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The government policy for a reduction to 50% is not based on issues with nuclear power itself. As far as I have seen, there are mainly 2 reasons mentioned in th

by woko 5y ago

The government policy for a reduction to 50% is not based on issues with nuclear power itself. As far as I have seen, there are mainly 2 reasons mentioned in the public debate: i) a concern about the disposal of nuclear wastes and the long-term cost of their storage, and ii) the desire to follow other countries' policies, with a focus on wind, water and sunlight, rather than leading the way with the cheapest and most modern solution for electricity production. The decision was written in the law in 2015 [1,2], with a statement that renewable electricity (wind, water) should reach 40% of the production, which implies that nuclear power should not account for 70% in the future. Overall, I believe this is not a bad idea because i) renewable electricity is bound to get better thanks to worldwide research, and ii) it is smart not to put all your eggs in the same basket. [1] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000043976297/ https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000... (in French) [2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_relative_%C3%A0_la_transition_%C3%A9nerg%C3%A9tique_pour_la_croissance_verte https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_relative_%C3%A0_la_transit... (in French)

nickik 5y ago
There is really one reason, the population doesn't like it, so they have to pretend reasons exist to build solar or wind. The cost of waste storage is tiny. By far the best would to join with Canada on next generation nuclear.
forty 5y ago
Where have you seen nuclear is the cheapest solution for electrity production? Nuclear has some benefits, but price does seem to be one of them (and actually one of the reasons for preferring renewable)
- lazide 5y ago
  On a ‘basic capacity price’ type basis, nuclear is dirt cheap. When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects (like having no economies of scale at all despite the clear opportunity for them) then yes, it is very expensive. shrug Most nuclear projects outside of China basically turned into exercises in endless planning churn and endless delays for no rational reason to appease anti-progress political factions long ago. For an example of a similar money pit/tarpit playing out in a similar way, check out “High Speed” Rail in California.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects..." Like "where are you going to put the waste?" and "I don't want my property values to go to zero when an accident occurs"? :-) If one were suitably cynical, one might suggest China does not have that kind of problem.
    - evilos 5y ago
      Fun fact: all the nuclear waste that the US has ever produced fits in football field at a height of 30 feet. Currently, spent fuel just stays at the nuclear plants because there is so little of it and it's not a problem. You just put them in sealed casks and they sit there. You don't really want to lose access to the spent fuel either because if you develop breeder reactors that spent fuel is now just 'fuel'.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Nah, those (if legitimate) aren’t tarpits. We’ve had, at various times, approved locations for waste, and we actually still approve the storage of waste on site - indefinite storage of ‘temporary waste’. Paying into an insurance fund in case of a nuclear disaster would be far cheaper than what has been happening. What happens instead is 1) a set of requirements is made, 2) someone spends years figuring it out. 3) it gets approved, 4) before it finishes getting built (or started to be built in some case), someone files a lawsuit causing it to stop or changes the rules, 5) rinse and repeat, or; Someone gets the bright idea to try something new and unproven, and then they pay all the R&D time, and then the first thing starts happening, and then you’re tarpitted again. In California it even appears to be part of the plan for high speed rail; as the engineering firms get paid every time the plan needs to get redrawn, and they can keep juking between plans forever until the funds are gone. This happened with Caltrain electrification for a decade. Billions spent for literally a 45 miles’ish stretch of track to electrify it, with zero progress over that time. If folks are being paid to make plans instead of make a project, that’s usually what they are going to do.
      - lazide 5y ago
        Also a situation I got reminded of near where my parents live - hydrogen plant being built in the middle of the desert. Developers get courted by city A who has cheap land available. City A has a city manager that works out a sweet heart deal that basically funds some of the planning costs (and cuts city revenue by a couple million/yr for a few years doing so), but in exchange for approval and at the last minute, requires they hook to the recycled water source he stupidly had run several miles away instead of the normal way to cover his ass for that bad decision. City B, literally borders on the other side of the street, has a recycled water pipe literally on the other side of the street. After years of planning and millions spent on their side, the numbers don’t pencil out anymore because of this, so the developers go ‘wtf’, and buy a plot on the other side of the street that is in City B (more expensive, but still cheaper than running 5 miles of large diameter water pipe), cut and paste the plans, and are going to build next year after 3+ years of wasted time and millions in cash wasted. And this is for a private, for profit project that they want to actually happen ASAP. When the taxpayers are footing the bill, the shenanigans get way worse. When no one seems to notice when the schedule keeps sleeping year after year? Even worse.
- woko 5y ago
  For instance, it is discussed in this press article [1] published in 2016 and available in French. It is mentioned that nuclear power costs 60€/MWh, compared to 80€/MWh for wind power. It is also mentioned quite often in the French press: I have seen it mentioned a few days ago. The source mentioned in the 2016 press article is an official report [2] published in 2014. However, it is true that the maintenance cost increases as the power plants get older. [1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/le-nucleaire-coute-120-euros-le-mwh-contre-80-pour-l-eolien_1777537.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/le-... (in French) [2] https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-cout-de-production-de-lelectricite-nucleaire-actualisation-2014 https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-cout-de-productio... (in French)
  - forty 5y ago
    Yeah I feel the end of life has not yet been factored in the price (ie the cost of dismantling the reactor or maintaining it alive forever). It would be very aligned with the general philosophy of nuclear ^^ (ie "the next generations will either figure it out or pay the price")
    - digianarchist 5y ago
      Decommissioning costs are huge and were kicked into the long grass in the UK instead of being factored in at the start like here in Canada.
    - renox 5y ago
      The dismantling cost has been factored in but given that they don't manage to reliably estimate construction costs I don't see why the estimate of the dismantling cost would be more accurate..
- godelski 5y ago
  Most of the French nuclear reactors were built when they had the capacity to build many reactors and thus it was cheaper. The problem with a lot of current nuclear costs is that you have to reinvent the wheel every time. If you're mass producing then things get cheaper. We haven't mass produced reactors in decades.
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Comparing non-dispatchable sources with dispatchable sources is comparing apples to oranges. Solar is cheap, until you saturate daytime consumption and have to start building storage. Similar with wind.
  - derriz 5y ago
    Nuclear isn't dispatchable - most reactors have a design output and are not intended to be ramped up and down. They require a big chunk of actual dispatchable power (natural gas mainly) to provide demand following. LACE is a measure which takes into account the value of the generated electricity as well as the cost of production but nuclear does poorly here also as much of its output occurs when wholesale prices are low.
    - NaNDude 5y ago
      nuclear dispatching is mostly done over international distribution in UE. the requirements in more dispatchables power like gaz or hydro is'nt comparable with weather randomized energy sources with poor efficiency which usually require a 1:1 alternative dispatchables sources (gaz or hydro again). France electric energy mix is/was around 70-80% nuclear.
    - Manuel_D 5y ago
      A better term might be "non-intermittent". Nuclear plants produce the same amount of energy regardless of time of day or wind speed. And power output can be modulated with more aggressive cooling. Same thermal output of the reactor, but lessened electrical output. By comparison, any plan for a renewable grid requires massive storage capacity. Most hand-wave this away by assuming some new technology will effectively make storage free.
      - derriz 5y ago
        Nuclear plants are also "intermittent" - the average US reactor spends 32 days offline per year. Does that mean a grid relying heavily on nuclear needs massive amounts of storage? No - it means you need to have redundant capacity which is the solution also used for wind and solar. The benefit of nuclear in this regard isn't that it's "non-intermittent" - it's that the most common failure modes for a nuclear nuclear are statistically independent (except when it's not like in a natural catastrophe situation - like Fukushima). But as a grid operator trying to match supply and demand, it's just a variant of the same problem. The solution preferred by grids heavily dependent on wind for example is simply to over-provision wind and use de-rating while maintaining natural gas capacity reserve (which is relatively cheap). This approach is relatively proven at this stage with some European countries deriving around half their electricity from "intermittent" renewables.
throwaway894345 5y ago
> i) a concern about the disposal of nuclear wastes and the long-term cost of their storage I don't understand this concern. If you already have several decades worth of nuclear waste to manage/dispose, is it really more expensive to manage/dispose another several decades? For example, if you're disposing in a deep geologic repository, is it really much more expensive to put a little bit of waste in a big hole versus a little more waste? > Overall, I believe this is not a bad idea because i) renewable electricity is bound to get better thanks to worldwide research, and ii) it is smart not to put all your eggs in the same basket. I don't think anyone is advocating 100% nuclear energy, but nuclear is the only clean base load energy source. Without nuclear, we're putting all of our eggs in the "renewable energy" basket (assuming the goal is to move off of fossil fuels) and praying for a miracle breakthrough for base load. Considering that it takes decades to bring a new nuclear plant online, decommissioning a nuclear plant is the height of folly. It necessarily means more dependence on fossil fuels and the countries who provide them (in Europe, this largely means Russia).

by woko 5y ago

nickik 5y ago

There is really one reason, the population doesn't like it, so they have to pretend reasons exist to build solar or wind. The cost of waste storage is tiny. By far the best would to join with Canada on next generation nuclear.

forty 5y ago

Where have you seen nuclear is the cheapest solution for electrity production? Nuclear has some benefits, but price does seem to be one of them (and actually one of the reasons for preferring renewable)

lazide 5y ago
On a ‘basic capacity price’ type basis, nuclear is dirt cheap. When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects (like having no economies of scale at all despite the clear opportunity for them) then yes, it is very expensive. shrug Most nuclear projects outside of China basically turned into exercises in endless planning churn and endless delays for no rational reason to appease anti-progress political factions long ago. For an example of a similar money pit/tarpit playing out in a similar way, check out “High Speed” Rail in California.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "When you throw in endless political tarpits and their side effects..." Like "where are you going to put the waste?" and "I don't want my property values to go to zero when an accident occurs"? :-) If one were suitably cynical, one might suggest China does not have that kind of problem.
  - evilos 5y ago
    Fun fact: all the nuclear waste that the US has ever produced fits in football field at a height of 30 feet. Currently, spent fuel just stays at the nuclear plants because there is so little of it and it's not a problem. You just put them in sealed casks and they sit there. You don't really want to lose access to the spent fuel either because if you develop breeder reactors that spent fuel is now just 'fuel'.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Nah, those (if legitimate) aren’t tarpits. We’ve had, at various times, approved locations for waste, and we actually still approve the storage of waste on site - indefinite storage of ‘temporary waste’. Paying into an insurance fund in case of a nuclear disaster would be far cheaper than what has been happening. What happens instead is 1) a set of requirements is made, 2) someone spends years figuring it out. 3) it gets approved, 4) before it finishes getting built (or started to be built in some case), someone files a lawsuit causing it to stop or changes the rules, 5) rinse and repeat, or; Someone gets the bright idea to try something new and unproven, and then they pay all the R&D time, and then the first thing starts happening, and then you’re tarpitted again. In California it even appears to be part of the plan for high speed rail; as the engineering firms get paid every time the plan needs to get redrawn, and they can keep juking between plans forever until the funds are gone. This happened with Caltrain electrification for a decade. Billions spent for literally a 45 miles’ish stretch of track to electrify it, with zero progress over that time. If folks are being paid to make plans instead of make a project, that’s usually what they are going to do.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Also a situation I got reminded of near where my parents live - hydrogen plant being built in the middle of the desert. Developers get courted by city A who has cheap land available. City A has a city manager that works out a sweet heart deal that basically funds some of the planning costs (and cuts city revenue by a couple million/yr for a few years doing so), but in exchange for approval and at the last minute, requires they hook to the recycled water source he stupidly had run several miles away instead of the normal way to cover his ass for that bad decision. City B, literally borders on the other side of the street, has a recycled water pipe literally on the other side of the street. After years of planning and millions spent on their side, the numbers don’t pencil out anymore because of this, so the developers go ‘wtf’, and buy a plot on the other side of the street that is in City B (more expensive, but still cheaper than running 5 miles of large diameter water pipe), cut and paste the plans, and are going to build next year after 3+ years of wasted time and millions in cash wasted. And this is for a private, for profit project that they want to actually happen ASAP. When the taxpayers are footing the bill, the shenanigans get way worse. When no one seems to notice when the schedule keeps sleeping year after year? Even worse.
woko 5y ago
For instance, it is discussed in this press article [1] published in 2016 and available in French. It is mentioned that nuclear power costs 60€/MWh, compared to 80€/MWh for wind power. It is also mentioned quite often in the French press: I have seen it mentioned a few days ago. The source mentioned in the 2016 press article is an official report [2] published in 2014. However, it is true that the maintenance cost increases as the power plants get older. [1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/le-nucleaire-coute-120-euros-le-mwh-contre-80-pour-l-eolien_1777537.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/le-... (in French) [2] https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-cout-de-production-de-lelectricite-nucleaire-actualisation-2014 https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-cout-de-productio... (in French)
- forty 5y ago
  Yeah I feel the end of life has not yet been factored in the price (ie the cost of dismantling the reactor or maintaining it alive forever). It would be very aligned with the general philosophy of nuclear ^^ (ie "the next generations will either figure it out or pay the price")
  - digianarchist 5y ago
    Decommissioning costs are huge and were kicked into the long grass in the UK instead of being factored in at the start like here in Canada.
  - renox 5y ago
    The dismantling cost has been factored in but given that they don't manage to reliably estimate construction costs I don't see why the estimate of the dismantling cost would be more accurate..
godelski 5y ago
Most of the French nuclear reactors were built when they had the capacity to build many reactors and thus it was cheaper. The problem with a lot of current nuclear costs is that you have to reinvent the wheel every time. If you're mass producing then things get cheaper. We haven't mass produced reactors in decades.
Manuel_D 5y ago
Comparing non-dispatchable sources with dispatchable sources is comparing apples to oranges. Solar is cheap, until you saturate daytime consumption and have to start building storage. Similar with wind.
- derriz 5y ago
  Nuclear isn't dispatchable - most reactors have a design output and are not intended to be ramped up and down. They require a big chunk of actual dispatchable power (natural gas mainly) to provide demand following. LACE is a measure which takes into account the value of the generated electricity as well as the cost of production but nuclear does poorly here also as much of its output occurs when wholesale prices are low.
  - NaNDude 5y ago
    nuclear dispatching is mostly done over international distribution in UE. the requirements in more dispatchables power like gaz or hydro is'nt comparable with weather randomized energy sources with poor efficiency which usually require a 1:1 alternative dispatchables sources (gaz or hydro again). France electric energy mix is/was around 70-80% nuclear.
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    A better term might be "non-intermittent". Nuclear plants produce the same amount of energy regardless of time of day or wind speed. And power output can be modulated with more aggressive cooling. Same thermal output of the reactor, but lessened electrical output. By comparison, any plan for a renewable grid requires massive storage capacity. Most hand-wave this away by assuming some new technology will effectively make storage free.
    - derriz 5y ago
      Nuclear plants are also "intermittent" - the average US reactor spends 32 days offline per year. Does that mean a grid relying heavily on nuclear needs massive amounts of storage? No - it means you need to have redundant capacity which is the solution also used for wind and solar. The benefit of nuclear in this regard isn't that it's "non-intermittent" - it's that the most common failure modes for a nuclear nuclear are statistically independent (except when it's not like in a natural catastrophe situation - like Fukushima). But as a grid operator trying to match supply and demand, it's just a variant of the same problem. The solution preferred by grids heavily dependent on wind for example is simply to over-provision wind and use de-rating while maintaining natural gas capacity reserve (which is relatively cheap). This approach is relatively proven at this stage with some European countries deriving around half their electricity from "intermittent" renewables.

throwaway894345 5y ago

> i) a concern about the disposal of nuclear wastes and the long-term cost of their storage I don't understand this concern. If you already have several decades worth of nuclear waste to manage/dispose, is it really more expensive to manage/dispose another several decades? For example, if you're disposing in a deep geologic repository, is it really much more expensive to put a little bit of waste in a big hole versus a little more waste? > Overall, I believe this is not a bad idea because i) renewable electricity is bound to get better thanks to worldwide research, and ii) it is smart not to put all your eggs in the same basket. I don't think anyone is advocating 100% nuclear energy, but nuclear is the only clean base load energy source. Without nuclear, we're putting all of our eggs in the "renewable energy" basket (assuming the goal is to move off of fossil fuels) and praying for a miracle breakthrough for base load. Considering that it takes decades to bring a new nuclear plant online, decommissioning a nuclear plant is the height of folly. It necessarily means more dependence on fossil fuels and the countries who provide them (in Europe, this largely means Russia).