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Nuclear Power in France

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Re: Nuclear Power in France

#181

Post by orwin »

Zigurd wrote: post #139

From this 2017 article: https://energypost.eu/how-much-will-it-really-cost-to-decomm... Whereas Germany has set aside €38 billion to decommission 17 nuclear reactors, and the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates that clean-up of UK’s 17 nuclear sites will cost between €109‒250 billion over the next 120 years, France has set aside only €23 billion to decommissioning its 58 reactors. To put this in context, a…

You can't compare PWR to gas/graphite or heavy water reactor core. PWr is harder to design and to build and need special combustible, but you don't have to wait 100 years to bypass the shield, unlike UK's gaz/graphite reactors. We will see by 2030 the real cost anyway. Also, EDF set aside 23 billions (not France) and aim for 56 billions for the 58 reactors (as they will still produce electricity some more years). I've seen a better estimate of the cost is 90 billion (so EDF will be missing roughly 30 billions). But if the reactors are allowed 20 more years (like US own PWRs), i think everything will be fine. especially considering the ressources.

Also, according the engineers at The Shift Project, based on Rystad data, future of petroleum imports look bleak[0], and while their study was done before Covid, they perfectly predicted the situation we are in this winter. Fear not, it is only the beginning of a trend, so next year might be better actually.

[0] https://theshiftproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/%C3%8... (in french)

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#182

Post by cogman10 »

eldaisfish wrote: post #155
cogman10 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This infographic is proving the point that nuclear generates a BUNCH of power and a single plant would require vast amounts of renewables to replace it. Did you actually read it before ranting? > No wind or solar generator can do this and before you say batteries, no battery in existence can power a medium-sized city for more than a few minutes. This is a silly argument. The only real limiting factor on the cap…

i did read it. It is a mischaracterisation because the two are not comparable as time is ignored. To achieve functional parity with a fuel-powered generator such as a nuclear plant, you would need to guarantee identical operation with an array of wind generators. At the moment, this is only possible over large geographical areas. As for battery capacity, you seem to underestimate how much electrical energy even small…

> As for battery capacity, you seem to underestimate how much electrical energy even small cities use.

I'm not sure where you get that impression.

We are manufacturing around 500 GWh of new batteries yearly right now [1].

To put that in perspective, that's enough capacity for 1 hour of US annual energy consumption per year. 1 hour is a lot of time to bring up new power generation plants in the event of an outage.

That production rate has been accelerating with the new demand for EVs. That is likely to double or triple within the next few years.

The current largest battery plant weighs in at 1.6GWh, which is more than enough to power a city of 100k for several hours (it isn't currently used for that, it is stabilizing regional power).

Like all things, battery power will first be able to handle seconds, then minutes, then hours, and finally days worth of power requirements. For grid stabilization, that's more than enough capacity requirements.

And, as I said earlier, batteries are good for any grid, regardless of energy source. It allows a nuclear operator to run the plant harder and it allows plants to ditch fast ramping plants for more economical slow ramp plants.

[1] https://energycentral.com/c/ec/world-battery-production

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#183

Post by derriz »

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #19
redm wrote: post #2

"Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035." I'm no expert on Nuclear power but it seems to me were going in the wrong direction. At a time when we're investing so much money in other fuels, we could be investing that in better nuclear power, like Small Modular Reactors [1], Sodium Cooled Fission, Small Pellet reactors, etc. [2] [1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-sm... [2] https://…

Nuclear is always touted as such a good idea on this site, but I want to take the opposite stance. - Nuclear power has inherit risks that are not present in other forms of modern energy generation. You can claim that todays designs are 99.9999999% safe, but there is no such thing as 100%. If humans build it, it will fail, and a single catastrophic nuclear plant failure isn’t acceptable. - Nuclear waste is difficult t…

There are a large number of people who believe nuclear is a victim of a conspiracy instead of just looking at how economics of electricity production has evolved.

Nuclear has been in a steady decline globally since the late 1980s.

At one point - during the oil-crisis 70s nuclear was the cheapest but coal overtook it in the late 80s/90s - being cheaper and more flexible/dispatchable and easier to build. By 2000-2010, natural gas displaced coal and now - in the last few years or so - solar PV and wind represent over 80% of the additional electricity generation capacity added globally.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#184

Post by worik »

sudosysgen wrote: post #76
ortusdux wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with molten salt based reactors is that the high temperature radioactive molten salts destroy their containment vessels. I've yet to see a system design where the salt facing components are expected to last more that 7-10 years, which really hurts profitability.

Yes, the reactor cores would have to be replaced every 12-15 years. But if the reactors are mass produced and designed to swap out the cores, it doesn't have to be too expensive.

The core will be radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years will it not?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#185

Post by orwin »

beders wrote: post #6

Note how France conveniently placed many of their nuclear power plants close to their eastern border. With winds coming from the west most time of the year... Sneaky.

Listen, i'm pretty sure every person who ever lived in Lille, Strasbourg or Paris would gladly pay a premium to move our 3 plant out of the way (3/21 by the way) if germany stop their peakers, coal plants and industries in the Rhur each time the wind blow westward, especially when the anticyclone is resting over France. Never had asthma before my trip to Paris, and when i learnt that most of the particles that declenched that were due to coal burning and not cars, i became very, very pro-nuclear.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#186

Post by throwaway894345 »

corban1 wrote: post #168
throwaway894345 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how the cost of nuclear stacks up against the cost of fossil fuels when you don't cook the books (externalize the costs of pollution)?

The same applies for others like wind and solar. Do they really calculate all the costs? It was easy for nuclear to cook books in the past. I feel other energy sources are doing it nowadays. I think in order to set things straight, they should apply the cost of uncertainty to wind and solar.

I doubt the cost figures for wind, solar, and nuclear are off by much, or rather, they could be off by hundreds of percents and still be more accurate than fossil fuels cost estimates which fail to account for pollution entirely.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#187

Post by Hermel »

logicalmonster wrote: post #25

> However, 58% thought that nuclear power caused climate change while only 46% thought that coal burning did so This raises some interesting thoughts about the nature and importance of democracy.

Why do you assume that the average politician is better informed than the average citizen?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#188

Post by robocat »

culi wrote: post #153
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is always touted as such a good idea on this site, but I want to take the opposite stance. - Nuclear power has inherit risks that are not present in other forms of modern energy generation. You can claim that todays designs are 99.9999999% safe, but there is no such thing as 100%. If humans build it, it will fail, and a single catastrophic nuclear plant failure isn’t acceptable. - Nuclear waste is difficult t…

The obsession with solar panels is currently driving a major ecological catastrophe. Solar panels are known to leak lead in the environment. We also have no good way to recycle them once the cells are done for good (currently, the average lifespan of a panel is about 20 years). There is already a massive buildup of solar waste full of extremely toxic components and we're not even close to seeing the worst of it consi…

> Solar panels are known to leak lead in the environment.

I suspect you are grasping for excuses. Do modern panels have significant lead in them? Also there is a huge abundance of lead in our city environment already (paints, leaded petrol). Even if there is lead in panels, it is concentrated, and I suspect the total amounts in panels would be at least three orders of magnitude less than that. Back when we used alkyllead additives in petrol, it was about 0.5g lead per litre[1], which would be an astonishing amount of lead put into our direct environment.

And those used panels will still have value to people (eg third world) and will get reused, giving excess value to poor countries.

[1] https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=%22grams+lead+per+gallon%2...

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#189

Post by joecool1029 »

redm wrote: post #2

"Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035." I'm no expert on Nuclear power but it seems to me were going in the wrong direction. At a time when we're investing so much money in other fuels, we could be investing that in better nuclear power, like Small Modular Reactors [1], Sodium Cooled Fission, Small Pellet reactors, etc. [2] [1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-sm... [2] https://…

We figured out ship reactors for some time now. Easier target for global emissions reduction could be getting reactors into some of these huge container ships that are currently burning bunker (on windy.com the emissions are so bad you can see trails where these ships go). I wonder why there's not at least 1 container ship with a reactor yet while Russia's got stuff like icebreakers running them?

I found this to be an interesting read, covers the US's only nuclear powered cargo ship that came a little too early to be a container ship: https://www.flexport.com/blog/nuclear-powered-cargo-ships/

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#190

Post by whimsicalism »

_ph_ wrote: post #132
worrycue wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> currently only 1 or 2 new reactors are under construction and both late and way over budget. So in a few decades France has forgotten how to build reactors on time and in an affordable way?

As have all western countries. Building a new nuclear power plant at the safety level one would expect today is hugely expensive.

South Korea hasn't forgotten. They have gotten the costs down quite a bit.
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