• Womble@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Not only is Germany not exporting more power than France, but they have dropped down to fourth in the EU behand Spain and Sweden as well. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-07/france-is-europe-s-top-power-exporter-as-germany-turns-importer

    Yes France imports cheep renewable energy from Germany when they have a glut of it they cant use, but that just means they sell on their nuclear power at a profit to places like Italy and the UK, and then when Germany doesnt have excess renewable production they sell to them at a profit too.

    • Tarte@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Spain is already phasing out nuclear energy currently and Sweden wants to do it after sufficient renewables are built. Among many other states.

      Nuclear is just not profitable compared to renewables. France is exporting at a loss if one would consider all associated costs (privatization of profits and socialization of losses is creating bad incentives).

      • Womble@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If you add a bunch of non-tangible costs on to one side of a comparison and not the other it makes that side look worse yes. You could make exactly the same argument saying if you considered generation reliability, land use and the need for grid updates and storage then renewables are far more expensive than nuclear, but that would be equally one sided.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You got it mixed up. In a twist of irony France‘s nuclear power plants have been proven unreliable due to droughts in recent years. They are too water hungry to be used in dry summers without wrecking the environment completely and so they‘ve been forced to buy more reliable green energy in recent years. Solar and wind energy is cheaper and more reliable.

      • Womble@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Did you even look at the linked article? France (and their majority nuclear generation) are the EU’s top energy exporter. Yes they had an awkward year in 2022 when a combination of covid delayed maintenance and drought caused them to lose about 13% of generation for the year.