The net demand curve varies 30 GW over the period you posted?
It goes 7 GW negative.
The problem with nuclear power is that about all costs are fixed. It costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% for 40 years excluding backup, transmission, final waste disposal and taxes.
Now remove any earning potential from large portions of the day coming from renewables and storage and the economics simply does not pan a out.
> The net demand curve varies 30 GW over the period you posted?
Right. Due to solar/wind.
Gross demand is much flatter. Not completely flat, but it's obvious that it does not require anywhere near the amount of storage or variation that renewables alone would require.
Are you sure with the numbers? Maybe for failed projects like Vogtle it may be true but otherwise, the cost is about 4.7ct/kwh everything included looking at swiss open data. And Goesgen didn't run at 100% CF all these years.
You mean middle eastern labor and design that doesn’t fly with western regulations?
Sounds applicable!
Let’s first acknowledge that KHNP pulled out of all western projects except the Czech one after their settlement with Westinghouse. They don’t exist as an option.
Then let’s look at the Czech subsidies. They aren’t materially different compared to any other modern western nuclear construction.
They’ve shaved a few billion from the headline number but the project is still pure cost plus putting all construction and financial risk on the governments tab.
Barakah is Korean design partly based on Westinghouse patents. That's why for Barakah they had a deal with Westinghouse just like with Czechia. The design is in line with western regulations. Labor is not that relevant for such projects. By far the biggest problems are depleted supply chain and immature design (Both EPRs and Vogtle started when their design wasn't finalized. On top, EPR suffered major design changes for each build due to specific regulations, especially in UK)
Czechian govt subsidies were approved by EC and are pretty ok cost-wise. Even 11bn/reactor is fine considering FLA3 is 23bn. On the other hand, Germany spends on EEG alone each year almost a full equivalent of a failed FLA3. And with new transmission subsidies it's even higher. Both EEG and transmission subsidies are not subject to EC approval, unlike subsidies for nuclear
But agree with the other comment - your remarks sound rather racist
Hmm...any evidence for your weird and to be frank a bit racist claims about "middle eastern labor and design" as well as regulations?
You may not be aware of this, but the UAE is one of the richest countries in the world, on par with with the United States and ahead of Denmark and most of the European nations.
That is incorrect. The profitability floor of even the catastrophic FOAK FV 3 build is 9 cents/kWh for a 2% ROI, with around €130 for 4%. The EPR2 units are lower, around €90/MWh for 4% return and €70-80 for 2% return.
Contrast this with French intermittent renewables projects, which are not profitable at all, EDF receives massive subsidies for them.
Thanks for confirming how insanely expensive new built nuclear power is by using absolutely insanely low discount rates.
Hinkley Point C just got a bridging loan to finalize the plant, after 8 years of building so the remaining risk should be minimal. They got an 7% interest rate. Then EDF needs to make profit on top of that.
When using real world discount rates for FV3 you end up towards 20 cents/kWh.
I love how you quote the EPR2 units cheaper than the proposed subsidies. This looks like blind conviction rather than a factual statement.
The proposed subsidies for the EPR2 fleet is a 10 euro cents CFD and interest free loans. Sum freely, but you end up towards 20 cents per kWh.
And that is excluding for example the backup needed when suddenly half your fleet is offline at the same time. Like happened in France during the energy crisis and multiple times in Sweden last year.
I don't call out all the disinformation you put forward en-detail, that would be far too much work.
The interest-free loans are also not a subsidy, at least not the loans, as the principal has to be repaid in full. The lack of interest payment is a subsidy, but that's a lot less than the loan amount, and being a state company EDF can get pretty good interest rates on the free market. Oh, and those loans will only be for half of the investment.
My estimates put the value of this subsidy at around €20 billion. So less than 1 year of Germany renewable subsidies just from the EEG. For plants that will run for 80 years or more and produce electricity worth >€600 billion (at 10 cents).
20/600 = 0,0333 or around 3,3% of those 10 cents, or less than about 1/3 of a cent per kWh.
And of course the French state owns EDF, so when EDF makes a profit, the state gets those profits. As they have been doing consistently for the last half century or so.
So as with CFD payment, which you put as a subsidy of 10 cent/kWh, there is the tiniest grain of truth in your claims, but then inflated beyond the pale.
Speaking of the CFD: the expected wholesale price of electricity in Germany is expected to be around €90-95/MWh in the next couple of years, and prices have tended to be higher than predictions. And if the wholesale price goes above the CFD price, then EDF loses money on the CFD, because they get exactly the CFD, no less, but also no more.
Assuming the predictions are correct and apply to France as well, the subsidy would be 0,5-1 cents/kWh, so a factor 10-20 less than your claim of 10 cents, and only if wholesale prices actually stay low.
After all, the CFD is primarily necessary, because the subsidized and preferentially treated intermittent renewables have wrecked havoc with wholesale electricity prices, with prices in Germany in 2025 fluctuating wildly between + €583/MWh and - €130/MWh.
It's not really the price, it's the artificially and unnecessarily introduced fluctuations that cause problems for investors.
And of course those renewables that are causing al this havoc get vastly more subsidies per kWh than this. And preferential loans, preferential feed-in, preferential regulations etc.
Anyway, your claim was 20 cents of subsidies per kWh. The real value ranges from less than a cent (could even go negative) to maybe up to 2 cents. So very generously you inflated by a factor of only 10-40.
So you can see why I don't debunk all of the disinformation you put forward, just some of it. It's too much work.
It goes 7 GW negative.
The problem with nuclear power is that about all costs are fixed. It costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% for 40 years excluding backup, transmission, final waste disposal and taxes.
Now remove any earning potential from large portions of the day coming from renewables and storage and the economics simply does not pan a out.