioning nuclear power reactors without suitable monetary compensation to the owners/operators of these reactors.
In addition to this, they are commissioning an urgent study on how to rebuild Ringhals 1 and 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringhals_Nuclear_Power_Plant, about 1 GW each), two nuclear reactors that were prematurely decommissioned by the previous social-democratic government and shut down about 20 months ago.
Personally I'm really happy; I think massive expansion of
nuclear power is the only realistic way to fix climate change.
The first reactors built will be modern but traditionally large. From then on: There has been a lot of interest in small modular reactors (SMR) from the political party that is driving all of this, and they actually got the nationally owned energy company Vattenfall to begin building prototypes at Ringhals a few months ago.
In summary: Lots of champagne bottles popping tonight in Sweden in the homes of clean nuclear power proponents. We have been waiting for this for a very long time. Cheers!
The previous government didn't stop the shutdown planned 40+ years ago (due to a national referendum), in part because the owners (Vattenfall) said it's not economically feasible to run them anymore without subsidies. It's complex.
so they get compensated if they have to close it even so the government payed them to build it. this sound like a bad deal. Tax payers pay for the whole thing and the owner gets even more money if they have to close it for whatever reason.
I don't think coal is the answer but germany didn't do enough for renewables during the last 10 years when we knew we would shut down the nuclear plants. So now evrybody uses bad management as pro for nuclear reactors.
I think the reasons to shut it down are always overlooked and only the pros of nuclear energy are considered in those arguments.
There exists a group of folks who claim nuclear isn't green and is going to 'kill the planet'.
The alternative to nuclear is to either use fuels with a massive carbon footprint, or introduce a level of energy suffering on the population that is beyond the pale.
The idea of nuclear power is good. The facts of nuclear power are much less good. It is not too much to ask that lifecycle costs and safety get addressed. For example, the French success with nuclear power looks much less successful due to decommissioning costs coming in at a multiple of estimated costs. The French low-balled their estimates, to be a fraction of estimates by Germany and UK. Which estimates do you believe?
I'm also a proponent of nuclear, but modern nuclear power plants seem to take 15-20 years to construct and typically go 10s of billions of EUR over budget. So one does not simply "build a reactor".. look at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, Flamanville 3 in France and Hinkley Point C in UK.
Twitter, something so “valuable” which offers virtually nothing of value to humanity. If twitter was turned off there would be some whinging for a week on some other platform and then it would be forgotten…
A bit of context, the south area which this reactor is suggested to be built in has occasionally a 1000% electricity higher price from the northern regions. A big reason for this is that prices in the south is highly connected to markets that the south region is connected to, and those region are heavily importers of electricity creating a higher demand than there is available of cheap energy. For example, in order to address this there is a oil power plant operating basically 24/7 and does so very profitably even with high oil prices.
Another factor affecting the price is that, while there's a lot of hydropower generated in northern Sweden, there's not enough capacity for transferring energy to the south where most consumption is. The investors building industry in the north that can use cheap renewable energy don't seem to mind though. :)
Wouldn't this be affected by the EU principle of paying energy at the highest cost of production? [0]
Unless the power plant would be able to flood the rest of the EU grid with cheap power to the point that the more expensive plants would be turned off, how would this prevent the price going up?
New export cables will be ready the day these would come online, if the ever come online. Decoupling the SE4 and SE3 regions from the European energy market will never be a sustainable solution due to the possible arbitrage.
> For example, in order to address this there is a oil power plant operating basically 24/7 and does so very profitably even with high oil prices.
This is not why the oil plant exists, it is an emergency plant. If it is running 24/7 then it does so because the oil plant is profitable. Not out of necessity.
This is only half the story. What is actually happening is that Sweden is importing expensive electricity from the baltics and exporting it to Germany. So even though the electricity is only in "transit" through Sweden, the prices go up in southern Sweden. Obviously everything is working as designed, but it does feel a bit unfair.
To lower the prices in southern Sweden either southern Sweden or northern Germany must increase "plannable" electricity production to avoid expensive imports from the baltics.
In order to inform the conversations in these comments here are some predictions on Nuclear vs Renewable usage in the UK grid from the National Grid's (UK energy grid transmission network owner + operator) Future Energy Scenarios report - https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/263951/download
The funny thing about a country like Sweden is that their energy problem is 100% based on energy exports to the EU market. Sweden produces way more electricity than it needs at any given time. During one of the latest “crises” a single company exported energy worth several hundreds of millions Euros to other countries.
Sweden also has an imbalance problem due to a lack of transmission capability. After shutting down nuclear plants in the south that kept the grid balanced, there are now times where the transmission from the north (where the hydro power is) to the south is at capacity. So the country as a whole has generation, but can't get it to where it needs to be.
Electricity prices should include all the negative externalities such as pollution, carbon dioxide, destruction of habitats, geopolitical dependence on Russia etc.
It's easy to implement through regulation, just pass a law that says it costs peanuts. But this easily results in shortages (if production is unsubsidized) or tax hikes / lower living standards (if production or import is subsidized using money that could be spent elsewhere).
Here is the full agreement from the new coalition in power. Below "3. Reformer som ska genomföras i projektet". I am very happy with these reforms, it looks like exactly what is needed.
The only green solution to our current energy problem is more nuclear power plants. We have to stop relying on coal, wood, oil, gas and the rest of the “dirty” materials.
Except nuclear is expensive and takes decades to build, runs on non renewable materials (a good percentage of which come from Russia), leaves waste that is deadly for 100.000s of years, and promising new technologies will need decades to reach maturity.
Now why is it so great compared to, say, solar or geothermal?
The main effect of this is electricity prices going up. It's completely ideological, Vattenfall the company running nuclear power plants wanted to shut down the reactors because they were not economically viable.
The irony is that Sweden is ideally suited for going 100% renewable. The North has lots of hydro (which is essentially storage) and the south has lots of windy coastline. But if you go around Sweden the number of wind turbines is tiny. In the Gothenburg area I'm aware of maybe 10 (only one is really close).
Sweden (unlike Denmark or Germany) never really invested in renewables. If they would have invested in wind like those countries (and let the north south connections go to rot) they would be fully renewable already. I suspect the 40B would also pay for enough wind to achieve that goal.
One question for nuclear advocates, as I know it's full on-trend at the moment:
What's to stop adversaries holding countries to ransom using their nucealer facilities?
Just like Russia is playing "games" around the Ukranian nuclear plant?
What's to stop that being used as the new threat? We won't turn your gas off, we'll threaten your nuclear plants?
EU membership is pretty orthogonal to electricity markets and grid connections in Europe. For example in northern europe UK, Norway and Russia are connected to the nearby markets.
Now find out how to not just do it but do it quickly. The last time (two additional reactors in an existing plant) was built in 24 months and on budget.
Reactors will not be forced to shut down, in the future. Instead, they will be shut down as unable to produce power at a competitive price. Those that continue operating will depend even more on taxpayer subsidies than they do now.
The money that will be spent on these new reactors would buy a hell of a lot more wind power than these nukes could produce. But money for renewables would not go into the pockets of right-wing blueblood Swedes, which seems to be what matters to the incoming government.
When the nukes are mothballed early, every kWh they ever produced will, instantly, have actually cost much more than had been reckoned, as the fixed costs are amortized over fewer total.
[+] [-] tpmx|3 years ago|reply
They have also pledged to create legal guarantees that future politicians will not be able to shut down functioning nuclear power reactors without suitable monetary compensation to the owners/operators of these reactors.
In addition to this, they are commissioning an urgent study on how to rebuild Ringhals 1 and 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringhals_Nuclear_Power_Plant, about 1 GW each), two nuclear reactors that were prematurely decommissioned by the previous social-democratic government and shut down about 20 months ago.
Personally I'm really happy; I think massive expansion of nuclear power is the only realistic way to fix climate change.
The first reactors built will be modern but traditionally large. From then on: There has been a lot of interest in small modular reactors (SMR) from the political party that is driving all of this, and they actually got the nationally owned energy company Vattenfall to begin building prototypes at Ringhals a few months ago.
In summary: Lots of champagne bottles popping tonight in Sweden in the homes of clean nuclear power proponents. We have been waiting for this for a very long time. Cheers!
[+] [-] cjblomqvist|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] traceelement|3 years ago|reply
I don't think coal is the answer but germany didn't do enough for renewables during the last 10 years when we knew we would shut down the nuclear plants. So now evrybody uses bad management as pro for nuclear reactors.
I think the reasons to shut it down are always overlooked and only the pros of nuclear energy are considered in those arguments.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otikik|3 years ago|reply
> I think massive expansion of nuclear power is the only realistic way to fix climate change.
While I agree on the overall direction of this sentiment I think nuclear cannot be "the" only way but "one amongst many" ways.
[+] [-] OrangeMonkey|3 years ago|reply
The alternative to nuclear is to either use fuels with a massive carbon footprint, or introduce a level of energy suffering on the population that is beyond the pale.
You are exactly right - this is the only way.
[+] [-] _Microft|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickez|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
[+] [-] legulere|3 years ago|reply
To me nuclear seems like a giant waste of money.
[+] [-] medion|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edpichler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigbacaloa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belorn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjblomqvist|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vladvasiliu|3 years ago|reply
Unless the power plant would be able to flood the rest of the EU grid with cheap power to the point that the more expensive plants would be turned off, how would this prevent the price going up?
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[0] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/08/09/watch-heres-ho...
[+] [-] Gwypaas|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cinntaile|3 years ago|reply
This is not why the oil plant exists, it is an emergency plant. If it is running 24/7 then it does so because the oil plant is profitable. Not out of necessity.
[+] [-] H8crilA|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickez|3 years ago|reply
To lower the prices in southern Sweden either southern Sweden or northern Germany must increase "plannable" electricity production to avoid expensive imports from the baltics.
[+] [-] kieranmaine|3 years ago|reply
Short Version is here - https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/263861/download
[+] [-] Kailhus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtNightWeCode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tored|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yrgulation|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuukkah|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fulafel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gud|3 years ago|reply
https://kristdemokraterna.se/download/18.715f6f45183890627fc...
[+] [-] NKosmatos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] f_allwein|3 years ago|reply
Now why is it so great compared to, say, solar or geothermal?
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tpmx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AustinDev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ETH_start|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cycomanic|3 years ago|reply
The irony is that Sweden is ideally suited for going 100% renewable. The North has lots of hydro (which is essentially storage) and the south has lots of windy coastline. But if you go around Sweden the number of wind turbines is tiny. In the Gothenburg area I'm aware of maybe 10 (only one is really close).
Sweden (unlike Denmark or Germany) never really invested in renewables. If they would have invested in wind like those countries (and let the north south connections go to rot) they would be fully renewable already. I suspect the 40B would also pay for enough wind to achieve that goal.
[+] [-] edpichler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LightG|3 years ago|reply
What's to stop adversaries holding countries to ransom using their nucealer facilities?
Just like Russia is playing "games" around the Ukranian nuclear plant? What's to stop that being used as the new threat? We won't turn your gas off, we'll threaten your nuclear plants?
Genuine question.
[+] [-] mkl95|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lampshades|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fulafel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncmncm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rongopo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endisneigh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imgabe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergiotapia|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncmncm|3 years ago|reply
The money that will be spent on these new reactors would buy a hell of a lot more wind power than these nukes could produce. But money for renewables would not go into the pockets of right-wing blueblood Swedes, which seems to be what matters to the incoming government.
When the nukes are mothballed early, every kWh they ever produced will, instantly, have actually cost much more than had been reckoned, as the fixed costs are amortized over fewer total.
[+] [-] nathanaldensr|3 years ago|reply