[anton96]

I have no clew how come the difference on what's usually said on this forum and the situation in Europe.My only understanding is that the US as whole is more sunny that gives a better ratio solar panel and produced electricity.

Maybe also it's a provider thing ? From country to country, you can always have things that seem randomly more expensive. Germany is more renewable but more expensive than France, is it because of their national company is benefiting citizen properly or is it because the remaining gas part drives up the cost ?

[thrance]

Germany may use more renewables in volume, but it is absolutely dirtier than in France. Their electrical mix makes use of lots of natural gas and lignite coal, the worst kind, both expensive and very dirty.

[qayxc]

Compare to the PAST, not the present! As you can see, the trend is downwards and steadily at that: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...

Rome wasn't built in a day and I find it hilarious to advocate for nuclear power instead, if the average construction time (not even taking into account the prior mountain of bureaucracy) is over a decade. Not a single nuclear power plant built in past 15 years in Europe has been on time or on budget. Not even close.

[masklinn]

> As you can see, the trend is downwards and steadily at that

Lignite numbers:

2019: 114TWh, 18.7%

2020: 92TWh, 16%

2021: 110TWh, 18.8%

2022: 116TWh, 20%

2023: 88TWh, 17%

I've seen steadier terminal alcoholics.

[Symbiote]

I think this graph from Wikipedia is better, as it goes back to 1990 [1].

Renewables have increased significantly, but much of that is displacing nuclear power. The remainder, plus a small increase in natural gas, his displaced hard coal and a small amount of lignite. Presumably hard coal is more expensive.

The overall trend is coal is reducing, but it's a poor show compared to Great Britain [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_in_Great_Britain#/...

[masklinn]

> Presumably hard coal is more expensive.

Yeah, Germany did have hard coal mines but they closed a few years back as they've gotten too deep and difficult to access to be economically viable (and it was subsidised until 2018), so Germany imports hard coal. Meanwhile germany is either #1 or #2 lignite producer.

[thrance]

Strategically speaking, Europe lacks the natural resources to build renewable, wind turbines and solar panels have to be imported, most of them from Asia.

Nuclear is still a bit cheaper per Watt and less carbon intensive, as it involves less infrastructure, logistics and batteries overall. It's also somewhat more reliable, as it doesn't depend on sun or wind (the former of which France often lacks).

Also, I am hopeful that nuclear power plant construction delays will only improve in the near future, as Europe rebuilds its expertise in nuclear engineering, which it lost after the past decades of anti-nuclear waves.

Finally, I don't see fossil fuel usage going down much in Germany in the link you gave, if at all. Which is the only thing that matters, ecologically speaking.

[Propelloni]

> Nuclear is still a bit cheaper per Watt

LCOE [1] of nuclear power in Europe and the USA is roughly thrice that of solar or wind [2]. In China it is about even. If you do not trust the Deutsche Bank report, the World Nuclear Association comes to roughly the same conclusion but assumes a lower discount, thus making nuclear power more attractive. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity [2] https://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/RPS_DE-PROD/PROD0000000000528... [3] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

[sgt]

Is this based on cost per Watt without the expenses related to keeping the grid perfectly synchronized or not?

A significant and stable base load is important and it has shown that wind/solar makes it substantially more expensive to keep the grid stabilized, which is of course a no brainer if you don't want a blackout.

[Propelloni]

> Is this based on cost per Watt without the expenses related to keeping the grid perfectly synchronized or not?

It's the LCOE, you can read what it encompasses in the link I provided.

> A significant and stable base load is important and it has shown that wind/solar makes it substantially more expensive to keep the grid stabilized, which is of course a no brainer if you don't want a blackout.

I assume you mean the utility frequency [1] when you say "base load", because you said "synchronized" and "stabilized". The frequency indeed has to be stable with a rather small margin of tolerance. Today that's mostly a job for gas turbines, though. One can hope that we find ways to store all the surplus regenerative power soon, so that we can retire those, too. Nuclear power plants, in any case, are too slow for that purpose.

Just in case you really meant load, load has no requirement to be stable. The power demands at any time can be met by dispatchable power plants, but utilities like to plan long-term, so they use some averaged load over time to determine a "base load" and buy accordingly on the electricity market. That's prudent business practice, but there is no technical reason to run low-variability power plants because of that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency

[thrance]

In France, the most recent report [1] by the Cour des comptes, our official accounting organ, still gives nuclear power as slightly cheaper than solar and wind.

I trust your data, but the situation here is different, most reactors are already built, and "only" need maintenance and fuel replacement.

I still stand by what I said in my previous comment about emissions per watts, etc.

[1] https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2021-12/20211213...

[natmaka]

This report is about the cost of production of AMORTIZED nuclear plants (moreover the real cost of France's nuclear fleet of reactor, including public money is a matter of debate). Comparing it to the total cost of new renewable is meaningless.

[masklinn]

> Germany is more renewable but more expensive than France

No, germany is more renewable but it's also more coal, any time there's no wind the coal plants start up. And they burn lignite (because that's what in germany e.g. that's what the Baggers strip mine).

As a consequence, Germany's electricity emissions are absolute garbage: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo

It's not as bad as Poland which basically runs entirely off of coal, but it's absolutely at the bottom of the european barrel.

Also electricity storage still isn't much of a thing (and while germany has two pumped hydro station they have very little capacity), so in periods of high winds germany actually pays its neighbours to take electricity off its grid so it doesn't collapse (at this point it has hundreds of hours of negative spot prices every year).

Which is getting problematic because increase in wind generation in said neighbours means the issue is spreading as they too need to get rid of their wind production at those times.

[realusername]

And the reality is even worse than that because France has 40% electricity heating whereas it's only 5% in Germany.

[qayxc]

> No, germany is more renewable but it's also more coal, any time there's no wind the coal plants start up.

Hm. The actual facts say otherwise, though: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...

So number go DOWN, not up, is what I'm seeing.

[masklinn]

> Hm. The actual facts say otherwise

They don't.

> So number go DOWN, not up, is what I'm seeing.

The comment I replied to is comparing germany to france. The map I linked literally tells you that in 2024 Germany generated 370g CO2 equivalent per kWh, where France generated 32, that's an objective number you can straight up read.

Yes Germany is 58% renewable versus France's 28 (something the map also tells you), but then 30% are gas and especially coal, the link you provide agrees with that. Coal is insanely polluting, especially because Germany mainly uses lignite which is the least energy rich coal (so even more emissions for the same production), coal represents >3/4th of its emissions.

Meanwhile gas is a minor component of france's electricity mix (pretty much just peaking plants and a few combined cycle district heating plants) and coal is a rounding error.

[natmaka]

> gas is a minor component of france's electricity mix

~9%

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+...