[vmsp]

As a Portuguese I have a more nuanced view of these type of takes.

We invested _heavily_ and prematurely in renewable energies -- see my comment from a couple of years ago [0]. Since then, our energy prices were high for a while and now they're not much lower than the EU's average because all that investment needs to be amortized [1]. Two years ago, we ran a whole month on renewables [2]. Despite this, our increase in energy prices since the Iran war started has been dramatic and the price of everything has been going up significantly. I can't help but think about the ROI on all those renewables if they can't help make our lives easier at a time like this. I'd much rather we go nuclear.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37719568

[1]: https://eco.sapo.pt/2026/03/11/precos-da-eletricidade-e-gas-...

[2]: https://www.portugalglobal.pt/en/news/2024/april/renewable-e...

[AnotherGoodName]

Portugal needs battery storage.

It’s the best bang for buck. Australia, one of the world leaders in grid connected battery storage and it’s a reason prices keep falling there. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/19/power...

Can you imagine prices falling during an energy crisis, high inflation and datacenter build outs? Well it’s happening and pretty drastically in Australia.

[ruicraveiro]

Portuguese here. Of course we are still exposed to higher prices. Most of our car and truck fleet still runs on fossil. Notwithstanding all of the effort we made with renewable energy and barring the odd month where it reaches almost 100%, my typical invoice says that it is still just barely over 50% of the energy mix, so the other half will drive prices up. Moreover, we've had a ton of political pressure against building more dams, which would not only help increase our renewable mix, but would also help control the floods and prepare us for the droughts. Ironically, the pressure against dams has come from the left, which I've always felt to be lunacy. Finally, too many families still haven't transitioned from gas to electricity for water and home heating and, AFAIK, industry still relies a lot on gas for industrial energy (maybe, to your point, because electricity is still too expensive).

Having that said, I half agree with you concerning nuclear. I don't think we should have bet on nuclear as an alternative to renewable energy. In the long run, renewable energy will be more sustainable. For one, nuclear fuel is a limited resource, so we'll eventually run out of it. (Yes, kicking the can down the road sometimes is actually the best solution, but still). For another, since Portugal isn't uranium rich, we'd be trading one set of external dependencies for another. However, I am completely against the ideologically driven anti-nuclear political attitude that have and the fact that we've downright refused to accept any kind of nuclear energy projects whatsoever, regardless of whether those projects would be competing with renewable energy projects for investment. In fact I think that nuclear is the perfect companion to renewable energy, not a competitor. The more renewable energy we have, the less uranium we'd be importing, thus shrinking external dependency. Yet, at the same time, nuclear power plants would be a cheap, carbon-zero, solution to renewable energy's greatest problem, intermittency.

Just one final point. Unlike, for instance, Germany, with a large amount of territory with very low seismic risk, we would need to be very careful with where we'd build the plants. It would be complete recklessness to build a nuclear plant in Lisbon, for instance.

[jeroenhd]

Does that comparison make sense? You're comparing investments into the national grid with energy prices set by international trade. Power is imported and exported all the time, and the lack of affordable fossil fuels abroad will put pressure on cheaper local prices.

I don't think going nuclear would've made a difference here. Someone is making a lot of money selling power locally for prices that only make sense in an international context. Whether that's done by wind farm operators or nuclear plants, the result will still be the same.

[nagisa]

I was going to say that this is an unfortunate side-effect of how electricity is being priced in the market but I learned today that Iberian is not participating in the nordpool. Nordpool has this weird pricing model that pays every generator the price of the most expensive one that supplies the last watt of demand.

Regardless and despite this nordpool weirdness; with some rooftop & batteries I haven't been paying a cent for electricity outside of January so I don't need to care about prices in the market much at all.

I make a point to have my direct energy use be electric (e.g. for driving) so the recent jump in the pricing of molecules affects me relatively little. Unfortunately I don't have much say in indirect energy use (as used for food production) but I believe that people are rational and will figure they can do what I did sooner or later.

[MattPalmer1086]

This is a completely normal way to price energy. It's called marginal pricing; price is set by the most expensive energy required to fill demand.

The idea is that on some schedule (e.g. each hour) you use the cheapest forms of energy you can to meet demand, but the final price is set by the most expensive one you had to use. This means that the cheaper forms of energy (i.e. renewables) make more money (which increase their profitability and can be reinvested). Obviously though we need better storage if we rely on renewables or we are almost always going to have to use fossil fuels at some point.

Whether there are better models, I will leave to people who know more than I do, but it is certainly a very common way to do this.

[ViewTrick1002]

> Whether there are better models, I will leave to people who know more than I do, but it is certainly a very common way to do this.

It is fundamentally how the grid works. You can bring it down to a singular household or company level to see the raw incentives:

Why should a household or company with solar and storage buy expensive grid based electricity when their own installation delivers? They don't.

Why should this household or company not for example charge their battery on their battery when the price is low and sell/use it when the prices are higher?

Why should this household's or company's neighbors buy expensive grid electricity rather than the surplus of renewables and storage? They don't.

With the distributed electricity generation renewables enable monopolized grids no longer function. Because consumers have a choice and can vote with their wallet.

[ViewTrick1002]

All energy markets that’s not monopolized or regulated run on marginal pricing.

It’s a fundamental fact of commodity trading.

Saudi Arabia produces oil at $12 per barrel. They sell it at the global marginal cost.

[arw0n]

Nuclear is significantly more expensive on average. It is in no way an either/or question, you could have both. With 35% of energy being renewables, the country is still very much reliant on global energy markets, and it should indeed be a wake up call. If it was 100% reliant on qatari gas, the situation would be significantly more dire.

From your older comment:

> Our CO2 emissions are like 0.15% of the total and our per-capita emissions are already lower than for ex. Germany. We basically have no industry. If we could wave a magic wand and completely stop our CO2 emissions it wouldn't move the needle on global warming at all.

Well, it would move the needle by 0.15%. Portugal has 0.11% of the global population by the way.

[ZeroGravitas]

Portugal is at the cheap end of EU prices. Of the ones lower several are just directly setting the price low by government fiat or subsidy.

Countries that have genuinely lower prices either built nuclear 40 years ago, or have great access to hydro they built 40 years ago or a bit of both.

Wanting to build nuclear now for cheap prices doesn't make any sense. It has the same high up front investment shape as renewables, except higher costs.

[samrus]

I know you dont to hear this, but theres just a hump to get over with this. Same with any investment. Youll be laughing 50 years down the line. Consider this a tree you might not get to sit under but will give shade to future generations

[thelastgallon]

Probably a wise investment?

Why Portugal and Spain Dodge Europe’s Energy Price Shock: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Portugal-and-...

[amai]

Going nuclear in an earthquake zone is nuts.

[gnabgib]

> I'd much rather we go nuclear.

I think/hope you mean "I'd rather we adopt/use nuclear energy."

[mrsilencedogood]

I don't think anyone was at risk of misunderstanding their intent...

[rickydroll]

Some of the people at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might willfully misunderstand.

[donkeybeer]

I don't see any harm in either. Europe understands the need for developing self defence.