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Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

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Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#411
post #410
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Germany is sane? People freezing to death in the richest country in the EU because it doesn't feel nice to admit that addressing your needs involves tradeoffs doesn't seem very sane to me.

Yes, Germany is sane. And no one is freezing to death here. The gas storages are almost filled (91%), so Germany won't run out of gas. I don't know why people need to tell so many lies about the German situtation at the moment. Yes, severe mistakes have been made in the past, mostly to have such a large dependency on Russia. But no need to invent things.

It's September ...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#412
post #411
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Germany is sane. And no one is freezing to death here. The gas storages are almost filled (91%), so Germany won't run out of gas. I don't know why people need to tell so many lies about the German situtation at the moment. Yes, severe mistakes have been made in the past, mostly to have such a large dependency on Russia. But no need to invent things.

It's September ...

Yes and? Gas consumption for heating is going to rise, but that is only one part. Germany has storage for 3 full months and of course the gas deliveries to Germany are going to continue and being intensified. There is no reason to assume that Germany would run out of gas. (And of course, private heating would be cut last, so no danger of freezing, if there every were any in Germany)

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kazakhstan is not part of Russia. Russia appears to be a very small supplier? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...

Uranium != nuclear fuel. Uranium has to be processed and enriched for use in reactors. I wouldn't be surprised if your list is raw, mined uranium and Russia imports and processes it.

At a glance, Russia does not appear to be a noteworthy importer of uranium ore. I would be somewhat surprised to learn Russia is exporting large quantities of enriched uranium across the globe.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#414
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

If there truly were unscheduled repairs then it seems odd that the parent, who's an active HN user since 2012, would throw away their credibility by spreading blatant falsehoods.

That is a really bizarre way of approaching the issue.

Here's a source: https://www.reuters.com/world/france-braces-uncertain-winter...

And Wikipedia has something of a timeline, with sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Crisis...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#415
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

>found during inspections in October 2021 That's a year ago, would you say they scheduled them for this year?

Perhaps, but I very much would not say that "Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating."

These are fairly big, disconcerting issues that are taking a long time to fix, not minor repairs that are part of routine maintenance: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fixing-edfs-reac...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post would be a lot more convincing without the easy scape goat identifying and cursing.

No, it's you choosing to cherry-pick it because I said "fucking". Grow up.

Act like a shithead, get ignored like a shithead.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#417
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was 70% in 2021 not 50%. so you can take my sample and apply the reduce to 20% if you want and get the same outcome: it still sends the signal that they going away from nuclear. any kind of shareholder would vote against investing in the field… dont understand what you dont understand there.

Yeah, that's a typo, 70%, as you can see from the rest of my comment about the fact that with the increasing electricity consumption it's barely a reduction in net terms. So it's not reducing by 20%, it's "with projected growth it will only account for 50% instead of 70%, so capacity will stay roughly the same, only refreshed". And again, shareholders don't matter, EDF has always been majority state owned. So I don't…

edf is owned by the french government the french government says they moving away from investing in the future of nuclear; the media permanently relayed it, you the CEO of EDF. what would you do? shareholders matter when i say shareholders I mean all shareholder including one of the majority owner, not even talking about the fact that germany and EU permanently pushed for more privatization of energy and constantly undermined nuclear in the EU. 5 years ago macron main goal was to CLOSE 15 reactors. after 5 years he wants to open guess how many? 15 reactors. I mean you can turn around the issue but he needs to be held accountable

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#418
post #280
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. The argument is lazy because it's false equivalence. A power plant failing suddenly is not the same thing as a power plant being taken offline to fix a known issue. edit: EDF has announced that they will be restarting their nuclear plant…

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

An unscheduled outage does have a spectrum to it - on the low/bad end there's a reactor scram. No one wants that. But there's also this case, where corrosion was found that needed to be repaired sometime "soon". Scheduling that work almost a year in the future does not count against their reliability score.

It's important to note that the river/lake water does not get sent through the reactor. The distilled water used inside the reactor is closely monitored for it's quality to prevent corrosion. There are heat exchangers between the two systems. The corrosion repair was probably in one or more of the heat exchangers (you don't want leaks between the two systems) or in the outer loop cooling pumps & piping.

Reactors need a reliable source of water for cooling. The ones near me use man-made lakes where they control the water level to assure a good supply of water. Recreational boating and lake-home real estate is a side benefit. If we had a California-level drought where the lake levels could not be maintained, then yes the reactors would have to be shut down. But dropping water levels are something that can be estimated and graphed on a chart. A shutdown in this case is unexpected and yes probably would be considered to be unscheduled.

I'm not sure in France's case where water consumption by the reactor would threaten the ecosystem due to a hot and dry summer. Likely the reverse since the water supply wouldn't be reliable any more. So far as water consumption by the reactors - the majority of the water gets returned to the river. It's warmer when it returns and that can cause algae growth, but it can also make for some good fishing (bass, bluegill, etc). Some reactors have cooling towers that work by evaporation, and that water gets returned to nature as rain.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't, you're confused about my original point. Nothing you said addresses what I wrote. Try going back and re-reading it.

I'm saying those claims were limited to the western world, they didn't address anything else. Where it is true that coal is on its way out.

No they weren't.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#420
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to be operating. That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was found during inspections in October 2021. Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used river water for cooling, wh…

If there truly were unscheduled repairs then it seems odd that the parent, who's an active HN user since 2012, would throw away their credibility by spreading blatant falsehoods.

I believe that Brazzy meant that the news report I linked to was lying. And that might be true. But I don't believe so because the incentives are there for EDF to get those reactors running as quickly as they can - while a reactor is idle it's not earning any money.

Reactors are hugely expensive to build - but not really all that expensive to run. A power company has loan payments to make regardless if the reactor is running or not, and they're going to want to minimize any downtime.

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