Slovenia will push forward with plans to build its second nuclear power plant, its largest and most expensive infrastructure project to date, as it aims to phase out coal by 2033.

The final figure will be significantly higher. Asked if the figure was likely to exceed €10 billion, he said: “Yes, we are talking about such magnitude.”

You can’t take money with you, but we will leave an atmosphere behind

  • realitista@lemm.ee
    153·
    1 year ago

    Renewables are also intermittent and strongly tied to geography. Geography is especially limiting in much of Europe which isn’t particularly sunny, and where much of the low hanging fruit for wind, geothermal, and hydro has already been tapped.

    And even if you were able to keep building it, you will soon run into the storage problem which is still potentially more costly, especially when trying to provide baseline power for the whole year, where it’s buildout may have to be many times more expensive to save power for months than a baseline solution like nuclear which can provide steady power all the time.

    So, some mix of baseline solutions like nuclear and intermittent solutions like renewables will be needed to completely phase out coal, oil, and gas which provide our baseline power today.

    • Ooops@kbin.social
      63·
      1 year ago

      And even if you were able to keep building it, you will soon run into the storage problem which is still potentially more costly

      I will tell you a secret: Nuclear power doesn’t work without storage either. That’s just something they will not tell you as that’s their biggest pro-nuclear/anti-renewable argument.

      Nuclear is expensive and running the amount necessary in winter is only viable because you have an overproduction most of the year to export. But when everyone runs either on nuclear, nuclear and renewables or renewables and storage, there is no demand most of year (as everyone is overproducing) and also nobody to import from in a few especially cold weeks in winter (so you need even more nuclear power you won’t need most of the year). That’s completely unaffordable unless you put in storage in place to cover some of your winter demand and export time-independent when there is demand in other countries (which is why French models for 2050+ plan with huge capacities of hydrogen production - not the most efficient way of storage, but good for export).

      where it’s buildout may have to be many times more expensive to save power for months

      Actually weeks. Wind and solar are quite complementary. So you only need to cover the rare circumstance of cloudy and windless… which doesn’t happen more than may 3 weeks a year, barely more than a few days in a row (in a lot of countries even less if you geographically diversify).