Two very interesting pieces from Bloomberg that deserve to be read in entirety.
Gift links should get you there.
First up, Europe’s renewable transition, unintentionally juiced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is presenting a big challenge for nukes currently in operation, as prices fall to zero and below on sunny, windy days.
Secondly, a US company originally started to build nuclear waste storage casks, is branching out into restarting an older nuke, and planning new Small Modular units of its own design.
The drive to promote renewable energy is turning the screws on Europe’s nuclear industry.
While churning out fossil-free electricity has never been more urgent, surging renewables and a slump in power prices are undermining operations of atomic plants that are still the cornerstone of electricity grids in several parts of the continent.
The signs are that they are facing some tough times ahead. Demand hasn’t recovered fully since the energy crisis and the region’s wind and solar parks are producing more power than ever, which is eating into the share that both nuclear and coal plants send to national grids.
“With current power prices, the traditional baseload plants will struggle, unless we face longer periods with very unfavorable solar and wind conditions, drought or strong heat,” said Sigurd Pedersen Lie, a senior analyst at StormGeo Nena A/S in Oslo.
Longer term, it’s a warning sign that reactors might get increasingly squeezed out, even as countries such as France and the UK plan to spend huge sums on new plants, having identified the technology as a key element in the fight to limit global warming. At the United Nations climate meeting in Dubai late last year, they were joined by more than 20 nations including the US, the United Arab Emirates, Japan and South Korea in calling for a tripling of global nuclear generation by the middle of the century.
Continue reading “Nuclear’s Challenge as Renewables Surge”