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That does not have anything to do with nuclear power. France is a net-importer from Germany which is abolishing its nuclear power, while it is a net-exporter to

That does not have anything to do with nuclear power. France is a net-importer from Germany which is abolishing its nuclear power, while it is a net-exporter to Switzerland which has plenty of nuclear and water power: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Echg_internx_élec_France.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Echg_int...

adrianN 9y ago
Net use doesn't seem to be very informative. France could be exporting at crucial times to cover base load while importing when Germany's wind farms have nowhere to dump their electricity because it's too windy.
- euyyn 9y ago
  It also could be a matter of which factories near the borders are closer to which power plants, to save on transmission costs.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > Germany's wind farms have nowhere to dump their electricity because it's too windy. That's not how it works though. Electricity isn't 'dumped' other than by lowering the price of the producers. It's not as if there is a giant resistor somewhere that gets connected in parallel to get rid of unwanted electrons. And if there are no consumers that want the power at any price what happens instead is that windmills will simply be furled. Depending on in which country this happens if the contract between the consumers and the producers stipulates it the windfarms that are requested to shut down will still get paid as if they're operational. This situation has occured in Scotland, Germany and China in the last year or so. If France can buy power from Germany at rates that are lower than what it costs them to produce the power themselves then that's actually great news for renewables. It is often said that windpower can not be used to provide base load power but that's not the whole story, you actually can provide base load power but you'll have to install a huge surplus in windpower to be able to do so with some regularity and you may end up transporting energy across distances too large to be economic. The bigger problem with this is that even if windpower generated can fluctuate quite rapidly the only plants capable of matching those fluctuations fast enough are hydro and gas turbines. Neither coal nor nuclear has the capability to follow that quickly.
athenot 9y ago
According to that graph, France is still a net exporter by a margin of 39 TWh. Germany has power that can be spun up and down faster than nuke, so it makes sense to bring that in on-demand.
wott 9y ago
2016 was an outlier, because many reactors had be stopped in the beginning of winter (because of another Areva fuckery).
renaudg 9y ago
What ? It has everything to do with nuclear power. Here is a entertaining live map of electricity trade across Europe : https://www.electricitymap.org/ https://www.electricitymap.org/ Let me know if you can spot any time when France is a net importer with any of its neighbours. Not only does it constantly export to Germany, the CO2 intensity of its production is also 5 times less per kWh, and of course that is thanks to nuclear power. Going nuclear-free is a noble mid-long term goal, nobody can disagree with that. But the German decision of doing so a couple of decades before renewables were ready to take over was completely demagoguery. It is one of the most bonkers environmental stances in the face of the actual immediate threat that is global warming. Germany actually had to replace 80% of its nuclear power with... coal ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#German... Good job, Die Grüne.
- legulere 9y ago
  In winter when some rivers are freezing and in summer when some rivers are too hot to heat their water up even more. Germany did not replace the nuclear power with coal. Just look at the graphic of the energy mix in Germany: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.s... The source to the claim is just about the change from february 2011 to february 2012. Energy use and production varies throughout months (cold vs. hot, windy or not, sunny or not) and years (cold year, hot year, etc.). This is a terrible analysis.
  - renaudg 9y ago
    Is that some nice Wikipedia editing you just did in response to my comment here ? Wow. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power_phase-out&diff=789441396&oldid=788488788 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power_pha...
    - legulere 9y ago
      What was written before was factually incorrect, so why shouldn't I change it?

adrianN 9y ago

Net use doesn't seem to be very informative. France could be exporting at crucial times to cover base load while importing when Germany's wind farms have nowhere to dump their electricity because it's too windy.

euyyn 9y ago
It also could be a matter of which factories near the borders are closer to which power plants, to save on transmission costs.
jacquesm 9y ago
> Germany's wind farms have nowhere to dump their electricity because it's too windy. That's not how it works though. Electricity isn't 'dumped' other than by lowering the price of the producers. It's not as if there is a giant resistor somewhere that gets connected in parallel to get rid of unwanted electrons. And if there are no consumers that want the power at any price what happens instead is that windmills will simply be furled. Depending on in which country this happens if the contract between the consumers and the producers stipulates it the windfarms that are requested to shut down will still get paid as if they're operational. This situation has occured in Scotland, Germany and China in the last year or so. If France can buy power from Germany at rates that are lower than what it costs them to produce the power themselves then that's actually great news for renewables. It is often said that windpower can not be used to provide base load power but that's not the whole story, you actually can provide base load power but you'll have to install a huge surplus in windpower to be able to do so with some regularity and you may end up transporting energy across distances too large to be economic. The bigger problem with this is that even if windpower generated can fluctuate quite rapidly the only plants capable of matching those fluctuations fast enough are hydro and gas turbines. Neither coal nor nuclear has the capability to follow that quickly.

athenot 9y ago

According to that graph, France is still a net exporter by a margin of 39 TWh. Germany has power that can be spun up and down faster than nuke, so it makes sense to bring that in on-demand.

wott 9y ago

2016 was an outlier, because many reactors had be stopped in the beginning of winter (because of another Areva fuckery).

renaudg 9y ago

What ? It has everything to do with nuclear power. Here is a entertaining live map of electricity trade across Europe : https://www.electricitymap.org/ https://www.electricitymap.org/ Let me know if you can spot any time when France is a net importer with any of its neighbours. Not only does it constantly export to Germany, the CO2 intensity of its production is also 5 times less per kWh, and of course that is thanks to nuclear power. Going nuclear-free is a noble mid-long term goal, nobody can disagree with that. But the German decision of doing so a couple of decades before renewables were ready to take over was completely demagoguery. It is one of the most bonkers environmental stances in the face of the actual immediate threat that is global warming. Germany actually had to replace 80% of its nuclear power with... coal ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#German... Good job, Die Grüne.

legulere 9y ago
In winter when some rivers are freezing and in summer when some rivers are too hot to heat their water up even more. Germany did not replace the nuclear power with coal. Just look at the graphic of the energy mix in Germany: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.s... The source to the claim is just about the change from february 2011 to february 2012. Energy use and production varies throughout months (cold vs. hot, windy or not, sunny or not) and years (cold year, hot year, etc.). This is a terrible analysis.
- renaudg 9y ago
  Is that some nice Wikipedia editing you just did in response to my comment here ? Wow. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power_phase-out&diff=789441396&oldid=788488788 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power_pha...
  - legulere 9y ago
    What was written before was factually incorrect, so why shouldn't I change it?