23 ms·

Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

164 points by ericdanielski 6y ago

baq 6y ago
answer: short term political gain
- cptskippy 6y ago
  Why is sensible behavior suddenly political? The owner/operator of the facility, EDF, envisaged a 40 year life for all 2nd generation reactors. That would have meant the reactor would have been shut down 2 years ago. It's in a flood zone and a 2011 commission found that it didn't have necessary redundant cooling in place should the canals around it fail. It's in a seismically active area. It's on a river over an aquifer so any leakage will have severe consequences. It has to be shut down during heat waves because the excess heat it dumps into the neighboring river will kill wildlife. In the last decade it has had a number of small incidents. It has served it's purpose for longer than it's expected lifespan and it's being shutdown safely before a catastrophe happens. The SOP of Capitalism to do it until something bad happens doesn't mesh with Nuclear power.
  - Kuinox 6y ago
    As stated in the article, the 40 year lifespan is a lie from 'les verts'. The facility was built for 40 year with minimal maintenance. This is not the lifespan if the facility was well maintained.
    - guerby 6y ago
      Maintenance for nuclear in France is not "minimal": for the past two years (2018 2019) capacity factor of nuclear power in France has been around 70% mainly due to maintenance according to RTE (1) For reference best UK offshore wind farm had 55.3% capacity factor in 2019 and UK offshore wind average capacity factor was 40.6% in 2019 (2) (1) https://media.rte-france.com/bilan-electrique-2019-2/ https://media.rte-france.com/bilan-electrique-2019-2/ 379.5 Twh produced, 63.1 GW installed, 68.7% capacity factor (2) https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors
      - Kuinox 6y ago
        Yes, that the point, the maintenant is not minimal, the facility could run more than 40 years if it was minimal maintenance.
  - rurban 6y ago
    You can shorten that to that it's not considered safe to operate by international standards and not the national RFS standards for decades (leaked in 2002). The nuclear lobby conveniently forgets to mention that.
eqvinox 6y ago
actual answer: it's right on the border to Germany and has a long history of low-level incidents, and the Germans were starting to get seriously pissed off at that. It's also the oldest nuclear power plant France was still running. Oh and also the Rhine valley is seismically active, even if only at a low level.
- scohesc 6y ago
  So in other words, Germany (with some the most serious "green tech" laws) is basically forcing France to shut down their plant, even though it's been operating mostly fine and has been actually helping fight climate change for a long time already.
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    I have no idea whether it's even possible to find out how the different reasons have factored into the decision; it might as well just have been due to the age or seismic activity and nothing else... But, in reality, it was probably a mix of all 3 and some more.
    - zzzcpan 6y ago
      It's more like a mix of solar and wind energy investors with fossil burning energy investors, both benefit from shutting down nuclear reactors. Solar and wind investors just want to have their huge returns with nothing wasted, as each kWh is pretty expensive, but lacking nuclear power most of the energy generation will still go to burning fossils, who will profit massively from it. Happened in other countries too, like Ukraine, which was recently forced to temporary stop some reactors to benefit those two groups and of course make things worse for the climate.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      The fundamental reason is electoral calculus. The socialists, and then macronists, needed green votes to get a majority. The safety assessment is perfectly fine.
  - 6y ago
gourmetennui 6y ago
So in order to please the environmental agenda of the Green party they are shutting down a nuclear plant and switching to fossil fuels.
- JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
  Coal = Trees = Nature = Green Obviously
cjblomqvist 6y ago
This article sounds too bad to be true in my ears. For example, Germany is shutting down their coal plants gradually until 2038 (why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article?). I agree it sounds stupid to shut it down prematurely, and I agree the green movement (at least here in Sweden, and apparently also in France) is many times doing stupid things that actually harm the environment, but this article does not seem to aim to portray the full situation as objectively as possible. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-coal-power-20190126-story.html%3f_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/world/europe/la...
- morsch 6y ago
  > why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article Unfortunately, that really happened[1]. Commission as in started running, not as in started constructing, which they did in 2007. The usual argument is that a modern coal power plant replaces older ones and more efficient/less polluting. Obviously, it's all very controversial. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new-datteln-4-coal-power-plant/a-53632887 https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new...
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > The usual argument is that a modern coal power plant replaces older ones and more efficient/less polluting. Which is, of course, bullocks even if it's true, because the alternative exists to shut down the older coal fired power plants and replace them with something that isn't coal at all. Like nuclear, or solar. Even natural gas would be better than coal.
- anoncake 6y ago
  > For example, Germany is shutting down their coal plants gradually until 2038 (why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article?). Corruption? Stupidity? At any rate, the article is right. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FKraftwerk_Datteln%23Neubau_Kraftwerk%28sblock%29_Datteln_4_ab_2007 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
freeflight 6y ago
It's weird of the article gives plenty of direct citations from nuclear operators, while at the same time acting like French 40+ year old fission tech doesn't have any issues [0] or sustainability problems, and how the French could dare to shut down one of their first reactors. Particularly in the context that most discussions surrounding nuclear fission power generation lead with "modern designs and reactors being so much better", now we are apparently at the point where even running the same reactors close to a century supposedly represents no problem? Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years, how far past that are we willing to go? And what consequences will there be if, once gain, the "one in a million that would never happen" incident leads to yet another catastrophe? [0] http://watt-logic.com/2016/11/25/french-nuclear-problem/ http://watt-logic.com/2016/11/25/french-nuclear-problem/
- dv_dt 6y ago
  It's moving slow, but France does have planning working through how to manage nuclear going forward. Replacment with renewables as studied by the French gov't seems not only promising but cost effective. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-power-costs-will-rise-if-renewables-are-sidestepped https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-po...
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    These stories are always very nice and the plants cost effective, but are they true? Pakistan had a 100MW solar powerplant built for them. It actually ended up producing 18MW and required extensive amounts of water to clean the dust off of the panels.[0] I'm sure they were also told that renewables are cheap and will be great, but somehow everyone missed this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      There will be failures on the way to a fully renewable powered grid. India just turned up a 750MW facility successfully [1]. 70% of Texas coal plants are at risk of decommissioning as early as 2022 due to the amount of solar generation in the pipeline [2]. Spain is years ahead of schedule in coal decommissioning due to low cost renewables and pumped hydro storage capabilities being developed [3]. The UK is rapidly developing HVDC undersea cables to import clean hydro from Denmark and Norway [4]. Australia has over 130GW of renewables projects in the development pipeline (5x greater than the continent's entire fossil generation capacity) [5]. Seven countries are expected to end the use of coal by 2025: Portugal (2021), France (2022), Slovakia (2023), the UK (2024), Ireland (2025) and Italy (2025) (per Europe Beyond Coal) Politics and entrenched interests will have no choice but to accept market forces. The sun dumps enough power on the Earth in an hour to power all of humanity for a year, and it's mostly free for the taking. [1] http://ddnews.gov.in/business/pm-modi-dedicate-nation-750-mw-rewa-solar-project-mp http://ddnews.gov.in/business/pm-modi-dedicate-nation-750-mw... [2] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/new-report-finds-texas-utility-scale-solar-growth-may-push-remaining-coal-plants-into-retirement/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/new-report-fin... [3] https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2020-06-29/spain-to-close-half-its-coal-fired-power-stations.html https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2020-06-29/s... [4] https://electrek.co/2020/07/14/worlds-longest-subsea-power-cable-viking-link-uk-denmark/ https://electrek.co/2020/07/14/worlds-longest-subsea-power-c... [5] https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/10/26/australias-pipeline-of-renewable-energy-projects-swells-over-130-gw/ https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/10/26/australias-...
_iyig 6y ago
Reminds me of the German government’s decision, made in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, to phase out all German nuclear power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out An immediate effect of this decision was to increase Germany’s reliance on fossil fuels, including “brown coal” which is strip-mined in an extraordinarily environmentally-destructive process. Another effect was to increase the German grid’s reliance on nuclear power generated in France.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  The German grid does not rely on nuclear power from France. Germany is a net exporter. Of course, with an European electricity network, there is a lot of electricity moved around every day, often reversing directions in a few hours, depending on local needs and production.
  - revax 6y ago
    It is overall a net exporter but in winter when there is no wind, Germany rely more on its neighborhood. Average are misleading.
    - jnxx 6y ago
      German winters are quite windy, especially near the coast. Solar (photovoltaic) has its maximum around noon, when there is high demand. The irony is that in summer, it has happened in several warm years now that nuclear power plants in France had to shut down - they are cooled by rivers and when the water level becomes too low, they need to shut off to maintain safety and avoid ecological damage. These are the times when Germany exports most electricity to France.
      - Kuinox 6y ago
        Yes, they shut down to not kill the fish in the river, not because the water is not cold enough. But this problem was/will be solved by adding more air cooling.
Reedx 6y ago
> The saddest part of this story is that there is no new renewable plant being built overnight to replace Fessenheim. It will be replaced almost entirely by fossil fuels. > It’s worth noting that, as Fessenheim closes, Germany is commissioning a new coal-fired power plant, in Datteln Exactly. Why are so many people ignoring what happens in step 2? When nuclear is shut down, it gets replaced with something worse. Often coal! "German electricity was nearly 10 times dirtier than France's in 2016... Germany's overall emissions increased in 2016 as a result of the country closing one of its nuclear plants and replacing it with coal and natural gas" [1] "It is one unintended consequence of the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost a decade ago, which forced Japan to all but close its nuclear power program. Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants — one of the dirtiest sources of electricity"[2] Nuclear energy is also far safer than most other sources, about the same as renewables. "Nuclear and renewable sources are similarly safe: in the range of 0.005 to 0.07 deaths per TWh. Both nuclear and renewable energy sources have death rates hundreds of times lower than coal and oil, and are tens to hundreds of times safer than gas."[3] 1. https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-electricity-was-nearly-10-times-dirtier-than-frances-in-2016 https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush... 3. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- onli 6y ago
  Nuclear is not safer than renewables. These statistics are false, they do not include everything involved with running the plants and gathering the ressources. They get repeated every time in these threads here and are refuted every time. Your first article is provided by a pro nuclear propaganda association. It's almost certainly also false. And ignores conveniently how much more unrecycable nuclear waste France was producing in 2016, waste we can not store safely.
  - sprayk 6y ago
    could you provide some sources on any of your claims, or any links to analysis that takes into account "everything involved with running the plants and gathering resources"?
exabrial 6y ago
> Put differently, in 2019 Fessenheim Unit 1 and 2 generated more electricity than all the solar panels in France combined I learned a term recently called "base load supply". Essentially, something like a nuclear plant is hard to ramp/up down with changing grid demands, but it great at steady-state operation and can run like that for years. This takes care of the minimum load placed on the grid which is fairly predictable. Nuclear strengths' play an important role in an "all of the above" approach.
- steeve 6y ago
  Actually, in France, nuclear has to give way to renewables. And because they are intermittent, has to rapidly ramp up/down. See https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1247460245460443138?s=20 https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1247460245460443138?...
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Renewables and nuclear -both- have the problem that you can't control when you get the generation. Nuclear wants to be constant-- both because ramping isn't super fast and because you want to recover large capital costs. Renewables ... produce varying amounts pseudo-periodically and unpredictably, which is even worse. Neither matches conventionally to demand. The only way around this is technologies that store (hydroelectric, batteries, power-to-gas-to-power, solar thermal) or burning fossil fuels to supplement. Overprovisioning is also necessary: it takes a lot less storage / peaker plants / etc to meet 99th percentile demand with 150% of required generation capacity than 101%. Renewables and nuclear do complement each other a little bit in reducing volatility.
    - temac 6y ago
      If I'm not mistaken nuclear in France is actually pilotable quite fast, it is not instantaneous but it is really fast. You cover the risk of shortest term high variance with other means, but they basically already exist (hydro, gaz) and you don't need much. This is not necessarily the case for all nuclear power plant, it has to be designed for that.
steeve 6y ago
Few things: 1. The only body qualified to asses the safety of a nuclear power plant is the french nuclear safety agency, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) 2. ASN deemed its security "very satisfying" [1] 3. The usual fallacious arguments have been debunked time and time again (seismic fault, various upgrades, more incidents than other plants etc...) 4. Read the actual report on Fessenheim from ASN [1] The actual answer from the article: The answer to why Fessenheim is closing is sadly one of politics. It goes back to 2012 when then President of France, Francois Hollande, made a deal to guarantee the support of the Greens (les Verts). Hollande promised France would reduce its reliance on nuclear to 50% instead of 75% of all electricity. Part of the deal was to close Fessenheim. 1. https://www.asn.fr/L-ASN/L-ASN-en-region/Grand-Est/Installations-nucleaires/Centrale-nucleaire-de-Fessenheim https://www.asn.fr/L-ASN/L-ASN-en-region/Grand-Est/Installat...
Ekaros 6y ago
It so sad that we didn't wake up early to replacing these ageing plants. So now we can't be in situation where we would have modern plants coming up as we phase out the oldest plants. Which would have been the sensible thing to do.
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zackmorris 6y ago
I just want to point out that the headline is incorrect - there is no such thing as safe nuclear power currently. When you factor in micromorts from fuel mining and waste storage, you get a relatively low number of deaths compared to coal. But I wouldn't call nuclear power "safe". The worst part is that those deaths are delayed by years and even generations, so we feel an artificial sense of security because we aren't likely to hit those problems in our lifetime. Yes there are some promising reactors that produce less waste, and breeder reactors that can burn waste. But those are mired in political problems unrelated to the tech itself. I think that the crux of the issue is that human fallibility approaches 100% on decades-long timescales, so some reactor somewhere will be melting down roughly every decade from this point forward. Personally that level of risk just isn't acceptable to me. That's why I'm against the construction of new reactors. All that said, I would not have voted to retire this reactor at this time. I also find it sad that little or none of the cost of operating it will make its way to renewable energy. So even in progressive France, noble goals like sustainable non-polluting energy generation continue to face artificial hurdles created by attempts at shortsighted political gain.
- JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
  And do all other power source magically do not use unsafe materials ?
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >the crux of the issue is that human fallibility approaches 100% on decades-long timescales Pessimistically, I suppose. But I don't understand how someone can take this position and simultaneously feel like climate change has any hope whatsoever of being addressed.
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vladletter 6y ago
They don't talk about nuclear waste highly toxic that is buried in the north east of France and that they don't know what to do with. Nuclear is good for environment temporarily, but on the long term, if we don't know how to reuse nuclear waste, it will be worse.
- Kuinox 6y ago
  Would be cool if you sourced your statements like the article did. Like "we don't know what to do with it" which is a lie.
  - bohadi 6y ago
    As someone in another field, well what do we do with nuclear waste? My guess is bury it somewhere else.
    - Kuinox 6y ago
      Currently it's stored in nuclear waste bin, in pools in a few hangar. There is plan to store the in a geological stable hole, that we known that it won't move for a long time. > The Nuclear Safety Authority has confirmed that the rock has not moved for several million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_Research_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_... Also, I'm not in the field, i just like to inform myself before having an opinon. Too many times there is lies spread about nuclear facilities.
    - JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
      Some of it is recycled as Mox. Most of it is stored underground (FAR underground) in special regions where we know that the geological makeup is highly stable
hamilyon2 6y ago
Please don't forget increased reliance on natural gas from Russia. Uranium is so abundant, it does not give anyone any power in negotiations. But fossil fuel has to be imported. Natural gas, for example, flows only through pipes.
- Kuinox 6y ago
  Sadly there is no uranium in France.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    That's a false statement. There's enough uranium in France - it's just not cheap uranium and open pit mines in Africa are more economical. Additionally, France never had to even prospect for uranium ore, as incidentally many of their former colonies had plenty of potential for cheap open pit mining using cheap local workers.... For reference, just a few hundred kilometres east of their border, East Germany was the third largest uranium producer in the world and there's no geological reason why France should be devoid of it.
    - Kuinox 6y ago
      Yes, sorry, that not commercialy viable to get this uranium. > Additionally, France never had to even prospect for uranium ore But this is false. (There is no english link sorry for that). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin
      - qayxc 6y ago
        > But this is false. (There is no english link sorry for that). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin Context! They never had to prospect in France - I thought hat was clear, but apparently it wasn't. Sorry for the confusion. Edit: after reading the article I'm more confused - that's not even a French company - it's Canadian...
        6y ago
guerby 6y ago
Omitted in the article: the reason why a gas plant (and not coal as written in the article) is picking up the load is because the french nuclear industry is years behind schedule for putting online the Flamanville EPR. The original political deal was putting online the EPR then closing Fessenheim, partly to avoid going over the legal limit for nuclear power capacity set by "PPE" law in France. According to wikipedia [1] Flamanville EPR construction started in 2007 with budget of 3.3 billions EUR and completion date of 2012. Current estimates are 19.1 billions EUR and end of 2022 for completion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
- dkural 6y ago
  All the more reason not to close a perfectly fine nuclear plant.
IAmEveryone 6y ago
I can't find much information about the "Sustainability Times". But I'm somewhat certain it's a lobbying effort by the French nuclear industry. Almost every article seems to come around to saying "and nuclear power would be great", even when it starts with some solar power invention.
- orwin 6y ago
  Actually, in the "contributor" pages, you can see there is several physisit or doctor working with nuclear, and people from https://www.sfen.org/ https://www.sfen.org/ But you can also see that this is not just that, there is also scientifics who work on responsible sourcing of rare earth, sustainable agricultural tech. This is probably once agian a science-based newspaper that will never work. I've learn that if you want people to care about climate change, just don't talk about nuclear energy
open-source-ux 6y ago
Related: All of Europe’s existing and planned coal power plants: https://beyond-coal.eu/coal-exit-tracker/ https://beyond-coal.eu/coal-exit-tracker/ France has one of the lowest number of coal plants compared to other European countries. The links on the left of the page let you filter the map into different data sets.
temac 6y ago
It is well known: it is a "political" deal between two party: the PS, that ruled between 2012 and 2017, and IIRC EELV, a "green" political party, one of the kind that do not like nuclear. The "green" party even wanted to completely dismantle the mox industry, but the PS eventually told them niet. Then it has not been reversed by the current ruling party.
oxfordmale 6y ago
There is a pro nuclear power lobby that loves to trivialise toxic radio active waste. They argue that storing it in caves with clear warning signs will deter future generations from accidentally messing about with its content. They forgot historical context can be quickly lost over a few thousand years and assume there will not be a technological dark age in the future. CO2 might well introduce long term damage to the climate, but it is not immediately toxic.
- 7786655 6y ago
  Why should we worry about the tiny possibility that a few people in the future will die in the unlikely event that society regresses so much that we forget how to build a Geiger counter when air pollution caused by burning coal is killing tens of millions of people a year right now?
  - oxfordmale 6y ago
    It might well be some teenage boys finding bright yellow coloured barrels with interesting symbols in a cave. Which teenage boy can read warnings written in Egyptian hieroglyphs? That doesn't justify burning coal, however, there are many renewable energy sources that do not produce pollution or toxic waste that is hazardous for ten thousand years.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > there are many renewable energy sources that do not produce pollution or toxic waste that is hazardous for ten thousand years. That isn't true, most renewable energy sources, eg, solar panels [0], produce waste that will be toxic waste that will be hazardous for tens of thousands of years. Lead and cadmium don't even decay in practical terms, even after 10s of thousands of years. Maybe for hydro what you say is true. [0] https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste-problem/ https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste...
- steeve 6y ago
  This is absolutely not true.
lucioperca 6y ago
Ohh come on nuclear power is not for sure that low carbon if you consider the whole life cycle: https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-low-carbon https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332 New power plants which statisfies western standards like UK Hinkley are a cost nightmare. Further it essentially funds new nuclear weapons: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-... Sure there is some slim chance that old western or new Chernobyl style reactors would offer dead cheap ecological energy eventually (moving all complementary processes like getting the ore or building holes to dump the radioactive waste to electric). Also this offers the chance to create a huge wild life refugee in even more central Europe eventually (sure why should we care about people losing their homeland): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-...
bullen 6y ago
Sweden just paid 300 million SEK to reboot one reactor (also pressurized water reactor from Westinghouse manufactured in the early 70s and started in 75; 3 years before this one, closed in Dec. last year) because of supply issues in the south of Sweden leading to price volatility and provisioning issues this summer during the heatwave. Peak-oil is a bitch and we're going to run these nuclear plants until the metal in the cores and foundations start to show cracks visible to the naked eye. Because Uranium has 1.000.000x the power content per weight more than gasoline and 1.000.000.000x more than batteries! That said fission costs a lot of dead trees to build, so we're going to have to stick to the plants we already have. Building new nuclear plants will not be possible no matter how much money you print. I predict the french will do the same once the KWh price jumps around a little too much to be ignored. Electric cars are a joke, they take hours to charge and once everyone has them; charging will be impossible! Instead we should focus on Raspberry Pi 4 and electric bikes! Edit: If you look here you'll see that most WH plants put into service ~75 have been closed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors The only other interesting tidbit here is that Saudi-Arabia is planning 4 reactors!
lavignegagnon 6y ago
Conspiracy Theory: I can't help but wonder if these two stories are related? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241 Could Fessenheim 2 be leaking nuclear particles?
indysigners 6y ago
What most HN-“experts“ and the author of the article forget is: Fessenheim 2 has had so many interruptions and incidents because the whole technology being 50 years old, you lost count on how many incidents there have been. Think of you running a 50 y/o computer at home. I live nearby the plant (within its 30km radius) and we had reports on Fessenheim incidents every other week or so. >The answer to why Fessenheim is closing is sadly one of politics. This is some outright BS from the author here. Fessenheim is built next to the Rhein-river but below its own water-level. If the dam would breach because of an earthquake or flood, the whole nuclear plant would be under water. Does Fukushima ring a bell, what happened there? Exactly that! Several examinations also found the inbounds of Fessenheim to be poorly protected from flood. They even have their own security measures and fallback circuits not properly secured against flooding. Only a water leakage would cause some serious issues not to mention a dam breach. So with the combo of old tech, often interrupted uptime and shitty protection against floo, there are simply too many good reasons to close down the whole thing.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Früher war mehr Lametta! Also known as "Wir bauen uns ein Atomkraftwerk!" [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpEYKv6mGNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpEYKv6mGNI

164 points by ericdanielski 6y ago

baq 6y ago

answer: short term political gain

cptskippy 6y ago
Why is sensible behavior suddenly political? The owner/operator of the facility, EDF, envisaged a 40 year life for all 2nd generation reactors. That would have meant the reactor would have been shut down 2 years ago. It's in a flood zone and a 2011 commission found that it didn't have necessary redundant cooling in place should the canals around it fail. It's in a seismically active area. It's on a river over an aquifer so any leakage will have severe consequences. It has to be shut down during heat waves because the excess heat it dumps into the neighboring river will kill wildlife. In the last decade it has had a number of small incidents. It has served it's purpose for longer than it's expected lifespan and it's being shutdown safely before a catastrophe happens. The SOP of Capitalism to do it until something bad happens doesn't mesh with Nuclear power.
- Kuinox 6y ago
  As stated in the article, the 40 year lifespan is a lie from 'les verts'. The facility was built for 40 year with minimal maintenance. This is not the lifespan if the facility was well maintained.
  - guerby 6y ago
    Maintenance for nuclear in France is not "minimal": for the past two years (2018 2019) capacity factor of nuclear power in France has been around 70% mainly due to maintenance according to RTE (1) For reference best UK offshore wind farm had 55.3% capacity factor in 2019 and UK offshore wind average capacity factor was 40.6% in 2019 (2) (1) https://media.rte-france.com/bilan-electrique-2019-2/ https://media.rte-france.com/bilan-electrique-2019-2/ 379.5 Twh produced, 63.1 GW installed, 68.7% capacity factor (2) https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors
    - Kuinox 6y ago
      Yes, that the point, the maintenant is not minimal, the facility could run more than 40 years if it was minimal maintenance.
- rurban 6y ago
  You can shorten that to that it's not considered safe to operate by international standards and not the national RFS standards for decades (leaked in 2002). The nuclear lobby conveniently forgets to mention that.

eqvinox 6y ago

actual answer: it's right on the border to Germany and has a long history of low-level incidents, and the Germans were starting to get seriously pissed off at that. It's also the oldest nuclear power plant France was still running. Oh and also the Rhine valley is seismically active, even if only at a low level.

scohesc 6y ago
So in other words, Germany (with some the most serious "green tech" laws) is basically forcing France to shut down their plant, even though it's been operating mostly fine and has been actually helping fight climate change for a long time already.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  I have no idea whether it's even possible to find out how the different reasons have factored into the decision; it might as well just have been due to the age or seismic activity and nothing else... But, in reality, it was probably a mix of all 3 and some more.
  - zzzcpan 6y ago
    It's more like a mix of solar and wind energy investors with fossil burning energy investors, both benefit from shutting down nuclear reactors. Solar and wind investors just want to have their huge returns with nothing wasted, as each kWh is pretty expensive, but lacking nuclear power most of the energy generation will still go to burning fossils, who will profit massively from it. Happened in other countries too, like Ukraine, which was recently forced to temporary stop some reactors to benefit those two groups and of course make things worse for the climate.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    The fundamental reason is electoral calculus. The socialists, and then macronists, needed green votes to get a majority. The safety assessment is perfectly fine.
- 6y ago

gourmetennui 6y ago

So in order to please the environmental agenda of the Green party they are shutting down a nuclear plant and switching to fossil fuels.

JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
Coal = Trees = Nature = Green Obviously

cjblomqvist 6y ago

This article sounds too bad to be true in my ears. For example, Germany is shutting down their coal plants gradually until 2038 (why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article?). I agree it sounds stupid to shut it down prematurely, and I agree the green movement (at least here in Sweden, and apparently also in France) is many times doing stupid things that actually harm the environment, but this article does not seem to aim to portray the full situation as objectively as possible. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-coal-power-20190126-story.html%3f_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/world/europe/la...

morsch 6y ago
> why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article Unfortunately, that really happened[1]. Commission as in started running, not as in started constructing, which they did in 2007. The usual argument is that a modern coal power plant replaces older ones and more efficient/less polluting. Obviously, it's all very controversial. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new-datteln-4-coal-power-plant/a-53632887 https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new...
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The usual argument is that a modern coal power plant replaces older ones and more efficient/less polluting. Which is, of course, bullocks even if it's true, because the alternative exists to shut down the older coal fired power plants and replace them with something that isn't coal at all. Like nuclear, or solar. Even natural gas would be better than coal.
anoncake 6y ago
> For example, Germany is shutting down their coal plants gradually until 2038 (why would they then commission one this year, as stated by the article?). Corruption? Stupidity? At any rate, the article is right. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FKraftwerk_Datteln%23Neubau_Kraftwerk%28sblock%29_Datteln_4_ab_2007 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

freeflight 6y ago

It's weird of the article gives plenty of direct citations from nuclear operators, while at the same time acting like French 40+ year old fission tech doesn't have any issues [0] or sustainability problems, and how the French could dare to shut down one of their first reactors. Particularly in the context that most discussions surrounding nuclear fission power generation lead with "modern designs and reactors being so much better", now we are apparently at the point where even running the same reactors close to a century supposedly represents no problem? Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years, how far past that are we willing to go? And what consequences will there be if, once gain, the "one in a million that would never happen" incident leads to yet another catastrophe? [0] http://watt-logic.com/2016/11/25/french-nuclear-problem/ http://watt-logic.com/2016/11/25/french-nuclear-problem/

dv_dt 6y ago
It's moving slow, but France does have planning working through how to manage nuclear going forward. Replacment with renewables as studied by the French gov't seems not only promising but cost effective. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-power-costs-will-rise-if-renewables-are-sidestepped https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-po...
- Mirioron 6y ago
  These stories are always very nice and the plants cost effective, but are they true? Pakistan had a 100MW solar powerplant built for them. It actually ended up producing 18MW and required extensive amounts of water to clean the dust off of the panels.[0] I'm sure they were also told that renewables are cheap and will be great, but somehow everyone missed this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    There will be failures on the way to a fully renewable powered grid. India just turned up a 750MW facility successfully [1]. 70% of Texas coal plants are at risk of decommissioning as early as 2022 due to the amount of solar generation in the pipeline [2]. Spain is years ahead of schedule in coal decommissioning due to low cost renewables and pumped hydro storage capabilities being developed [3]. The UK is rapidly developing HVDC undersea cables to import clean hydro from Denmark and Norway [4]. Australia has over 130GW of renewables projects in the development pipeline (5x greater than the continent's entire fossil generation capacity) [5]. Seven countries are expected to end the use of coal by 2025: Portugal (2021), France (2022), Slovakia (2023), the UK (2024), Ireland (2025) and Italy (2025) (per Europe Beyond Coal) Politics and entrenched interests will have no choice but to accept market forces. The sun dumps enough power on the Earth in an hour to power all of humanity for a year, and it's mostly free for the taking. [1] http://ddnews.gov.in/business/pm-modi-dedicate-nation-750-mw-rewa-solar-project-mp http://ddnews.gov.in/business/pm-modi-dedicate-nation-750-mw... [2] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/new-report-finds-texas-utility-scale-solar-growth-may-push-remaining-coal-plants-into-retirement/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/new-report-fin... [3] https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2020-06-29/spain-to-close-half-its-coal-fired-power-stations.html https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2020-06-29/s... [4] https://electrek.co/2020/07/14/worlds-longest-subsea-power-cable-viking-link-uk-denmark/ https://electrek.co/2020/07/14/worlds-longest-subsea-power-c... [5] https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/10/26/australias-pipeline-of-renewable-energy-projects-swells-over-130-gw/ https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/10/26/australias-...

_iyig 6y ago

Reminds me of the German government’s decision, made in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, to phase out all German nuclear power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out An immediate effect of this decision was to increase Germany’s reliance on fossil fuels, including “brown coal” which is strip-mined in an extraordinarily environmentally-destructive process. Another effect was to increase the German grid’s reliance on nuclear power generated in France.

_ph_ 6y ago
The German grid does not rely on nuclear power from France. Germany is a net exporter. Of course, with an European electricity network, there is a lot of electricity moved around every day, often reversing directions in a few hours, depending on local needs and production.
- revax 6y ago
  It is overall a net exporter but in winter when there is no wind, Germany rely more on its neighborhood. Average are misleading.
  - jnxx 6y ago
    German winters are quite windy, especially near the coast. Solar (photovoltaic) has its maximum around noon, when there is high demand. The irony is that in summer, it has happened in several warm years now that nuclear power plants in France had to shut down - they are cooled by rivers and when the water level becomes too low, they need to shut off to maintain safety and avoid ecological damage. These are the times when Germany exports most electricity to France.
    - Kuinox 6y ago
      Yes, they shut down to not kill the fish in the river, not because the water is not cold enough. But this problem was/will be solved by adding more air cooling.

Reedx 6y ago

> The saddest part of this story is that there is no new renewable plant being built overnight to replace Fessenheim. It will be replaced almost entirely by fossil fuels. > It’s worth noting that, as Fessenheim closes, Germany is commissioning a new coal-fired power plant, in Datteln Exactly. Why are so many people ignoring what happens in step 2? When nuclear is shut down, it gets replaced with something worse. Often coal! "German electricity was nearly 10 times dirtier than France's in 2016... Germany's overall emissions increased in 2016 as a result of the country closing one of its nuclear plants and replacing it with coal and natural gas" [1] "It is one unintended consequence of the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost a decade ago, which forced Japan to all but close its nuclear power program. Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants — one of the dirtiest sources of electricity"[2] Nuclear energy is also far safer than most other sources, about the same as renewables. "Nuclear and renewable sources are similarly safe: in the range of 0.005 to 0.07 deaths per TWh. Both nuclear and renewable energy sources have death rates hundreds of times lower than coal and oil, and are tens to hundreds of times safer than gas."[3] 1. https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-electricity-was-nearly-10-times-dirtier-than-frances-in-2016 https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush... 3. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

onli 6y ago
Nuclear is not safer than renewables. These statistics are false, they do not include everything involved with running the plants and gathering the ressources. They get repeated every time in these threads here and are refuted every time. Your first article is provided by a pro nuclear propaganda association. It's almost certainly also false. And ignores conveniently how much more unrecycable nuclear waste France was producing in 2016, waste we can not store safely.
- sprayk 6y ago
  could you provide some sources on any of your claims, or any links to analysis that takes into account "everything involved with running the plants and gathering resources"?

exabrial 6y ago

> Put differently, in 2019 Fessenheim Unit 1 and 2 generated more electricity than all the solar panels in France combined I learned a term recently called "base load supply". Essentially, something like a nuclear plant is hard to ramp/up down with changing grid demands, but it great at steady-state operation and can run like that for years. This takes care of the minimum load placed on the grid which is fairly predictable. Nuclear strengths' play an important role in an "all of the above" approach.

steeve 6y ago
Actually, in France, nuclear has to give way to renewables. And because they are intermittent, has to rapidly ramp up/down. See https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1247460245460443138?s=20 https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1247460245460443138?...
- mlyle 6y ago
  Renewables and nuclear -both- have the problem that you can't control when you get the generation. Nuclear wants to be constant-- both because ramping isn't super fast and because you want to recover large capital costs. Renewables ... produce varying amounts pseudo-periodically and unpredictably, which is even worse. Neither matches conventionally to demand. The only way around this is technologies that store (hydroelectric, batteries, power-to-gas-to-power, solar thermal) or burning fossil fuels to supplement. Overprovisioning is also necessary: it takes a lot less storage / peaker plants / etc to meet 99th percentile demand with 150% of required generation capacity than 101%. Renewables and nuclear do complement each other a little bit in reducing volatility.
  - temac 6y ago
    If I'm not mistaken nuclear in France is actually pilotable quite fast, it is not instantaneous but it is really fast. You cover the risk of shortest term high variance with other means, but they basically already exist (hydro, gaz) and you don't need much. This is not necessarily the case for all nuclear power plant, it has to be designed for that.

steeve 6y ago

Few things: 1. The only body qualified to asses the safety of a nuclear power plant is the french nuclear safety agency, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) 2. ASN deemed its security "very satisfying" [1] 3. The usual fallacious arguments have been debunked time and time again (seismic fault, various upgrades, more incidents than other plants etc...) 4. Read the actual report on Fessenheim from ASN [1] The actual answer from the article: The answer to why Fessenheim is closing is sadly one of politics. It goes back to 2012 when then President of France, Francois Hollande, made a deal to guarantee the support of the Greens (les Verts). Hollande promised France would reduce its reliance on nuclear to 50% instead of 75% of all electricity. Part of the deal was to close Fessenheim. 1. https://www.asn.fr/L-ASN/L-ASN-en-region/Grand-Est/Installations-nucleaires/Centrale-nucleaire-de-Fessenheim https://www.asn.fr/L-ASN/L-ASN-en-region/Grand-Est/Installat...

Ekaros 6y ago

It so sad that we didn't wake up early to replacing these ageing plants. So now we can't be in situation where we would have modern plants coming up as we phase out the oldest plants. Which would have been the sensible thing to do.

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zackmorris 6y ago

I just want to point out that the headline is incorrect - there is no such thing as safe nuclear power currently. When you factor in micromorts from fuel mining and waste storage, you get a relatively low number of deaths compared to coal. But I wouldn't call nuclear power "safe". The worst part is that those deaths are delayed by years and even generations, so we feel an artificial sense of security because we aren't likely to hit those problems in our lifetime. Yes there are some promising reactors that produce less waste, and breeder reactors that can burn waste. But those are mired in political problems unrelated to the tech itself. I think that the crux of the issue is that human fallibility approaches 100% on decades-long timescales, so some reactor somewhere will be melting down roughly every decade from this point forward. Personally that level of risk just isn't acceptable to me. That's why I'm against the construction of new reactors. All that said, I would not have voted to retire this reactor at this time. I also find it sad that little or none of the cost of operating it will make its way to renewable energy. So even in progressive France, noble goals like sustainable non-polluting energy generation continue to face artificial hurdles created by attempts at shortsighted political gain.

JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
And do all other power source magically do not use unsafe materials ?
perl4ever 6y ago
>the crux of the issue is that human fallibility approaches 100% on decades-long timescales Pessimistically, I suppose. But I don't understand how someone can take this position and simultaneously feel like climate change has any hope whatsoever of being addressed.

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vladletter 6y ago

They don't talk about nuclear waste highly toxic that is buried in the north east of France and that they don't know what to do with. Nuclear is good for environment temporarily, but on the long term, if we don't know how to reuse nuclear waste, it will be worse.

Kuinox 6y ago
Would be cool if you sourced your statements like the article did. Like "we don't know what to do with it" which is a lie.
- bohadi 6y ago
  As someone in another field, well what do we do with nuclear waste? My guess is bury it somewhere else.
  - Kuinox 6y ago
    Currently it's stored in nuclear waste bin, in pools in a few hangar. There is plan to store the in a geological stable hole, that we known that it won't move for a long time. > The Nuclear Safety Authority has confirmed that the rock has not moved for several million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_Research_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_... Also, I'm not in the field, i just like to inform myself before having an opinon. Too many times there is lies spread about nuclear facilities.
  - JustFinishedBSG 6y ago
    Some of it is recycled as Mox. Most of it is stored underground (FAR underground) in special regions where we know that the geological makeup is highly stable

hamilyon2 6y ago

Please don't forget increased reliance on natural gas from Russia. Uranium is so abundant, it does not give anyone any power in negotiations. But fossil fuel has to be imported. Natural gas, for example, flows only through pipes.

Kuinox 6y ago
Sadly there is no uranium in France.
- qayxc 6y ago
  That's a false statement. There's enough uranium in France - it's just not cheap uranium and open pit mines in Africa are more economical. Additionally, France never had to even prospect for uranium ore, as incidentally many of their former colonies had plenty of potential for cheap open pit mining using cheap local workers.... For reference, just a few hundred kilometres east of their border, East Germany was the third largest uranium producer in the world and there's no geological reason why France should be devoid of it.
  - Kuinox 6y ago
    Yes, sorry, that not commercialy viable to get this uranium. > Additionally, France never had to even prospect for uranium ore But this is false. (There is no english link sorry for that). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin
    - qayxc 6y ago
      > But this is false. (There is no english link sorry for that). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UraMin Context! They never had to prospect in France - I thought hat was clear, but apparently it wasn't. Sorry for the confusion. Edit: after reading the article I'm more confused - that's not even a French company - it's Canadian...
      - 6y ago

guerby 6y ago

Omitted in the article: the reason why a gas plant (and not coal as written in the article) is picking up the load is because the french nuclear industry is years behind schedule for putting online the Flamanville EPR. The original political deal was putting online the EPR then closing Fessenheim, partly to avoid going over the legal limit for nuclear power capacity set by "PPE" law in France. According to wikipedia [1] Flamanville EPR construction started in 2007 with budget of 3.3 billions EUR and completion date of 2012. Current estimates are 19.1 billions EUR and end of 2022 for completion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

dkural 6y ago
All the more reason not to close a perfectly fine nuclear plant.

IAmEveryone 6y ago

I can't find much information about the "Sustainability Times". But I'm somewhat certain it's a lobbying effort by the French nuclear industry. Almost every article seems to come around to saying "and nuclear power would be great", even when it starts with some solar power invention.

orwin 6y ago
Actually, in the "contributor" pages, you can see there is several physisit or doctor working with nuclear, and people from https://www.sfen.org/ https://www.sfen.org/ But you can also see that this is not just that, there is also scientifics who work on responsible sourcing of rare earth, sustainable agricultural tech. This is probably once agian a science-based newspaper that will never work. I've learn that if you want people to care about climate change, just don't talk about nuclear energy

open-source-ux 6y ago

Related: All of Europe’s existing and planned coal power plants: https://beyond-coal.eu/coal-exit-tracker/ https://beyond-coal.eu/coal-exit-tracker/ France has one of the lowest number of coal plants compared to other European countries. The links on the left of the page let you filter the map into different data sets.

temac 6y ago

It is well known: it is a "political" deal between two party: the PS, that ruled between 2012 and 2017, and IIRC EELV, a "green" political party, one of the kind that do not like nuclear. The "green" party even wanted to completely dismantle the mox industry, but the PS eventually told them niet. Then it has not been reversed by the current ruling party.

oxfordmale 6y ago

There is a pro nuclear power lobby that loves to trivialise toxic radio active waste. They argue that storing it in caves with clear warning signs will deter future generations from accidentally messing about with its content. They forgot historical context can be quickly lost over a few thousand years and assume there will not be a technological dark age in the future. CO2 might well introduce long term damage to the climate, but it is not immediately toxic.

7786655 6y ago
Why should we worry about the tiny possibility that a few people in the future will die in the unlikely event that society regresses so much that we forget how to build a Geiger counter when air pollution caused by burning coal is killing tens of millions of people a year right now?
- oxfordmale 6y ago
  It might well be some teenage boys finding bright yellow coloured barrels with interesting symbols in a cave. Which teenage boy can read warnings written in Egyptian hieroglyphs? That doesn't justify burning coal, however, there are many renewable energy sources that do not produce pollution or toxic waste that is hazardous for ten thousand years.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > there are many renewable energy sources that do not produce pollution or toxic waste that is hazardous for ten thousand years. That isn't true, most renewable energy sources, eg, solar panels [0], produce waste that will be toxic waste that will be hazardous for tens of thousands of years. Lead and cadmium don't even decay in practical terms, even after 10s of thousands of years. Maybe for hydro what you say is true. [0] https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste-problem/ https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste...
steeve 6y ago
This is absolutely not true.

lucioperca 6y ago

Ohh come on nuclear power is not for sure that low carbon if you consider the whole life cycle: https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-low-carbon https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332 New power plants which statisfies western standards like UK Hinkley are a cost nightmare. Further it essentially funds new nuclear weapons: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-... Sure there is some slim chance that old western or new Chernobyl style reactors would offer dead cheap ecological energy eventually (moving all complementary processes like getting the ore or building holes to dump the radioactive waste to electric). Also this offers the chance to create a huge wild life refugee in even more central Europe eventually (sure why should we care about people losing their homeland): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-...

bullen 6y ago

Sweden just paid 300 million SEK to reboot one reactor (also pressurized water reactor from Westinghouse manufactured in the early 70s and started in 75; 3 years before this one, closed in Dec. last year) because of supply issues in the south of Sweden leading to price volatility and provisioning issues this summer during the heatwave. Peak-oil is a bitch and we're going to run these nuclear plants until the metal in the cores and foundations start to show cracks visible to the naked eye. Because Uranium has 1.000.000x the power content per weight more than gasoline and 1.000.000.000x more than batteries! That said fission costs a lot of dead trees to build, so we're going to have to stick to the plants we already have. Building new nuclear plants will not be possible no matter how much money you print. I predict the french will do the same once the KWh price jumps around a little too much to be ignored. Electric cars are a joke, they take hours to charge and once everyone has them; charging will be impossible! Instead we should focus on Raspberry Pi 4 and electric bikes! Edit: If you look here you'll see that most WH plants put into service ~75 have been closed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors The only other interesting tidbit here is that Saudi-Arabia is planning 4 reactors!

lavignegagnon 6y ago

Conspiracy Theory: I can't help but wonder if these two stories are related? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241 Could Fessenheim 2 be leaking nuclear particles?

indysigners 6y ago

What most HN-“experts“ and the author of the article forget is: Fessenheim 2 has had so many interruptions and incidents because the whole technology being 50 years old, you lost count on how many incidents there have been. Think of you running a 50 y/o computer at home. I live nearby the plant (within its 30km radius) and we had reports on Fessenheim incidents every other week or so. >The answer to why Fessenheim is closing is sadly one of politics. This is some outright BS from the author here. Fessenheim is built next to the Rhein-river but below its own water-level. If the dam would breach because of an earthquake or flood, the whole nuclear plant would be under water. Does Fukushima ring a bell, what happened there? Exactly that! Several examinations also found the inbounds of Fessenheim to be poorly protected from flood. They even have their own security measures and fallback circuits not properly secured against flooding. Only a water leakage would cause some serious issues not to mention a dam breach. So with the combo of old tech, often interrupted uptime and shitty protection against floo, there are simply too many good reasons to close down the whole thing.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Früher war mehr Lametta! Also known as "Wir bauen uns ein Atomkraftwerk!" [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpEYKv6mGNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpEYKv6mGNI