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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

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Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#141

Post by pfdietz »

Johnny555 wrote: post #120
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.

Are there any large MSR's in commercial use? I see a lot of test/development reactors on the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#Commercial... Building one MSR sounds like a good way to prove the design, but I wouldn't want to see them build 6 at the same time. The EPR design that they are building is well tested.

No, there are not.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#142

Post by freeflight »

I wonder how France is gonna plan to finance those additional "tens of billions", when those tens of billions are already missing for the existing infrastructure [0];

> France, which operates Europe’s largest fleet of nuclear plants, is heavily underfunded. It has earmarked assets only worth 23 billion euros, less than a third of 74.1 billion euros in expected costs.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#143

Post by freeflight »

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…

> France is the only country I know that's managed to make nuclear power work.

That really depends on your definition of "making it work". France's current nuclear fleet is already underfunded by several tens of billions [0]

Now we have Marcon announcing "tens of billions" for new reactors, the first of which is supposed to go online over a decade from now, with presidential election coming up soon.

Which begs the question; If France has so many spare tens of billions lying around to invest in nuclear, why don't they use those to cover already underfunded nuclear positions?

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#144

Post by pfdietz »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #89
Gwypaas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And say 3% makes the entire country renewable? What is the better use of money then? Energy is energy, and even better if it is vastly simpler to generate with less headaches to take care of afterwards.

There's no even medium-size grid in the world today that runs on renewables that aren't hydro.

"Nothing can ever happen for the first time."

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#145

Post by missedthecue »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #61
valarauko wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It needs to be about minimizing total damage, even if it means damaging isolated areas intentionally. I think that's an arithmetic everyone largely accepts, but they just don't want to be the specific ones paying the price while others seemingly get only the benefits. NIMBYism, if you will.

It's 100% NIMBYism. Just like the complaints about how higher-density housing may hurt 'the environment' for whatever city people live in. Like, if everyone blocks high density housing, those people don't just disappear, they're gonna end up living in low density housing, and that's obviously much worse for the environment: takes up more space, which means cutting into nature more, and generally takes more energy for…

Like the wealthy Bay Area town that just recently sought to block the development of affordable housing under the pretext of protecting mountain lion habitat.

These people would literally rather live next to mountain lions than next to slightly poorer people. (ignoring the fact that mountain lions don't actually roam bay area suburbs)

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2022/02/07/woodside-offici...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#146

Post by secondaryacct »

rodgerd wrote: post #119
d--b wrote: post #71

Keep in mind that the presidential election is in 3 months. Macron wants to show he is being pragmatic. Nuclear energy allows to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing the economy. It's particularly smart in this moment of tension with Russia, as Europe depends a lot on Russian energy. But whether this happens or not remains to be seen.

A point which may not be well-understood by people unfamiliar with French economic history is that for much of post-WW II period, France's power prices have been dramatically lower that other Western European countries (for industry, anyway). One of the challenges that moves to get away from nuclear generation have caused is the prospect of hurting the French industrial base more than it's already been undermined by…

Not with fusion: the fusion reactors we aim at building eventually will have no relationship with our submarine fleet roaming the ocean pointing nukes at everyone.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#147

Post by Teknoman117 »

jibe wrote: post #117
TulliusCicero wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% NIMBYism. Just like the complaints about how higher-density housing may hurt 'the environment' for whatever city people live in. Like, if everyone blocks high density housing, those people don't just disappear, they're gonna end up living in low density housing, and that's obviously much worse for the environment: takes up more space, which means cutting into nature more, and generally takes more energy for…

It isn’t really NIMBYism to oppose remote desert solar plants, it is just people who care, perhaps without fully weighing cost/benefit, about any negative effect on nature. There is a rational case that the huge footprint of solar and wind ends up doing more damage than more compact nuclear or natural gas plants. I suspect most of those opposing solar also oppose nuclear and gas. I’d call it Nothing Is Good Enough Sy…

> I’d call it Nothing Is Good Enough Syndrome instead of NIMBY.

Definitely. Problem for us is that while more net-zero projects are being constructed than ever before, increased demand for energy has outpaced it, so we're ending up with more "dirty" energy capacity being added, not to mention the infuriating trend of decommissioning nuclear plants and replacing them with gas turbines.

We need to be building plants based on whatever net-zero technologies we know how to build. If that means more nuclear fission plants in the short term, whatever. Yeah I get that radioactive waste is a problem, but it's way easier to store the waste safely than it is to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. If something better comes about along the way, switch to building that when it comes. But don't just twiddle your thumbs and wait for it.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#148

Post by jsnell »

jibe wrote: post #111
joe_the_user wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this article, I don't see evidence for "environmentalists" being the ones block wind-power, sounds more like argument between levels of the French state [1]. But just as much, the mantle of environmentalist can be taken by anyone, notably just nimbys. There's not a copyright on the term. But it winds-up even worse when others point to these idiot uses of the term environmentalist and then try to push actually envi…

The Green parties of Europe, which are the political face of the environmental movement, all oppose nuclear power. Perhaps most strongly in Germany, but The Greens in France oppose it as well.

The Finnish Green Party no longer opposes nuclear power as of last year.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#149

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

Krasnol wrote: post #58
rdtsc wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?" A cynical person might even imagine French infiltrators behind the scenes supporting anti-nuclear sentiments in neighboring countries in order to eventually sell them electricity. Energy independence and energy costs have started wars before, so it would just be pocket c…

You have to be joking... France just had to turn off 3 of their rotting reactors[0] and they lowered their estimates for this year to 295-315 TWh[1]. They're desperate, it's election year and they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future. Luckily the recent taxonomy decision may help to avoid sharp tax rises to finance this backward and hilariously expensive[2] strategy but those EU funds won't…

> Why would you need conspiracies

Sense of purpose. Mere incompetence is disheartening.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#150

Post by kergonath »

sideshowb wrote: post #103
orra wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The wholesale price is currently around £200/MWh, whilst the guaranteed price for electricity from Hinkley Point C is around £110/MWh. So no, it is not outrageously high.
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