While very impressive, solar power is not the the ultimate power source.
For us in the nordic regions we don’t get enough sun during the winter just as we need it.
We still need nuclear power unless we make ourselves dependent on other nations for power generation and transfer.
Just look at how Russia tried to hold Europe’s supply of gas hostage after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, I don’t want us to ever be so completely dependant on another nation/entity again.
“Oh, but we can use batteries!”
Sure, but batteries degrade over time, meaning we will need a continous way to replace them, and since most manufacturers of batteries are located in China (same goes for solar panels) we will just become dependent on China for our energy needs, so we have replaced Russia’s gas monopoly with China’s solar and battery monopoly.
Untill we have the ability to build and deploy solar panels and batteries at scale inside the EU we should be careful about giving up our current traditional powerplants.
Modern batteries degrade much slower than earlier generations did. Especially if you remove the size- and weight requirements of mobile batteries, we already have battery technologies that push a century in usable time.
Do you realize how heavily Europe still depends on fossil fuels today? And that some of its nuclear reactors still use fuel supplied by Russia? If your big argument is avoiding dependence on hostile suppliers, swapping Russian gas for Russian nuclear fuel is a pretty spectacular blind spot.
You may import turbines or panels, but no foreign government can turn off your wind or sunshine. Equipment supply chains can be diversified: imported fuel remains a recurring dependency. That’s a pretty important difference.
Having enrichment facilities doesn’t mean controlling the entire nuclear fuel cycle:
France still imports Russian enriched uranium and relies on Russia to convert and enrich recycled uranium. Longstanding contracts and missing European processing capacity explain why. Energy independence is clearly more complicated than owning uranium deposits.
A reactor needs an industrial fuel supply chain, while wind and solar need no fuel imports once installed. Nobody can embargo the breeze. If energy independence is the goal, why treat fuel free generation as an afterthought?
I feel like we have strayed too far away from my main point, solar doesn’t work when it is dark outside.
It is dark for long streaches of time in the Nordics.
When it is dark, we use more energy to heat and light our homes.
Batteries can’t supply enough power during that time.
Importing power is expensive.
So domestic power generation it is, and since nuclear power is one of the most environmentally friendly power sources we have and will work in the dark, it makes sense to use it to complement renewables.
While very impressive, solar power is not the the ultimate power source.
For us in the nordic regions we don’t get enough sun during the winter just as we need it.
We still need nuclear power unless we make ourselves dependent on other nations for power generation and transfer.
Just look at how Russia tried to hold Europe’s supply of gas hostage after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, I don’t want us to ever be so completely dependant on another nation/entity again.
“Oh, but we can use batteries!”
Sure, but batteries degrade over time, meaning we will need a continous way to replace them, and since most manufacturers of batteries are located in China (same goes for solar panels) we will just become dependent on China for our energy needs, so we have replaced Russia’s gas monopoly with China’s solar and battery monopoly.
Untill we have the ability to build and deploy solar panels and batteries at scale inside the EU we should be careful about giving up our current traditional powerplants.
Modern batteries degrade much slower than earlier generations did. Especially if you remove the size- and weight requirements of mobile batteries, we already have battery technologies that push a century in usable time.
Cool, I didn’t know that.
Batteries are largely recyclable and worth recycling, at least the ones of the scale used for grid-scale power storage.
And manufacturing can be done outside of china; it’s just a bit more expensive.
Do you realize how heavily Europe still depends on fossil fuels today? And that some of its nuclear reactors still use fuel supplied by Russia? If your big argument is avoiding dependence on hostile suppliers, swapping Russian gas for Russian nuclear fuel is a pretty spectacular blind spot.
Yes.
When did I mention using Russian nuclear fuel?
Sweden has actually a fair bit of uranium, we could mine it, have France process it and run our nuclear plants on our own fuel.
You may import turbines or panels, but no foreign government can turn off your wind or sunshine. Equipment supply chains can be diversified: imported fuel remains a recurring dependency. That’s a pretty important difference.
I just mentioned that we have the fuel and the enrichment facilities in the EU…
Having enrichment facilities doesn’t mean controlling the entire nuclear fuel cycle:
France still imports Russian enriched uranium and relies on Russia to convert and enrich recycled uranium. Longstanding contracts and missing European processing capacity explain why. Energy independence is clearly more complicated than owning uranium deposits.
A reactor needs an industrial fuel supply chain, while wind and solar need no fuel imports once installed. Nobody can embargo the breeze. If energy independence is the goal, why treat fuel free generation as an afterthought?
I feel like we have strayed too far away from my main point, solar doesn’t work when it is dark outside.
It is dark for long streaches of time in the Nordics.
When it is dark, we use more energy to heat and light our homes.
Batteries can’t supply enough power during that time.
Importing power is expensive.
So domestic power generation it is, and since nuclear power is one of the most environmentally friendly power sources we have and will work in the dark, it makes sense to use it to complement renewables.
There’s more than solar and batteries or nuclear. We need cheap reliable energy. And thankfully there’s plenty.