[Faelian2]

Pretty messed up : https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/societal-choices/...

250 to 300 billion euros, which is more than the cost of rebuilding from scratch all the French nuclear power plants, is what Germany has invested from 1996 to 2014 to increase by 22% the fraction of renewable electricity into the gross production of the country (that went from 4% to 27%).

For this price tag our neighbors did not decrease their energy imports, did not accelerate the decrease of their CO2 emissions per capita, that remain 80% higher to those of a French, increased the stress on the European grid.

[jakewins]

For 250B EUR, Germany paid for the learning curve movement that now enables the rest of the world to deploy solar and batteries. If it was not for German investment to drive that 90% drop in price, bills like the IRA would not even be possible to contemplate.

The "that would pay for the entire French fleet" thing is nonsense. Just google the cost of the most recent plants built anywhere in EU and multiply it by how many you'd need to meet France's 61GW capacity. (example: Hinkley Point C, 75B EUR for 3.26GWe, 61GW/3.26GW = 18, 18*75 = 1,350B EUR, Olkiluoto Unit 3, 11B EUR for 1.6GWe, 61GW/1.6=~38, 38*11=418B EUR).

Yes, Germany paid a huge price for their solar. We should be thankful they did.

[MagnumOpus]

Or, you know, one could just take the cost of the French fleet and inflation-adjust it? Technology wasn’t that different when they were built. And building scores of reactors has tremendous efficiencies of scale.

[jakewins]

It is no longer legal to build the kinds of Gen 2 plants France built their fleet out of, so I don't see how inflation-adjusting that cost would be more accurate than looking at the current market cost.

As an example, today plants are required to not suffer meltdowns if primary power is lost to cooling systems. Many similar sets of rules (see EU Nuclear Safety Directives from 2009 and 2014, for example), add up to much more plant complexity, which increases capex.

[AstralStorm]

Now the thing is, loss of coolant is rather bad for both coal, gas and oil power plants as well. They may break, pollute water, explode... And the cessation of generation is about as problematic.

They have not been redesigned for alternate coolants, unlike new nuclear power plants.

[merb]

btw. his pricing is completly off and you can't build all french nuclear plants from scratch with 250 to 300 billion euros.

[MagnumOpus]

France could.

[btilly]

That's a great analysis, but unfortunately ends at around when Ukraine was first invaded. It doesn't show what has happened in the last several years.