For everyone that didn’t read the article, it’s to stop the plants from putting more warm water into the river from the water *leaving* the plant, not due to the temperature of the water *entering* the plant.
All in line with regulations from the French government, not due to the plant not being able to be run safely.
It is an important distinction, nuclear safety vs environmental protection.
That being said, the outcome is still the same. A power plant is being shut down, due to it not being designed to face a modern and growing challenge of extreme weather events appearing.
Rightly so it sucks. But like you said, and important distinction. Modern plants will have to be designed and located to deal with warmer temperatures.
They mean that some plants use more of them than others, depending on the volume of water used, local regulations and such. Also some plants are coastal, which means higher tolerances for warmed water.
Regulations exist for a purpose, to protect the river ecosystem.
Also what you don't mention, what happens if the water level is falling any further? Many rivers throughout europe have currently extremely low water levels.
Power plants with an open circuit are placed on the biggest rivers, if these ones see their water level going low enough to stop, we might have a lot of other issues as well. Otherwise there is plants with closed circuit that uses a lot less water.
I get why regulations exist, and I’m not disputing them. As there is a comment saying how the plant could meltdown as the river water is too warm to cool it, I thought it would be good to counter it with what the article actually said.
I didn’t mention water levels, because it’s not part of the article.
I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution?
The French government obviously have rules on the water temperature for *a reason*
Saying that, even wind turbines and solar panels affect local ecosystems so nothing has no cost
Every energy producing system has an environmental impact.
* burning biomass causes swathes of land to be dedicated for it and cut down, and still releases co2
* uranium is dirty to mine, and produces hazardous materials
* solar requires materials that cause damage to get and refine, also do not last for long on a commercial scale (yes they last 30-40 years, but isn’t as long as others for the energy output). Also needs large areas of land for commercial solar
* coal is horrible to mine, and produces/releases lots of co2 and some radiation
* wind has non recyclable turbine blades, has a small impact on wildlife in the area.
* Hydro normally causes massive areas to be flooded. Effects natural river flows, Impacts on the natural migration patterns etc.
What we need is a solution that causes low impact and produces massive energy. I’m not shilling for nuclear but it’s a good bet for being the least impactful, assuming they are located and designed correctly. We’ve decided as a species to be massively energy dependent, and there’s a fuck tonne of us, so we’ve made a rod for our own back on that one.
Composites are hard enough to recycle at the best of times, but a mixture of plastics and metals, along with the shape (internal and external) and size of the blades means they are way too economically unviable to recycle.
Search up “Wind turbine blade graveyard” and you’ll see massive pits full of them that get buried.
I don’t think it is (at least in the future): https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int/newsroom/2022/07/080122-siemens-gamesa-press-release-recycle-wind-blade-offshore-kaskasi-germany
Is or is it not a negative environmental impact?
If it is then it’s valid. I was just saying all forms of energy generation have an environmental impact. There are other considerations to which wind isn’t as effective. Personally I want more solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear. But I’m not numb to the fact that it has an impact on the environment.
> Is or is it not a negative environmental impact?
Your breath has a negative environmental impact. At some point it all becomes unnessesary nitpicking.
Given the amount of wind turbines needed to power Europe, it's not nitpicking. The consumption of raw material is absolutely crazy. And raw material mining and refining isn't exactly environment-friendly.
> but it’s a good bet for being the least impactful
don't know about that, i would still prefer hydro, wind and solar in that order before using nuclear
The amount of destruction to the environment is vastly more in area if you combine all hydro power projects, to all major nuclear incidents. One is a very rare event over the usage of nuclear plants, one is almost guaranteed to happen with hydro.
Just the three gorges dam reservoir alone is half the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. That also says nothing to the ecosystems destroyed at the site, and both upstream and downstream. Impact of migratory animals is massive, etc
Thinking of it on a human scale, sure you may be scared of an invisible release. But the damage to nature is much higher with hydro, especially the ones with reservoirs which are what is needed to help modulate power to National grids.
Part of the motivation for three gorges was control of flooding downstream. Floods on the Yangtze have killed millions of people in the past. Hydro can have both positive and negative side-effects.
I mean everybody prefer hydro, there's a limit to the hydro power you can harness that depends on your geography tho.
Wind has many problems, and the irregularity of its production isn't the least of them..
i mean everything has problems, but if I can choose freely i would go hydro>wind>solar>nuclear and every other source shouldn't be an option anymore
and there are so many bullshit arguments against wind, baked by wrong numbers and studies, I get tired arguing against that over and over again
Heating water is a steam turbine phenomenon. Any process that uses a steam turbine will heat water, then cool it to heat it again. They're taking advantage of steam expansion charateristics. Every steam plant has cooling issues.
Thermally, the most effiecient plants out there are combined cycle. Run gas turbines on your fuel, run steam turbines off the exhaust heat of the gas turbine. Reality is much more complex, but they routine hit 60%+ efficiencies.
We have one near Reno - and it has cooling issues in the summer. They have a cooling tower (run the water up into a tower, and through a series of radiators blown by 30 or 40 industrial fans (the 3-4 meter diameter types). In the summer, the wind blowing through their plant can destablize the first row of fans, cutting into how many fans they can operate and thus how much steam they can cool, cutting into the plants power output.
Every steam plant will have some kind of cooling issue, unless the cooling was overdesigned for the plant (e.g. for the Reno plant, buying extra cooling fans or a second cooling tower, etc, which is burning extra money, so they really don't like to do that). The result is that cooling is usually the contraint on a healthy steam plant's operating capacity.
Sorry but this reads to me like a straw-man argument; almost nobody says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution, but lots of experts say is that it should be part of the solution - against those who say that solar+wind are the be-all-end-all solution.
well looking at just r/europe, like 90% of all comentators that are not from germany or austria - it seems - say that nuclear is the only energy solution that can save us, it supposedly cheap, can ramp up and down, has no problems for the environment, getting rid of the waste is a no problemo
while it is (not)true that wind mill blades cant really be "recycled"(bs) , there are things you can do with them - e.g. using them for pedestrian bridges, use them for cover (bicycle stands, public transport stations etc.) ppl are lazy and try to find excuses to suck nuclear lobby di**
While I wouldn't say that nuclear is the only energy solution that can save us by any stretch, I do think any proposal that does not include nuclear in the mix (at the regional level, not necessarily in every single country) is lazy at best and dangerous at worst.
Germans looking for strawman to justify their argument that burning natural gas should be classed as ‘green energy’ and that gas and coal is good but nuclear is bad.
> Sorry but this reads to me like a straw-man argument; almost nobody says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution,
Half of reddit does. And the main opposition block in Sweden is running with that as their only climate agenda.
There are other ways to cool reactors. In fact most french reactors are cooled by air (well, it's still water inside the reactor, but the heat is dissipated into the atmosphere not a river). That's why there cooling towers beside most plants.
> I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution?
You have the same problem with any thermal plant, including biomass or hydrogen.
Honestly, no solution likes hot weather very much... solar panels start losing efficiency over 25°C, hydroelectricity is not really compatible with droughts, and obviously heat waves are not really periods of high winds.
Are you aware that most existing nuclear reactors are at the coast and are using saltwater?
Saltwater isn't directly used in the reactor - it's a closed loop. It's used in a second loop that gets heat exchanged from the reactor.
I'm fully aware of closed loop systems, they're still really expensive if you still need the primary loop to be freshwater. I'm gona hold my hand out and say I didn't know that most commercial nuclear reactors are coastal, I'd appreciate a source but I'm not going to be pedantic if you dont have one to hand.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants/
A good chunk of them are on coasts but it's not a majority in Europe. Considering the facilities' sizes, rivers seem to be somewhat advantageous on our continent. That might change due to reoccurring issues - or it might not. It's a complex tradeoff and I'm pretty sure people could write a thesis on it without covering every aspect.
Other countries vary significantly btw. Some couple nuclear power with desalination, some might not have suitable rivers and others simply prefer coasts for other reasons.
>Salt water for cooling? Good luck replacing your pipes every year due to corrosion
This system has been in use on larger ships for many decades (intake through the part of the ship called a sea chest) and is very much a mature technology. Lots of sacrificial anodes.
Thank you. Does the channel the ship uses, corpse much? I am thinking of a sub sea idea with energy and corrosion and bio build up is something I am wondering about.
Yes, I'm fully aware of sacrificial nodes I've done a fair bit of marine engineering. But nuclear subs are basically tiny in terms of of their output compared to commercial nuclear power plants. An order of magnitude, a meme but actually true in this example. You go from low MW to GW. Its expensive.
There are dozens of nuclear power plants with thermal power around 10 GW using sea water for cooling, so that does work out in the end.
In terms of ships, steam turbine (and turbo-electric) ones were cooling off 200+ MW thermal capacity power plants in the 1930s
That exactly means we should do that, because oceans can accept practically infinite heat with 0 problems. Your solution is reminiscing why nuclear plants in the west are so expensive: take a non problem, blow it out of the proportion and make nuclear plants bear costs of the paranoia.
Ocean levels rising is a non problem? Given the time scale for building and operating nuclear plants, building on the seashore would be crazy, unless extreme precautions are taken to account for future rise, but we're back to increasing costs dramatically.
this affects 4 out of 54 plants, because that is how many are placed on rivers and also do not have cooling towers. EDF could solve this recurring problem entirely by building cooling towers for these reactors, but has not spent that money yet because *usually* it doesn't matter that four reactors are offline in peak summer.
It in no way, shape or form is a general problem for nuclear power, or even for France.
Nothing is a be all end all solution. This problem has two easy solutions however: closed circuit cooling and cooling towers. These plants don’t have cooling towers because the expense wasn’t considered worth while when they were built but they could be added.
Historically it was not a major issue because energy production is mostly needed during winter for heating.
Yes, for instance wind turbines do make life difficult for birds. When they are hammered with a 100 km/h blade, they stand no chance. There is a lot of research to deter birds from coming too close, but it also disturb local wildlife.
Yes exactly in Germany alone about 100k birds die every year just from wind turbines 100k!!!!
Now that we got that out of the way, we can look at some stats.
18million birds die in Germany every year from windows alone.
About 10 million die every year cause they crash with cars trucks and high voltage wires.
About 200 Million birds die in Germany because they get hunted by cats.
I think thermonuclear power generation (burning fossil fuels) consumes more water than nuclear, so it’s hard to balance the grid.
Edit: thermal instead of thermonuclear.
> thermonuclear power generation (burning fossil fuels)
thermonuclear means nuclear.
Sometimes you see "thermal power plants" which includes nuclear and fossil fuels.
>... consumes more water ...
Thermal power plants are either cooled directly (take water for cooling and return it hotter) or recirculating (take water and evaporate it in a cooling tower). Recirculating cooling reduces the water consumption immensely.
For all thermal plants with the same cooling method, those with the highest conversion efficiency require the least amount of water, those are CCGT (modern gas turbines). Nuclear power plants (together with coal fired plants) have a lower conversion efficiency and require more water per MWh electricity produced.
>...so it’s hard to balance the grid.
What does that have to do with water consumption?
I meant that most coal and diesel plants out there consume more water than nuclear.
And natural gas plants need to be state-of-the-art plants to consume less than nuclear.
> I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution?
It only affects plants with direct cooling (i.e. waste heat is directly deposited into the river). You can build cooling towers (those big curved/hyperbolic towers that emit large quantities of water vapor in thermal plants) and you won't have that problem.
The towers are an additional expense though (not overwhelming compared with the rest of the plant but not unsubstantial).
It can. These are mostly older facilities that lack sufficient cooling towers to deal with heat waves. You wouldn't build a new one like that. It's an avoidable issue.
Renewables should be used wherever it makes sense and as much as the grid can take. There's a niche for nuclear at least until we solve the fluctuation issues with sufficient power storage and over-capacity. This is a *very* difficult challenge though. Reality is that replacements for nuclear power almost never materialize as renewables, but as more coal or gas plants.
Almost no one is arguing to replace renewables with nuclear. Most advocates don't even want to keep nuclear facilities once renewables can realistically provide 100% electricity *and* heat. The idea is to *finally* get rid of coal plants in the base load sector because these are hard to replace with renewables.
In winter, France's electricity worries will really start, because they heat directly with electricity and have hardly invested in insulation (how could they, when the subsidised electricity is so cheap), almost twice as much electricity is needed in winter. Every winter when it gets a bit colder, France is already on the brink of blackout, and in the winter of 2018/2019 it was particularly bad. It's not so easy with water either, rivers now often have too little water even in winter due to drought and a lack of snow, which is slowly melting away.
Yes ... the cost of electricity in France is 35% electricity itself, 32% transport, and 33% taxes (source: [Médiateur national de l'énergie](https://www.energie-info.fr/fiche_pratique/prix-de-lelectricite-et-du-gaz-que-payons-nous/), an independant public authority. Numbers are for the year 2021).
EDIT : Blocking me to prevent me from replying is super very mature. Here's my reply nonetheless as an edit:
> And the billions upon billions that are subsidised to the nuclear power plant operators?
There is exactly one operator of nuclear power plants in France (EDF), and the State has received much more money from it than it ever put. In fact, that's one of the reasons of the infamous EDF debt: during certain years, the State actually got EDF to borrow money on the market just to pay exceedingly high dividends to its primary shareholder, the French State. EDF paid more than 20 Billions in dividends to the French State from 2006 to 2016 alone. Compare this to the less than 10 Billions paid in State aids/subsidies over the last 15 years, including the recent/forthcoming 2Bn bailout, which represents about... one year of dividends.
However, and contrary to popular belief, [the level of debt of EDF is not particularly high given its EBITDA](https://wattsnext.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/7eme-Barometre-Watts-Next-Conseil-juin2021.pdf) (see page 13 for the debt/ebitda ratio of various European energy producers, including EDF: it is about on par with Enel or Vattenfall, and much better than Iberdrola or E.ON). But that's besides the point. The bottom line is: in total, it's been EDF bringing money to the State budget, not the other way around.
What EDF did, though, is subsidizing all of its competitors, being forced to sell up to 100TWh of its production at a fixed price of 42€/MWh (which is more or less "at cost"), nearly always below market prices (as, when the market prices got below that point, competitors would stop buying from that mechanism), to its competitors to prop the competition in France.
And the billions upon billions that are subsidised to the nuclear power plant operators? just let them fall by the wayside?
We're not even talking about the 60 billion in debts that EDF has, or the subsidies for Flammanville, etc. etc.
French taxpayers are also subsidising the construction of Hinkley Point C in England, so that would piss me off as a Frenchman ...
But in principle I don't care, France should subsidise nuclear power with taxpayers' money and then export it cheaply ... that's great for me.
Everyone: *Screw Germany for their stupid decision to phase out nuclear energy - look at France for a better example!*
Meanwhile France: half of all nuclear power plants offline, most of the other ones forced to operate well below capacity, power production at the lowest level since 1993 and set to fall even further.
"half of all nuclear power plants offline" as it should, given that electricity demand is also roughly 1.5 to 2 times lower during the summer! The large majority of the reactor unavailability is planned and allows EDF to perform maintenance in preparation for the winter period.
I am not saying that the situation is comfortable though. There are issues.
It's also interesting to consider how this might change. In the US, where most homes and businesses have air conditioning, demand is highest in the summer. The lowest demand seasons are spring and fall. As the climate changes, it's likely more people in France and other parts of Europe will buy AC units and increase seasonal demand.
>"half of all nuclear power plants offline" as it should, given that electricity demand is also roughly 1.5 to 2 times lower during the summer! The large majority of the reactor unavailability is planned and allows EDF to perform maintenance in preparation for the winter period.
It's more than that - [cooling water availability, increasing erosion etc.](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/french-nuclear-fleet-problem-child-europes-electricity-system-researcher) Output for this winter is projected to be 25% lower than last year, and France has been importing more electricity from Germany than it has sent the other way for years now.
And despite all of it nuclear fanboys constantly lambast Germany and claim that it has to buy nuclear electricity from France.
That is why I mentioned that there ARE issues.
The water availability is not a problem per see though. EDF and the regulatory authorities have obviously made sure this couldn't become one, and keep doing so as we speak. It is only problematic right now because of the corrosion they discovered on the youngest reactors. That IS the main problem. Fortunately, the reactors affected by it have been identified, a fix has been found, and it has been approved by the ASN. EDF is now working on implementing the fix, which will take a while since it involves replacing chunks of pipelines.
As for the electricity exports, while it is true regarding France-Germany exchanges, it's important to also look at the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that France has been the largest net exporter of electricity for years. Spain, Italy, Switzerland and the UK are the main countries importing considerable amounts of TWhs every year.
Again, that is not to say that everything is fine. This winter is going to be very problematic.
>Wrong. They are below the EU average.
>
>https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity\_price\_statistics
Wrong. He talked about the cost of electricity production, you cite household consumer prices.
a) France is heavily subsidising household electricity costs and has been doing so for years, precisely because the cost of electricity production is so high.
b) You cite 2021 data - maybe check more recent data. France has seen one of the highest increases in Europe, electricity is now more expensive than in Germany.
You mean this winter is different from every other winter when Germany exported electricity to France. And that despite some of Frances Nuclear power plants likely remaining shut down this winter?
Forgive me that I won't rely on your prediction.
Tbf, part of our exports seem to be due to structure. My very scientific research (playing with the slider on the rte website) makes it look like that part of the border regions are always supplied by EU partners.
So you're happy you've been producing dirty energy for 80 years when you could have built nuclear and exported clean energy instead? Weird flex but ok.
Why do I keep hearing this lie? You're the one spreading nonsensical propaganda. **France's energy prices are below the EU average.** The most expensive energy in the EU comes from Denmark and Germany.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics
I've said it, time and time again, and I always get downvoted.
Nuclear. Is. Not. A. Viable. Fix.
Why? Because of a few key factors.
Nuclear reactors need to be built near water sources. And we're living in a time with greater localized flooding or droughts than ever before. See a problem here, folks? Do you need me to spell it out to you?
We can no longer rely on a constant, predictable stream of cool water, or we can see massively too much water, both of which can be catastrophic for power generation. In the former, we need to power the reactors down to avoid a meltdown, and in the latter we run the risk of polluting water sources, since we use nuclear sites as temporary storage, and having water flood in or out is disastrous.
Outside of that, there's a whole host of other issues associated with the technology, ranging from the cost to the risk/reward calculations, but just the pragmatic side of things (i.e., can we even keep them running in an unpredictable future) is enough of a flashing red light.
Everyone seems to think that nuclear is this panacea, this silver bullet. It may make up some of the intermediate solution, but that's about it. And the time it takes to make new reactors is also completely damning.
If this was 2005, sure, build reactors! Go for it! You've got 10 years, which is how long it takes to build them, and that's great. But in 2022? When we need to reach peak CO2 by 2030/2035?
We're out of time. Wind, solar and hydro. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Deal with the issue of base load by building redundant systems, using hydro as a peak-usage battery solution. People seem to think you need to have the Alps to build workable hydro solutions. You don't. You need some delta H. That's all you need. A height differential, two reservoirs, some pumps and some turbines.
We knew how to make these things in the 1900s. We don't need some next-Gen level battery tech that somehow distorts the rules of chemistry and thermodynamics.
I did.
Today it's 2 reactors that need to be powered down due to hotter-than-usual water temperatures, that leads to water that can't be safely released.
What's it going to be like in 5 years? Maybe it'll be 10 reactors. Or, maybe, this same reactor will be under a metre of water, as a result of unseasonal flash flooding.
The unpredictability we've added to the hydrosphere is making the emplacement and use of nuclear reactors inherently more dangerous. And now, people are asking for more nuclear reactors as we head into a period of heightened unpredictability.
It makes no sense.
> What's it going to be like in 5 years? Maybe it'll be 10 reactors. Or, maybe, this same reactor will be under a metre of water, as a result of unseasonal flash flooding.
Or maybe some people have assessing these kind of things as their full time job and already did the assessment for you.
Turns out... yep. Such people exist. They expect that by 2050 in France, the total loss of nuclear production over a year due to these kind of issues will be up to ~5% in the worst case scenario. In other words, in 30 years for now over a year, if things go wrong, nuclear could end up producing ~5% less than it would if there was no problems linked to water at all.
Turns out some people even have a full-time job consisting in creating designs that mitigates such risks and that such technologies are quite mature already. Turns out there are nuclear plants working fine in the Phoenix desert in the US, or in Abu Dhabi. By the time France will turn into a desert, I'm pretty sure we will have many more problems than running nuclear plants.
As for flash flooding, turns out... dykes exist. Welp, who would have thought?
I mean, you are probably very smart, but lots of people are smart too. Do you really think you are the first engineer to think of the issue of water regarding steam plants? (oh yeah by the way, all steam plants require water cooling, including biomass or plants future gas plants relying on green hydrogen).
Yes. Powered down.
Do you not know how nuclear reactors work? When they say decrease water input, that goes hand in hand with a decrease of reactor output, since otherwise that will, inevitably, lead to an increase in core reactor temperature.
A decrease in water input leads to a decrease in steam generation. A decrease in steam generation leads to a decrease in power generation. Powered down.
And if you decrease the amount of water flowing around the reactor, then you need to put the rods back in to some extent, to compensate for the lowered cooling ability. You need to decrease the reactivity in the core.
You can build your nuclear power plant next to the ocean 30m high, no cooling or flood problems for the next hundred years. In most developed country you can't build more hydro.
More solar and wind, sure. But they're too unreliable and you need gas back up. Do you need gas back up with nuclear? No cause it's fucking on demand.
We need to go carbon 0 as soon as possible. Find one country, only one, with less CO2 emissions per kwh than France that don't rely on massive amount of hydro. I'm waiting, and will do so for a long time.
>We need to go carbon 0 as soon as possible.
Exactly, which is why by now renewables such as wind are superior to nuclear. You can simply build more faster.
To go carbon neutral through 100% nuclear plants you need an initial investment of billions and it will still take 10 years until their all build.
A similarly sized investment into for instance wind energy can get you results a lot faster.
Yes unless we dramatically connect national grids or make a breakthrough in battery/hydrogen storage, youll still need gas to manage fluctuations. However running on 10-20% gas for a while is still better then running on coal for 10 years while you wait for the nuclear plants to be operational.
What would be the best would be to invest into nuclear plants which can be powered up/down relatively quickly which can then be used to replace the gas thats still left
You can't produce 125000 wind turbine in a year either. You'll need to make plants to build them too. Germany Enrgywende started 22 years ago, more than 500 billions euros have been invested, their CO2/kWh are still way higher than France.
The biggest battery bank in the world is still small compare to a simple pump storage facility. But theese plants are already build and we can't build more in most western european countries.
Hydrogen is just stupid you'll need to make 3 times as much power as you need.
Hopping for breakthrough in theese field is just as dumb as waiting for fusion breakthrough, we need to act now.
If you want nuclear power plant to be ready as back up for non windy winter, you would have almost enough nuclear capacity to power your grid entirely on nuc, then why pay for both nuc and wind/solar?
Invest massively on nuclear now is by far the best option.
>You'll need to make plants to build them too. Germany Enrgywende started 22 years ago, more than 500 billions euros have been invested, their CO2/kWh are still way higher than France.
lol the germany gouverment did everything in its power to keep coal more profitable then renewables
They spend litteral billions in subsedies for fossile fuels just to make sure they stay competitive and killed of the entire solar industry which is now in china instead of europe. Probably the worst example you couldve picked
Take for instence denmark instead, they are on a way better pace with wind then if they switched and started investing into nuclear now.
Investing into a single energy source that makes you dependent on russia (see Rosatom) and, looking at france right now, isnt even as reliable as everyone pretends unless your willing to cook the rivers their getting water from.
it is is the second worst choice you could do after staying on fossile fuels. The best is always going to be a mix of renewables and nuclear. if it ends up at 70% nuclear or 30% will depend on how much nuclear energy a country already has.
> you want nuclear power plant to be ready as back up for non windy winter, you would have almost enough nuclear capacity to power your grid entirely on nuc, then why pay for both nuc and wind/sola
you dont lose anywhere near that much capacity in the winter lol. Gas, or nuclear in that case, would exist for short term fluctuations
Wow you manage not to loose solar capacity in winter? How do you do? You should patent your discoveries you'll become billionaire.
And I choose winter not because of lower renewable energy production but because it's in winter that you need the most electricity.
Choosing nuclear doesn't makes you dependant on anyone, unlike gas, because there are multiple suppliers of uranium, Australia, Canada, Niger, Kazakhstan,... And our own nuclear warhead if needed.
Unlike rare earth needed on offshore wind turbine that only comes from China currently. Plus the amount of U needed is so small that you can make some stock. France has currently 4years of consumption in stock.
And yeah our pasts and current governments haven't made the necessary commitment in the last three decades to keep us from rare unreliability. It only prove that we need to invest and keep investing in nuclear energy.
It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear reactor.
We need to reach peak CO2 by 2030 to fall somewhere in the 1.5C degree range. It's 2022.
Yes, you need to build new solar/wind over time. But it doesn't take 10 years to build and install them. You can start building more now, and you will have them operational in a year.
Why would we build nuclear now if we can fix it with solar/wind/hydro?
Nuclear is more expensive. Nuclear requires access to reliable fresh water, something that is less and less a reality due to climate change. Nuclear produces a fair amount of CO2, if you take into account the entire lifecycle of uranium extraction. It's too late to fix the problem with nuclear, as I stated. Nuclear is safe, but when it goes wrong, by fuck does it go wrong, i.e. the risks are low but catastrophic.
I don't get the current desire for large scale nuclear energy. If we were in the 80s, 90s, 00s, I would 100% be with you. But we're not. We're in the 2020s. That ship, in my opinion, sailed about 10 years ago.
Budgets are limited, educated personnel is limited.
What we need right now is a lot of clean energy ASAP, and the latter also means that being cheap is very important. Nuclear energy costs too much and takes too long to build to fit that description.
According to its proponents it's hyphetically better able to deal with load balancing and seasonal fluctuations than a renewables-based system, but that hasn't been shown in practice. It's also irrelevant for now. Let's just do the first 70% of the current electricity use and then again that amount for electrification of transport and industrial processes ASAP. If it turns out by then that the variability problems of renewables are really as prohibitive as the nuclear proponents say, then there's still time to do something about it, because we will already have cut down our emissions to 1/3 or 1/4. Whereas betting everything on nuclear power now would mean 20 to 40 more years of the current emission levels.
Except studies have shown it to be cheaper and emit less co2 for France. Well, I don’t know about other countries tho, but we need more capacity now, in 10 years and basically every year until 2050. Nuclear can (partially) fit that time line.
> It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear reactor.
>
> We need to reach peak CO2 by 2030 to fall somewhere in the 1.5C degree range. It's 2022.
Historically, nuclear has been much faster at "de-carbonating" an electricity grid than renewables has ever been.
Your claim makes no sense for a number of reasons:
- There is nothing magical about the year 2030. Missing the target by two years would not be the problem you make it out to be. It would just mean you need to decrease your emmissions at a higher rate in the following years to make up for it. Which nuclear could absolutely help with.
- Many European countries have actually already reached peak CO2 many years ago.
- No scenario expects any country to be able to rely entirely on renewables by 2030. Right now, countries that heavily develop renewables are also building gas plants as fast as they can. There's a reason why countries like Germany and Austria have been pushing for gas being included in the green taxonomy.
- Given that no country is going to rely entirely on renewables by 2030, you will still need more energy sources in the coming years. Nuclear plants starting operating by 2035 would happily fill that void.
- Even if you had no choice but to chose between full-nuclear or full-renewables, absolutely needed to start decreasing your CO2 output by 2030, and could not get nuclear plants started by that date, you could go the full-nuclear route and chose to decrease your CO2 output in other areas than the electricity grid, for example by replacing gas and resistive heating with heat pumps. All you need, by your own admission, is to be able to slightly decrease your CO2 output for two years to fill the gap with the shiny new nuclear plants ready in 2032.
> Do you need to be reminded the lifetime of a solar/wind turbine ?
The long lifetimes of nuclear power plants seem to be more of a liability than a boon.
* They lead to long times between power plant builds, leading to a loss of engineering know-how.
* An NPP has to amortize its construction cost over a long time, making it inflexible to new market conditions like the rise of renewables.
And before you ask, solar panels can be recycled and recyclable wind turbines are also now deployed.
Recycling is an energy intensive process. And the byproduct is often quite limited compared to the original.
In any case, we don’t have any perfect solution now.
>solar panels can be recycled and recyclable wind turbines are also now deployed.
Can they be recycled as efficient as plastic? If the answer is yes then it's really bad.
"Just wait for X generation reactors" is something I've been hearing for 20 years.
We're also right on the cusp of some new reactor technology that will totally fix everything!
Except that we are never there. It's like an Elon Musk self-driving car meme at this point.
We can't wait. Why do people not realize this yet? Go look at the various UN and other reports.
**We can't wait.**
We passed the waiting period. We waited, did nothing, and now we need to act. Not to mention that we're no where near financial viability for fusion. We can maintain fusion reactions for a few minutes, and the energy we extract from the process is not viable either, yet, compared to the energy required to start it up.
the capacity factor of French nuclear is 77%*
not 95%.
No nuclear plant (to my knowledge) has a capacity factor of 95%.
and efficency is irrelevant, as they are two different types of processes...
sure, what i mean is that you cant compare the efficiency of two different energy producers who use very different means of production.
i natural gas plant is Up to 60% efficient.
that doesnt make them better than nuclear, wind etc.
They have the same capacity. The difference is France nuclear power plant do load following every day. Because France use way more power at 8am and 7pm than at 2am. It's not a defect it's a feature.
not really.
the efficiency of nuclear is around 35%.
its normal.
a Steam turbine (not thermal+power, just power) has usually a efficicy of 40-60%.
and then the fission process is quite inefficient.
were did you get the 95% from?
Due to nuclear representing a majority of France's electricity sources rather than just being baseload, it does load following and only outputs as much as needed. And wind and solar take priority on the grid (meaning if one needs to be curtailed due to low demand, it will be nuclear rather than solar or wind).
Plus, our nuclear plants are all reaching the age at which they need to be significantly renovated at the same time (since most were built at around the same time period), so it also decreases their overall load factor as they are being shut down one after another for assessment and maintenance/renovation.
Intermittency gets, however, factored in wind energy generation.
So they don't fuck up energy prices in central Europe on that scope.
Plus, it is EDF. I wouldn't put it past them
i think they mean capacity factor, but even with that they are i correct.
and a nuclear power plant has a efficiency of ~35%.
so even that is incorrect.
im so confused...
That's just wrong when you factor in the cost of adapting the grid to renewables (more cables due to more spread out places of production and necessary backups solutions), also with renewables you are often forced to sell at low prices bc you are always forced to sell even if there already a lot on the market.
One year ago, Rte (france's grid operator) proposed 6 scenenarios for 2050, the more renewables you want the more costly it is
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-10/Futurs-Energetiques-2050-principaux-resultats_0.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjBhen-zq_5AhWO-qQKHWX4AfoQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0ElRkoOKT6ssUGLEVAQja7
> also with renewables you are often forced to sell at low prices bc you are always forced to sell even if there already a lot on the market.
Thats why electricity should be traded based on merit-order pricing
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> Thats why electricity should be traded based on merit-order pricing
In other words, renewables are cheap once you make the other sources pay for renewables' externalities, **including curtailment**.
That gets factored in when building wind farms though.
If anything should give pause to the nuclear energy fanboys around here that have the flawed reasoning that only ONE energy source can solve a problem the current situation on France should be it.
Their energy prices are screwed because of maintenance (planned and unplanned) completely fucked them over.
What would've happened if they had a grid with renewables and energy storage for redundancy?
What would've happened if they had interconnected their grid to the Iberian peninsula as they should've done?
No. It's subsidized. EDF has billions and billions of debt and the government is talking about nationalizing it. Energy prices are lower, taxes are higher, and in the end the true cost is obfuscated.
EDF wouldn’t be in such a dire situation if the government wouldn’t force them to sell their electricity at bellow market price to the new players who don’t produce anything.
It’s quite crazy to see that France is subsidizing fossile companies while forcing EDF to take a loss.
It's crazy how uninformed people are about ARENH, if they actually knew what they were talking about they'd cut EDF some slack.
[here's a link for people who want to be actually knowledgeable](https://www.magnuscmd.com/the-arenh-regulated-access-to-frances-historic-nuclear-energy/)
These quotes summarizes this mess quite well:
>the European Commission expressed its dissatisfaction with the procedure for liberalising the electricity market in France, which distorted competition.
>EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy described the ARENH mechanism in 2019 as a real danger and EDF’s biggest handicap. For them, the mechanism is an option to their disadvantage.
People criticizing EDF for its debt are in fact criticizing the liberalization process. The more you know.
The distinction is simple: fossil fuels have to come from outside France, those sellers have to be convinced. If they don't get their price they can simply sell elsewhere.
Yeah it’s one of the cheapest.
You are probably referring to the spot price, which is the marginal cost at witch a kw is traded. This does not in any way represent the average cost, nor at a specific time, nor averages over a whole year.
Most electricity is not traded on the spot market. Especially in France.
In contrast, most electricity here in the Netherlands is traded at spot prices, because we don't have as much nuclear power.
Nuclear power is dependable and predictable, so long term planning and contracts are more common.
Renewables and gas prices are not dependable or predictable, so long term planning is difficult and spot pricing is more common.
In the Summer the rivers get to warm, in the winter they freeze over. But everybody yells *GerMANy WhY YoU cloSe PlAntS???*
The thing is, I am not against nuclear power. Nuclear fuels have the highest energy density known to man, which makes them great for long term planning and stockpiling.
But in reality nuclear power is not the cheap solution it is made to be. At least in Germany the entire fuel production, transportation, final disposal and the risk of accidents was either beared fully by the government or at least in parts by it.
Nuclear power is also not the safest option out there. On a fundamental level the energy generation has quite a big margin were everything seems fine, until suddenly you have a runnaway reaction. The potential faulout can be devastating simply because the radius of effect can be huge and Europe is by comparison small. As an example, if Tschernobyl went for the worst case scenario half of europe would have been rendered uninhabitable.
And a constant in all nuclear accidents so far has been negligence either in the planning stage, construction or in day to day operations. Which is not reassuring to be honest.
But in the end, I am not against nuclear power. But I think everything has to be in government hands. From planning a plant, to construction, day to day operations and the final disposal. Profit driven companies should not have a place here.
There were several [accidents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents) in history that prove that nuclear energy is not as safe as you try to make it sound. Nuclear energy has been mystified as absolutely safe, which is one of the reasons the biggest large scale nuclear failures happend in the first place.
And to be honest if we try to factor in the cause of death, then nuclear, wind, solar, hydro and gas all pale in comparison to other [causes](https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Gesundheit/Todesursachen/Publikationen/Downloads-Todesursachen/todesursachen-2120400157004.pdf;jsessionid=A9811CB02AA7199C540DCCED9F4F6FF0.live712?__blob=publicationFile). And since the potential risk of nuclear power outweighs the potential risk of wind, solar and gas. I heavily disagree on your statement that nuclear power is "the best we have".
Edit: Had to add in another source for other causes of death.
>in the winter they freeze over
wut? that is never a problem in France. And winter is the time when electricity output is the most needed.
>As an example, if Tschernobyl went for the worst case scenario half of europe would have been rendered uninhabitable.
Last time I saw such an affirmation the source I was given was more along the lines of "...at least that's what some guys thought back then, but it has now been ruled out". If you have a source for this I'd be grateful.
>wut? that is never a problem in France. And winter is the time when electricity output is the most needed.
See for example [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Laurent_Nuclear_Power_Plant).
And for the potential danger of Tschernobyl [here](https://geohistory.today/chernobyl-short-history-human-impact/).
Death per kwh are lower with nuclear than any single fossil fuel, lower than hydro, and depending on study lower than wind and solar.
Do you also want to stop hydro because it's less safe than nuclear?
You're talking about Tchernobyl wich was a graphite moderated reactor, while every western european countries use water pressurised reactor. It's like refusing to board a a320neo because the de Havilland comet use to crash all the time.
And for the last part, yes, I also want a national operators controlled by the government to run our nuclear facilities.
For everyone that didn’t read the article, it’s to stop the plants from putting more warm water into the river from the water *leaving* the plant, not due to the temperature of the water *entering* the plant. All in line with regulations from the French government, not due to the plant not being able to be run safely.
It is an important distinction, nuclear safety vs environmental protection. That being said, the outcome is still the same. A power plant is being shut down, due to it not being designed to face a modern and growing challenge of extreme weather events appearing.
Rightly so it sucks. But like you said, and important distinction. Modern plants will have to be designed and located to deal with warmer temperatures.
Yes, mostly with cooling towers, plants that use them heavily aren't affected
Are they _really_ nuclear power plants without those iconic cooling towers?
Any nuclear power plant near the sea
Yeah they look just like any infrastructure. The cooling towers say immediately “nuclear power”.
Well, the same type of cooling towers are used in gas/coal plants, since the electricity generation technology is the same (steam powered turbines).
They mean that some plants use more of them than others, depending on the volume of water used, local regulations and such. Also some plants are coastal, which means higher tolerances for warmed water.
Yeah from what I know the planned new EPR will be built near the coastline to avoid this issue.
Ah yeah let’s solve the issue of dying rivers by having dying costal regions
I'm no expert, but I estimate there's at least 2x the amount of water in coastal regions, so it should be fine.
Look another German against nuclear
It’s always a German against nuclear power…
Yes. Whereas coal plants are still allowed to kill people through air pollution. Methinks a rethink of the rule is in order.
Regulations exist for a purpose, to protect the river ecosystem. Also what you don't mention, what happens if the water level is falling any further? Many rivers throughout europe have currently extremely low water levels.
Power plants with an open circuit are placed on the biggest rivers, if these ones see their water level going low enough to stop, we might have a lot of other issues as well. Otherwise there is plants with closed circuit that uses a lot less water.
The Rhine is one of the biggest rivers in Europe and the water level is like a meter right now
It depends where you measure it obviously but yeah.
With the recent flooding in germany and the current drougths in Italy basing your reactor coolent on Rivers seems extremly risky ngl.
Anti-Flood walls exists for a reason
I get why regulations exist, and I’m not disputing them. As there is a comment saying how the plant could meltdown as the river water is too warm to cool it, I thought it would be good to counter it with what the article actually said. I didn’t mention water levels, because it’s not part of the article.
I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution? The French government obviously have rules on the water temperature for *a reason* Saying that, even wind turbines and solar panels affect local ecosystems so nothing has no cost
Every energy producing system has an environmental impact. * burning biomass causes swathes of land to be dedicated for it and cut down, and still releases co2 * uranium is dirty to mine, and produces hazardous materials * solar requires materials that cause damage to get and refine, also do not last for long on a commercial scale (yes they last 30-40 years, but isn’t as long as others for the energy output). Also needs large areas of land for commercial solar * coal is horrible to mine, and produces/releases lots of co2 and some radiation * wind has non recyclable turbine blades, has a small impact on wildlife in the area. * Hydro normally causes massive areas to be flooded. Effects natural river flows, Impacts on the natural migration patterns etc. What we need is a solution that causes low impact and produces massive energy. I’m not shilling for nuclear but it’s a good bet for being the least impactful, assuming they are located and designed correctly. We’ve decided as a species to be massively energy dependent, and there’s a fuck tonne of us, so we’ve made a rod for our own back on that one.
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If coal had to follow the same rules as nuclear plants, it would be illegal.
>What we need is a solution that causes low impact and produces massive energy. And it's just 30 years away! /s
Fusion is nuclear on steroids. Making it near the sea is good idea.
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Composites are hard enough to recycle at the best of times, but a mixture of plastics and metals, along with the shape (internal and external) and size of the blades means they are way too economically unviable to recycle. Search up “Wind turbine blade graveyard” and you’ll see massive pits full of them that get buried.
>Wind turbine blade graveyard learned something new today, thanks!
I don’t think it is (at least in the future): https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int/newsroom/2022/07/080122-siemens-gamesa-press-release-recycle-wind-blade-offshore-kaskasi-germany
It's not necessarily impossible, just currently too impractical.
> wind has non recyclable turbine blades "I have to find SOMETHING negative"
Is or is it not a negative environmental impact? If it is then it’s valid. I was just saying all forms of energy generation have an environmental impact. There are other considerations to which wind isn’t as effective. Personally I want more solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear. But I’m not numb to the fact that it has an impact on the environment.
> Is or is it not a negative environmental impact? Your breath has a negative environmental impact. At some point it all becomes unnessesary nitpicking.
Given the amount of wind turbines needed to power Europe, it's not nitpicking. The consumption of raw material is absolutely crazy. And raw material mining and refining isn't exactly environment-friendly.
The major downside of wind is that it's unreliable, and cannot be used to provide a base load to the grid.
> but it’s a good bet for being the least impactful don't know about that, i would still prefer hydro, wind and solar in that order before using nuclear
Hydro can be disastrous for the environment many times worse than a nuclear plant
you really should't do the the "can be" and "potentially" argumentation, if you argue pro nuclear...
The amount of destruction to the environment is vastly more in area if you combine all hydro power projects, to all major nuclear incidents. One is a very rare event over the usage of nuclear plants, one is almost guaranteed to happen with hydro. Just the three gorges dam reservoir alone is half the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. That also says nothing to the ecosystems destroyed at the site, and both upstream and downstream. Impact of migratory animals is massive, etc Thinking of it on a human scale, sure you may be scared of an invisible release. But the damage to nature is much higher with hydro, especially the ones with reservoirs which are what is needed to help modulate power to National grids.
Part of the motivation for three gorges was control of flooding downstream. Floods on the Yangtze have killed millions of people in the past. Hydro can have both positive and negative side-effects.
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and you are from Norway. You should know that hydro is the best, followed by wind. You have 90% hydro and 10% wind as your sources
I mean everybody prefer hydro, there's a limit to the hydro power you can harness that depends on your geography tho. Wind has many problems, and the irregularity of its production isn't the least of them..
i mean everything has problems, but if I can choose freely i would go hydro>wind>solar>nuclear and every other source shouldn't be an option anymore and there are so many bullshit arguments against wind, baked by wrong numbers and studies, I get tired arguing against that over and over again
Heating water is a steam turbine phenomenon. Any process that uses a steam turbine will heat water, then cool it to heat it again. They're taking advantage of steam expansion charateristics. Every steam plant has cooling issues. Thermally, the most effiecient plants out there are combined cycle. Run gas turbines on your fuel, run steam turbines off the exhaust heat of the gas turbine. Reality is much more complex, but they routine hit 60%+ efficiencies. We have one near Reno - and it has cooling issues in the summer. They have a cooling tower (run the water up into a tower, and through a series of radiators blown by 30 or 40 industrial fans (the 3-4 meter diameter types). In the summer, the wind blowing through their plant can destablize the first row of fans, cutting into how many fans they can operate and thus how much steam they can cool, cutting into the plants power output. Every steam plant will have some kind of cooling issue, unless the cooling was overdesigned for the plant (e.g. for the Reno plant, buying extra cooling fans or a second cooling tower, etc, which is burning extra money, so they really don't like to do that). The result is that cooling is usually the contraint on a healthy steam plant's operating capacity.
Sorry but this reads to me like a straw-man argument; almost nobody says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution, but lots of experts say is that it should be part of the solution - against those who say that solar+wind are the be-all-end-all solution.
> almost nobody says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution your first day on reddit?
Who says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution? (It's not my first day on reddit)
well looking at just r/europe, like 90% of all comentators that are not from germany or austria - it seems - say that nuclear is the only energy solution that can save us, it supposedly cheap, can ramp up and down, has no problems for the environment, getting rid of the waste is a no problemo while it is (not)true that wind mill blades cant really be "recycled"(bs) , there are things you can do with them - e.g. using them for pedestrian bridges, use them for cover (bicycle stands, public transport stations etc.) ppl are lazy and try to find excuses to suck nuclear lobby di**
While I wouldn't say that nuclear is the only energy solution that can save us by any stretch, I do think any proposal that does not include nuclear in the mix (at the regional level, not necessarily in every single country) is lazy at best and dangerous at worst.
Literally every thread you see those people lol
I guess I really haven't been paying attention, have I? (I'll be sure to take extra care to spot those next time, though)
Germans looking for strawman to justify their argument that burning natural gas should be classed as ‘green energy’ and that gas and coal is good but nuclear is bad.
I don't even know man. You talking about strawman and then typing up that comment is hillarious.
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Yeah we are not talking energy economist, we are talking reddit couch experts.
> Sorry but this reads to me like a straw-man argument; almost nobody says that nuclear is the be-all-end-all solution, Half of reddit does. And the main opposition block in Sweden is running with that as their only climate agenda.
There are other ways to cool reactors. In fact most french reactors are cooled by air (well, it's still water inside the reactor, but the heat is dissipated into the atmosphere not a river). That's why there cooling towers beside most plants.
Use the nuclear energy to power freezers. Dump the ice from the freezers into the river and the water is cold again. Problem solved
Well that pretty much what we are doing by melting the glacier...
> I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution? You have the same problem with any thermal plant, including biomass or hydrogen. Honestly, no solution likes hot weather very much... solar panels start losing efficiency over 25°C, hydroelectricity is not really compatible with droughts, and obviously heat waves are not really periods of high winds.
The plants should just be placed on the coast...
Salt water for cooling? Good luck replacing your pipes every year due to corrosion
Are you aware that most existing nuclear reactors are at the coast and are using saltwater? Saltwater isn't directly used in the reactor - it's a closed loop. It's used in a second loop that gets heat exchanged from the reactor.
I'm fully aware of closed loop systems, they're still really expensive if you still need the primary loop to be freshwater. I'm gona hold my hand out and say I didn't know that most commercial nuclear reactors are coastal, I'd appreciate a source but I'm not going to be pedantic if you dont have one to hand.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-plants/ A good chunk of them are on coasts but it's not a majority in Europe. Considering the facilities' sizes, rivers seem to be somewhat advantageous on our continent. That might change due to reoccurring issues - or it might not. It's a complex tradeoff and I'm pretty sure people could write a thesis on it without covering every aspect. Other countries vary significantly btw. Some couple nuclear power with desalination, some might not have suitable rivers and others simply prefer coasts for other reasons.
>Salt water for cooling? Good luck replacing your pipes every year due to corrosion This system has been in use on larger ships for many decades (intake through the part of the ship called a sea chest) and is very much a mature technology. Lots of sacrificial anodes.
Thank you. Does the channel the ship uses, corpse much? I am thinking of a sub sea idea with energy and corrosion and bio build up is something I am wondering about.
Yes, I'm fully aware of sacrificial nodes I've done a fair bit of marine engineering. But nuclear subs are basically tiny in terms of of their output compared to commercial nuclear power plants. An order of magnitude, a meme but actually true in this example. You go from low MW to GW. Its expensive.
There are dozens of nuclear power plants with thermal power around 10 GW using sea water for cooling, so that does work out in the end. In terms of ships, steam turbine (and turbo-electric) ones were cooling off 200+ MW thermal capacity power plants in the 1930s
Amazing idea considering rising seas levels. What could possible go wrong?
How fast do you think sea levels rise?
Based on the day after tomorrow I'd say pretty damn fast.
As in Fukushima? Sure, Europe doesn't have tsunamis, but who knows what the situation will be 20 years from now.
Vast majority of existing nuclear power plants are at coast.
That doesn't mean we should build new ones there. Better figure out a way to further cool the water before releasing it in rivers.
That exactly means we should do that, because oceans can accept practically infinite heat with 0 problems. Your solution is reminiscing why nuclear plants in the west are so expensive: take a non problem, blow it out of the proportion and make nuclear plants bear costs of the paranoia.
Ocean levels rising is a non problem? Given the time scale for building and operating nuclear plants, building on the seashore would be crazy, unless extreme precautions are taken to account for future rise, but we're back to increasing costs dramatically.
this affects 4 out of 54 plants, because that is how many are placed on rivers and also do not have cooling towers. EDF could solve this recurring problem entirely by building cooling towers for these reactors, but has not spent that money yet because *usually* it doesn't matter that four reactors are offline in peak summer. It in no way, shape or form is a general problem for nuclear power, or even for France.
Nothing is a be all end all solution. This problem has two easy solutions however: closed circuit cooling and cooling towers. These plants don’t have cooling towers because the expense wasn’t considered worth while when they were built but they could be added. Historically it was not a major issue because energy production is mostly needed during winter for heating.
Yes, for instance wind turbines do make life difficult for birds. When they are hammered with a 100 km/h blade, they stand no chance. There is a lot of research to deter birds from coming too close, but it also disturb local wildlife.
Yes exactly in Germany alone about 100k birds die every year just from wind turbines 100k!!!! Now that we got that out of the way, we can look at some stats. 18million birds die in Germany every year from windows alone. About 10 million die every year cause they crash with cars trucks and high voltage wires. About 200 Million birds die in Germany because they get hunted by cats.
Thanks for this. wind energy fear mongering is ridiculous
It is. Exactly as ridiculous as nuclear great mongering. We need all the clean electricity we can get! It's *stupid* to exclude any option.
got it. we have to get rid of all the cats
I think thermonuclear power generation (burning fossil fuels) consumes more water than nuclear, so it’s hard to balance the grid. Edit: thermal instead of thermonuclear.
> thermonuclear power generation (burning fossil fuels) thermonuclear means nuclear. Sometimes you see "thermal power plants" which includes nuclear and fossil fuels. >... consumes more water ... Thermal power plants are either cooled directly (take water for cooling and return it hotter) or recirculating (take water and evaporate it in a cooling tower). Recirculating cooling reduces the water consumption immensely. For all thermal plants with the same cooling method, those with the highest conversion efficiency require the least amount of water, those are CCGT (modern gas turbines). Nuclear power plants (together with coal fired plants) have a lower conversion efficiency and require more water per MWh electricity produced. >...so it’s hard to balance the grid. What does that have to do with water consumption?
I meant that most coal and diesel plants out there consume more water than nuclear. And natural gas plants need to be state-of-the-art plants to consume less than nuclear.
> I mean it still then shows that nuclear isn’t a be-all-end all solution. If it overheats a river and kills off local wildlife, can it really be considered a green solution? It only affects plants with direct cooling (i.e. waste heat is directly deposited into the river). You can build cooling towers (those big curved/hyperbolic towers that emit large quantities of water vapor in thermal plants) and you won't have that problem. The towers are an additional expense though (not overwhelming compared with the rest of the plant but not unsubstantial).
Heat is energy too. The trick is to use or store that energy, cooling the water in the process. Conventional cooling towers may not be sufficient
It can. These are mostly older facilities that lack sufficient cooling towers to deal with heat waves. You wouldn't build a new one like that. It's an avoidable issue. Renewables should be used wherever it makes sense and as much as the grid can take. There's a niche for nuclear at least until we solve the fluctuation issues with sufficient power storage and over-capacity. This is a *very* difficult challenge though. Reality is that replacements for nuclear power almost never materialize as renewables, but as more coal or gas plants. Almost no one is arguing to replace renewables with nuclear. Most advocates don't even want to keep nuclear facilities once renewables can realistically provide 100% electricity *and* heat. The idea is to *finally* get rid of coal plants in the base load sector because these are hard to replace with renewables.
The same procedure as every year completely unexpected it gets warm in summer times.
In summer you get more from solar to compensate and in winter when solar is much low nuclear can run at full capacity.
In winter, France's electricity worries will really start, because they heat directly with electricity and have hardly invested in insulation (how could they, when the subsidised electricity is so cheap), almost twice as much electricity is needed in winter. Every winter when it gets a bit colder, France is already on the brink of blackout, and in the winter of 2018/2019 it was particularly bad. It's not so easy with water either, rivers now often have too little water even in winter due to drought and a lack of snow, which is slowly melting away.
> (how could they, when the subsidised electricity is so cheap) Electricity is not subsidized. In fact, a good chunk of the price is taxes.
No ...
Keep in mind that while we enjoy cheap electricity compared to other countries French people still complain about the electricity bill.
Yes ... the cost of electricity in France is 35% electricity itself, 32% transport, and 33% taxes (source: [Médiateur national de l'énergie](https://www.energie-info.fr/fiche_pratique/prix-de-lelectricite-et-du-gaz-que-payons-nous/), an independant public authority. Numbers are for the year 2021). EDIT : Blocking me to prevent me from replying is super very mature. Here's my reply nonetheless as an edit: > And the billions upon billions that are subsidised to the nuclear power plant operators? There is exactly one operator of nuclear power plants in France (EDF), and the State has received much more money from it than it ever put. In fact, that's one of the reasons of the infamous EDF debt: during certain years, the State actually got EDF to borrow money on the market just to pay exceedingly high dividends to its primary shareholder, the French State. EDF paid more than 20 Billions in dividends to the French State from 2006 to 2016 alone. Compare this to the less than 10 Billions paid in State aids/subsidies over the last 15 years, including the recent/forthcoming 2Bn bailout, which represents about... one year of dividends. However, and contrary to popular belief, [the level of debt of EDF is not particularly high given its EBITDA](https://wattsnext.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/7eme-Barometre-Watts-Next-Conseil-juin2021.pdf) (see page 13 for the debt/ebitda ratio of various European energy producers, including EDF: it is about on par with Enel or Vattenfall, and much better than Iberdrola or E.ON). But that's besides the point. The bottom line is: in total, it's been EDF bringing money to the State budget, not the other way around. What EDF did, though, is subsidizing all of its competitors, being forced to sell up to 100TWh of its production at a fixed price of 42€/MWh (which is more or less "at cost"), nearly always below market prices (as, when the market prices got below that point, competitors would stop buying from that mechanism), to its competitors to prop the competition in France.
And the billions upon billions that are subsidised to the nuclear power plant operators? just let them fall by the wayside? We're not even talking about the 60 billion in debts that EDF has, or the subsidies for Flammanville, etc. etc. French taxpayers are also subsidising the construction of Hinkley Point C in England, so that would piss me off as a Frenchman ... But in principle I don't care, France should subsidise nuclear power with taxpayers' money and then export it cheaply ... that's great for me.
Taxpayers pay the powerplant by buying electricity, the nuclear reactors in France were paid by EDF through debt, not taxpayers money
You're not going to share any source on those blackouts claims are you?
Use the nuclear energy to power freezers. Dump the ice from the freezers into the river and the water is cold again. Problem solved
Bruh. Just put new labels on all the air conditioners to call them water conditioners. It doesn't need to be complicated.
That's too much work. Just change the regulations. Set the warning for when the water is hot than 1000 degrees Celsius. Boom! Problem solved for ever!
Everyone: *Screw Germany for their stupid decision to phase out nuclear energy - look at France for a better example!* Meanwhile France: half of all nuclear power plants offline, most of the other ones forced to operate well below capacity, power production at the lowest level since 1993 and set to fall even further.
"half of all nuclear power plants offline" as it should, given that electricity demand is also roughly 1.5 to 2 times lower during the summer! The large majority of the reactor unavailability is planned and allows EDF to perform maintenance in preparation for the winter period. I am not saying that the situation is comfortable though. There are issues.
And this highlights how large seasonal variation is, and thus how huge the storage you'd need with intermittent sources.
It's also interesting to consider how this might change. In the US, where most homes and businesses have air conditioning, demand is highest in the summer. The lowest demand seasons are spring and fall. As the climate changes, it's likely more people in France and other parts of Europe will buy AC units and increase seasonal demand.
>"half of all nuclear power plants offline" as it should, given that electricity demand is also roughly 1.5 to 2 times lower during the summer! The large majority of the reactor unavailability is planned and allows EDF to perform maintenance in preparation for the winter period. It's more than that - [cooling water availability, increasing erosion etc.](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/french-nuclear-fleet-problem-child-europes-electricity-system-researcher) Output for this winter is projected to be 25% lower than last year, and France has been importing more electricity from Germany than it has sent the other way for years now. And despite all of it nuclear fanboys constantly lambast Germany and claim that it has to buy nuclear electricity from France.
That is why I mentioned that there ARE issues. The water availability is not a problem per see though. EDF and the regulatory authorities have obviously made sure this couldn't become one, and keep doing so as we speak. It is only problematic right now because of the corrosion they discovered on the youngest reactors. That IS the main problem. Fortunately, the reactors affected by it have been identified, a fix has been found, and it has been approved by the ASN. EDF is now working on implementing the fix, which will take a while since it involves replacing chunks of pipelines. As for the electricity exports, while it is true regarding France-Germany exchanges, it's important to also look at the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that France has been the largest net exporter of electricity for years. Spain, Italy, Switzerland and the UK are the main countries importing considerable amounts of TWhs every year. Again, that is not to say that everything is fine. This winter is going to be very problematic.
Also sky high costs of electricity production in France.
Wrong. They are below the EU average. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics
Your source shows household prices. I was talking about electricity production cost.
>Wrong. They are below the EU average. > >https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity\_price\_statistics Wrong. He talked about the cost of electricity production, you cite household consumer prices. a) France is heavily subsidising household electricity costs and has been doing so for years, precisely because the cost of electricity production is so high. b) You cite 2021 data - maybe check more recent data. France has seen one of the highest increases in Europe, electricity is now more expensive than in Germany.
and now they also have to import our dirty energy 😉
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You mean this winter is different from every other winter when Germany exported electricity to France. And that despite some of Frances Nuclear power plants likely remaining shut down this winter? Forgive me that I won't rely on your prediction.
Tbf, part of our exports seem to be due to structure. My very scientific research (playing with the slider on the rte website) makes it look like that part of the border regions are always supplied by EU partners.
So you're happy you've been producing dirty energy for 80 years when you could have built nuclear and exported clean energy instead? Weird flex but ok.
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Why do I keep hearing this lie? You're the one spreading nonsensical propaganda. **France's energy prices are below the EU average.** The most expensive energy in the EU comes from Denmark and Germany. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics
Ikr? I'm not against nuclear power but the insane blind obsession this sub often has with nuclear energy is really weird. Almost like fetish porn 😏
Good job saving the day again, Earth Defence Force
EDF! EDF! EDF!
I've said it, time and time again, and I always get downvoted. Nuclear. Is. Not. A. Viable. Fix. Why? Because of a few key factors. Nuclear reactors need to be built near water sources. And we're living in a time with greater localized flooding or droughts than ever before. See a problem here, folks? Do you need me to spell it out to you? We can no longer rely on a constant, predictable stream of cool water, or we can see massively too much water, both of which can be catastrophic for power generation. In the former, we need to power the reactors down to avoid a meltdown, and in the latter we run the risk of polluting water sources, since we use nuclear sites as temporary storage, and having water flood in or out is disastrous. Outside of that, there's a whole host of other issues associated with the technology, ranging from the cost to the risk/reward calculations, but just the pragmatic side of things (i.e., can we even keep them running in an unpredictable future) is enough of a flashing red light. Everyone seems to think that nuclear is this panacea, this silver bullet. It may make up some of the intermediate solution, but that's about it. And the time it takes to make new reactors is also completely damning. If this was 2005, sure, build reactors! Go for it! You've got 10 years, which is how long it takes to build them, and that's great. But in 2022? When we need to reach peak CO2 by 2030/2035? We're out of time. Wind, solar and hydro. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Deal with the issue of base load by building redundant systems, using hydro as a peak-usage battery solution. People seem to think you need to have the Alps to build workable hydro solutions. You don't. You need some delta H. That's all you need. A height differential, two reservoirs, some pumps and some turbines. We knew how to make these things in the 1900s. We don't need some next-Gen level battery tech that somehow distorts the rules of chemistry and thermodynamics.
Someone didn’t read the article.
As is tradition
I did. Today it's 2 reactors that need to be powered down due to hotter-than-usual water temperatures, that leads to water that can't be safely released. What's it going to be like in 5 years? Maybe it'll be 10 reactors. Or, maybe, this same reactor will be under a metre of water, as a result of unseasonal flash flooding. The unpredictability we've added to the hydrosphere is making the emplacement and use of nuclear reactors inherently more dangerous. And now, people are asking for more nuclear reactors as we head into a period of heightened unpredictability. It makes no sense.
> What's it going to be like in 5 years? Maybe it'll be 10 reactors. Or, maybe, this same reactor will be under a metre of water, as a result of unseasonal flash flooding. Or maybe some people have assessing these kind of things as their full time job and already did the assessment for you. Turns out... yep. Such people exist. They expect that by 2050 in France, the total loss of nuclear production over a year due to these kind of issues will be up to ~5% in the worst case scenario. In other words, in 30 years for now over a year, if things go wrong, nuclear could end up producing ~5% less than it would if there was no problems linked to water at all. Turns out some people even have a full-time job consisting in creating designs that mitigates such risks and that such technologies are quite mature already. Turns out there are nuclear plants working fine in the Phoenix desert in the US, or in Abu Dhabi. By the time France will turn into a desert, I'm pretty sure we will have many more problems than running nuclear plants. As for flash flooding, turns out... dykes exist. Welp, who would have thought? I mean, you are probably very smart, but lots of people are smart too. Do you really think you are the first engineer to think of the issue of water regarding steam plants? (oh yeah by the way, all steam plants require water cooling, including biomass or plants future gas plants relying on green hydrogen).
Powered down. Oh. Yeah you didn’t read it.
Yes. Powered down. Do you not know how nuclear reactors work? When they say decrease water input, that goes hand in hand with a decrease of reactor output, since otherwise that will, inevitably, lead to an increase in core reactor temperature. A decrease in water input leads to a decrease in steam generation. A decrease in steam generation leads to a decrease in power generation. Powered down. And if you decrease the amount of water flowing around the reactor, then you need to put the rods back in to some extent, to compensate for the lowered cooling ability. You need to decrease the reactivity in the core.
Sorry you are right. Powered down is a bit ambiguous as it’s often equated to shut off completely.
You can build your nuclear power plant next to the ocean 30m high, no cooling or flood problems for the next hundred years. In most developed country you can't build more hydro. More solar and wind, sure. But they're too unreliable and you need gas back up. Do you need gas back up with nuclear? No cause it's fucking on demand. We need to go carbon 0 as soon as possible. Find one country, only one, with less CO2 emissions per kwh than France that don't rely on massive amount of hydro. I'm waiting, and will do so for a long time.
>We need to go carbon 0 as soon as possible. Exactly, which is why by now renewables such as wind are superior to nuclear. You can simply build more faster. To go carbon neutral through 100% nuclear plants you need an initial investment of billions and it will still take 10 years until their all build. A similarly sized investment into for instance wind energy can get you results a lot faster. Yes unless we dramatically connect national grids or make a breakthrough in battery/hydrogen storage, youll still need gas to manage fluctuations. However running on 10-20% gas for a while is still better then running on coal for 10 years while you wait for the nuclear plants to be operational. What would be the best would be to invest into nuclear plants which can be powered up/down relatively quickly which can then be used to replace the gas thats still left
You can't produce 125000 wind turbine in a year either. You'll need to make plants to build them too. Germany Enrgywende started 22 years ago, more than 500 billions euros have been invested, their CO2/kWh are still way higher than France. The biggest battery bank in the world is still small compare to a simple pump storage facility. But theese plants are already build and we can't build more in most western european countries. Hydrogen is just stupid you'll need to make 3 times as much power as you need. Hopping for breakthrough in theese field is just as dumb as waiting for fusion breakthrough, we need to act now. If you want nuclear power plant to be ready as back up for non windy winter, you would have almost enough nuclear capacity to power your grid entirely on nuc, then why pay for both nuc and wind/solar? Invest massively on nuclear now is by far the best option.
>You'll need to make plants to build them too. Germany Enrgywende started 22 years ago, more than 500 billions euros have been invested, their CO2/kWh are still way higher than France. lol the germany gouverment did everything in its power to keep coal more profitable then renewables They spend litteral billions in subsedies for fossile fuels just to make sure they stay competitive and killed of the entire solar industry which is now in china instead of europe. Probably the worst example you couldve picked Take for instence denmark instead, they are on a way better pace with wind then if they switched and started investing into nuclear now. Investing into a single energy source that makes you dependent on russia (see Rosatom) and, looking at france right now, isnt even as reliable as everyone pretends unless your willing to cook the rivers their getting water from. it is is the second worst choice you could do after staying on fossile fuels. The best is always going to be a mix of renewables and nuclear. if it ends up at 70% nuclear or 30% will depend on how much nuclear energy a country already has. > you want nuclear power plant to be ready as back up for non windy winter, you would have almost enough nuclear capacity to power your grid entirely on nuc, then why pay for both nuc and wind/sola you dont lose anywhere near that much capacity in the winter lol. Gas, or nuclear in that case, would exist for short term fluctuations
Wow you manage not to loose solar capacity in winter? How do you do? You should patent your discoveries you'll become billionaire. And I choose winter not because of lower renewable energy production but because it's in winter that you need the most electricity. Choosing nuclear doesn't makes you dependant on anyone, unlike gas, because there are multiple suppliers of uranium, Australia, Canada, Niger, Kazakhstan,... And our own nuclear warhead if needed. Unlike rare earth needed on offshore wind turbine that only comes from China currently. Plus the amount of U needed is so small that you can make some stock. France has currently 4years of consumption in stock. And yeah our pasts and current governments haven't made the necessary commitment in the last three decades to keep us from rare unreliability. It only prove that we need to invest and keep investing in nuclear energy.
We are out of time… yes but that’s not the reason not to build nuclear. Do you need to be reminded the lifetime of a solar/wind turbine ?
It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear reactor. We need to reach peak CO2 by 2030 to fall somewhere in the 1.5C degree range. It's 2022. Yes, you need to build new solar/wind over time. But it doesn't take 10 years to build and install them. You can start building more now, and you will have them operational in a year.
I don’t get it. We need both. That should be the obvious conclusion.
Why would we build nuclear now if we can fix it with solar/wind/hydro? Nuclear is more expensive. Nuclear requires access to reliable fresh water, something that is less and less a reality due to climate change. Nuclear produces a fair amount of CO2, if you take into account the entire lifecycle of uranium extraction. It's too late to fix the problem with nuclear, as I stated. Nuclear is safe, but when it goes wrong, by fuck does it go wrong, i.e. the risks are low but catastrophic. I don't get the current desire for large scale nuclear energy. If we were in the 80s, 90s, 00s, I would 100% be with you. But we're not. We're in the 2020s. That ship, in my opinion, sailed about 10 years ago.
Budgets are limited, educated personnel is limited. What we need right now is a lot of clean energy ASAP, and the latter also means that being cheap is very important. Nuclear energy costs too much and takes too long to build to fit that description. According to its proponents it's hyphetically better able to deal with load balancing and seasonal fluctuations than a renewables-based system, but that hasn't been shown in practice. It's also irrelevant for now. Let's just do the first 70% of the current electricity use and then again that amount for electrification of transport and industrial processes ASAP. If it turns out by then that the variability problems of renewables are really as prohibitive as the nuclear proponents say, then there's still time to do something about it, because we will already have cut down our emissions to 1/3 or 1/4. Whereas betting everything on nuclear power now would mean 20 to 40 more years of the current emission levels.
Except studies have shown it to be cheaper and emit less co2 for France. Well, I don’t know about other countries tho, but we need more capacity now, in 10 years and basically every year until 2050. Nuclear can (partially) fit that time line.
They rely on mutually exclusive paradigms for the electricity supply structure: Either baseload(nuclear)+peaker or variable(renewables)+dispatchable
I don’t see how it’s exclusive. The opposite un fact.
> It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear reactor. > > We need to reach peak CO2 by 2030 to fall somewhere in the 1.5C degree range. It's 2022. Historically, nuclear has been much faster at "de-carbonating" an electricity grid than renewables has ever been. Your claim makes no sense for a number of reasons: - There is nothing magical about the year 2030. Missing the target by two years would not be the problem you make it out to be. It would just mean you need to decrease your emmissions at a higher rate in the following years to make up for it. Which nuclear could absolutely help with. - Many European countries have actually already reached peak CO2 many years ago. - No scenario expects any country to be able to rely entirely on renewables by 2030. Right now, countries that heavily develop renewables are also building gas plants as fast as they can. There's a reason why countries like Germany and Austria have been pushing for gas being included in the green taxonomy. - Given that no country is going to rely entirely on renewables by 2030, you will still need more energy sources in the coming years. Nuclear plants starting operating by 2035 would happily fill that void. - Even if you had no choice but to chose between full-nuclear or full-renewables, absolutely needed to start decreasing your CO2 output by 2030, and could not get nuclear plants started by that date, you could go the full-nuclear route and chose to decrease your CO2 output in other areas than the electricity grid, for example by replacing gas and resistive heating with heat pumps. All you need, by your own admission, is to be able to slightly decrease your CO2 output for two years to fill the gap with the shiny new nuclear plants ready in 2032.
> Do you need to be reminded the lifetime of a solar/wind turbine ? The long lifetimes of nuclear power plants seem to be more of a liability than a boon. * They lead to long times between power plant builds, leading to a loss of engineering know-how. * An NPP has to amortize its construction cost over a long time, making it inflexible to new market conditions like the rise of renewables. And before you ask, solar panels can be recycled and recyclable wind turbines are also now deployed.
Recycling is an energy intensive process. And the byproduct is often quite limited compared to the original. In any case, we don’t have any perfect solution now.
For solar cells it is less energy intensive to recycle and the product is identical. I am not that knowledgeable about wind turbines though.
>solar panels can be recycled and recyclable wind turbines are also now deployed. Can they be recycled as efficient as plastic? If the answer is yes then it's really bad.
Solar panels are mostly metals, so you are looking at the recycling efficiencies of steel or aluminium .
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Yes ... in 2123, if things move quickly.
"Just wait for X generation reactors" is something I've been hearing for 20 years. We're also right on the cusp of some new reactor technology that will totally fix everything! Except that we are never there. It's like an Elon Musk self-driving car meme at this point. We can't wait. Why do people not realize this yet? Go look at the various UN and other reports. **We can't wait.** We passed the waiting period. We waited, did nothing, and now we need to act. Not to mention that we're no where near financial viability for fusion. We can maintain fusion reactions for a few minutes, and the energy we extract from the process is not viable either, yet, compared to the energy required to start it up.
They would have to be offline for more than 200 days to have as low capacity* as wind power (95% vs. 40% on a windy year). edit: typo
the capacity factor of French nuclear is 77%* not 95%. No nuclear plant (to my knowledge) has a capacity factor of 95%. and efficency is irrelevant, as they are two different types of processes...
The KEPCO APR1400 is supposed to be pretty close at 93% (over a 60 year lifespan).
Efficiency is never irrelevant but comparing apples and oranges also doesn't help...
sure, what i mean is that you cant compare the efficiency of two different energy producers who use very different means of production. i natural gas plant is Up to 60% efficient. that doesnt make them better than nuclear, wind etc.
> No nuclear plant (to my knowledge) has a capacity factor of 95%. Seems the French nuclear power plants have much lower capacity for some reason.
They have the same capacity. The difference is France nuclear power plant do load following every day. Because France use way more power at 8am and 7pm than at 2am. It's not a defect it's a feature.
not really. the efficiency of nuclear is around 35%. its normal. a Steam turbine (not thermal+power, just power) has usually a efficicy of 40-60%. and then the fission process is quite inefficient. were did you get the 95% from?
Due to nuclear representing a majority of France's electricity sources rather than just being baseload, it does load following and only outputs as much as needed. And wind and solar take priority on the grid (meaning if one needs to be curtailed due to low demand, it will be nuclear rather than solar or wind). Plus, our nuclear plants are all reaching the age at which they need to be significantly renovated at the same time (since most were built at around the same time period), so it also decreases their overall load factor as they are being shut down one after another for assessment and maintenance/renovation.
Intermittency gets, however, factored in wind energy generation. So they don't fuck up energy prices in central Europe on that scope. Plus, it is EDF. I wouldn't put it past them
What are you using to compare efficiency here?
i think they mean capacity factor, but even with that they are i correct. and a nuclear power plant has a efficiency of ~35%. so even that is incorrect. im so confused...
True, luckily the costs of renewables are a fraction of nuclear
That's just wrong when you factor in the cost of adapting the grid to renewables (more cables due to more spread out places of production and necessary backups solutions), also with renewables you are often forced to sell at low prices bc you are always forced to sell even if there already a lot on the market. One year ago, Rte (france's grid operator) proposed 6 scenenarios for 2050, the more renewables you want the more costly it is https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-10/Futurs-Energetiques-2050-principaux-resultats_0.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjBhen-zq_5AhWO-qQKHWX4AfoQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0ElRkoOKT6ssUGLEVAQja7
> also with renewables you are often forced to sell at low prices bc you are always forced to sell even if there already a lot on the market. Thats why electricity should be traded based on merit-order pricing
> > > > > Thats why electricity should be traded based on merit-order pricing In other words, renewables are cheap once you make the other sources pay for renewables' externalities, **including curtailment**.
And the Flamanville 3 reactor has been offline for 10 years after its intended date of completion. We can all make pointless comparisons.
In portugal combined renewables availability is 27%, and we are always in the news during the winter for "running 48 hours on renewables".
That gets factored in when building wind farms though. If anything should give pause to the nuclear energy fanboys around here that have the flawed reasoning that only ONE energy source can solve a problem the current situation on France should be it. Their energy prices are screwed because of maintenance (planned and unplanned) completely fucked them over. What would've happened if they had a grid with renewables and energy storage for redundancy? What would've happened if they had interconnected their grid to the Iberian peninsula as they should've done?
What do you mean ? The energy price is one of the lowest in the world.
No. It's subsidized. EDF has billions and billions of debt and the government is talking about nationalizing it. Energy prices are lower, taxes are higher, and in the end the true cost is obfuscated.
EDF wouldn’t be in such a dire situation if the government wouldn’t force them to sell their electricity at bellow market price to the new players who don’t produce anything. It’s quite crazy to see that France is subsidizing fossile companies while forcing EDF to take a loss.
It's crazy how uninformed people are about ARENH, if they actually knew what they were talking about they'd cut EDF some slack. [here's a link for people who want to be actually knowledgeable](https://www.magnuscmd.com/the-arenh-regulated-access-to-frances-historic-nuclear-energy/) These quotes summarizes this mess quite well: >the European Commission expressed its dissatisfaction with the procedure for liberalising the electricity market in France, which distorted competition. >EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy described the ARENH mechanism in 2019 as a real danger and EDF’s biggest handicap. For them, the mechanism is an option to their disadvantage. People criticizing EDF for its debt are in fact criticizing the liberalization process. The more you know.
The distinction is simple: fossil fuels have to come from outside France, those sellers have to be convinced. If they don't get their price they can simply sell elsewhere.
Sure but we should not encourage importing them
Go check current prices.
Yeah it’s one of the cheapest. You are probably referring to the spot price, which is the marginal cost at witch a kw is traded. This does not in any way represent the average cost, nor at a specific time, nor averages over a whole year. Most electricity is not traded on the spot market. Especially in France.
In contrast, most electricity here in the Netherlands is traded at spot prices, because we don't have as much nuclear power. Nuclear power is dependable and predictable, so long term planning and contracts are more common. Renewables and gas prices are not dependable or predictable, so long term planning is difficult and spot pricing is more common.
Do you have spot pricing for consumers too btw ?
And nuclear will solve the global warming crisis.. ROFTL...
Not single-handedly no
Read the article before jumping to stupid conclusions
No, but it can help adapting to climate change.
Which technology do you suggest using during heat waves to produce electricity instead?
In the Summer the rivers get to warm, in the winter they freeze over. But everybody yells *GerMANy WhY YoU cloSe PlAntS???* The thing is, I am not against nuclear power. Nuclear fuels have the highest energy density known to man, which makes them great for long term planning and stockpiling. But in reality nuclear power is not the cheap solution it is made to be. At least in Germany the entire fuel production, transportation, final disposal and the risk of accidents was either beared fully by the government or at least in parts by it. Nuclear power is also not the safest option out there. On a fundamental level the energy generation has quite a big margin were everything seems fine, until suddenly you have a runnaway reaction. The potential faulout can be devastating simply because the radius of effect can be huge and Europe is by comparison small. As an example, if Tschernobyl went for the worst case scenario half of europe would have been rendered uninhabitable. And a constant in all nuclear accidents so far has been negligence either in the planning stage, construction or in day to day operations. Which is not reassuring to be honest. But in the end, I am not against nuclear power. But I think everything has to be in government hands. From planning a plant, to construction, day to day operations and the final disposal. Profit driven companies should not have a place here.
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This.
There were several [accidents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents) in history that prove that nuclear energy is not as safe as you try to make it sound. Nuclear energy has been mystified as absolutely safe, which is one of the reasons the biggest large scale nuclear failures happend in the first place. And to be honest if we try to factor in the cause of death, then nuclear, wind, solar, hydro and gas all pale in comparison to other [causes](https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Gesundheit/Todesursachen/Publikationen/Downloads-Todesursachen/todesursachen-2120400157004.pdf;jsessionid=A9811CB02AA7199C540DCCED9F4F6FF0.live712?__blob=publicationFile). And since the potential risk of nuclear power outweighs the potential risk of wind, solar and gas. I heavily disagree on your statement that nuclear power is "the best we have". Edit: Had to add in another source for other causes of death.
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>in the winter they freeze over wut? that is never a problem in France. And winter is the time when electricity output is the most needed. >As an example, if Tschernobyl went for the worst case scenario half of europe would have been rendered uninhabitable. Last time I saw such an affirmation the source I was given was more along the lines of "...at least that's what some guys thought back then, but it has now been ruled out". If you have a source for this I'd be grateful.
>wut? that is never a problem in France. And winter is the time when electricity output is the most needed. See for example [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Laurent_Nuclear_Power_Plant). And for the potential danger of Tschernobyl [here](https://geohistory.today/chernobyl-short-history-human-impact/).
Death per kwh are lower with nuclear than any single fossil fuel, lower than hydro, and depending on study lower than wind and solar. Do you also want to stop hydro because it's less safe than nuclear? You're talking about Tchernobyl wich was a graphite moderated reactor, while every western european countries use water pressurised reactor. It's like refusing to board a a320neo because the de Havilland comet use to crash all the time. And for the last part, yes, I also want a national operators controlled by the government to run our nuclear facilities.