14 ms·

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 h

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-...
    - steeve 6y ago
      "India just turned up a 750MW facility successfully" That number doesn't say much, since the actual output will be a small percentage of that (15-20%).
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        It's low carbon generation getting built that otherwise would've been gas or coal. India only has about 7GW of nuclear generation capacity (with ~5GW in development), but has a target of 100GW of solar by 2022 (which between cheap labor and cheap hardware, is entirely feasible). Ground mount utility scale solar is very cheap per MWh, and very fast to deploy (years, not decades).
    - twic 6y ago
      > The UK is rapidly developing HVDC undersea cables to import clean hydro from Denmark and Norway That struck me as odd, because Denmark is flat as a pancake - it's basically an overgrown sandbank laid down by Norway's fjords. But the article explains that the cable will carry power from Norwegian hydro plants, which for some reason comes via Denmark. There is a direct cable from Norway to the UK, but i suppose this adds some redundancy, which is good. And, as the article notes, allows the UK to export surplus power (from wind?) to Denmark. On Denmark being flat, here is its highest point - note that in the photo, the highest point isn't visible, because it's behind a barn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B8lleh%C3%B8j https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B8lleh%C3%B8j
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        > And, as the article notes, allows the UK to export surplus power (from wind?) to Denmark. Correct. Quite a bit of offshore wind potential Great Britain. https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2020/06/12/great-britain-becomes-europes-second-highest-producer-of-wind/ https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2020/06/12/great-britai...
      - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
        For some reason could be explained by looking at [1] https://openinframap.org/#4.88/56.67/8.34/L,P https://openinframap.org/#4.88/56.67/8.34/L,P By going via Denmark the distance under water is shorter. Also continental Europe, mainly Germany and Benelux slurped the power first, so the infrastructures have already been there. Why not use them as much as possible, i guess? Although recently some direct point-to-point has been built.
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    I have a feeling the civil projects in Pakistan have a different success rate than maybe other places. And even apart from that one sample is not really conclusive of anything.
  - __s 6y ago
    There will be unsuccessful projects, which while we should learn from them, shouldn't be the anecdotes to condemn a technology Here's a retrospective, ie an attempt at looking at how things have actually played out compared to projections we're often fed, https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/retrospective-benefit-cost-evaluation-doe-investment-photovoltaic-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/retrospective-be... (Chapter 5 of pdf is what looks into your question) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source also aggregates information to try answer your question
    - dv_dt 6y ago
      The Lazard reports mentioned in your second link are a nice read. They look forward at estimated lifetime costs of power that might be projects started today. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
- joss82 6y ago
  This article is misleading. You can NOT replace nuclear with wind and solar. Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. Hydro in France is already built-up everywhere it was feasible. There are no more spots to build meaningful hydro power capacity. Too bad since hydro is the only renewable that can really replace the nuclear power plants.
  - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
    > Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. This is a terrible argument. There is always some place on the grid where the wind is blowing and (during the day) the sun is shining.
    - seszett 6y ago
      That's far from guaranteed. It's very possible to have little wind over a large area, larger than France even, during the night.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        And the same for solar. There are several hours every day when the sun is shining nowhere on (Metropolitan) France.
        joss82 6y ago
        Especially during the night :)
      - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
        Do you have any actual numbers to back these claims up?
        steeve 6y ago
        Yes, at Europe scale: https://youtu.be/1aCHN6dytVY https://youtu.be/1aCHN6dytVY in French
Mirioron 6y ago
What are the consequences of the inevitable natural gas or coal power plant that will replace it? There's always a lot of talk about renewables, yet it seems that we still end up with a fossil fuel based powerplant. It's not like France is building new nuclear plants to replace the ones that are shutting down.
- morsch 6y ago
  > There's always a lot of talk about renewables It's odd to pretend that renewables are all talk when at the moment I'm writing this France's power grid is 28% renewable[1]. And France still has lots of opportunities to expand, both solar and wind. You'd think with >4000km of coast line there'd be lots of space for offshore wind. [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR and 60% nuclear, but the point still stands
  - mlyle 6y ago
    In this case, we're taking offline an amount of nuclear power that exceeds the entire photovoltaic contribution to the French grid, and replacing it with power from a combined cycle plant in Germany. In turn, Germany is commissioning a new coal power plant, in part because of the increased French demand for electricity.
    - freeflight 6y ago
      > In turn, Germany is commissioning a new coal power plant, in part because of the increased French demand for electricity. The coal plant was actually commissioned in the early 2000s, construction started 2007, but finished only recently in May 2020 [0]. It was supposed to replace 3 older ones that already went offline back in 2014. As such it has literally nothing to do with the Fessenheim 2 closing, the article trying to spin it like that is quite misleading. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln
      - mlyle 6y ago
fcantournet 6y ago
We have a independent national authority (ASN ~ Nuclear Safety Authority) which is tasked to assess the security of all nuclear power plants and certifies them for periods of 10y. The plant that is being closed was certified by the ASN. The 40y lifespan was the MINIMUM certified lifespan of the power plant. It could very well run for another 40y. These kinds of equipment are modernised every 10 years during the shudowns. The power plant itself is NOT the one that was built 40y ago.
- onli 6y ago
  You have a very focused elite building system in which the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations. That goes especially for politicans, but includes engineers. The pro-nuclear propaganda repeated by the people that go through this is frightening, many of them are completely brainwashed. In no way can the ASN be really independent, as it is staffed with the people that went through this system.
  - seszett 6y ago
    > the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations Do you have any source for that? I'd be interested, although I find it difficult to believe since those "big universities", assuming you are talking about ENA and maybe Polytechnique, are public and very largely funded by taxes rather than private organizations.
  - dkural 6y ago
    Can you point to any specific and concrete safety issue? (as opposed to, without any evidence, questioning the integrity of the people trying to reduce CO2 emissions by extending the lifetime of existing nuclear plants).
    - onli 6y ago
      Sure. I will cite Zeit.de, a german newspaper. They write in https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/atomkraftwerk-fessenheim-reaktor-elsass-frankreich https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/atomkraftwerk-fe...: > Das 1977 ans Netz gegangene Atomkraftwerk Fesseheim gilt seit Jahrzehnten als Sicherheitsrisiko. Es liegt in einem Erdbebengebiet und ist unzureichend gegen einen Flugzeugabsturz oder einen Anschlag geschützt. Zudem kam es immer wieder zu Pannen. They link to https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2016-03/fessenheim-atomenergie-zwischenfall-elsass-reaktor https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2016-03/fessenheim-atomenergie-zw..., a report about how the ASN lied about how bad an accident in April 2014 was. There definitely were safety issues, the only question is how bad they were.
steeve 6y ago
> Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years It is not. That number was made so that EDF would get a proper return of investment. Some plants based on the same design have been granted lifespan to 60 years in the US. > how far past that are we willing to go? As long as its safe. Why throw away something that works, is safe and reliable on the counts that some folks put out a number?
- IAmEveryone 6y ago
  I'm not quite willing to accept the US' ideas on science and safety as entirely unassailable at the moment. Nor, for that matter, should the most lenient regulation always dictate other countries'. That could just result in endless ping-pong of extensions, and it make lobbying so much easier if you only needed to convince one country and then shame all others into following.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  In the US upgrades of old plants in the US have gone wrong. e.g. see the San Onofre upgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Plant_closure,_June_2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...
  - steeve 6y ago
    There are multiple differences why it’s not the same in France. The biggest one being that in the US, a plant as to confirm to its design security specifications, whereas it France, it has to conform to the security specifications of when it is inspected.
- p4bl0 6y ago
  How can anyone call nuclear power "safe"? Have we discovered a way to actually deal with the nuclear waste yet?
  - lloeki 6y ago
    Just as much as we have discovered one to actually deal with the hydrocarbon burning waste. One is captured, packaged, and stashed away; the other is poured into the air in high volumes, continuously fueling a runaway scenario.
Nodraak 6y ago
> Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years That's a lie, or at least an unprecise statement, mostly shared by the anti-nuclear who are looking for a reason to close reactors. In France, reactors were designed to work for 40 without any major checkup ; and after 40 years, without any decommission deadline planned in advance, as long the "visite décennale" (in-depth inspection every 10 years) does not discover any major issue. So a reactor can totally work for 60, 70, 80, or even more.
kergonath 6y ago
OK, there are several misconceptions here. 1) It's not one of the first French reactors by a long shot. It's actually a licensed American design. 2) More modern designs being better does not mean that previous ones are unusable, particularly when they've been built and are just sitting there. Stupid car analogy: a better car being sold with better crash test ratings does not mean you're going to die if you drive last year's model. 3) Life-span is a licensing issue. Lifetime extensions are common for reactors and designs without issues, which Fessenheim did not have. The fact that it's not automatic means that there is an in-depth study of the state of the reactor before the extension being approved. Reactors with the exact same design in the US have been extended to 80 years. 4) Your source is rubbish (and for reasons that stray far away from the topic so I'll leave it at that).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
Fessenheim nearly got out of control in 2016 when water flooded electrical equipment racks. Control of of the reactor rods was interrupted, core temperature was rising uncontrollably. Letting the control rods fall into the core via gravity didn't work anymore either. They had to emergency flood the core with Boron, which luckily worked, the first time this has happened in a western european power reactor. They assigned the incident level 1, the lowest one, in order to cover it up. France has huge power demands in cold weather due to badly isolated houses heated with electricity. The power grid is already unstable, France cannot afford to loose much generator power, as they have nothing to replace it with - very few renewables.
- Felz 6y ago
  Hmm, wikipedia (and the ASN used as source) seems to describe this incident a bit differently. I didn't see anything about core temperature rising uncontrollably, it's slightly inaccurate to say that control of the rods themselves was interrupted (only a positioning indicator; they could've emergency shut down the reactor with the rods if they needed to; not sure why you say the control rod failsafe didn't work), and the "emergency flood" of boron which "luckily worked" was standard operating procedure. Do you have a better source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fessenheim_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Selected_incidents_and_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fessenheim_Nuclear_Power_Plant...
  - kubanczyk 6y ago
    I've just added a more detailed source to Wikipedia (also from ASN), but it doesn't contain any new facts. A cursory google search didn't yield anything reliable confirming the parent's version.
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  Sources on the "via gravity didn't work anymore" please. Official report says it wasn't tried and remained a last line of defense. http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Media/Files/Technical-notice-description-of-the-event http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Media/Files/Technical-no... Also it was 2014, not 2016.
- 6y ago
LatteLazy 6y ago
Nuclear power is like Aboetion: a complex issue with major implications that has turned into A religion on both sides. You can't have a sensible discussion without being written off. The middle is shelled by both sides.
- freeflight 6y ago
  Tbh Fission was always considered a stop-gap technology until we could master fusion. Fusion is still way off but solar/wind have proven to be quite the generators, with grid-scale storage or some other way to utilize the energy surplus it could probably disrupt the electricity sector quite a bit. Those are actually emerging research fields, while nuclear fission is pretty much dated and new designs depend on materials we haven't even discovered yet. In that context this insistence on fission reactors reminds me quite a bit about the definition of insanity; Trying the same thing over and over expecting different results, like the world is just some kind of management sim. Meanwhile Germany is actually trying to innovate outside the box; It's been big on hydrogen research and application for a while, by now there is even a whole roadmap to utilize hydrogen as a future energy resource [0]. Which could utilize large parts of the already existing natural gas pipeline network [1], there's also pilot projects for repurposing old coal plants into thermal storage to retain more of the solar/wind electricity [2]. Yet news like that never make any waves, it's always "Why did Merkel shut down all reactors?", when she never decided the phase-out (That was ratified under Red/Green back in 2002) nor did she actually shut down any reactors, but rather keeps trying to extend their running times. [0] https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer/wissenschaftspolitik/Positionen/2019-10-a-hydrogen-roadmap-for-germany.pdf https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer... [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/gas-grid-operators-say-few-new-pipelines-needed-build-hydrogen-network https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/gas-grid-operators-say-... [2] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germany-thermal-storage-into-coal-plants https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germany-thermal...

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-...
  - steeve 6y ago
    "India just turned up a 750MW facility successfully" That number doesn't say much, since the actual output will be a small percentage of that (15-20%).
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      It's low carbon generation getting built that otherwise would've been gas or coal. India only has about 7GW of nuclear generation capacity (with ~5GW in development), but has a target of 100GW of solar by 2022 (which between cheap labor and cheap hardware, is entirely feasible). Ground mount utility scale solar is very cheap per MWh, and very fast to deploy (years, not decades).
  - twic 6y ago
    > The UK is rapidly developing HVDC undersea cables to import clean hydro from Denmark and Norway That struck me as odd, because Denmark is flat as a pancake - it's basically an overgrown sandbank laid down by Norway's fjords. But the article explains that the cable will carry power from Norwegian hydro plants, which for some reason comes via Denmark. There is a direct cable from Norway to the UK, but i suppose this adds some redundancy, which is good. And, as the article notes, allows the UK to export surplus power (from wind?) to Denmark. On Denmark being flat, here is its highest point - note that in the photo, the highest point isn't visible, because it's behind a barn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B8lleh%C3%B8j https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B8lleh%C3%B8j
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      > And, as the article notes, allows the UK to export surplus power (from wind?) to Denmark. Correct. Quite a bit of offshore wind potential Great Britain. https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2020/06/12/great-britain-becomes-europes-second-highest-producer-of-wind/ https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2020/06/12/great-britai...
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      For some reason could be explained by looking at [1] https://openinframap.org/#4.88/56.67/8.34/L,P https://openinframap.org/#4.88/56.67/8.34/L,P By going via Denmark the distance under water is shorter. Also continental Europe, mainly Germany and Benelux slurped the power first, so the infrastructures have already been there. Why not use them as much as possible, i guess? Although recently some direct point-to-point has been built.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  I have a feeling the civil projects in Pakistan have a different success rate than maybe other places. And even apart from that one sample is not really conclusive of anything.
- __s 6y ago
  There will be unsuccessful projects, which while we should learn from them, shouldn't be the anecdotes to condemn a technology Here's a retrospective, ie an attempt at looking at how things have actually played out compared to projections we're often fed, https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/retrospective-benefit-cost-evaluation-doe-investment-photovoltaic-energy https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/retrospective-be... (Chapter 5 of pdf is what looks into your question) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source also aggregates information to try answer your question
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    The Lazard reports mentioned in your second link are a nice read. They look forward at estimated lifetime costs of power that might be projects started today. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
joss82 6y ago
This article is misleading. You can NOT replace nuclear with wind and solar. Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. Hydro in France is already built-up everywhere it was feasible. There are no more spots to build meaningful hydro power capacity. Too bad since hydro is the only renewable that can really replace the nuclear power plants.
- FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
  > Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. This is a terrible argument. There is always some place on the grid where the wind is blowing and (during the day) the sun is shining.
  - seszett 6y ago
    That's far from guaranteed. It's very possible to have little wind over a large area, larger than France even, during the night.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      And the same for solar. There are several hours every day when the sun is shining nowhere on (Metropolitan) France.
      - joss82 6y ago
        Especially during the night :)
    - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
      Do you have any actual numbers to back these claims up?
      - steeve 6y ago
        Yes, at Europe scale: https://youtu.be/1aCHN6dytVY https://youtu.be/1aCHN6dytVY in French

Mirioron 6y ago

What are the consequences of the inevitable natural gas or coal power plant that will replace it? There's always a lot of talk about renewables, yet it seems that we still end up with a fossil fuel based powerplant. It's not like France is building new nuclear plants to replace the ones that are shutting down.

morsch 6y ago
> There's always a lot of talk about renewables It's odd to pretend that renewables are all talk when at the moment I'm writing this France's power grid is 28% renewable[1]. And France still has lots of opportunities to expand, both solar and wind. You'd think with >4000km of coast line there'd be lots of space for offshore wind. [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR and 60% nuclear, but the point still stands
- mlyle 6y ago
  In this case, we're taking offline an amount of nuclear power that exceeds the entire photovoltaic contribution to the French grid, and replacing it with power from a combined cycle plant in Germany. In turn, Germany is commissioning a new coal power plant, in part because of the increased French demand for electricity.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > In turn, Germany is commissioning a new coal power plant, in part because of the increased French demand for electricity. The coal plant was actually commissioned in the early 2000s, construction started 2007, but finished only recently in May 2020 [0]. It was supposed to replace 3 older ones that already went offline back in 2014. As such it has literally nothing to do with the Fessenheim 2 closing, the article trying to spin it like that is quite misleading. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln
    - mlyle 6y ago

fcantournet 6y ago

We have a independent national authority (ASN ~ Nuclear Safety Authority) which is tasked to assess the security of all nuclear power plants and certifies them for periods of 10y. The plant that is being closed was certified by the ASN. The 40y lifespan was the MINIMUM certified lifespan of the power plant. It could very well run for another 40y. These kinds of equipment are modernised every 10 years during the shudowns. The power plant itself is NOT the one that was built 40y ago.

onli 6y ago
You have a very focused elite building system in which the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations. That goes especially for politicans, but includes engineers. The pro-nuclear propaganda repeated by the people that go through this is frightening, many of them are completely brainwashed. In no way can the ASN be really independent, as it is staffed with the people that went through this system.
- seszett 6y ago
  > the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations Do you have any source for that? I'd be interested, although I find it difficult to believe since those "big universities", assuming you are talking about ENA and maybe Polytechnique, are public and very largely funded by taxes rather than private organizations.
- dkural 6y ago
  Can you point to any specific and concrete safety issue? (as opposed to, without any evidence, questioning the integrity of the people trying to reduce CO2 emissions by extending the lifetime of existing nuclear plants).
  - onli 6y ago
    Sure. I will cite Zeit.de, a german newspaper. They write in https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/atomkraftwerk-fessenheim-reaktor-elsass-frankreich https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/atomkraftwerk-fe...: > Das 1977 ans Netz gegangene Atomkraftwerk Fesseheim gilt seit Jahrzehnten als Sicherheitsrisiko. Es liegt in einem Erdbebengebiet und ist unzureichend gegen einen Flugzeugabsturz oder einen Anschlag geschützt. Zudem kam es immer wieder zu Pannen. They link to https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2016-03/fessenheim-atomenergie-zwischenfall-elsass-reaktor https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2016-03/fessenheim-atomenergie-zw..., a report about how the ASN lied about how bad an accident in April 2014 was. There definitely were safety issues, the only question is how bad they were.

steeve 6y ago

> Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years It is not. That number was made so that EDF would get a proper return of investment. Some plants based on the same design have been granted lifespan to 60 years in the US. > how far past that are we willing to go? As long as its safe. Why throw away something that works, is safe and reliable on the counts that some folks put out a number?

IAmEveryone 6y ago
I'm not quite willing to accept the US' ideas on science and safety as entirely unassailable at the moment. Nor, for that matter, should the most lenient regulation always dictate other countries'. That could just result in endless ping-pong of extensions, and it make lobbying so much easier if you only needed to convince one country and then shame all others into following.
dv_dt 6y ago
In the US upgrades of old plants in the US have gone wrong. e.g. see the San Onofre upgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Plant_closure,_June_2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...
- steeve 6y ago
  There are multiple differences why it’s not the same in France. The biggest one being that in the US, a plant as to confirm to its design security specifications, whereas it France, it has to conform to the security specifications of when it is inspected.
p4bl0 6y ago
How can anyone call nuclear power "safe"? Have we discovered a way to actually deal with the nuclear waste yet?
- lloeki 6y ago
  Just as much as we have discovered one to actually deal with the hydrocarbon burning waste. One is captured, packaged, and stashed away; the other is poured into the air in high volumes, continuously fueling a runaway scenario.

Nodraak 6y ago

> Afaik originally the life-span for most reactors of that kind was 40 years That's a lie, or at least an unprecise statement, mostly shared by the anti-nuclear who are looking for a reason to close reactors. In France, reactors were designed to work for 40 without any major checkup ; and after 40 years, without any decommission deadline planned in advance, as long the "visite décennale" (in-depth inspection every 10 years) does not discover any major issue. So a reactor can totally work for 60, 70, 80, or even more.

kergonath 6y ago

OK, there are several misconceptions here. 1) It's not one of the first French reactors by a long shot. It's actually a licensed American design. 2) More modern designs being better does not mean that previous ones are unusable, particularly when they've been built and are just sitting there. Stupid car analogy: a better car being sold with better crash test ratings does not mean you're going to die if you drive last year's model. 3) Life-span is a licensing issue. Lifetime extensions are common for reactors and designs without issues, which Fessenheim did not have. The fact that it's not automatic means that there is an in-depth study of the state of the reactor before the extension being approved. Reactors with the exact same design in the US have been extended to 80 years. 4) Your source is rubbish (and for reasons that stray far away from the topic so I'll leave it at that).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago

Fessenheim nearly got out of control in 2016 when water flooded electrical equipment racks. Control of of the reactor rods was interrupted, core temperature was rising uncontrollably. Letting the control rods fall into the core via gravity didn't work anymore either. They had to emergency flood the core with Boron, which luckily worked, the first time this has happened in a western european power reactor. They assigned the incident level 1, the lowest one, in order to cover it up. France has huge power demands in cold weather due to badly isolated houses heated with electricity. The power grid is already unstable, France cannot afford to loose much generator power, as they have nothing to replace it with - very few renewables.

Felz 6y ago
Hmm, wikipedia (and the ASN used as source) seems to describe this incident a bit differently. I didn't see anything about core temperature rising uncontrollably, it's slightly inaccurate to say that control of the rods themselves was interrupted (only a positioning indicator; they could've emergency shut down the reactor with the rods if they needed to; not sure why you say the control rod failsafe didn't work), and the "emergency flood" of boron which "luckily worked" was standard operating procedure. Do you have a better source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fessenheim_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Selected_incidents_and_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fessenheim_Nuclear_Power_Plant...
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  I've just added a more detailed source to Wikipedia (also from ASN), but it doesn't contain any new facts. A cursory google search didn't yield anything reliable confirming the parent's version.
kubanczyk 6y ago
Sources on the "via gravity didn't work anymore" please. Official report says it wasn't tried and remained a last line of defense. http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Media/Files/Technical-notice-description-of-the-event http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Media/Files/Technical-no... Also it was 2014, not 2016.
6y ago

LatteLazy 6y ago

Nuclear power is like Aboetion: a complex issue with major implications that has turned into A religion on both sides. You can't have a sensible discussion without being written off. The middle is shelled by both sides.

freeflight 6y ago
Tbh Fission was always considered a stop-gap technology until we could master fusion. Fusion is still way off but solar/wind have proven to be quite the generators, with grid-scale storage or some other way to utilize the energy surplus it could probably disrupt the electricity sector quite a bit. Those are actually emerging research fields, while nuclear fission is pretty much dated and new designs depend on materials we haven't even discovered yet. In that context this insistence on fission reactors reminds me quite a bit about the definition of insanity; Trying the same thing over and over expecting different results, like the world is just some kind of management sim. Meanwhile Germany is actually trying to innovate outside the box; It's been big on hydrogen research and application for a while, by now there is even a whole roadmap to utilize hydrogen as a future energy resource [0]. Which could utilize large parts of the already existing natural gas pipeline network [1], there's also pilot projects for repurposing old coal plants into thermal storage to retain more of the solar/wind electricity [2]. Yet news like that never make any waves, it's always "Why did Merkel shut down all reactors?", when she never decided the phase-out (That was ratified under Red/Green back in 2002) nor did she actually shut down any reactors, but rather keeps trying to extend their running times. [0] https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer/wissenschaftspolitik/Positionen/2019-10-a-hydrogen-roadmap-for-germany.pdf https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer... [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/gas-grid-operators-say-few-new-pipelines-needed-build-hydrogen-network https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/gas-grid-operators-say-... [2] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germany-thermal-storage-into-coal-plants https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germany-thermal...