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Nuclear Power in France

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Re: Nuclear Power in France

#291

Post by adev_ »

bildung wrote: post #125
lm28469 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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% You're breathing coal and gas byproducts every single day, byproducts which are taking years of life expectancy, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone, but oh god "Chernobyl bad, let's close perfectly safe and working nuclear react…

> Germany is firing up coal plants because they're decomissining their nuclear reactors in favour of intermittent energy sources No they aren't, they are decomissioning coal plants, too, and at a much faster rate than nuclear. From 2013 to 2020 nuclear as share of Germany's energy mix went from 17% to 13%. https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en& ... During the same time, coal went from 45% to 23%…

Fact is that even today (13/10/2021) Germany is still running its electricity production at 51% on Coal, when France uses coal for close to nothing due to Nuclear [1].

And it is very unlikely to change on medium term (next 20 years) due to the unreliable nature of the renewable energy supply.

The result is that electricity production in France today causes around 74gCo2/kwh emission when Germany is around 469g/kwh. Meaning around 6x more emission.. and for an higher price on consumption.

[^1]: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR

> The difference is taxes, not production costs. Have a look at price composition for Germany: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-house...

Taxes are close to the same in France with close to 31% of the cost only in Taxes [2]. That along does not justify the 2x difference of price.

Also a big part of these taxes are subsidies there to support the renewable energy themselves... Which is pretty ironical considering that previous "subsidies" given to the nuclear sector where one of the main argument against nuclear in the past decade.

[2] https://en.selectra.info/energy-france/guides/electricity/ta...

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#292

Post by Hermel »

asdff wrote: post #241
Hermel wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The average politician at least has reports prepared for them by government scientists and engineers, while the average citizen only hears about things after they've gone through the telephone game of the media.

The average politician also has reports and diners prepared by lobbyists and others that want to influence his or her judgement. Not sure if that is a net gain for objectivity.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#293

Post by oezi »

nickik wrote: post #289
oezi wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear at this point is dead in the water. The upward trajectory of renewables is so strong that building nuclear plants is no longer viable. If anybody would change course now and start planning and building new nuclear plants it will be at least 10 years before these go online. By this time wind and solar will be another magnitude cheaper and nuclear will not be able to compete.

So your logic is, only wind and solar can improve and nuclear can never improve.

I certainly can improve but it hasn't. Rather each year it has gotten longer to build reactors and more expensive. The trajectory is so negative that I am pessimistic it could match solar and wind at this point.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#294

Post by shakow »

mcguire wrote: post #276
shakow wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About 1500. Nope. Average charge load for a windmill is ~35%, vs. over 90% for NPPs. Thus, you would need roughly thrice as many, and that in places with alternating winds – otherwise you would just get blackouts.

Already factored in. I can't find my original reference, but here's once that doesn't factor in the difference: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/infographic-how-much-powe...

> Already factored in.

I highly doubt that. The Tricastin NPP for instance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricastin_Nuclear_Power_Plant) is a rather average one, producing up to 3660MW. An average windmill output stand around 2.5MW, hence equivalent 1464 windmills simultaneously running before accounting for the load factor.

> but here's once

This one is about a nuclear reactor, not an NPP. Typical NPPs features 2 to 6 reactors.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#295

Post by cinntaile »

lazide wrote: post #286
cinntaile wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is pretty darn good in lalaland where everything is just a technological problem ready to be solved. I wish I could live there.

Not sure how me pointing out that organizational and political dysfunction, corruption, and general bullshit is the reason why it is 'hard' now (and wasn't as hard 50 years ago when the currently active reactors were built since folks seemed to actually want to build them more than just siphon money out of the system or throw wrenches into the works for ideological reasons), and how it doesn't seem to have anything t…

There's nothing wrong with pointing out what you think is the problem. It's just that you can't ignore reality, in the actual world it takes much longer to build and it's more expensive for whatever reason that may be.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#296

Post by avianlyric »

concordDance wrote: post #205
avianlyric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP meant environmentally sustainable, rather than fiscally sustainable, you need to do something with the old reactor cores.

That's sustainable long past the point we run out of radioactives. Just how much space do you think buried reactor cores take up and how big do you think the earth's crust is? You could literally throw it in the deep ocean and it'd still do less damage than a single day of Brazilian deforestation for biofuel production or a month of operation of a coal plant (partially because water is actually quite good at blocking…

I’m not fundamentally against the idea of nuclear power. I just remain unconvinced that we’ve “solved” the problem of nuclear waste.

Nuclear waste remains dangerous and harmful on a timescale that can almost be described as tectonic. The earths crust isn’t static or stationary, if you throw waste into the bottom of the ocean its not clear what will happen to that waste in 10 millions years time, or even 300 years time.

I agree that our current climate situation demands drastic actions, and theres a strong argument that solving the real harms today of climate change are worth taking the risk on the theoretical harms of nuclear power. But I don’t agree that nuclear power is currently “sustainable”, it’s almost certainly the best energy source we have today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will stay that way for long.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#297

Post by renox »

forty wrote: post #143
woko wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance, it is discussed in this press article [1] published in 2016 and available in French. It is mentioned that nuclear power costs 60€/MWh, compared to 80€/MWh for wind power. It is also mentioned quite often in the French press: I have seen it mentioned a few days ago. The source mentioned in the 2016 press article is an official report [2] published in 2014. However, it is true that the maintenance cost in…

Yeah I feel the end of life has not yet been factored in the price (ie the cost of dismantling the reactor or maintaining it alive forever). It would be very aligned with the general philosophy of nuclear ^^ (ie "the next generations will either figure it out or pay the price")

The dismantling cost has been factored in but given that they don't manage to reliably estimate construction costs I don't see why the estimate of the dismantling cost would be more accurate..

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#298

Post by lazide »

cinntaile wrote: post #295
lazide wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how me pointing out that organizational and political dysfunction, corruption, and general bullshit is the reason why it is 'hard' now (and wasn't as hard 50 years ago when the currently active reactors were built since folks seemed to actually want to build them more than just siphon money out of the system or throw wrenches into the works for ideological reasons), and how it doesn't seem to have anything t…

There's nothing wrong with pointing out what you think is the problem. It's just that you can't ignore reality, in the actual world it takes much longer to build and it's more expensive for whatever reason that may be.

If building a house (as in actually building the structure) costs $100k-$200k - typical labor and material costs in the US btw - but end to end costs for the same house are roughly $1 million-$2 million(typical in the Bay Area), is it honest or disingenuous to claim that lumber or labor costs are driving house costs up?

Because in this thread someone was claiming steam turbine costs were why nuclear was ‘expensive’, which is about as legit. Also in these nearby threads have been discussions about waste disposal (similar levels of not actually a problem), etc.

You’re similarly ignoring and seem to want to pretend that these costs are somehow fundamental to nuclear, despite me providing evidence it’s a general problem we have with building several types of things now, and is more political BS than anything fundamental to do with nuclear as a technology.

If the same thing happens to building roads, is it because ‘roads are expensive’? Or because ‘we screwed ourselves up even more so now we can’t build roads without going bankrupt’?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#299

Post by lazide »

lazide wrote: post #268
mcguire wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects... " Like "where are you going to put the waste?" and "I don't want my property values to go to zero when an accident occurs"? :-) If one were suitably cynical, one might suggest China does not have that kind of problem.

Nah, those (if legitimate) aren’t tarpits. We’ve had, at various times, approved locations for waste, and we actually still approve the storage of waste on site - indefinite storage of ‘temporary waste’. Paying into an insurance fund in case of a nuclear disaster would be far cheaper than what has been happening. What happens instead is 1) a set of requirements is made, 2) someone spends years figuring it out. 3) it…

Also a situation I got reminded of near where my parents live - hydrogen plant being built in the middle of the desert. Developers get courted by city A who has cheap land available. City A has a city manager that works out a sweet heart deal that basically funds some of the planning costs (and cuts city revenue by a couple million/yr for a few years doing so), but in exchange for approval and at the last minute, requires they hook to the recycled water source he stupidly had run several miles away instead of the normal way to cover his ass for that bad decision. City B, literally borders on the other side of the street, has a recycled water pipe literally on the other side of the street.

After years of planning and millions spent on their side, the numbers don’t pencil out anymore because of this, so the developers go ‘wtf’, and buy a plot on the other side of the street that is in City B (more expensive, but still cheaper than running 5 miles of large diameter water pipe), cut and paste the plans, and are going to build next year after 3+ years of wasted time and millions in cash wasted.

And this is for a private, for profit project that they want to actually happen ASAP. When the taxpayers are footing the bill, the shenanigans get way worse. When no one seems to notice when the schedule keeps sleeping year after year? Even worse.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#300

Post by cinntaile »

lazide wrote: post #298
cinntaile wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out what you think is the problem. It's just that you can't ignore reality, in the actual world it takes much longer to build and it's more expensive for whatever reason that may be.

If building a house (as in actually building the structure) costs $100k-$200k - typical labor and material costs in the US btw - but end to end costs for the same house are roughly $1 million-$2 million(typical in the Bay Area), is it honest or disingenuous to claim that lumber or labor costs are driving house costs up? Because in this thread someone was claiming steam turbine costs were why nuclear was ‘expensive’,…

I don't claim this is unique for nuclear? The same is true of all big infrastructure projects, although I don't see how that is relevant as a counterargument. These costs are the current reality, so that's what I base my opinion on. I'm interested in the actual cost, not the theoretical cost cause it's the actual cost that will ultimately impact us.
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