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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

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Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#231

Post by sofixa »

buserror wrote: post #75
Krasnol wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 run forever. Expensive t…

Ahah, it's always expensive time for the french taxpayer -- always have been! They even have recursive layer of taxes, where you pay taxes on amounts that have... already been removed from your revenue as... taxes.

That's not what recursion means. There are income taxes on your whole income (- a base provision for living expenses), and you can deduct certain things ( like donations to nonprofits) from the taxable income.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#232

Post by Czarcasm »

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…

Canada has the largest nuclear power station in the world [1], led the development of one of the most successful reactor designs [2], and continues to be a leader in nuclear fuel, steam generators, and nuclear waste management engineering [3]. Also, most of Ontario's power generation comes from nuclear. You can see the supply breakdown live here: https://www.ieso.ca/power-data

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Stati...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

[3] https://www.bwxt.com/about/business-units/bwxt-canada

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#233

Post by m348e912 »

For as controversial and catastrophically dangerous nuclear power has been over its history, it still shows signs of being one of the best power sources out there. There is plenty of opportunity for better designs, the introduction of thorium reactors vs uranium. This week MIT announced a major breakthrough in fission technology. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

In an ever growing power hungry world, nuclear shows the best promise in moving the world to a reliable power source that isn't reliant on geo-politically sensitive fossil fuels and eliminates greenhouse gas issues dramatically.

I'll add that wind and solar get a lot of hype, but being cyclic and weather dependent doesn't make it suitable as primary wide-spread grid power source.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#234

Post by stkdump »

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…

The German greens, now freshly back in government, have greatly accelerated worldwide deployment of renewables when they were in government last time. Without them it would have easily taken a decade longer for prices to plummet to the current levels. Renewables wouldn't be the cheapest form of energy. Let's see what they can do this time around. When the economics favor renewables, then its a no brainer. This makes new nuclear projects even more questionable. Note that the promises are there since at least 60 years. Lack of investment wasn't a problem. Recently a swiss energy company said they don't want to build new nuclear. Why should they, it doesn't make money unless the government is willing to provide the profits, which is only the case in some countries.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#235

Post by ike0790 »

Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending "climate emergency". Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#236

Post by DisjointedHunt »

The economic benefits from having a "fuck you" amount of energy ready to go at any point cannot be overstated.

Fresh water shortage due to drought? Desalinate ocean water.

Heat/cold wave? Announce that all electricity bills will be waived for the month. See popularity skyrocket.

Provide near unlimited compute budgets to universities etc on older hardware for their research and other work.

When shackles are taken off, innovation kicks off.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#237

Post by adrianN »

nixass wrote: post #116
grammers wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Such reactors cannot be built in a day so right now this is just a political move for the upcoming election.

>Such reactors cannot be built in a day so right now this is just a political move for the upcoming election. Of course, that's why it says first reactor will go live in 2035, not in a day

It's a pity that we should be completely carbon neutral around 2040 give or take a couple of years and power plants that go online in ten to fifteen years (if they are actually done by that time) save zero emissions until then.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#238

Post by fastball »

anonporridge wrote: post #151
Teknoman117 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that one just boggles my mind. A few huge PV solar projects out in the desert in southern California and Nevada got stalled by environmentalists complaining about increased shading cooling down the desert. At this point, even if solar panels in the desert kill off a few species of lizards, seriously, what's the alternative? More damage will occur if we don't. It needs to be about minimizing total damage, even i…

A lot of environmentalists are really just ecofascists/terrorists who would rather see the wholesale destruction of advanced civilization than make pragmatic compromises, in effect if not intent. They occupy an incredibly infantile frame that we should be less accommodating towards if we actually want an interesting collective future.

I've just started calling that brand of environmentalist "misanthropes" as I think it's the most accurate term.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#239

Post by mrDmrTmrJ »

freeflight wrote: post #153
323 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder is now chairman of Russian energy company Rosneft, and was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project.

> Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. It's not funny, it's bluntly wrong. The German nuclear phase-out was precedented by the EEG, the first green electricity feed-in tariff scheme in the world [0]. It was part of the Energiekonsensgespräche that went on in the 90…

Your citation #2 shows Household, Power Supply, and District Heating to total 52% of natural gas usage. Nuclear power can take over both for electric power supply and for home and district heat via electric heat pumps - which can be 250-350% efficient[0].

So, over 50% of German natural gas usage can be replaced by nuclear electrical power, based on the citations you provided :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#240

Post by stewbrew »

Nbox9 wrote: post #115
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.

> It's particularly smart in this moment It may be particularly smart for this moment in internal French politics, but energy independence is a smart move for any sovereign.

Speaking about independence: where does the uran come from?

And how is this clever since the EDF cannot sell their nuclear power without making losses?

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