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France isn't reducing the capacity as a targetted policy but out of necessity. They have 58 nuclear power plants, most of them quite old (before 80ies). To main
by _ph_ 5y ago
France isn't reducing the capacity as a targetted policy but out of necessity. They have 58 nuclear power plants, most of them quite old (before 80ies). To maintain the current level, they would have to be replaced not too far in the future, but currently only 1 or 2 new reactors are under construction and both late and way over budget. So there currently is no route in maintaining the current capacity. Consequently politics has to come up with a roadmap which relies less on nuclear power.
- kspacewalk2 5y agoConsciously deciding to not replace capacity when the need for replacement is known decades in advance is a targeted policy.
- _ph_ 5y agoMaybe I have not made that point clear enough in my post: currently they are failing to build replacement plants at a cost at which they could replace all of the existing reactors. Unless they can come up with an entirely new design which considerably cuts cost compared to what is considered a "current design" right now, there will be a reduction in capacity.
- the8472 5y agoBuilding them in series tends to make per-unit cost come down.
- _ph_ 5y agoYes, that would be to expect. But to determine the feasibility and calculate possible savings with further units, one would have to finish the first of the series first.
- it_citizen 5y agoSurprisingly, experience has shown that building more nuclear plants, even standardized, don't make them cheaper to build but more expensive. 2010: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... 2020: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan...
- the8472 5y agoIn the 2020 article two of the 3 reasons listed are changes, regulation and design changes. So it's not really series-production of a single model.
- concordDance 5y agoNuclear being staggeringly overregulated is the reason for the high costs. If we put the same price on lives lost to car accidents as we do to lives lost in nuclear accidents (which some basic back of envelope calculations using old reactor construction costs and lives lost in nuclear accidents reveals to be well over a billion dollars per life) none of us would drive.
- _ph_ 5y agoIf you consider the possible extend of a major accident - whole southern Germany could become contaminated and tens of million of people could loose their homestead - a certain emphasis on safety is welcome.
- worrycue 5y ago> currently only 1 or 2 new reactors are under construction and both late and way over budget. So in a few decades France has forgotten how to build reactors on time and in an affordable way?
- michael1999 5y agoBooms generate an educated cohort. A stalled boom freezes this now-oversized cohort in place, and leaves no job openings for the next generation. Then, a generation later, retirement can leave an industry incapable of past glories.
- pydry 5y agoIt's never been cheap. It's previously been heavily subsidized, often as a means to maintaining a domestic nuclear economy as a means of maintaining nuclear arsenals.
- _ph_ 5y agoAs have all western countries. Building a new nuclear power plant at the safety level one would expect today is hugely expensive.
- whimsicalism 5y agoSouth Korea hasn't forgotten. They have gotten the costs down quite a bit.
- _ph_ 5y agoHow far?
- whimsicalism 5y agohttps://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-us-france-korea https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-u... This has some useful charts. It shows that nuclear still has economy of scale to improve, if we give it the chance. The big difficulty for nuclear is public pressure/fear of accidents. People are much more afraid of "big scary nuclear accident" vs. probabilistic deaths caused by air pollution, even if the deaths from the latter is in the tens of thousands and the former is in the dozens. That fear of public/policy backlash makes raising capital in order to actually benefit from those economics of scale very difficult.
- ohgodplsno 5y agoNot really. While it is true that we have not been building nuclear reactors in the last 40 years (and that, therefore, all knowledge is basically lost, leading to the insane delays we're seeing in the EPR), this is mostly a political maneuver to win the ecologist vote. Hollande closing down Fessenheim when it was good for an additional 20 years at the very least is a prime example of the clownery at the head of this country.