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

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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And it still produces more than 30% less CO2 per capita than the us. The sources are in another comment of me.

So what? "It does 30% better than the worst large country in the world, while also being 30% poorer per capita" (since Germany's per-capita GDP is ~46k, while the US's is ~65k) isn't exactly a glowing commendation.

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

#252
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be, but Germany and Switzerland assessed the safety to be suboptimal. "In 2007, the same year a Swiss study found that seismic risks in the Alsace region had been underestimated during construction, the ASN denounced a “lack of rigour” in EDF’s operation of the plant."

Why should France care about what they think? Germany could try not importing French carbon neutral nuclear energy if they hate it so much.

Have a look at the map.

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

#253
What most HN-“experts“ and the author of the article forget is: Fessenheim 2 has had so many interruptions and incidents because the whole technology being 50 years old, you lost count on how many incidents there have been. Think of you running a 50 y/o computer at home.

I live nearby the plant (within its 30km radius) and we had reports on Fessenheim incidents every other week or so.

>The answer to why Fessenheim is closing is sadly one of politics.

This is some outright BS from the author here. Fessenheim is built next to the Rhein-river but below its own water-level. If the dam would breach because of an earthquake or flood, the whole nuclear plant would be under water. Does Fukushima ring a bell, what happened there? Exactly that!

Several examinations also found the inbounds of Fessenheim to be poorly protected from flood. They even have their own security measures and fallback circuits not properly secured against flooding. Only a water leakage would cause some serious issues not to mention a dam breach.

So with the combo of old tech, often interrupted uptime and shitty protection against floo, there are simply too many good reasons to close down the whole thing.

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

#254
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people have died because of that lax safety attitude? Less than any other power source. To call it waste is even debatable as it is still usable for energy production, it just costs too much right now. In the future, this may change. Low level and high level nuclear waste are not the same and the high level waste, as done in some countries at cost, could be reprocessed for fuel. In addition, what is the resu…

> In addition, what is the result of 3 mile island? The word disaster comes with a lot of baggage that I would debate doesn't apply, it was an accident without any fatalities. In the Harrisburg accident, the core had a melt-down, and molten uranium was forming layers at the bottom of the vessel. Water had been being cracked into oxygen and hydrogen by the intense heat. This process was stopped little time before the…

I've never heard of a tsunami on that side of the Atlantic. At least none are listed there, regarding the french Atlantic coast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis_in_Europe

Does it matter if the one french reactor at the shore of the Atlantic wasn't safe against tsunamis?

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

#255
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be failures on the way to a fully renewable powered grid. India just turned up a 750MW facility successfully [1]. 70% of Texas coal plants are at risk of decommissioning as early as 2022 due to the amount of solar generation in the pipeline [2]. Spain is years ahead of schedule in coal decommissioning due to low cost renewables and pumped hydro storage capabilities being developed [3]. The UK is rapidly de…

> The UK is rapidly developing HVDC undersea cables to import clean hydro from Denmark and Norway That struck me as odd, because Denmark is flat as a pancake - it's basically an overgrown sandbank laid down by Norway's fjords. But the article explains that the cable will carry power from Norwegian hydro plants, which for some reason comes via Denmark. There is a direct cable from Norway to the UK, but i suppose this…

For some reason could be explained by looking at

[1] https://openinframap.org/#4.88/56.67/8.34/L,P

By going via Denmark the distance under water is shorter. Also continental Europe, mainly Germany and Benelux slurped the power first, so the infrastructures have already been there. Why not use them as much as possible, i guess? Although recently some direct point-to-point has been built.

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