Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

EDF (French power company) enjoyed a monopoly lasting 50 years, massive research paid for by the military sector, no real accounting of the public funds they spent (at the very least 228 10e9 euros), the waste problem is not solved, real decommission (nearly all yet-to-be started) costs are unknown and will probably be vastly superior to the budget, the grand total cost must take into account any boo-boo made by a wandering waste during some 10000's years... and for all this they have to concede 1/4 of their current production at cost price. Granted, this is not a total waste because they did and do provide gridpower (given that its price is average in Europe, absolutely not a bargain). In any case this is a superb gift, many industrialists would kill for such a deal. EDF complains w/o any shame!

On a more fundamental viewpoint I think that subsidies are always at best inadequate, especially because they establish such vicious circle (subsidizing leads to a problem apparently solved by... subsidizing).

This 121B€ budget will be invested ('till 2046) to dynamise applied renewable energy. It has to offer some benefit to anyone investing and therefore accepting the risk inherent to any new and quickly developing tool, it is about long-term effects. You quote a blog, which is an immediate interpretation, not the intent and even less the (future) result.

Yes, Germany chose to kick out the bad nuke habit as fast as possible, maybe indeed too quickly for the short-term sake. On the other hand France tried to act slowly... and now its renewables program, not very ambitious, already is wayyyyyy behind previsions.

Yes, establishing new production sites implies new connections, and therefore investments. Connecting a new nuke powerplant also costs. Yes, connecting renewables globally cost more given that nukes needs less sites (intensity). However renewables don't blow up, don't produce hot waste, are easy to decommission, create jobs, create know-how and product which are more and more marketable (much more than nuke plants!)... Total lifecycle cost+risk is key.

France is indeed right now more efficient than Germany when it comes to decarbonizing gridpower production. However this is a snapshot, while the whole subject is a process. There is no finish line, and if in a pair of decades may Germany lead on all accounts, free of nukes and continuing to be a leader in a growing renewables market. Then we will once more conclude that they adopted an industrial approach much more adequate than ours, as in many other sectors.

Nope, it became one when it was clear that too many incidents were impeding industrial production.

The WP article states it clearly: it "was a nuclear power station prototype", it means that there was hope to decline it, not that it was a lab. It was a "1,242 MWe" reactor, which sort of lab uses such a monster?

It was meant to be "an economical generator of power on its own."

As for its success: "Construction began in 1974 but suffered from a series of cost overruns, delays and enormous public protests.", and it "demonstrated very poor reliability and had a historical capacity factor of less than 7%." (after being connected to the grid for 20+ years).

The nuke industry claims that it was dumped for political reasons, completely ignoring its industrial and technical failures.

Why would the radioactivity make fluorine gas?

The energy credit system accomplishes some things that your proposals don't.

It's not realistic to make burning coal and other non-renewables illegal in Europe, less than 20% of the grid has been transitioned[1]. You can't just shut off 80% of the grid without European civilization as we know it coming to an end for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime there's plenty of uses of energy that can be built in one EU/EEA country or the other, or shifted between countries, and which will respond to price incentives.

E.g. a data center that's not ping-time sensitive or bulk bandwidth sensitive is probably better placed in Iceland than The Netherlands from an ecological perspective.

The impact of the energy credit system is to shift that sort of use between countries and energy providers, to the extent that their use will respond to price incentives.

It is relatively ineffective in the larger scheme of things, just like our buildup of renewable energy is proceeding at a relatively slow pace. But that's not an argument against the systems in place per-se, just like some country setting their VAT at 1% isn't an argument against VAT structurally.

The EU/EEA agreement doesn't have explicit tax-raising powers, so it's really not the case that a simple law could do the same thing. This system is effectively a way to create a new EEA-wide tax through a back-door mechanism.

Any national tax policy wouldn't be as effective, because individual countries in the EEA market can't or aren't going to enact law that mandates that some of their companies move abroad because their own energy market isn't renewable enough.

It also gives individual consumers a way to vote with their money to increase the buildup of renewables.

As an example, I live in Amsterdam where (as far as I know) I have no choice but to consume electrons sourced by burning fossil fuels[2].

However, I have opted to pay extra to buy "green" (wind and solar) energy, but the energy that comes out of my power plugs as I type this comment is still sourced from burning coal/gas.

Am I just participating in a gigantic sham? No, because what I'm doing is buying the production of energy capacity corresponding to my own use for use elsewhere on the power grid. So I'm taking part in reducing the overall demand for fossil fuels, and thus doing my own small part in reducing pollution.

By the way, from a cursory glance the current Swedish carbon tax is at best around 1/4 per-ton of the cost of sequestering that CO^2 back into the ground.

If that's the case of course it's not really all that effective, but just like in the case of the energy credit system the problem there isn't with the very concept of the system of a carbon tax (which is probably the single best way to deal with the overall problem), but with the value that tax is set at.

1. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

2. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrale_Hemweg

Radiolysis.

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4109510

The MSR saw some of the fluorine react with UF4 to make UF6, which is volatile. There is the potential for fuel to be volatilized and transported elsewhere in the reactor system, causing possible concern for criticality accidents.