[Krasnol]

There is no irony there at all.

Austria, just like many other European countries, are connected to a single grid which has all kinds of energies and where everybody buys on the European Energy Exchange.

This grid is what makes the rapid transition to renewable energies possible, and which shows that the base load scare is not more than just one of many FUD tools which aim at slowing down or stopping a transition which is already there in full force.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/10/...

[xeckr]

The reliance of the Austrian power grid on nuclear energy, combined with their total refusal to produce it domestically is certainly ironic. This phenomenon also predates any notion of green energy transition by several decades.

[Krasnol]

They don't rely on nuclear energy.

They rely on the grid. Just like the rest of the connected countries. Just like nuclear country France does.

What kind of energy is cheap at the moment there is irrelevant. If nuclear energy would be turned off on the grid, like it happens all the time when the French fleet needs repairs again for example, no lights go out in Austria. Just like no lights go out in France.

What you do is the same thing as making fun of humans because they rely on supermarkets and don't go out on the streets and shoot some animals.

Times change.

[xeckr]

Following your metaphor, those humans eat meat while voting to outlaw the killing of animals. But only after spending a billion dollars on hunting equipment.

[theyinwhy]

No. The metaphor is humans voting to stop hunting whales but eat whales before starving to death.

[Krasnol]

Not really. They've spent that money on hunting equipment only to realize that it would have been more clever to ask the people whose money they spend, if they should do it.

This is why it never happened again.

Learning from mistakes is something good.

[realusername]

> If nuclear energy would be turned off on the grid, like it happens all the time when the French fleet needs repairs again for example

It happened a single time in 40 years and the European grid almost died so no, they do rely on nuclear whether they are happy or not.

[Krasnol]

What are you talking about? Where is the grid "almost died"? :D

Do you have any trustworthy sources for that?

[pyrale]

> like it happens all the time when the French fleet needs repairs again for example

The one time this happened in 40 years was quite a problem for European supply reliability.

[Krasnol]

When is this supposed to be? Because the time I've been talking about is not that long ago...

[pyrale]

It happened in 2022. That’s not exactly «all the time» or even «again».

[Krasnol]

When exactly? Do you have any sources on this? An URL? Something?

[datadeft]

At some stage one Austrian politician said that Austria won't buy nuclear contaminated energy from Hungary.

[rurban]

As Austrian it's a national pride, and certainly not ironic.

Germany only followed after their Wackersdorf debacle, matching Tschnernobyl, and then finally Fukushima.

The rest of Europe is still in the hands of the energy lobbies.

And Austria does not rely on nuclear at all. It's rather the other way round, that all the others rely on Austria (and Swiss) expensive peak energy from their high mountains. When Europe turns on all it's power switches at the very same time the grid would collapse without Austria.

[xeckr]

In 2023, 12% of Austria's electricity had a nuclear origin [0]. As for the risk of a meltdown, look at a map of reactors in Europe. The reactors Austria is buying that power from aren't much further away from major population centres than Zwentendorf.

[0] https://w3.windmesse.de/windenergie/pm/46044-ig-windkraft-at...

[rurban]

Austria does not rely on nuclear at all. The biggest power station in the country (south of Graz) went off grid a few year ago, because gas and coal became too expensive, but could be turned on immediately.

Zwentendorf of the very same size cannot be turned on again fortunately. The meltdown and earthquake risk with all the insecure Russian reactors around is of course still around.

[Toutouxc]

> When Europe turns on all it's power switches at the very same time the grid would collapse without Austria.

Would you happen to have a source?

[rurban]

Talked in person to my two friends at the top of the Austrian grid

[Toutouxc]

I have a friend who works on the Czech grid (so a neighboring country), and Austria never came up in the conversation as an important factor, it's always Germany causing problems.

[cenamus]

The Czech and Slovak powerplants are both close enough to our border that it doesn't really matter.

[petre]

That's how it sponsored Putin's war for decades, by being reliant on Russian oil and gas. Austria is still doing that, until maybe Ukraine closes down or blows up the pipeline.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/we-...

[Krasnol]

And this is how countries with nuclear energy still doing it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01228-5

https://cepa.org/article/russias-civil-nuclear-threat-must-b...

[pyrale]

Not really European countries, no.

Quote from your article:

> With the exception of Hungary, which has recently signed an agreement with Rosatom for the expansion of its Paks nuclear power plant, European countries have been seeking to diversify away from the company since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[Krasnol]

> Not really European countries, no.

Is nuclear energy a European energy source, or how is this comment related?

[datadeft]

> This grid is what makes the rapid transition to renewable energies possible

No, it makes it possible to have nuclear base load plants in Hungary and Bulgaria and few other countries while some small country can play the renewable game at home. Renewables are not something that we can control. This makes them useless without a giant battery or power plants that are possible to scale up and down. The irony is that these power plants are usually gas turbines.

Even something like https://ndb.technology/ has a more serious vision for our energy future, much more serious than the usual we do not need base load just put a solar panel on everything movement largely driven by clueless politicians.

[Krasnol]

> No, it makes it possible to have nuclear base load plants in Hungary and Bulgaria and few other countries while some small country can play the renewable game at home

Those reactors play a negligible role. We've seen it all when the rotting French fleet went down for months.

Nuclear was the smallest part in the mix in 2020. This is 4 years any additional percentage of renewables ago: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/EU-energy-mix-2020-12_fi...

> This makes them useless without a giant battery or power plants

How are you still repeating this myth? We have the whole of Austria or the Nordics as giant batteries. The grid is working now. Despite the constantly rising amounts of really clean energy in it, and despite the FUD from the nuclear bubble.