France reduces their penalty from load following by being the largest power exporter in Europe. Most grids drop down to ~30% of peak demand at night, while Fra

France reduces their penalty from load following by being the largest power exporter in Europe. Most grids drop down to ~30% of peak demand at night, while France only drops to around 75%[1]- almost exactly how much nuclear generation it has, because those nuclear plants are running at 100% as much as possible and exporting power. In 2015 nuclear made up 72% of their generation but only 40% of consumption- 40% of their consumption results in such an oversupply of nuclear that they have to export that much. If anyone else in Europe tried this, or if the US tried it, it would be prohibitively expensive. Even in France, it's still very expensive- the EDF is 36 billion euro in debt[2]. French nuclear gets 9 cents per kWh in operating funds, slightly lower than the US- but the US is MUCH larger, and distribution costs are included in that. And again, the EDF is heavily in debt. Nuclear doesn't readily beat natural gas on price, and the areas that it's better than renewables are rapidly shrinking. End of the day we'll need ~40% nuclear in the US, but that's not much growth compared to how much renewables need to grow. [1]: http://clients.rte-france.com/lang/an/visiteurs/vie/courbes.jsp http://clients.rte-france.com/lang/an/visiteurs/vie/courbes.... [2]: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/finance/investors-analysts/credits/net-financial-debt-and-cash-flow https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/finan...