As a french I'm pretty happy about this. France also bought back some important turbines from general electrics
On the other hand, there were announcements of rust in critical parts of a few nuclear plants.
France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
351–360 of 450 posts
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#352Earlier 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.
Discussions…Germany is 10x worse CO2g/kWh than France.
The factor for CO2g/kWh in 2017 is lower: between 6.0 and 7.3, depending on what exactly is measured.[1]
However, the absolute numbers for Germany are declining fast as renewable energies are taking hold:[2]
2017: 485
2018: 471
2019: 408 (preliminary)
2020: 366 (estimated)
If one looks at the CO2 emissions per capita the gap is not so large. I could not find any new numbers for this either, but in 2018 the values of CO2 emissions in metric tons per capita were as follows:[3]
France 5.0
Germany 9.1
For comparison: United States 16.1
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192091...
[2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/37...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd love some sources comparing the carbon emissions from building them, because otherwise I'm a big supporter of nuclear energy. I'd rather go solar/wind/hydro but I think they have some (not all) of the issues you've noted as well.
Google image search on "energy source carbon footprint" and see that even the charts with very low carbon impact estimates for nuclear still place it at roughly twice wind, and more than solar. Look at what power companies, investors, grid operators, and most countries are putting money into. Not nuclear. If you think it's just because the public finds it unpalatable, well, the public finds a lot of things unpalatabl…
How many of those countries rapidly building new green planta are actually below France's GHG emissions? Germany definitely isn't, much of Europe isn't (and where they are, they typically also use nuclear). The USA is laughanly far off.
So, it seems to me that while many grids are switching to renewables, they are still far away from matching Nuclear's emissions.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
That depends on how you want to store the energy. There have been some talk in Norway about using excess energy to pump water from ground level to fill up existing lakes as a form of energy storage. There seems to be quite a few power plants based on hydro power other places in Europe as well, so it could be a feasible strategy there as well [1, page 5] [1] - https://wwfeu.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/hydropower_pre…
In Portugal and Spain we have pumping stations doing exactly that. I couldn't find a link in English but maybe you'll find this useful: https://www.iberdrola.com/sustentabilidade/central-hidreletr...
Nice! It turns out we have a few (12) pumping stations here as well, but there is little information on how often they've been used. The high electricity prices we've seen lately have reactualized this, with spikes of around $1 USD/kWh.
Current water levels are at approx 47% capacity [1], compared to around 64% same time last year. Unless we get a wet spring and summer it could get exciting come next year...
[1] - https://www.nve.no/energi/analyser-og-statistikk/magasinstat...
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm wondering if that strike price looks quite so outrageously high now UK electricity costs have risen by 50% in the last year or so
Far more than 50%. A year ago it was normal for suppliers to pay about £50 per MWh (consumers of course end up paying a little more, this is a for-profit business in most cases) and today you're being charged maybe £200 per MWh. In one peak period yesterday it went to £365 per MWh and I'd expect the same today. Unlike in Texas, UK consumer electricity firms have to apply the price cap, so while you can get electricit…
Thanks for the detailed breakdown!
I assume these are to some extent temporary price hikes caused by the fact we generate a lot of electricity from natural gas, and the weather is cold so people also need that gas to heat their homes right now (also it hasn't been too windy this winter which doesn't help electricity generation). So - ignoring the Russia thing - you still have to consider year-round averages to compare the Hinkley strike price with the current peak. Hence my 50% figure based on our domestic price per kWh going up from 16p to 24p.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#356Looks 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…
"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."
French government is not a shareholder of Total at any meaningful level, less than 30% of Total shareholders are French and Total is a multinational paying taxes in multiple countries, so I don't know from where your petrodollars are coming from.
There is a lot that can be say about French energy policy but mentioning Total is really the less relevant one...
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#357Earlier 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…
>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.
agreed. we are doing hydro because of mountains AND lack of coal.
> but when all our glaciers are molten away, we for sure have to go back to nuclear-power.
this is inaccurate. you might want to go read more literature related to ice melting and energy transition.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#358Earlier 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…
And whose country's electricity is pumping water up Switzerland's reversible dams during the night ?
My country's energetic policy is catastrophic. Don't get me wrong.
Saying that France is great is brutally inaccurate tho.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#359Earlier 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)
If we look at CO2, which is far from the only metric, but the easiest to compare, then solar panels make up for their production in a period on months and for wind it is a period of years.
Both solar and wind provide a significant net reduction of CO2 when you take into account their production. Long term, materials in solar and wind can be re-used. So you would need to mine them only once. Currently, mining is just too cheap to effectively recycle all metals.
Wind doesn't takes hardly any space. Wind is not compatible with airfields and residential areas, but that's about it. Wind mixes perfectly fine with argiculture.
Due to you people complaining about wind in their neighborhood, there is now a lot of wind at sea. The good thing about offshore wind is that typically there is more wind at sea. So the construction cost is higher, but the production is higher as well.
For solar it is more an issue of price. Putting solar on a field is cheap. To some extent putting solar on a field is good for nature. An undisturbed area with shadow is quite nice for small plants, insects, etc.
The potential for solar in urban areas is enormous, but often not cheap. For example, existing roofs of large building are not strong enough for lots of solar.
Solar can also be mixed with smaller scale argiculture.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#360Looks 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.
How is "people who don't do solution X for climate change are unserious" different from climate change denial exactly?
You're claiming entire governments are proposing and committing to expensive and sweeping actions, but because they've not done X (for possibly several different reasons) you are openly accusing them of not wanting to solve the problem. Why wouldn't they want to solve it? We are spending that money to avoid paying more later aren't we? It is a real problem, right? You think that, and you think they think that, correct? Because if you didn't this would just be climate change denial.
Why can't you just say, "I think X is an important part of solving the problem of climate change". Why does the conversation have to revolve around attacking other people who are trying to solve a problem you appear (on the surface) to agree is a problem?
Oh, just noticed the scare quotes around "climate emergency" in your comment so I guess you don't think its a real problem, you just really want them to use nuclear to solve the problem you don't think exists, which seems odd, but at the same time not unexpected.