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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

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Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#101

Post by panick21_ »

felixmeziere wrote: post #46
socialdemocrat wrote: post #7

I am skeptical to current nuclear power, would have liked Molten Salt Reactors instead. However I see leaders having to do something. Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power, and crisis with Russia makes gas less accessible. France has a relatively good track record on nuclear power. They may pull this off. 2035 is a really long time to wait for new power to the grid though.

100% agree Molten Salt reactors are one of the main keys to a liveable future for us this century...

Honestly, even Molten Salt cooled reactors would be enough. The most advanced once are Terrestrial Energy and Moltex Energy in Canada. Canada is actually putting effort behind real next generation.

I am more exited about this then almost anything else. If these can work its a literal game changer.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#103

Post by sideshowb »

orra wrote: post #37
jessriedel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's not surprising that the largest nuclear power company is based in France because France has the largest share of power from nuclear of any country (>70%). However, like most Western countries, France's nuclear reactor building has largely stalled and they have been coasting on past accomplishments. If they succeed at building more reactors, it will be unusual (and imo good).

Furthermore, it's not clear they are doing a fantastic job building Hinkley Point in the UK. First, in the decade or decade and a half they're taking to build it, you could build so much renewable capacity. Second, Hinkley Point only went ahead when it was guaranteed an outrageously high strike price, for the electricity it will output.

I'm wondering if that strike price looks quite so outrageously high now UK electricity costs have risen by 50% in the last year or so

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#104

Post by parkingrift »

nradov wrote: post #47
HideousKojima wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power Environmentalists really are their own worst enemies. When I was in high school near San Diego about 15 years ago, there was a huge amount of opposition to a solar power project. From environmentalists. There was a solar power plant out in Imperial County and the environmentalists were protesting the high voltage lines that would bring the power into San…

The Endangered Species Act has become a blunt instrument that environmentalists and NIMBYs can use to shut down almost any major infrastructure project. No one wants to see any species go extinct but the time has come to make some hard choices. We may have to sacrifice the six-toed purple salamanders or whatever in order to preserve the rest of the biosphere.

We're not really saving these species, anyway. Climate change will eventually come for them. We can either make a few hard choices now or watch as a few... hundred... thousand choices are made for us.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#105

Post by panick21_ »

joe_the_user wrote: post #56
robertlagrant wrote: post #2

I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?" I wonder whether any will change their minds based on this news.

France is the only country I know that's managed to make nuclear power work. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to export that expertise. Nuclear power plants are vast construction project. The construction and large-engineering industries combined are vastly corrupt in the US (look at the 3 billion dollars planning costs of the unbuilt high speed rail project in California, look at the Big Dig in Boston, etc). In…

> Nuclear power plants are vast construction project.

Only water cooled reactors really have that problem. Nuclear plants could be much smaller. But innovation has just done very badly.

Nuclear scale, regulation is its own worst enemy and the social movements against it didn't help.

In the US for a while they did nuclear right as well. Nuclear always does well if you actually build many in a row. Learning effects are massive in large projects. Look at any countries that build many nuclear plants, it always works.

We could literally have had 100% green energy 40 years ago no problem. It was cheap coal that prevented that. We would be way better of having built nuclear.

And Switzerland, Sweden and others have successful networks with nuclear that are very green. Also parts of Canada.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#106

Post by Gwypaas »

panick21_ wrote: post #99
Gwypaas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time around it was negative learning by doing for France[1]. I wonder what magical efficiency gains they will manage to muster compared to Flamanville [2], Hinkley Point C[3] and Olkiluoto 3[4] which the state owned french nuclear industry is building. Well, more than magical "simplification", "cost cutting" and "modular design" shown on a powerpoint before reality hits again. [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/…

Nuclear reactors have massive learning effects, the more you build with the same people and organization the cheaper it is. Nuclear own massive scale is its own worst enemy. If we could just build 500MW smaller Molten Salt cooled reactors we could literally build them like gas plants.

The source regarding actually seeing negative learning effects I linked in the original comment states in the abstract.

> The French nuclear case illustrates the perils of the assumption of robust learning effects resulting in lowered costs over time in the scale-up of large-scale, complex new energy supply technologies. The uncertainties in anticipated learning effects of new technologies might be much larger that often assumed, including also cases of “negative learning” in which specific costs increase rather than decrease with accumulated experience.

Sure, a nuclear cycle without the use of a steam turbine may have a future. Similarly to how gas plants undercut coal, and nuclear. Simply due to the cost of the steam plant. I haven't seen any proposals though which is more concrete than a pie-in-sky powerpoint design though.

The other issue is that for wind you only need an axle and a generator, for sun it is solid state. It is hard to compete with the economics of solid state power generation.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#107

Post by Jedd »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #18
HideousKojima wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power Environmentalists really are their own worst enemies. When I was in high school near San Diego about 15 years ago, there was a huge amount of opposition to a solar power project. From environmentalists. There was a solar power plant out in Imperial County and the environmentalists were protesting the high voltage lines that would bring the power into San…

Here in Australia, it can be argued that The Green Party's blanket ban and refusal to even consider let alone use nuclear has contributed significantly to more carbon in the air as we have instead relied on coal for the last 50 years.

Is this the Green party that does not, and never has, held power here in AU?

It feels like a bit of a stretch, given the major sources of funds to the two largest political parties, and the various leaders of same who are consistently on record espousing the joy of coal and other fossil fuels while (weirdly) claiming wind turbines are ugly and (disingenuously) blaming grid outages on renewables.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#108

Post by tyjaksn »

isomel wrote: post #52
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't environmentalists' argument that we should reduce our power consumption, rather than destroying the environment to keep providing so much power? That's not as crazy a position as you make it out to be is it?

Yeah, humans have lived fine before fossil fuels so we can do it again, right? Just kill half of them. And let 90% of the remaining population work in the fields like slaves. Easy /s

While I agree that modern society requires significant energy inputs, there is a middle ground. For instance, if cities or the suburbs were more pedestrian friendly, walking, cycling, etc. would be a viable option meaning less use of fossil fuels by driving.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#109

Post by Spooky23 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #10
socialdemocrat wrote: post #7

I am skeptical to current nuclear power, would have liked Molten Salt Reactors instead. However I see leaders having to do something. Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power, and crisis with Russia makes gas less accessible. France has a relatively good track record on nuclear power. They may pull this off. 2035 is a really long time to wait for new power to the grid though.

>Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power Environmentalists really are their own worst enemies. When I was in high school near San Diego about 15 years ago, there was a huge amount of opposition to a solar power project. From environmentalists. There was a solar power plant out in Imperial County and the environmentalists were protesting the high voltage lines that would bring the power into San…

Environmental people are a diverse bunch with plenty of charlatans and people willing to enrich themselves for “the greater good”. It’s pretty trivial for various interests to undermine and drive their agendas.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#110

Post by panick21_ »

Gwypaas wrote: post #62
neamar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has historically been a net exporter of its mostly nuclear electricity. Electricity price is average compared to the rest of Europe, https://strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/

With government subsidies everything can be made to look cheap. Not saying we should not subsidize some energy production, but nuclear seems like a woefully inefficient use of it. >In 2010, as part of the progressive liberalisation of the energy market under EU directives, France agreed the Accès régulé à l'électricité nucléaire historique (ARENH) regulations that allowed third party suppliers access up to about a qu…

All power in Europe is subsidies in so many different ways. An accurate comparison of prices is basically impossible.

I would argue, by literally any meassure, French investment in nuclear in the 60-70 was absolutely paid off. CO2 saved in the 80s is far better then CO2 saved now.

The only reason nuclear didn't become universal in the US is cheap coal plants. The US would be 100x better off if they had build a few 100 nuclear reactors instead.

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