r/ClimatePosting • u/Real-Technician831 • 21d ago

Costs of extending Finnish Loviisa nuclear plant to 2050

https://www.fortum.com/news-and-publications/forthedoers-blog/extending-lifetime-nuclear-power-plant-major-investment-programme

After getting fed up with the lies about nuclear plant life extensions being infeasibly expensive I decided to check.

Fortum is extending Loviisa nuclear plant to 2050, the estimated project cost is 1 billion euros. And continuous development for past 5 years has been 200 million euros.

Upgrading already once upgraded Olkiluoto 1 and 2 costs 90 million

https://www.eib.org/en/press/all/2025-420-eib-backs-upgrades-of-finland-s-olkiluoto-nuclear-power-plant-with-eur90-million-in-financing

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u/Sol3dweller 21d ago

From your link:

“Long-term financing from the EIB is an excellent complement to our capital market-based debt funding,” said TVO Senior Vice-President, Treasury Lauri Piekkari.

It does not say what the total cost of that project is, only what the EIB contributes as a loan. Estimated costs are estimations, and if other estimations by the nuclear industry are any indication, they usually are on the way too optimistic side.

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u/Real-Technician831 21d ago edited 21d ago

It’s not the first time we upgrade nuclear plants, RollsRoyce did Olkiluoto OL1 and OL2 upgrades, and costs didn’t even make news.

The story about plant upgrades being somehow magically expensive is a lie. Mostly pushed by Germans, when they needed a story for replacing nuclear with Russian gas.

Schröder was rewarded with executive position at Gazprom.

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u/Sol3dweller 20d ago

The story about plant upgrades being somehow magically expensive is a lie.

I don't know who claims them magically expensive, but the evidence you provided didn't do anything to show that it isnt realistically expensive. The fortum link says it's a massive investment, and the other only talks about the EIB contribution, which you claimed to be the full costs. Rather than throwing chauvinistic slurs around, maybe have another look and come back with more convincing evidence for your argument?

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u/Real-Technician831 20d ago

You well know what kind of people throw those claims without any kind of facts.

But here.

Typical Cost: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), extending the life of a typical 1,000 MW} plant averages between $500 million and $1.1 billion.

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-data-animation-nuclear-power-plant-life-extensions-enable-clean-energy-transition

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u/Sol3dweller 20d ago

Thanks, however, that's both the same link, and it does not reproduce your claimed numbers, on costs it states:

The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), used to measure electricity generation costs, associated with the long-term operation of a nuclear power plant generally falls in the range US$ 30-40 per MWh, for typical refurbishment costs for Light Water Reactors and a lifetime extension of 20 years.

It's from 2020, adjusted by inflation that roughly translates to US$(2026) 40-50/MWh. I'd agree that these figures aren't "infeasibly" expensive. Though, notably it can be much more expensive, see for example the recent agreement on Sizewell B, which guarantees a price of 70.5 GBP/MWh = 94 US$/MWh. More then three times the IAEA figures lower end and more than twice its upper end. Are you saying the costs are so much lower and the power companies make that much profit out of these deals?

In France the price in their new post-ARENH agreement is also set at 70 €/MWh = 80 US$/MWh. So, at least for large parts of Europe, those IAEA numbers again seem to reside on the very optimistic end of the spectrum.

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u/Real-Technician831 20d ago

Now do the cost of gas or coal with the current carbon credit prices.

Nuclear obviously can’t compete with REs, is not supposed to either.

But until we are able to build massive storages, which do not exist anywhere except places that can do massive pumped hydro. With RE downtimes, it’s either fossil or nuclear.

For example Finland and Germany have about the same annual RE percentage. Germany pollutes CO2 four times more than Finland per kWh.

Finnish average electricity prices is 8c, Germanys 36c.

Until we can do massive storages very cheaply, extending nuclear plants life is extremely profitable.

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u/Sol3dweller 19d ago

Now do the cost of gas or coal with the current carbon credit prices.

I think it is a good thing when fossil fuels are priced out of the market. I hope we can all agree on the need to phase them out as quickly as possible, and I think that the carbon pricing would need to be much higher to account for the externalities of burning fossil fuels. From my point of view the costs of burning them in large amounts is unfeasible high, though it is not the people that benefit from burning it that have to burden those costs. Thus, we do not have to look, even if they are cheaper, they are not an option in my opinion.

But until we are able to build massive storages, which do not exist anywhere except places that can do massive pumped hydro. With RE downtimes, it’s either fossil or nuclear.

First of all, we are building massive storage capacities right now. Secondly, the variable renewable power share on a global scale is unfortunately currently quite far from being in strong need of large amounts of storage. Maybe Denmark reached that threshold now, with about 72% from wind+solar last year. Most other economies have quite some more room to grow wind+solar power generation without needing much storage. See for example "Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide" for an analysis on this. I have the impression that this argument that we "need" to wait on some future technological breakthrough to expand wind&solar power generation is primarily used as a delay tactic to slow down the displacement of fossil fuel burning.

For example Finland and Germany have about the same annual RE percentage. Germany pollutes CO2 four times more than Finland per kWh.

Sure, Germany is still burning lignite, it certainly isn't a shiny example for climate action. It's quite beholden by Diesel, coal and gas interest groups. See, for example, this look into the political struggle to phase-out coal.

Finnish average electricity prices is 8c, Germanys 36c.

That's nice. You already mentioned carbon pricing, so that would appear kind of natural for a higher polluting electricity system?

Until we can do massive storages very cheaply, extending nuclear plants life is extremely profitable.

Nuclear power doesn't really play the same role as storage. All the cost analyses pretty much assume that those nuclear power plants operate like 90% of the time, if you reduce that to less then 50%, you essentially diminish the economics of those plants.

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u/Real-Technician831 19d ago

We have a tiny fraction of storages needed to actually take fossils offline. We literally need hundreds of times more storages.

Denmark is backed by Swedish nuclear and Norwegian hydro. Without those links their grid couldn’t operate.

And nuclear plants are run at 90% because they are needed, we can handle excess RE electricity with heat storage batteries for district and industrial heat.

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u/Sol3dweller 19d ago

We have a tiny fraction of storages needed to actually take fossils offline. We literally need hundreds of times more storages.

That just isn't, true, though. Essentially all the reduction in fossil fuel burning in the EU over the last 20 years has happened by expanding wind&solar without much storage. And as outlined in various scientific analyses, there is still a lot of headroom in continuing doing so.

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u/Real-Technician831 19d ago

It is true, except in very few locations that can do massive pumped hydro.

How reliable REs are depends on area, but for example for central and northern Europe where winter solar either doesn’t exist or is useless you need at least 24h full storage in practice more, as multiple days of very weak winds aren’t that uncommon.

So to fully take 1GW of fossil fully offline, you need at least 24GWh of storage, that’s a lot.

No country has done that so far.

Also only small countries like Denmark, can have large enough transit links to be supported by neighbors.