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Nuclear Power in France

world-nuclear.org

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Re: Nuclear Power in France

#21

Post by beebmam »

ronnier wrote: post #3
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://…

China is investing in nuclear power. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-wil... > As of this month, China has 49 nuclear reactors in operation with a capacity of 47.5 GW, third only to the United States and France. And 17 under construction with a capacity of 18.5 GW. None have been shut down. Nuclear provides only 2% of China’s electrical power now, but the country intends nuclear to eventually…

Part of this is due to China's new expansion of their nuclear arsenal: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57995185

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#22

Post by dreadlordbone »

beders wrote: post #5
rllearneratwork wrote: post #4

being anti-nuclear at times of climate crisis is a moral and intellectual equivalent to being anti-vaccines during the pandemic

bullshit. If there are cheaper and safer alternatives. being anti-nuclear is common sense.

Which ones are those that are also effective enough?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#23

Post by rllearneratwork »

prettygood wrote: post #14
rllearneratwork wrote: post #4

being anti-nuclear at times of climate crisis is a moral and intellectual equivalent to being anti-vaccines during the pandemic

You're judging to quickly without looking at all parameters. The cost of nuclear power has only been rising and the price per kWh is much higher compared to wind or solar. Building cost and time has never been correctly estimated for new plants. Just ask France, UK and Finland. Which resulted in going way over budget. All of this while prices for solar and wind are lowering... Obviously you can't rely solely on wind…

wind and solar are heavily subsidized and nuclear is, arguably, over regulated despite being statistically the safest source of energy (as measured in deaths / twh)

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#24

Post by Ericson2314 »

Japan is turning the nukes back on, France with the Eastern Europeans is taking on Germany's reckless move https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/11/led-by-france-10-eu-coun... . The current energy crunch is demonstrating how "renewables now, nukes of off now, batteries later" is irresponsible both environmentally and politically, I hope it's a turning point.

At the vary least, turning off the nukes is a reward one earns after the transition is demonstrated end-to-end, with the grid storage and renewables both in place.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#27

Post by unchocked »

I've been prodding friends in the climate movement about their community's historical opposition to nuclear power lately. In my view, opposing nuclear power after 1989 (Hansen's testimony to the US Senate) is anti-climate.

I've held up France as an example of where we could be in an alternate history where states did not bow to anti-nuclear activism. Unfortunately, from the article, it seems France is heading in that direction as well.

> In October 2014 the Energy Transition for Green Growth bill was passed by the National Assembly and so went onto the Senate. This set a target of 50% for nuclear contribution to electricity supply by 2025, and capped nuclear power capacity at 63.2 GWe, the level at the time. This meant that EDF would have to shut at least 1650 GWe of nuclear capacity when its Flamanville 3 EPR starts commercial operation.

A sad decision to see in the only pro nuclear power democracy. And a sad decision for climate, because for decades past and for decades to come, anti-nuclear is pro-coal.

*edit, the French government also seems to be slow-walking the tragic mandate:

> In October 2016 the government postponed until after the 2017 presidential and National Assembly elections any decision on which, if any, reactors would close in order to reduce the nuclear share to 50%. In 2017 France postponed its 2025 target for reducing the share of nuclear to 50%. In December 2017 the French President stated that nuclear is "the most carbon-free way to produce electricity with renewables." In November 2018, a draft of the country's new energy plan confirmed that 2035 was the new target date for the reduction of nuclear's share to 50%. The plan states that 14 of the country's nuclear reactors will shut down by 2035, 4-6 of those by 2030. However the plan also states that the option to build new nuclear reactors remains.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#28

Post by rllearneratwork »

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…

"Nuclear waste is difficult to deal with."

This is false. It is easier and safer to store the waste from modern nuclear power plants than waste from production and used solar panels (which are conveniently outsourced to China now due to poor env regulations there)

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#29

Post by orangepurple »

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…

If nuclear core meltdowns can be fully contained by design the risk is mitigated. For instance with newer designs of smaller portable reactors by NuScale

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#30

Post by cocoggu »

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.

Many is 4 out 22 plants[1] and they are located on rivers because it's needed. Also, maybe it's to have less loss when selling generated power to eastern countries?

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_power_plants...

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