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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

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Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#321

Post by psychoslave »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #86
lb0 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

totaling 8 now .. but in the end will need another one really going down bad to stop all the sudden pro-nuclear movement here in Europe, which I can imagine only must have some astroturfing behind. But til then, blow more money into insurable and as much green as coal and gas power plants :( (And that calculations done by real experts didn't even include all the other uneconomic issues from getting that stuff from so…

> But til then, blow more money into insurable and as much green as coal and gas power plants :( Nuclear plants don't emit CO2, unlike coal and gas plants.

But they do generate (human-)life-threatening nuclear wastes that last 100k years. That dwarfs even the longest human civilization like Egypt[0]. 100k ago, humankind was barely appearing. Plastic in comparison takes around 450 years to be disaggregated through exo-human processes[1].

How to deal properly with these wastes is still a vigorous debate generator[2]. The thing is, with our current theoretical knowledge and practical expertise, we don’t have solutions that scale at the industrial level at which nuclear wastes are produced. Not in a way that we can say "and thus mankind will be completely free of dealing with this issue in the next 100k year".

[0] https://pintsofhistory.com/2011/08/08/the-unbelievable-durat... and you might have a look at https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-hist... [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/chart-of-the-day-this... [2] https://www.challenges.fr/top-news/l-asn-pointe-un-risque-d-...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#322

Post by pydry »

phicoh wrote: post #314
rini17 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impo…

Ignoring storage, wind and solar are now very cheap. For example, companies now pay to rent pieces of North Sea to place wind parks there.

Pumped water storage also isnt that expensive.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#323

Post by phicoh »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #301
hutrdvnj wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That's wrong. Germany was significantly reduced the amount of electricity from coal over the last decades.

Renewables have picked up both the reduction in coal and the reduction in nuclear power.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#324

Post by enqk »

phicoh wrote: post #314
rini17 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impo…

Ignoring storage, wind and solar are now very cheap. For example, companies now pay to rent pieces of North Sea to place wind parks there.

Wind and solar need a lot of resources from mining, which itself uses fossil fuel (for extraction, treatment and transport) and creates a lot of local pollution.

Wind and solar take a lot of space that could be used for agriculture, so they compete with important uses of the soil. (I don't know if it's clear how much offshore is a thing, but I suppose this increases also energy expenditure)

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#325

Post by Reason077 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #308
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…

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 nu…

> "overall, the French people are woefully misinformed about the pros and cons of nuclear energy"

Not as bad as the Germans. The decision to build new nuclear plants is one thing, but to close down perfectly good and safe existing nuclear in the name of the environment is madness.

Especially when the alternative to those nuclear plants is to burn more lignite coal and build new pipelines to import more Russian natural gas.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#326

Post by Archelaos »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #301
hutrdvnj wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

This is not true. The agreement between the federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. At this time the power generation from coal (both hard coal and lignite) was around 300 TWh/year. It almost halfed to 162.6 TWh in 2021. The all time low was in 2020, though, due to the pandemic.

For details of Germany's energy production and consumption since 1990 see: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#327

Post by popol12 »

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…

And whose country's electricity is pumping water up Switzerland's reversible dams during the night ?

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#328

Post by hardlianotion »

enqk wrote: post #324
phicoh wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring storage, wind and solar are now very cheap. For example, companies now pay to rent pieces of North Sea to place wind parks there.

Wind and solar need a lot of resources from mining, which itself uses fossil fuel (for extraction, treatment and transport) and creates a lot of local pollution. Wind and solar take a lot of space that could be used for agriculture, so they compete with important uses of the soil. (I don't know if it's clear how much offshore is a thing, but I suppose this increases also energy expenditure)

In the UK at least, and in general I think, this is not really true. There is plenty of land that is marginal for arable farming purposes and this is what is targeted for wind farming.

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#329

Post by bvrlt »

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…

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

Hydro isn't the panacea. It's destroying ecosystems. Climate change is a problem but the biodiversity collapse another one.

https://eu.patagonia.com/fr/en/stories/telling-the-dam-truth...

Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

#330

Post by nix23 »

rini17 wrote: post #310
immmmmm wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impo…

>exception with the hydro and should stop rubbing it in all the discussions.

True, and it's not a exception, but geographically "luck", without mountains and the glaciers that comes with them, Switzerland would be as dry as Turkmenistan. It's just a matter of commonsense to use those altitude differences and water....but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power.

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