> As a starting point: it is undoubtedly true that industrial-scale nuclear power, as built in advanced Western countries in the 1970s-1990s, has provided, and still provides, cheap power, even taking into account the uncertainty on the cost of both long term waste storage and dismantling of the plants. And, until recently, low carbon alternatives like wind and solar were between “somewhat” and “a lot” more expensive. To a large extent, French skepticism about renewables over the past 20 years was not unreasonable given that the country did not have carbon-spewing (and otherwise polluting) coal-fired plants to replace - it had and has a low-carbon and cost competitive power sector.
> Le coût complet économique du parc nucléaire en exploitation, incluant
le Grand Carénage, s’élèvera environ à 55 €/MWh avec une durée
de fonctionnement de 50 ans, en moyenne sur la période d’ici 2025, un prix
permettant aux clients de bénéficier d’une électricité compétitive (Source : Cour
des comptes).
First, why does he discard the idea that nuclear power plants can be fully financed by the state, as RTE assumed in their report (in which nuclear came out slightly cheaper)? EDF is getting renationalised currently, and honestly financing from private markets something as expensive, crucial and with such a long life doesn't make much sense. A Nuclear Power Plant can operate for many decades (50+ years easily), so even if it breaks even in 40 years, that's completely acceptable for a state and it's budget. Private investors, and private financing, would like returns much easier.
Second, the elephant in the room - not all MWh are equal. When they are produced, and the load factor. Onshore wind, which the author mentions as cheaper, doesn't produce at 100% all the time. Solar is even worse, because at best it could produce energy during half the day. Both are subject to weather, like the few months of clouds and low winds we had last autumn all across Western Europe. To even them out, you either need luck, or storage, lots of it. Price that in, over a 50 year lifespan, and i very much doubt it will come out cheaper.
He doesn't claim the state funding Nuclear is a bad idea. He actually claims they'll increasingly have to.
What he's complaining about is the same WACC being used for nuclear and wind, when the wind one is much higher than reality, because they are so predictable in terms of how long and how much they take to build.
And even with that (and all the other advantages he's willing to give to nuclear, the French still can't make a good case for nuclear.
He covers the "not all MWh are equal" thing near the start and correctly counts that as a problem for nuclear, not a benefit.
> Its generation profile, “baseload” (i.e. constant production at full capacity) does not actually correspond to what the market demands, and does not easily provide for flexibility, reliability or load following. The fact that our systems have been built around baseload (nuclear and lignite) has pushed us into ways of thinking that are not actually useful - baseload is not enough, and it’s not that useful
It’s worth remembering that the “baseload problem” of nuclear and the intermittency problem of renewables both have the same solution: storage technologies.
Especially the section that starts:
> As a starting point: it is undoubtedly true that industrial-scale nuclear power, as built in advanced Western countries in the 1970s-1990s, has provided, and still provides, cheap power, even taking into account the uncertainty on the cost of both long term waste storage and dismantling of the plants. And, until recently, low carbon alternatives like wind and solar were between “somewhat” and “a lot” more expensive. To a large extent, French skepticism about renewables over the past 20 years was not unreasonable given that the country did not have carbon-spewing (and otherwise polluting) coal-fired plants to replace - it had and has a low-carbon and cost competitive power sector.
And that references these:
https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-edf/es...
https://www.lemondedelenergie.com/edf-carenage-parc-nucleair...
> Le coût complet économique du parc nucléaire en exploitation, incluant le Grand Carénage, s’élèvera environ à 55 €/MWh avec une durée de fonctionnement de 50 ans, en moyenne sur la période d’ici 2025, un prix permettant aux clients de bénéficier d’une électricité compétitive (Source : Cour des comptes).