6 ms·

They temporarily lost 4 reactors / 6 GW. "It said the French utility could need to spend about 2 billion-3 billion euros ($2.3 billion-$3.4 billion) in 2022 to

by trhway 5y ago

They temporarily lost 4 reactors / 6 GW. "It said the French utility could need to spend about 2 billion-3 billion euros ($2.3 billion-$3.4 billion) in 2022 to buy back some of its power to cover outages at the nuclear reactors." More money after bad money. The cost of solar 1GW farm with storage is well under $2B. The power transmission cable from Alger to France would still leave it under $2B/1GW. Instead France is doubling down on nuclear.

brnt 5y ago
France is currently occupying a bit of a baseload supplier for its renewable energy neighbours. It may make strategic and economic sense for them to double down: they have the expertise, installed base, friendly environment and market.
- wumpus 5y ago
  Other than those pesky maintenance issues for older plants, and their proven inability to build new ones at a reasonable price?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  And they have the (supposedly former) colonies providing nuclear fuel at the cost of protecting their environment and population. And abundant rivers with to cool down the reactors and destroy their local ecosystems. And very collaborative national media outlets who mostly don't cover the nuclear scandals due to being owned by Bouygues (french multinational well-known for telecoms but who also does a fair share of public construction including on the famous EPR) or by the french State. Cozy situation!
  - Kuinox 5y ago
    *Citation & sources needed.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      And they have the (supposedly former) colonies providing nuclear fuel at the cost of protecting their environment and population. [0] And abundant rivers with to cool down the reactors and destroy their local ecosystems. [1] And very collaborative national media outlets who mostly don't cover the nuclear scandals due to being owned by Bouygues [2] (french multinational well-known for telecoms but who also does a fair share of public construction including on the famous EPR [3]) or by the french State [4]. Some additions: - misleading/missing news reports on nuclear topics was covered by the 2012 documentary "Les nouveaux chiens de garde" [5] (the new watchdogs) about media corruption and disinformation: they went through two days worth of news broadcast on two TV channels to compare how was presented (or not) the fact that Bouygues had major engineering failures on the EPR construction - the french government has a history of repression against ecological/anti-nuclear movements, ranging from the murder in 1977 of Vital Michalon by police forces [6] during an anti-nuclear protest, to the harassment and military (gendarmerie) occupation of Bure (Meuse) and surrounding villages, including dozens of house searches, a bunch of prison sentences, and an ongoing investigation of eco-anarchists for "criminal association" [7] - and don't even get me started on how to (not) deconstruct those facilities [8] [0] https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/french-nuclear-power-fed-uranium-niger https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/french-nuclear-power-fe... [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/clark1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/clark1/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TF1_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TF1_Group ; also see previous addition about TF1's non-coverage of EPR-related incidents [3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_pressuris%C3%A9_europ%C3%A9en https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_pressuris%C3%A9_... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9visions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9visions - no specific source about "censorship" of nuclear incidents, however there is a strong and documented history of firing journalists and humorists who are too critical of the french State and corporations, and of self-censorship ; see also acrimed.org (french only sorry) [5] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nouveaux_Chiens_de_garde_(film) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nouveaux_Chiens_de_garde_(... [6] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon [7] https://bureburebure.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EN-Bure-History-and-context.pdf https://bureburebure.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EN-Bure... [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29600399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29600399
  - uranius 5y ago
    I don't understand the point about nuclear fuel. The whole reason France went nuclear is to have energy independence, because you can source uranium from pretty much anywhere (unlike fossil fuels). The largest exporters of uranium in the world are Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. Those aren't former French colonies. But, yes, there are also countries in Africa that export uranium, but that's the point; if you look at a map of uranium reserves you'll find it's pretty much all over the world (and not really that much in Africa, actually).
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      To my (limited) knowledge 100% of nuclear fuel used by French nuclear facilities comes from former french colonies in Africa, although french companies (Areva) are involved in uranium exploitation in other parts of the world as well. I'm not saying french (neo-)colonies are the only place to get uranium from. I'm saying it's very cozy to have the dictators your colonial secret services set up over the years provide you with cheap resources.
- trhway 5y ago
  > baseload supplier the cost of 1GW nuclear these days is starting at $6B. For that amount of money you can double/triple diversify between solar and wind, so you'll always have that 1GW baseload and with much lesser hassle and damage than nuclear. >its renewable energy neighbours And nuclear is bad investment from that POV too - 10-20 years down the road after building reliable renewable energy system Germany for example will ask itself "Why we're still supporting the nuclear next door?" France isn't Lithuania of course and will be much harder to force to shut down nuclear, yet i think that neighbors pressure is coming.
  - Krssst 5y ago
    > double/triple diversify between solar and wind How would doubling / tripling help you when there is little wind and clouds for a few days?
    - trhway 5y ago
      Clouds in Alger while no wind in Atlantic? Total, so not even 0.5 GW generated among them for days so the storage gets depleted too.
    - powerbroker 5y ago
      Get the Electric Vehicles to 'stock up' on kWh prior to the cloudy/no-wind period. And then induce them not to charge during the cloudy/no-wind period with a 'renewable hiatus' premium, of, say, 50-100% of the normal price of a kWh.
      - Krssst 5y ago
        A Tesla model S seems to be able to store 100kWh. France seems to have ~30M cars. So, 100e330e63600~=1e16 J storage assuming all those cars switch to being Tesla S, and are somehow kept unused. France consumed 529e6/1.17 MHw according to https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/france-electricity/ https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/france-electricity... (in 2016). So, average consumption is 529e12/1.17*3600/365/86400 ~= 50GW. 1e16J / 50GW is 200,000 seconds or 2.3 days. So, not completely unreasonable, but it still seems on the low side (only two days), and I am not sure what the impact would be on car batteries to be continuously charged/discharged. This also assumes cars are left at home to serve the grid. This also assumes electricity consumption does not increase, which seems unlikely (since transportation and heating must switch to electricity at some point).
Dylan16807 5y ago
> The cost of solar 1GW farm with storage is well under $2B. Can you be more specific about that? I'm seeing prices like one dollar per watt just for panels, and that's the peak output. So multiply that by at least 4 for 4 billion, and then a likely-not-enough 14GWh of storage at a lowballed $300/kWh is another 4 billion. If I was sending in a quote I'd put $20B on the sheet, not $2B.
- trhway 5y ago
  $1.1B for 1GW https://commercialsolarguy.com/americas-first-gigawatt-solar-power-plant-a-warren-buffett-investment-to-be-built-in-nevada/ https://commercialsolarguy.com/americas-first-gigawatt-solar... $20B for 10GW with cable to Singapore https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-largest-solar-farm-to-pipe-power-internationally-from-australia-under-the-sea https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-largest-solar-farm-to-p... The writing is on the wall. The nuclear with its supposed "baseload" goes the way of Big Iron with its high reliability/etc. which got replaced by distributed clusters of cheap Linux boxes.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > $1.1B for 1GW That's peak power. It can only supply that for a few hours each day. And the battery can only supply 350MW for 4 hours. 5x the solar and 10x the battery and you will approach a constant 1GW of power, then add more if you don't want to be knocked out as soon as you have a bad weather day. > $20B for 10GW That's also peak power, and it doesn't say anything about a battery.
Rygian 5y ago
You seem to imply that solar and wind are a drop-in replacement for nuclear, but they are not. Nuclear keeps producing power on a windless night.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > with storage
  - Rygian 5y ago
    What do you mean by "with storage"? How much of it? If you want to cover for an 8-hour windless night, at 1 GW, you will need 8 GWh of storage, and you will need to generate a surplus of 8 GWh of electricity during the remaining 16 hours of the (previous) day, every day (windy or not, sunny or not). Comparing solar/wind to nuclear requires more elaboration than just slapping a "with storage."
Glawen 5y ago
Sahara solar panel project is a good idea, the problem is the location. There is no way that France can rely on Algeria, algerian leaders are still today blaming France for the problems they are facing now, it is so tiresome. Marocco or Tunisia are better candidate for such projects.
- marci 5y ago
  And even if algerian leaders where not a problem, they would still need to stay clear from all the area where France had nuclear tests, especially places where the rate of thyroid and pulmonary cancer is higher than average. Not sure the locals would be happy about it. And (I'll reuse your phrasing) since french leaders are still today blaming muslims for the problems they are facing now, I wonder how these projects would be led, whether in Algeria, Tunisia or Morocco.

by trhway 5y ago

brnt 5y ago

France is currently occupying a bit of a baseload supplier for its renewable energy neighbours. It may make strategic and economic sense for them to double down: they have the expertise, installed base, friendly environment and market.

wumpus 5y ago
Other than those pesky maintenance issues for older plants, and their proven inability to build new ones at a reasonable price?
southerntofu 5y ago
And they have the (supposedly former) colonies providing nuclear fuel at the cost of protecting their environment and population. And abundant rivers with to cool down the reactors and destroy their local ecosystems. And very collaborative national media outlets who mostly don't cover the nuclear scandals due to being owned by Bouygues (french multinational well-known for telecoms but who also does a fair share of public construction including on the famous EPR) or by the french State. Cozy situation!
- Kuinox 5y ago
  *Citation & sources needed.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    And they have the (supposedly former) colonies providing nuclear fuel at the cost of protecting their environment and population. [0] And abundant rivers with to cool down the reactors and destroy their local ecosystems. [1] And very collaborative national media outlets who mostly don't cover the nuclear scandals due to being owned by Bouygues [2] (french multinational well-known for telecoms but who also does a fair share of public construction including on the famous EPR [3]) or by the french State [4]. Some additions: - misleading/missing news reports on nuclear topics was covered by the 2012 documentary "Les nouveaux chiens de garde" [5] (the new watchdogs) about media corruption and disinformation: they went through two days worth of news broadcast on two TV channels to compare how was presented (or not) the fact that Bouygues had major engineering failures on the EPR construction - the french government has a history of repression against ecological/anti-nuclear movements, ranging from the murder in 1977 of Vital Michalon by police forces [6] during an anti-nuclear protest, to the harassment and military (gendarmerie) occupation of Bure (Meuse) and surrounding villages, including dozens of house searches, a bunch of prison sentences, and an ongoing investigation of eco-anarchists for "criminal association" [7] - and don't even get me started on how to (not) deconstruct those facilities [8] [0] https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/french-nuclear-power-fed-uranium-niger https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/french-nuclear-power-fe... [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/clark1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/clark1/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TF1_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TF1_Group ; also see previous addition about TF1's non-coverage of EPR-related incidents [3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_pressuris%C3%A9_europ%C3%A9en https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_pressuris%C3%A9_... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9visions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9visions - no specific source about "censorship" of nuclear incidents, however there is a strong and documented history of firing journalists and humorists who are too critical of the french State and corporations, and of self-censorship ; see also acrimed.org (french only sorry) [5] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nouveaux_Chiens_de_garde_(film) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nouveaux_Chiens_de_garde_(... [6] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon [7] https://bureburebure.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EN-Bure-History-and-context.pdf https://bureburebure.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EN-Bure... [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29600399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29600399
- uranius 5y ago
  I don't understand the point about nuclear fuel. The whole reason France went nuclear is to have energy independence, because you can source uranium from pretty much anywhere (unlike fossil fuels). The largest exporters of uranium in the world are Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. Those aren't former French colonies. But, yes, there are also countries in Africa that export uranium, but that's the point; if you look at a map of uranium reserves you'll find it's pretty much all over the world (and not really that much in Africa, actually).
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    To my (limited) knowledge 100% of nuclear fuel used by French nuclear facilities comes from former french colonies in Africa, although french companies (Areva) are involved in uranium exploitation in other parts of the world as well. I'm not saying french (neo-)colonies are the only place to get uranium from. I'm saying it's very cozy to have the dictators your colonial secret services set up over the years provide you with cheap resources.
trhway 5y ago
> baseload supplier the cost of 1GW nuclear these days is starting at $6B. For that amount of money you can double/triple diversify between solar and wind, so you'll always have that 1GW baseload and with much lesser hassle and damage than nuclear. >its renewable energy neighbours And nuclear is bad investment from that POV too - 10-20 years down the road after building reliable renewable energy system Germany for example will ask itself "Why we're still supporting the nuclear next door?" France isn't Lithuania of course and will be much harder to force to shut down nuclear, yet i think that neighbors pressure is coming.
- Krssst 5y ago
  > double/triple diversify between solar and wind How would doubling / tripling help you when there is little wind and clouds for a few days?
  - trhway 5y ago
    Clouds in Alger while no wind in Atlantic? Total, so not even 0.5 GW generated among them for days so the storage gets depleted too.
  - powerbroker 5y ago
    Get the Electric Vehicles to 'stock up' on kWh prior to the cloudy/no-wind period. And then induce them not to charge during the cloudy/no-wind period with a 'renewable hiatus' premium, of, say, 50-100% of the normal price of a kWh.
    - Krssst 5y ago
      A Tesla model S seems to be able to store 100kWh. France seems to have ~30M cars. So, 100e330e63600~=1e16 J storage assuming all those cars switch to being Tesla S, and are somehow kept unused. France consumed 529e6/1.17 MHw according to https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/france-electricity/ https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/france-electricity... (in 2016). So, average consumption is 529e12/1.17*3600/365/86400 ~= 50GW. 1e16J / 50GW is 200,000 seconds or 2.3 days. So, not completely unreasonable, but it still seems on the low side (only two days), and I am not sure what the impact would be on car batteries to be continuously charged/discharged. This also assumes cars are left at home to serve the grid. This also assumes electricity consumption does not increase, which seems unlikely (since transportation and heating must switch to electricity at some point).

Dylan16807 5y ago

> The cost of solar 1GW farm with storage is well under $2B. Can you be more specific about that? I'm seeing prices like one dollar per watt just for panels, and that's the peak output. So multiply that by at least 4 for 4 billion, and then a likely-not-enough 14GWh of storage at a lowballed $300/kWh is another 4 billion. If I was sending in a quote I'd put $20B on the sheet, not $2B.

trhway 5y ago
$1.1B for 1GW https://commercialsolarguy.com/americas-first-gigawatt-solar-power-plant-a-warren-buffett-investment-to-be-built-in-nevada/ https://commercialsolarguy.com/americas-first-gigawatt-solar... $20B for 10GW with cable to Singapore https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-largest-solar-farm-to-pipe-power-internationally-from-australia-under-the-sea https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-largest-solar-farm-to-p... The writing is on the wall. The nuclear with its supposed "baseload" goes the way of Big Iron with its high reliability/etc. which got replaced by distributed clusters of cheap Linux boxes.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > $1.1B for 1GW That's peak power. It can only supply that for a few hours each day. And the battery can only supply 350MW for 4 hours. 5x the solar and 10x the battery and you will approach a constant 1GW of power, then add more if you don't want to be knocked out as soon as you have a bad weather day. > $20B for 10GW That's also peak power, and it doesn't say anything about a battery.

Rygian 5y ago

You seem to imply that solar and wind are a drop-in replacement for nuclear, but they are not. Nuclear keeps producing power on a windless night.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> with storage
- Rygian 5y ago
  What do you mean by "with storage"? How much of it? If you want to cover for an 8-hour windless night, at 1 GW, you will need 8 GWh of storage, and you will need to generate a surplus of 8 GWh of electricity during the remaining 16 hours of the (previous) day, every day (windy or not, sunny or not). Comparing solar/wind to nuclear requires more elaboration than just slapping a "with storage."

Glawen 5y ago

Sahara solar panel project is a good idea, the problem is the location. There is no way that France can rely on Algeria, algerian leaders are still today blaming France for the problems they are facing now, it is so tiresome. Marocco or Tunisia are better candidate for such projects.

marci 5y ago
And even if algerian leaders where not a problem, they would still need to stay clear from all the area where France had nuclear tests, especially places where the rate of thyroid and pulmonary cancer is higher than average. Not sure the locals would be happy about it. And (I'll reuse your phrasing) since french leaders are still today blaming muslims for the problems they are facing now, I wonder how these projects would be led, whether in Algeria, Tunisia or Morocco.