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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

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Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#301

Post by shawabawa3 »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #292
ike0790 wrote: post #235

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.

> 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. I think it is unserious to call every other solution other than nuclear energy unserious in a climate discussion. Germany, for instance, has very serious discussions on climate neutrality without nuclear energy.

Germany has been burning more and more coal since shutting down their nuclear plants in favour of renewables

What a great green strategy that was

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#302

Post by MrPatan »

pydry wrote: post #285
simion314 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meanwhile, we are deploying GW of solar, wind, and storage on time, on budget, ar ever decreasing costs. That is the easier part, show me the battery deployments please , the ones that can backup the country/state for a week.

China has about 40 GW of pumped water storage. A week of no solar power or wind is unheard of. A week of no wind is very very rare.

And a week of less solar and wind than usage?

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#303

Post by immmmmm »

gobip wrote: post #291
immmmmm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For living in a neighboring country, speaking their language and following their policy quite a bit, i can tell you that, no, they are nowhere near serious. Just as an example, the best performing company this year is Total with 15B and which is happily feeding the government with petrodollars and the other people with lies about "Net Zero " etc. "Énergie Nucléaire" as they call it is a thing there because De Gaulle…

France is not serious about climate? If you're in a neighbor country of France: congrats, your electricity is much more polluted than France's is. Énergie Nucléaire was a thing of De Gaulle, but not for these reasons. France needed independence and needed to provide electricity, and the only way was nuclear (at the time). Given the current situation, I think France didn't do too bad. Only one candidate in France on p…

I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro.

Ok ok, De Gaulle was maybe more concerned about energy independence.

France doesn't do too bad? Any link? As far a i remember only a few African countries do "not too bad", but perhaps you were referring to former colonies as well.

> I live in France, never heard of this "Net Zero" you're talking about.

I then suggest some good climate information channel, Bon Pote is pretty good in French [0]

[0] https://bonpote.com/

edit: my country is terrible too, it is nothing against France in particular!!!

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#304

Post by kwhitefoot »

theshrike79 wrote: post #282
xps wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's particularly smart in this moment of tension with Russia, as Europe depends a lot on Russian energy. This may help lowering the reliance of France on Russia but its energy production will still be reliant on other countries, as 100% of the required fuel (uranium) is imported.

100% of Europe's natural gas comes from Russia. Uranium producing countries include Australia and Canada, who are a bit less crazy with their international politics and military movements.

> 100% of Europe's natural gas comes from Russia.

No it doesn't. It's about a third.

The total at the end of 2021 was about 8500 million cubic metre, divided as follows: Norway 3000, Russia 2300, LNG 2200, Algeria 640.

https://www.bruegel.org/publications/datasets/european-natur...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#305

Post by MrPatan »

BurningPenguin wrote: post #251
visarga wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once a few years, we get a few weeks without much wind and solar. What do we do then? Solar and wind can't store enough energy to last for weeks.

I'd say it's very unlikely that there will be no wind or sun all over Europe. There is constant exchange of excess energy between the countries anyway. Regardless of that, there are other options too. Like water or geothermal depending on the country. Sometimes there even will be too much energy. I can imagine this being used to make some hydrogen for later use.

How about less sun or wind than is necessary, instead of the strawman "no wind or sun"?

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#306

Post by [deleted] »

stewbrew wrote: post #240
Nbox9 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

[deleted]

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#307

Post by jillesvangurp »

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.

The question is how much of the capacity they are going to retire in the next few years is going to be replaced. It's a highly political issue in France and it's an election season.

Nuclear from a cost perspective continues to be expensive; also for the French. And they will in any case continue to build out solar and wind as well. So, there's that.

And finally, building nuclear plants is something the French do abroad too. So, it's actually something they export that generates jobs and revenue in that way. So, they would want to at least build a few plants to keep that going. And of course they also have military interests tied up with uranium enrichment. France is fiercely protective of its status as a nuclear power.

But I think overall nuclear will be slowly declining proportionally in France; just like almost everywhere else. Unless something changes on the cost front. Which does not seem to be happening

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#308

Post by loup-vaillant »

gobip wrote: post #291
immmmmm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For living in a neighboring country, speaking their language and following their policy quite a bit, i can tell you that, no, they are nowhere near serious. Just as an example, the best performing company this year is Total with 15B and which is happily feeding the government with petrodollars and the other people with lies about "Net Zero " etc. "Énergie Nucléaire" as they call it is a thing there because De Gaulle…

France is not serious about climate? If you're in a neighbor country of France: congrats, your electricity is much more polluted than France's is. Énergie Nucléaire was a thing of De Gaulle, but not for these reasons. France needed independence and needed to provide electricity, and the only way was nuclear (at the time). Given the current situation, I think France didn't do too bad. Only one candidate in France on p…

Well, now France is not being serious about climate, and has not been since at least 10 years, when we had Hollande on the throne. We've had talks about closing down nuke plants that are still in working order, the next one is taking forever, and we still have many people who want to shut it all down in the very name of the environment (overall, the French people are woefully misinformed about the pros and cons of nuclear energy).

I think it is getting better, though. Environmentalists are slowly waking up to the fact that nuclear energy is not nearly as bad as we make it out to be, even compared to windmills & solar panels, which requires many more times the ground surface and/or concrete.

Oh, and we got a recent report from our national energy company (or something close), that laid out several plans to reduce our CO2 emissions, and most contingencies involved both nuclear and renewable, including the "nuke max" scenario. We'll definitely need renewables, but it's pretty clear shutting down nuclear plants is one of the riskiest plans — hopefully our politicians will wake up to that.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#309

Post by yamrzou »

immmmmm wrote: post #271
ike0790 wrote: post #235

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.

For living in a neighboring country, speaking their language and following their policy quite a bit, i can tell you that, no, they are nowhere near serious. Just as an example, the best performing company this year is Total with 15B and which is happily feeding the government with petrodollars and the other people with lies about "Net Zero " etc. "Énergie Nucléaire" as they call it is a thing there because De Gaulle…

Jancovici is a legend. Listenening to him and reading his latest comic book (Le monde sans fin) made me very aware of climate issues and directly influenced my behavior.

He deserves to be better known by international audiences. Here are some of his talks in english:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGt4XwBbCvA

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s254IPHXgVA

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#310

Post by rini17 »

immmmmm wrote: post #303
gobip wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France is not serious about climate? If you're in a neighbor country of France: congrats, your electricity is much more polluted than France's is. Énergie Nucléaire was a thing of De Gaulle, but not for these reasons. France needed independence and needed to provide electricity, and the only way was nuclear (at the time). Given the current situation, I think France didn't do too bad. Only one candidate in France on p…

I live in Switzerland, 60% of my electricity comes from hydro. Ok ok, De Gaulle was maybe more concerned about energy independence. France doesn't do too bad? Any link? As far a i remember only a few African countries do "not too bad", but perhaps you were referring to former colonies as well. > I live in France, never heard of this "Net Zero" you're talking about. I then suggest some good climate information channel…

Swiss and Austrians are an exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions. In Slovakia much of whatever could be dammed already is and still hydro makes only up to 20% of the mix, despite being one of the more hilly countries. Were it not for 70% nuclear, I have no idea how to even go near carbon neutral electricity. Having German electricity prices to pay for renewables is completely impossible.
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