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Sweden All In On Nuclear Energy, Dumps Renewable Target
(greeninvesting.co)
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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An extreme excess of renewables would be viable as a singular source to displace fossil fuels, and could be built more quickly than new nuclear. There already is some nuclear, the wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun shines through the clouds.
Renewable generation is here now, it is proven and it is cheap & highly profitable.
Sweden had fully displaced fossil fuels from its power grid with the help of a combination of Nuclear and Renewables. However, a policy of phasing out nuclear power by the previous gov:t has caused the reintroduction of fossil fuels into the grid. Of all the options, this is truly the most stupid timeline.
It gets worse: countries that phased out coal quickly for political reasons have often replaced them with many small containerised gas and diesel generators, that pollute far more per MW than the coal they replaced and are situated closer to populated areas, because it's easier to hide a small-ish yard full of containers behind a tall sound-dampening fence.
According to this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden the phase out was already stopped in 2010, confirmed in 2016. Also here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Sweden I can see no significant rise in fossil fuel production when nuclear did go down.
It's a recent development, and not by a huge amount, but it has been big new here since the so-called Karlshamn Power Plant (oil fired), generally reserved for shoring up the electricity supply during shortages returned into commercial service during the summer of 2020 due to the owning company determining it to be profitable (something which hadn't happened in decades and as such made national headlines). Since then it has been active increasingly often. It is currently the only active fossil-fuel powered plant in the country AFAIK.
(Articles in Swedish, feel free to use a translator, or ask me to get it translated for you if you have trouble.)
https://www.di.se/nyheter/lonsamt-for-kraftjatten-att-elda-olja-i-sverige-igen/
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/blekinge/experten-16
https://www.nyteknik.se/energi/nytt-elprisrekord-oljeledade-kraftverket-i-karlshamn-igang/965489
https://www.uniper.energy/sverige/nyheter/allt-mer-frekvent-drift-pa-karlshamnsverket/
Completely replacing fossil fuels is not here right now, it's not cheap, and it's not highly profitable.
This is almost completely wrong
Completely replacing fossil fuels with renewables is possible - and has been achieved - in some regions. Off the top of my head, both Denmark and Scotland have produced an excess of their daily consumption through renewables alone. It isn't hard to imagine that if we built a large enough excess of renewable generation we could account for the times when the wind isn't blowing by importing and exporting between areas where it is.
Nuclear can fill a role in the grid, and is needed long term for a bit of voltage and frequency stability, however a shit ton of renewables can be built and energised quicker than a little bit of nuclear.
If we want to turn off the fossile fuels as quickly and as much as possible, renewables are needed first. Investing in nuclear takes investment away from renewables and delays things. Cancelling renewables in favour of nuclear, like this, with 20 years to build 10 plants, is just ridiculous. How many MW of renewables could they build in 10 years with half that money?
Renewables aren't being cancelled. What is being done is creating a target to construct nuclear power, which inherently means that Sweden is no longer aiming for 100% renewables, but instead a target where 100%=renewables+nuclear.
What's being proposed here is 10 new nuclear plants to help cover 200% of current demand, which is the predicted demand in 20 years' time.
Currently there are 3 plants in Sweden providing 30% of the country's demand. If we assume the new plants are each as big as the current 3 (chances are they'll be bigger), then you're looking at at least 100% of the country's current demand as nuclear power, or more than 50% of the predicted demand in 20 years.
With a conservative estimate, if all existing plants close and each new plant is 20% larger, that's around 4 times the country's current nuclear capacity, to be built over 20 years. 60% of the predicted demand in 20 years. That most definitely is putting nuclear before renewables, and will incur significant expense.
What I'm saying is that more of that money should go towards an excess of renewable capacity now, along with the transmission infrastructure to connect it, which can be built more quickly and cheaper than nuclear such that fossil fuels can be switched off sooner.
Once fossil fuels are completely replaced, then it will make sense to prioritise nuclear development. Right now, nuclear is a medium-long term solution to a short term problem, where fossil fuels end up being the only option in the meantime.
*10 nuclear reactors, not 10 plants. There are currently 6 reactors in operation in Sweden and another 4 were shut down by the previous government.
It's essentially a plan to modernize and renew the Swedish nuclear fleet.
Scotland could provide enough renewable energy for the whole of the UK. The only reason the PM says they need more fossil fuel is that his family entered into a billion pound contract with BP.
I think Scotland's total MW capacity is more than the UK's demand, however the actual generated amount hasn't been an excess of the country's demand - not like Denmark, which has produced more than 100% of its capacity as renewables while exporting excess to other countries. However, that probably doesn't account for curtailment - the grid operators can tell larger renewable generators to limit or switch off depending on demand.
When this happens typically the renewable generator still gets paid as if they were generating at capacity.
They produced an excess of energy with renewable. For how long? What energy are they importing when they're not? What fossile energy are they using to provide when they don't? What about countries farther than 100km extremely windy sea?
Why should nuclear and renewable be opposed btw?
It isn't an opposition, but a matter of priority.
The goal is to switch off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Nuclear takes a long time, renewables can be done quickly - very quickly.
If we spend money on nuclear, that's money that could have been spent on renewables, money that could have turned off fossil fuel generation more quickly. Thus it makes more sense -right now- to spend money on renewables. Once we have an excess of renewables and have reached net zero, then nuclear builds should come into play. While the nuclear is being built, rotating stabilisers can be installed to provide voltage & frequency stability.
It's been 20 years that Germany decided to stop nuclear energy. They're burning coal and gas since then, and it got us an energy crisis last year. It's not faster to deploy renewable.
Mean time to build a nuclear power plant is 7.5 years btw. Not 20. But I'm sure 20 is a lot better for the narrative.
You're deliberately trying to conflate the time from before-site-selection to a finished plant with the time for finishing a particular reactor after ground breaking. An analogy would be claiming the average time for a solar plant is three minutes because screwing one panel on takes that long.
Or maybe there are actual studies considering all nuclear power plants built so a mean actually means something. But anti-nuclear people never were about actual facts I guess.
Which are just as legit as all the studies that show how great oil, coal and gas are, and are peddled by the same peoe using the same methods.
Show me your study showing that the average time for a gen III or later plant is finished in 7.5 years from the time where sites are being assessed.
Switching off nuclear early is a mistake (excluding any technical concerns driving a shutdown). In my opinion, shutdown of a nuclear plant should be staged with completion of a new power plant on the same site. Half the regulatory paperwork is already there if it's already a nuclear site.
Sweden are targeting 10 plants by 2045, in just over 20 years. Those 10 plants are probably already proposed and partially designed.
In 7.5 years you could build and energise a shit ton of renewables, and the infrastructure needed to connect it from various remote locations, using less than a quarter of the money they're proposing here.
From what I can tell the biggest hurdle in Sweden is transmission infrastructure to make use of renewable capacity and potential. For Germany, pulling a guess out of my ass, I'd wager it's more of a "Not In My BackYard" situation that's clogged up development of onshore wind.
What fossil fuel will they import in the next 10-20 years that it will take to make the nuclear plants?
Nuclear and renewables shouldn’t be opposed. Ideally we would have both. The problem is we needed to stop burning fossil fuels a long time ago so we don’t have another 10-20 years to keep burning fossil fuels while we wait for nuclear plants to be made.
The fossil fuel industry knows that if we take the nuclear ONLY route that we will continue to burn their fuels for decades longer. So they lobby to support that option, hoping that a lot or some of the nuclear plants will never even get finish like we’ve seen happen so many times.
In addition to that, countries don’t have infinite money to spend on energy. So any amount of the budget spent on nuclear will mean less spent on solar and wind. Solar and wind are the only sources that can be deployed fast enough to allow us to avoid extinction.
It doesn't take 20 years to build a nuclear power plant.
But it's been 20 years Germany decided to get away from nuclear energy, and now they are the proud biggest co2 emmiter in Europe. And now importing fossil fuel from the US to power their energy. How many more years do you think it would take to power Germany with renewables when they were so determined to leave nuclear for the sake of ecology?
That's a weird way of spelling "having a right wing government cancel most of their renewable rollout 10 years ago" ie. what's happening in sweden now.
If we don’t replace fossil fuels now we go extinct. It’s really that simple.
I didn't say that.
I was responding to TWeak who's entire sentence was wrong.
Completely replacing fossil fuels is super expensive right now with renewables, and it's not profitable.
Idiotic straw men about assuming order of storage rollout aside. Replacing just that portion which is profitable right now will lower emissions over the next century than stopping and building nuclear instead.
That is almost the complete opposite of what TWeak said lol
Humanity won't go extinct because of it, modern society is the one who will suffer.
It’s takes 10-15 years to make a new nuclear plant. If you choose nuclear without renewables you would have to burn so much fossil fuels while waiting for your nuclear power to become ready that the human race would be extinct before you have a decarbonized energy grid.
a fully nuclear grid is way less viable than a fully renewable one
because nuclear power plants are very slow to regulate, which you need to be able to do in a power grid.
Uh... France has operated their plants in load-following mode. It's doable. Can't control the weather though.
even france barely uses the load-following mode on their power plants and instead use gas power plants because its increadibly un-economical. and yes you cant control the weather which is why renewables are more decentralized and widespread. its literally a non issue.
Being able to pay even more than running at full power would cost to throw some energy away isn't power regulation and doesn't at all explain why france produces 10-20% of their electricity via dispatchable sources even on a warm summer night where demand is around half of their nuclear fleet's alleged capacity.