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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
441–450 of 450 posts
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a link to their models w.r.t +5 degrees? seems like an extraordinary number
You are correct, the 5 degree might be a bit high in this context. It's quite possible however in SSP5-8.5 and even SSP4-7.0 from IPCC's predictions for 2100 ([0] for instance). A more conservative 2-3 degrees might be more accurate for climate pledges [1]. This is based on quite a few assumptions tho and varies between authors. 2300 projections can go up to 12 degrees in IPCC AR5 WG1, Figure 12.5 [2] (for the old RC…
Thanks for the links.
How did CO2 become such a big focus?
Seemingly to detriment of all else, including persistent pollutants or neonics, etc? Like those very real problems happening today, vs 2100.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
well, with nuclear you're (and in this case, we're) still dependent on uranium mines and all the equipment that's require to build and maintain those power plants, some of which might not be manufactured in the countries
The top four producers of uranium (per tonnage) are Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia, Canada: * https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... Better than being dependent on oil and gas, especially if your current supplier is Russia.
uranium doesn't matter, its fairly common. It's enriching that uranium that is held closley and is considered the 'Hard' part.
Fun fact; This was the key measure in obamas iran deal. The US would give them the enriched uranium if they shut down their nuclear research.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing can replace gas 100%. Hyper-nuclearized France always produced (and now produces) between 7% and 12% of their gridpower thanks to fossil fuel (gas/petrol/coal). This is not about 100% but about obtaining a baseload. "we could do more if we invest more in wind turbines" is not obvious when it comes to continuity of production. Selling anything (even only 25% of your production) can be a financially wonderful o…
>Turning off production is only necessary if you cannot store more of it. Storing is not cheap and batteries are also diry. not green. My idea is that we need to work on all in parallel, solar, wind, research better and cleaner batteries, nuclear, fusion, invest in the grid and try to connect over larger distances. There will not be 1 solution that fits every place in the world.
> Storing is not cheap
True, however energy produced thanks to renewables already costs way less than its nuclear counterpart (and the gap is growing), offering a way to recoup investments (grid, storage...). Bonus: no risk of major accident, no fuel (uranium), no nuclear waster... https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020
Batteries aren't the sole way to store energy. Dams (potential energy), for example, are another one (already exploited and quite powerful and flexible). There are many other ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Methods
"work on all in parallel" (often massive) investments aiming at designing something isn't recouped as efficiently as possible (less units built). "work on a single one" bumping the probability of failure (all eggs in the same basket) There is a middle ground to find!
"invest in the grid" is of paramount importance. Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid
"connect over larger distances": indeed, and ways to do it are quickly progressing, as do relevant projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#445Looks 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.
> country is serious about the impending "climate emergency".
France gridpower-related emissions are low, however there was no progress for quite a while: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/court-rules-france...
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Batteries can store enough energy to last for a few weeks.
Industrial-scale batteries are far from a solved problem, and require a lot of excess energy production to fill them that doesn't already get depleted at night. A far more realistic solution is to be able to flex with things like gas plants that don't need to be always running and can function on demand.
There is a way to tackle part of this challenge by using distributed generic resources ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid ), especially thanks to a smart grid ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid ).
Gas plants can burn hydrogen (or methane...) produced thanks to electricity overproduced (produced when the grid doesn't need it) by renewables.
There are many ways to store energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Methods ).
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#447The suffering of Niger people will never end.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear looks to be about 3x as expensive as wind/solar [0] and that is assuming you use it at 100% of its capacity due to the high building cost and low marginal costs. Just looking at California, winter nights drop to about half of electric demand as summer days [1] so you'd have to pay even more for spare capacity. I think it would far cheaper to just build like 2x the wind/solar you need and use the surpluses to…
Based on first principle I simply believe nuclear is the better long term play. In terms of total resources and land required modern nuclear beat anything by order of magnitude. Current prices based on 40 year old technology are not my main concern. Nuclear is proven and proven at massive scale, its proven massive industrial nation can transition to almost 100% nuclear and can do so within a few decades. The method t…
> Nuclear is proven and proven at massive scale, its proven massive industrial nation can transition to almost 100% nuclear and can do so within a few decades.
France is part of the Synchronous grid of Continental Europe and thus can run their nuclear generators at 100% capacity all the time because the other countries around them use lower fixed cost/higher marginal cost energy sources. An entire electrical grid powered by nuclear energy would be far more expensive to run.
> The method that you advocate where you overbuild massive amounts of unsolved issues and it not even proven on a medium scale. And in the cost calculation sited don't account for the problem all in from production to distribution.
What is unproven about it? Wind/solar/methane power/storage is all done on a massive scale already. The only unproven part is the methane production but when you consider nuclear is 3x expensive for base and likely 6x expensive for peak, nuclear makes no sense.
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wholesale price is currently around £200/MWh, whilst the guaranteed price for electricity from Hinkley Point C is around £110/MWh. So no, it is not outrageously high.
No, was outrageously high, as highlighted at the time of approval by the National Audit Office. As I said, renewables are cheaper and faster to build: offshore wind a few years ago was given guaranteed strike prices of only £40/MWh. Current electricity spot prices are volatile because gas is expensive, not because nuclear is cheap. Besides, the government doesn't guarantee outrageous gas prices for thirty years.
Wow this thread was full of questionable comparisons eh...
Compare Hinkley's strike price to £40/MWh and don't mention the storage cost!
Compare Hinkley's strike price to £365/MWh and don't mention that's a spike not a long term average!
Take your pick :-)
Re: France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
All power in Europe is subsidies in so many different ways. An accurate comparison of prices is basically impossible. I would argue, by literally any meassure, French investment in nuclear in the 60-70 was absolutely paid off. CO2 saved in the 80s is far better then CO2 saved now. The only reason nuclear didn't become universal in the US is cheap coal plants. The US would be 100x better off if they had build a few 10…
The main reason is cost. Then gas plants undercut everything which had a steam cycle and the nuclear industry has been living on government handouts ever since. Alternating between "small and modular" and "big and efficient" to have something to try and hype with. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... > By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickl…
And instead of those nuclear plants they mostly build coal plants that are still costing money and hurting people one a massive scale.
If coal has been correctly accounted for in terms of human cost even outside of carbon, nuclear would have looked far better.
And what those numbers quote actually miss is that there was a period of massive over order of all kinds of plants, including coal that were canceled during 1970s economic problems. So the fact that people were over optimistic about the future in that period doesn't mean nuclear was bad. The economy simply didn't continue to boom as much as some people had predicted.
Even back then the inventiveness for US public utilities were structured in a way that makes it more viable to buy things that require continues fuel cost, rather then up front investment.
The simple fact is, externalizes include nuclear power would have dominated and would still do today. Short sighted politics and public fear is the reason it didn't happen.
Looking back at it, its actually a no brainer and countries like France who did it certainty didn't regret it. No massive pollution from coal plants with horrible environmental destruction around them, no dirty air, no mass destruction of country side because of coal mining. Far better energy independence.
> Alternating between "small and modular" and "big and efficient" to have something to try and hype with.
With molten salt or even just molten salt cooled reactors, you can be both small and efficient there is no conflict.
Had the US continued to invest in nuclear next generation reactors were well into development. However these were canceled. And very little private innovation took place from the on. Partly because it was incredibly hard to beat coal and later gas on cost and partly because regulation were hard coded to only be viable for PWR type reactors.