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Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

sustainability-times.com

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Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#201

Post by bullen »

Sweden just paid 300 million SEK to reboot one reactor (also pressurized water reactor from Westinghouse manufactured in the early 70s and started in 75; 3 years before this one, closed in Dec. last year) because of supply issues in the south of Sweden leading to price volatility and provisioning issues this summer during the heatwave.

Peak-oil is a bitch and we're going to run these nuclear plants until the metal in the cores and foundations start to show cracks visible to the naked eye.

Because Uranium has 1.000.000x the power content per weight more than gasoline and 1.000.000.000x more than batteries!

That said fission costs a lot of dead trees to build, so we're going to have to stick to the plants we already have.

Building new nuclear plants will not be possible no matter how much money you print.

I predict the french will do the same once the KWh price jumps around a little too much to be ignored.

Electric cars are a joke, they take hours to charge and once everyone has them; charging will be impossible!

Instead we should focus on Raspberry Pi 4 and electric bikes!

Edit: If you look here you'll see that most WH plants put into service ~75 have been closed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors

The only other interesting tidbit here is that Saudi-Arabia is planning 4 reactors!

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#202

Post by dkural »

onli wrote: post #175
dkural wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to any specific and concrete safety issue? (as opposed to, without any evidence, questioning the integrity of the people trying to reduce CO2 emissions by extending the lifetime of existing nuclear plants).

Sure. I will cite Zeit.de, a german newspaper. They write in https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/atomkraftwerk-fe... : > Das 1977 ans Netz gegangene Atomkraftwerk Fesseheim gilt seit Jahrzehnten als Sicherheitsrisiko. Es liegt in einem Erdbebengebiet und ist unzureichend gegen einen Flugzeugabsturz oder einen Anschlag geschützt. Zudem kam es immer wieder zu Pannen. They link to https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2016…

Thank you!

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#203

Post by xwolfi »

onli wrote: post #41
fcantournet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a independent national authority (ASN ~ Nuclear Safety Authority) which is tasked to assess the security of all nuclear power plants and certifies them for periods of 10y. The plant that is being closed was certified by the ASN. The 40y lifespan was the MINIMUM certified lifespan of the power plant. It could very well run for another 40y. These kinds of equipment are modernised every 10 years during the shudo…

You have a very focused elite building system in which the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations. That goes especially for politicans, but includes engineers. The pro-nuclear propaganda repeated by the people that go through this is frightening, many of them are completely brainwashed. In no way can the ASN be really independent, as…

Yes but after decades of being horribly manipulated, what happened ?

We have electricity, not so much accidents and the know how so China, Russia and the US arent the only people who can make large scale nuclear infrastructure.

What an horror they put us through, are engineering elite.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#204

Post by DuskStar »

jjoonathan wrote: post #163
Klinky wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not dishonest. Where are the storage facilities? Is Hanford a disaster or not? Were there fundamental quality and safety issues in the 70s(and before) around nuclear facilities? Pointing out that other stuff is "just as bad as nuclear" is not helping the argument for nuclear.

> Where are the storage facilities? Yucca Mountain was bulldozed by the anti-nuclear faction. Hooray? > Is Hanford a disaster or not? Unquestionably. > Pointing out that other stuff is "just as bad as nuclear" is not helping the argument for nuclear. That's generally how decision-making works: you weigh the tradeoffs and make the best choice. Well, that's how it's supposed to work, I suppose. If you refuse, well, nat…

> > Is Hanford a disaster or not?

> Unquestionably.

Hanford is a disaster... But just Hanford. Upstream and downstream are both fine. It's a few dozen square miles of contamination that affects people more than it does nature. (Look at the Chernobyl exclusion zone)

Compare to something like ocean acidification, caused by burning coal and oil, which is killing all the coral reefs, worldwide.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#205

Post by DuskStar »

ceejayoz wrote: post #149
msla wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people always forget that coal plants spew radiation into the environment? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

There's a significant difference between diffuse radioactivity and the sort of waste nuclear plants put out, though. In both impact on humans, and mitigation.

Right - diffuse radioactivity is harder to contain or clean up.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#206

Post by steeve »

dv_dt wrote: post #106
steeve wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years It is not. That number was made so that EDF would get a proper return of investment. Some plants based on the same design have been granted lifespan to 60 years in the US. > how far past that are we willing to go? As long as its safe. Why throw away something that works, is safe and reliable on the counts that some folks put out a number?

In the US upgrades of old plants in the US have gone wrong. e.g. see the San Onofre upgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...

There are multiple differences why it’s not the same in France. The biggest one being that in the US, a plant as to confirm to its design security specifications, whereas it France, it has to conform to the security specifications of when it is inspected.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#207

Post by DuskStar »

jhayward wrote: post #75
Reedx wrote: post #19

> The saddest part of this story is that there is no new renewable plant being built overnight to replace Fessenheim. It will be replaced almost entirely by fossil fuels. > It’s worth noting that, as Fessenheim closes, Germany is commissioning a new coal-fired power plant, in Datteln Exactly. Why are so many people ignoring what happens in step 2? When nuclear is shut down, it gets replaced with something worse. Ofte…

> When nuclear is shut down, it gets replaced with something worse. Often coal! The implication that this is what happened in Germany is misinformation. None of the energy production of retired nuclear plants in Germany was replaced by coal. Renewable energy replaced the vast majority of it over the last 10 years, and coal use is down by 50% in that period.

And, had Germany not gotten rid of those nuclear power plants, the new renewable generation would have replaced coal. Sure, you can say that renewables replaced nuclear - but at the end of the day, Germany is using coal+renewables instead of nuclear+renewables.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#208

Post by steeve »

p4bl0 wrote: post #161
steeve wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"unrecycable nuclear waste France was producing in 2016" Yeah so nuclear waste is recycled in large part. See Mox. But I agree, I wish we'd use FNRs too. Too bad the Green party shut down the first reactor (SuperPhenix) in the 90s. "waste we can not store safely." Did you do your homework? See CIGEO.

How is CIGEO safe?

Because it’s between two very stable geological layers that have been there for millenia.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#209

Post by steeve »

p4bl0 wrote: post #155
fcantournet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a independent national authority (ASN ~ Nuclear Safety Authority) which is tasked to assess the security of all nuclear power plants and certifies them for periods of 10y. The plant that is being closed was certified by the ASN. The 40y lifespan was the MINIMUM certified lifespan of the power plant. It could very well run for another 40y. These kinds of equipment are modernised every 10 years during the shudo…

You have to conceed that the independence of the ASN is at least debatable.

Why?

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#210

Post by steeve »

cure wrote: post #165
joss82 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is misleading. You can NOT replace nuclear with wind and solar. Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. Hydro in France is already built-up everywhere it was feasible. There are no more spots to build meaningful hydro power capacity. Too bad since hydro is the only renewable that can really replace the nuclear power plants.

> You can NOT replace nuclear with wind and solar. Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. That's what grid energy storage is for. Traditionally this is often implemented with hydro (sometimes even by pumping water up to a high-altitude reservoir during periods of excess power generation). There are many more exotic methods as well - e.g. the crane that stacks concrete blocks, or the tra…

If you run the numbers, you’ll see that we are several orders of magnitude away from having anything close to the scale of energy storage needed unfortunately
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