4 ms·

> We know the French model works really well It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy pr

> We know the French model works really well It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. It's so fantastic that every summer they have to buy dirty coal energy from Germany because their rivers get too hot and every winter because...it's too cold and their ageing fleet is breaking down all the time. The success is so staggering that they plan to reduce their fleet by 50% until 2030 and replace that with renewable energy. Hooray... --------------------- Edit: since the Astro-Turf reached me and I can't reply anymore due to downvotes, here are the answers to Bayart: > I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. Why do you try to lie about something everybody can google. This is the first result for "France river hot": https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwave-idUSKCN1UK0HR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwa... > Pretty much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades and losing the associated skill-set and industrial base. Weird because EPR didn't stop building. They just stopped building in France so this can't be right. Also: the reactors currently still under construction started construction when all the people from the peak construction times where still there. They still can't manage to build on budget or on time. Not even close. ---------------- @corban1: Only because Germany doesn't hide their subsidies doesn't mean that the French taxpayer is not paying for their ageing fleet (or overpriced projects abroad) with their taxes... Also the fact that coal is an important job motor in troubled regions of Germany which is why it's still there (but is being phased out completely soon).

chelical 5y ago
This didn't age well lol. Macron just announced they're going up build more nuclear reactors to meet their emissions targets.
corban1 5y ago
France €0.1765 per kWh 57.3 gCO2/KWh (2019) | Germany €0.3159 (+76.9%) per kWh 468 (+816%) gCO2/KWh (2019) Seems the success is very clearly visible both environmentally and economically? [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity-outlook-of-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2-emissions-per-kilowatt-hour-of-electricity-in https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2...
- gefhfff 5y ago
  Correlation is not causation
  - mlyle 5y ago
    ??? we're talking about the economic cost and carbon output of energy vs. how it is generated. Do you think there's some other common factor that explains France using lots of nuclear power and having a low carbon footprint and energy costs?
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      Household energy prices don't really tell us much about the production costs though.
    - gefhfff 5y ago
      I think there are may be factors for Germany having high energy prices.
Bayart 5y ago
Imports and exports help to smooth out the load curve, but I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. French net CO2 emissions remain stable and low the entire year, that's it. As far as I'm aware, heat waves have very little impact on nuclear energy production. Their impact on river temperatures is a few tenth of a degree and they can function on fairly high water temperatures (bellow 28c). I've read that over the last decade, which had several heat-waves, they accounted for an average production loss of 0.3%. >It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. Pretty much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades and losing the associated skill-set and industrial base.
- natmaka 5y ago
  > much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades In 1999 a new reactor started in France (Civaux-2). In 2005 a new building site started (at Olkiluoto, Finland). Even by considering start dates (Civaux-2: 1991) and neglecting that skills are needed during the building (and not only when it started) they only are 14 years apart. Moreover many skills are needed for the maintenance of the existing fleet (in France). Olkiluoto was planned as soon as in 2000, when its builder Areva NP created an agency in Finland in order to sell the project. Also: most skills (concrete, welding...) aren't completely specific to the nuclear industry: part of those are shared with many other fields. How a huge and well-organized heavy industry which sells projects could let key skills evaporate in a few years (no, not 'decades')?
NaNDude 5y ago
looks like you missed the most important part of your own source : "Atomic power from France’s 58 reactors accounts for over 75 percent of its electricity needs. Available nuclear power supply was down 1.4 percentage points at 65.3% of total capacity compared with Wednesday." this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_. a large part of the EPR slowdown in fr is due to security concern that changed while the project was already started, china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time. on the price: 25% of the energy produced by nuclear in fr is sold under the market price to private retailers because of anti-monopolistic EU laws and stupidity of our governement. the electricity price in EU is usualy indexed on the worst gaz plant available, with the actual price of gaz raising and all of the 25% already acquired, a lot of them are just closing. given those constrains, yes this model works more than well... the project to close "50%" (in fact 15 reactors) until 2030 is another political subject which will probably never become a reality given that most renewable alternatives projects end up being blocked/hated everywhere. funny fact: replacing ALL the current transport and electric energy supply in fr by wind turbines has been evaluated to require one of the most efficient available turbine for each km² on ALL the french territory...
- Krasnol 5y ago
  > this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_. The report was from 2019 because it was the first search result. This is an ongoing issue and not getting better: https://www.montelnews.com/news/1198233/heatwave-impact-on-french-nuclear-output-doubles-to-3-twh https://www.montelnews.com/news/1198233/heatwave-impact-on-f... Also: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-power-winteroutlook-idUKKBN1332C6 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-power-winteroutloo... https://www.montelnews.com/news/1266598/-france-faces-winter-power-cuts--analysts https://www.montelnews.com/news/1266598/-france-faces-winter... https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/People-in-France-asked-to-cut-electricity-during-cold-snap-today https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/People-in-France... https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2113554-french-tso-rules-out-winter-blackout-warns-of-cuts https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2113554-french-tso-rules-... This is why you diversify your energy. And I mean seriously...this is France we're talking about. Those informations are easy to google. Please stop spreading misinformation. > a large part of the EPR slowdown in fr is due to security concern that changed while the project was already started, china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time. Yeah they should just look away more like in China...it's just a nuclear reactor after all! France should also get some Tofu-dreg experience from China. This is the way. Sorry...but I can't take such statements seriously. It's madness. > funny fact: replacing ALL the current transport and electric energy supply in fr by wind turbines has been evaluated to require one of the most efficient available turbine for each km² on ALL the french territory... Why would you even evaluate such a narrow scenario? This is beyond stupid. Renewables are not just wind. Also I doubt this has been done seriously since there was a study years ago that you could power the whole of Europe if you take just the available building space on the coast and use wind.

chelical 5y ago

This didn't age well lol. Macron just announced they're going up build more nuclear reactors to meet their emissions targets.

corban1 5y ago

France €0.1765 per kWh 57.3 gCO2/KWh (2019) | Germany €0.3159 (+76.9%) per kWh 468 (+816%) gCO2/KWh (2019) Seems the success is very clearly visible both environmentally and economically? [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity-outlook-of-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2-emissions-per-kilowatt-hour-of-electricity-in https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2...

gefhfff 5y ago
Correlation is not causation
- mlyle 5y ago
  ??? we're talking about the economic cost and carbon output of energy vs. how it is generated. Do you think there's some other common factor that explains France using lots of nuclear power and having a low carbon footprint and energy costs?
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    Household energy prices don't really tell us much about the production costs though.
  - gefhfff 5y ago
    I think there are may be factors for Germany having high energy prices.

Bayart 5y ago

Imports and exports help to smooth out the load curve, but I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. French net CO2 emissions remain stable and low the entire year, that's it. As far as I'm aware, heat waves have very little impact on nuclear energy production. Their impact on river temperatures is a few tenth of a degree and they can function on fairly high water temperatures (bellow 28c). I've read that over the last decade, which had several heat-waves, they accounted for an average production loss of 0.3%. >It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. Pretty much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades and losing the associated skill-set and industrial base.

natmaka 5y ago
> much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades In 1999 a new reactor started in France (Civaux-2). In 2005 a new building site started (at Olkiluoto, Finland). Even by considering start dates (Civaux-2: 1991) and neglecting that skills are needed during the building (and not only when it started) they only are 14 years apart. Moreover many skills are needed for the maintenance of the existing fleet (in France). Olkiluoto was planned as soon as in 2000, when its builder Areva NP created an agency in Finland in order to sell the project. Also: most skills (concrete, welding...) aren't completely specific to the nuclear industry: part of those are shared with many other fields. How a huge and well-organized heavy industry which sells projects could let key skills evaporate in a few years (no, not 'decades')?

NaNDude 5y ago

looks like you missed the most important part of your own source : "Atomic power from France’s 58 reactors accounts for over 75 percent of its electricity needs. Available nuclear power supply was down 1.4 percentage points at 65.3% of total capacity compared with Wednesday." this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_. a large part of the EPR slowdown in fr is due to security concern that changed while the project was already started, china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time. on the price: 25% of the energy produced by nuclear in fr is sold under the market price to private retailers because of anti-monopolistic EU laws and stupidity of our governement. the electricity price in EU is usualy indexed on the worst gaz plant available, with the actual price of gaz raising and all of the 25% already acquired, a lot of them are just closing. given those constrains, yes this model works more than well... the project to close "50%" (in fact 15 reactors) until 2030 is another political subject which will probably never become a reality given that most renewable alternatives projects end up being blocked/hated everywhere. funny fact: replacing ALL the current transport and electric energy supply in fr by wind turbines has been evaluated to require one of the most efficient available turbine for each km² on ALL the french territory...

Krasnol 5y ago
> this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_. The report was from 2019 because it was the first search result. This is an ongoing issue and not getting better: https://www.montelnews.com/news/1198233/heatwave-impact-on-french-nuclear-output-doubles-to-3-twh https://www.montelnews.com/news/1198233/heatwave-impact-on-f... Also: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-power-winteroutlook-idUKKBN1332C6 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-power-winteroutloo... https://www.montelnews.com/news/1266598/-france-faces-winter-power-cuts--analysts https://www.montelnews.com/news/1266598/-france-faces-winter... https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/People-in-France-asked-to-cut-electricity-during-cold-snap-today https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/People-in-France... https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2113554-french-tso-rules-out-winter-blackout-warns-of-cuts https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2113554-french-tso-rules-... This is why you diversify your energy. And I mean seriously...this is France we're talking about. Those informations are easy to google. Please stop spreading misinformation. > a large part of the EPR slowdown in fr is due to security concern that changed while the project was already started, china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time. Yeah they should just look away more like in China...it's just a nuclear reactor after all! France should also get some Tofu-dreg experience from China. This is the way. Sorry...but I can't take such statements seriously. It's madness. > funny fact: replacing ALL the current transport and electric energy supply in fr by wind turbines has been evaluated to require one of the most efficient available turbine for each km² on ALL the french territory... Why would you even evaluate such a narrow scenario? This is beyond stupid. Renewables are not just wind. Also I doubt this has been done seriously since there was a study years ago that you could power the whole of Europe if you take just the available building space on the coast and use wind.