Emil Jacobs - Collectifission@feld I should read this study more closely, but glansing at it, I come across this: "Table 2, the costs of the French PWR program translate into 230 billion Euros(2008) or 330 billion US$2008." and "These costs of the program of 1.5–1.6 trillion FF98 refer to a total installed PWR capacity of 65.9 GWgross or 63.1 GWnet."
Corrected for inflation, today that would be €320 billion.
This Messmer fleet still largely intact, this provided 320 TWh in 2023, or 65% of electricity production in France (source: IAEA PRIS). The carbon footprint for France was around 50 grams / kWh for 2023 (source: Electricity Maps).
Meanwhile, Germany's Energiewende has cost around €700 billion (see below link), provided 52% of the produced electricity for 2023 (source: Our World in Data), and Germany's carbon footprint remained at 370 grams / kWh. So, 7x France on average.
So, even using your source, it follows that nuclear energy built at scale is an excellent idea.
Some caveats:
1. It's not my position that we should only build nuclear. I've repeated ad nauseam that we need to build all the clean energy sources. I don't think in the false dichotomy of "renewables vs nuclear".
2. Pretending that, to borrow a phrase, renewable energy will be "too cheap to meter" really grinds my gears. The energy transition away from fossil fuels will inevitably be a costly one. How we deal with that will be a social and political question. What does not help, even turns people towards climate scepticism and rightwing politics, is to say it's cheap, whereas it's actually raising energy bills for many households significantly.
3. Therefore, I'm really tired of this distraction of the cost argument. Nuclear energy is proven to be extremely cheap in the long run, with reactors built in the 1970s currently being uprated to run for 80 years. The main financial hurdles are with building them, and mostly even then have to do with interest. In the case of Hinkley Point C, 65% of the costs are financial costs alone. This is what needs fixing. Not gloating and pushing another agenda.
4. We will not, I repeat NOT, be able to power many countries in Europe with solar and wind alone. In the case of the Netherlands we're talking about 50% of the energy needs being met by solar and wind, by 2050, with the 70 GW of wind turbines in the North Sea being the primary source of that. That still leaves the other 50% that can only be resolved by (a combination of) importing clean energy from outside Europe, deindustrialising and/or nuclear energy. Again, we need to build ALL the things. If you are anti-nuclear, you are, whether you like it or not, contributing to the problem of climate change as we'll not hit the target of zero emissions.
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