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France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors

688 points by cyrksoft 5y ago

robertlagrant 5y ago
I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?" I wonder whether any will change their minds based on this news.
- rdtsc 5y ago
  > I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?" A cynical person might even imagine French infiltrators behind the scenes supporting anti-nuclear sentiments in neighboring countries in order to eventually sell them electricity. Energy independence and energy costs have started wars before, so it would just be pocket change spent for a future "investment".
  - polotics 5y ago
    The word you're looking for is "paranoid", not cynical I think. Reasonably, to drop CO2 emissions by 5% each year, ie. to have a change of keeping climate drift below 2°C avg, these reactors won't even be enough for French energy needs...
    - cjbgkagh 5y ago
      Cynical is indeed the correct word.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      "Only the paranoid survive."
  - 323 5y ago
    Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder is now chairman of Russian energy company Rosneft, and was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project.
    - freeflight 5y ago
      > Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. It's not funny, it's bluntly wrong. The German nuclear phase-out was precedented by the EEG, the first green electricity feed-in tariff scheme in the world [0]. It was part of the Energiekonsensgespräche that went on in the 90s, and ultimately resulted in ratifying the nuclear phase-out in 2002 [1] where nuclear would be replaced with renewables subsidized trough the EEG. It's particularly wrong in the context of Germany using most of its gas not for electricity production, but rather for industrial and chemical production, and household utilities, only 14% of German gas is used for electricity generation [2]. Nuclear fission reactors would do nothing for that, they don't help with high temperature smelting were gases need to be injected, as it's for exampled needed for metal alloys that go into all those cars Germany manufactures. They only way nuclear fission could help there is by using nuclear energy to electrolyze hydrogen, and use that as natural gas replacement. But renewables can very much do the same, without creating very complicated waste, while also fixing what's currently holding renewables back the most; Storage [3] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source... [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomkonsens https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomkonsens [2] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/37985/umfrage/verbrauch-von-erdgas-in-deutschland-nach-abnehmergruppen-2009/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/37985/umfrage... [3] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/dutch-pin-hopes-on-hydrogen-valley-to-revive-declining-gas-region/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/dutch-pin-hopes...
      - mrDmrTmrJ 5y ago
        Your citation #2 shows Household, Power Supply, and District Heating to total 52% of natural gas usage. Nuclear power can take over both for electric power supply and for home and district heat via electric heat pumps - which can be 250-350% efficient[0]. So, over 50% of German natural gas usage can be replaced by nuclear electrical power, based on the citations you provided :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
  - Krasnol 5y ago
    You have to be joking... France just had to turn off 3 of their rotting reactors[0] and they lowered their estimates for this year to 295-315 TWh[1]. They're desperate, it's election year and they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future. Luckily the recent taxonomy decision may help to avoid sharp tax rises to finance this backward and hilariously expensive[2] strategy but those EU funds won't run forever. Expensive times coming up for the French taxpayers. Why would you need conspiracies when the failure is so clear in front of you? [0] https://then24.com/2022/02/08/three-nuclear-reactors-shut-down-for-checks-following-suspicions-of-corrosion/ https://then24.com/2022/02/08/three-nuclear-reactors-shut-do... [1] https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/epresspack/2447/5c9aa66cd253dc8deb73da5ac2b429d5.pdf https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/epresspack/2447/5c9aa... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-announces-new-delay-higher-costs-flamanville-3-reactor-2022-01-12/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-announces-new-de...
    - B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
      > Why would you need conspiracies Sense of purpose. Mere incompetence is disheartening.
    - Krssst 5y ago
      > they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future Why diversify? If you have enough power when you need it without emitting CO2 I would think that would be enough. However, no new nuclear construction for that many years does look like a mistake as France looks like it is slightly increasing use of coal this winter: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220112-france-fires-up-coal-power-in-policy-reversal-over-feared-nuclear-shortfall https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220112-france-fires-up-coal-p... If France had more NREs it would still face the same issues without adding considerable storage capabilities (any big country that does 80% NRE thanks to storage?)
      - Krasnol 5y ago
        > Why diversify? If you have enough power when you need it without emitting CO2 I would think that would be enough. Ask that question next summer when the rivers get too hot again and they have too shut down.
- 99_00 5y ago
  Seems their mental model doesn't have predictive power.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  Well, France has 58 mostly old reactors and have 1 under construction and now announced 6 more. To keep their current level of nuclear production, they would have to build like 40 in the next 20-30 years.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    New plants are much more powerful than the older ones. But it's true that the relative share of nuclear is meant to go down.
    - bjoli 5y ago
      I was under the impression that it is in the range of 1-2x per reactor. There are some old Swedish ones that are at 800mw, while the ones I believe the article refers to are in the ballpark of 1500mw.
      - Bayart 5y ago
        Older water pressure reactors in France are 900mw/1300mw, the EPR is 1650mw. I concede it's not as dramatic an increase as I made it sound. But it should also go hand in hand with longer uptimes and better safety.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  France is the only country I know that's managed to make nuclear power work. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to export that expertise. Nuclear power plants are vast construction project. The construction and large-engineering industries combined are vastly corrupt in the US (look at the 3 billion dollars planning costs of the unbuilt high speed rail project in California, look at the Big Dig in Boston, etc). In an ideal world, nuclear might be great. In the existing US world, it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Edit: found this text on the problems of standardization of nuclear power in the US. http://www.strategicstandards.com/files/NuclearEnergy.pdf http://www.strategicstandards.com/files/NuclearEnergy.pdf
  - vimy 5y ago
    Not just France. 60 % of Belgian electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. Unfortunately the green party has decided to shut them down and replace them with gas plants to “save the climate”. Green stupidity knows no boundaries.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      I don't get this logic. How does 100% reliance on Russian natural gas save anyone from anything? =) The current hike in electricity pricing is pretty much solely based on the fact that way too much of Europe's electricity is produced with Russian natural gas...
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    Ukraine and Slovakia both generate the majority of their electricity from nuclear [1]. South Korea and China area also building nuclear plants at a decent rate (though the former is adding a lot of fossil fuel capacity too). When the United States built nuclear plants at scale, in serial production, plant costs were also much lower. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      South Korea had a run in with a ton of faked documentation and is essentially out of the game [1]. China likes to keep a finger in the nuclear jar for diversification but the current investments are minuscule, even though they look large from an outside raw numbers perspective. [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea#H... [2]: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annual-power-capacity-additions-in-china-in-the-announced-pledges-scenario-aps-2020-2060 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...
- stubish 5y ago
  I don't think it will change any minds. Bringing a new power plant online in 15 years is irrelevant to just about everybody. Most people are concerned about switching to renewables right now. It might have interested people 20 years ago, maybe even 10.
  - SECProto 5y ago
    > Bringing a new power plant online in 15 years is irrelevant to just about everybody. I mean, it's very relevant to the population of France, who are currently relying on a huge number of aging nuclear plants that will be retired in the coming few decades. I for one am hugely relieved to hear this news and hope it works out.
  - enaaem 5y ago
    The best time to invest in nuclear was 15 years ago. The second best time is now.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  The question is how much of the capacity they are going to retire in the next few years is going to be replaced. It's a highly political issue in France and it's an election season. Nuclear from a cost perspective continues to be expensive; also for the French. And they will in any case continue to build out solar and wind as well. So, there's that. And finally, building nuclear plants is something the French do abroad too. So, it's actually something they export that generates jobs and revenue in that way. So, they would want to at least build a few plants to keep that going. And of course they also have military interests tied up with uranium enrichment. France is fiercely protective of its status as a nuclear power. But I think overall nuclear will be slowly declining proportionally in France; just like almost everywhere else. Unless something changes on the cost front. Which does not seem to be happening
dangyousmart 5y ago
All french reactors are public or semi private? How does it work to raise funds for these ?
- jguimont 5y ago
  It is EDF [1] which is a mostly state owned company. The state will finance the reactors and collect it back when they come online. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_Franc...
socialdemocrat 5y ago
I am skeptical to current nuclear power, would have liked Molten Salt Reactors instead. However I see leaders having to do something. Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power, and crisis with Russia makes gas less accessible. France has a relatively good track record on nuclear power. They may pull this off. 2035 is a really long time to wait for new power to the grid though.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  >Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power Environmentalists really are their own worst enemies. When I was in high school near San Diego about 15 years ago, there was a huge amount of opposition to a solar power project. From environmentalists. There was a solar power plant out in Imperial County and the environmentalists were protesting the high voltage lines that would bring the power into San Diego. Something about them going through an area full of endangered tortoises or something like that if I recall correctly.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Isn't environmentalists' argument that we should reduce our power consumption, rather than destroying the environment to keep providing so much power? That's not as crazy a position as you make it out to be is it?
    - Teknoman117 5y ago
      It's an absolutely crazy proposition because there are very few people who would choose to reduce their quality of life. It's far easier to switch to net-zero energy sources than it is to completely redefine society.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        Some people think it's worth redefining society to protect the environment. I wouldn't agree with that absolutely either, but it's a logical and defensible position. It's not incoherent.
boringg 5y ago
Is this that surprising given that the largest Nuclear power company (Areva) is based in France and was owned by the state?
- kergonath 5y ago
  It’s not Areva anymore. It’s been split into (mostly) Orano, Technicatome, and Framatome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva
- jessriedel 5y ago
  Yes. It's not surprising that the largest nuclear power company is based in France because France has the largest share of power from nuclear of any country (>70%). However, like most Western countries, France's nuclear reactor building has largely stalled and they have been coasting on past accomplishments. If they succeed at building more reactors, it will be unusual (and imo good).
  - kergonath 5y ago
    Areva also had a terrible track record in terms of project management. We’ll see if their successors are better.
  - orra 5y ago
    Furthermore, it's not clear they are doing a fantastic job building Hinkley Point in the UK. First, in the decade or decade and a half they're taking to build it, you could build so much renewable capacity. Second, Hinkley Point only went ahead when it was guaranteed an outrageously high strike price, for the electricity it will output.
    - sideshowb 5y ago
      I'm wondering if that strike price looks quite so outrageously high now UK electricity costs have risen by 50% in the last year or so
tomdell 5y ago
I advise anyone not in the know to look into France's historical control of uranium mining in Niger. France's nuclear industry has long been fueled by a highly unequal neocolonial relationship with their former colony.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  Well, either you have a job-providing trade-inducing environmental-friendly choice or you have a choice that allows you to virtue signal. I know which one I‘d choose.
  - tomdell 5y ago
    - nexuist 5y ago
      I am an ignorant prick, and if the powers that be had chosen to exploit poor people mining uranium instead of poor people mining coal 40 years ago, we would have avoided billions of metric tons of CO2 and saved millions of poor peoples' lives.
- vkou 5y ago
  I suppose they could burn Russian natgas instead, or burn bunker fuel to ship wood pellets from Canada...
- clarus 5y ago
  I do not think uranium is that expensive, compared to the price of a nuclear reactor itself or other energy sources. I advise to look at wars actually occurring for the control of oil and gas (see country like the US).
- Bayart 5y ago
  Those days are long gone. France's nuclear industry is fueled by a legally-mandated diversified supply, chiefly from Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada.
megaman821 5y ago
This will provide a nice data-point for those who argue nuclear makes more financial sense over wind/solar/battery, but some anti-nuclear cabal is stopping their construction. Maybe they are right and France will make lots of money selling energy to its neighbors, or they are wrong, and France will be stuck with some of the highest energy prices in the euro region.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Of course, no one will know for over a decade while these are being built. Assuming they come in on schedule. And that France ever admits the costs. And by then people will be on to arguing the next next generation really will be much better this time...
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Or some group will stop their construction... I think nuclear doesn't make sense nowadays, but it's hard to disagree that there are many groups working hard to stop it. How you decided it's a conspiracy cabal somewhere eludes me, they are very visible and very loud.
  - megaman821 5y ago
    Where there are large profits to be made, detractors seem to have very little effect. Why are these groups so much effective than deforestation, blood diamonds, or child labor groups?
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      You are asking why those groups can't stop what is mostly illegal activities, but have an impact on ones that are completely dependent on formal government involvement?
- neamar 5y ago
  France has historically been a net exporter of its mostly nuclear electricity. Electricity price is average compared to the rest of Europe, https://strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/ https://strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/
ryan93 5y ago
Absurd that discussion of nuclear power brings out people who think it’s too pricy. 30 trillion in US debt. Ten percent of that could have nuclearized this country
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  And say 3% makes the entire country renewable? What is the better use of money then? Energy is energy, and even better if it is vastly simpler to generate with less headaches to take care of afterwards.
  - thatfrenchguy 5y ago
    There's no even medium-size grid in the world today that runs on renewables that aren't hydro.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      South Australia is getting close. [1] Give it a year or two. > Sometimes the sun does shine and the wind does blow. That’s most of the time in South Australia, apparently. The average share of wind and solar during October was 72%. For 29 out of 31 days, 100% of the power used in South Australia (SA) was renewable. The sky didn’t fall, the grid didn’t collapse, and the apocalypse is not nigh. [1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/04/solar-wind-72-of-south-australias-electricity-in-october-world-not-turned-upside-down/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/04/solar-wind-72-of-south-...
      - KptMarchewa 5y ago
        Looks like Australia has relatively stable amount of sunshine during whole year. In Poland, in December there's less than one hour in a day.
        Gwypaas 5y ago
        It's the "Electric cars will never work until I can drive across the country on one charge" argument all over that line of reasoning. Different areas will require different trade-offs. Higher latitudes, excluding inside the polar vortex, tends to have larger amount of wind in the winter. Currently storage does not make sense because the cheapest store of energy is a smart consumer. It will be very interesting to see if actual storage outside of governmental emergency backups will ever be needed in wind heavy deployments.
outside1234 5y ago
They can sell it to Germany once the US bombs the pipeline they are building to Russia (its gonna happen eventually).
d--b 5y ago
Keep in mind that the presidential election is in 3 months. Macron wants to show he is being pragmatic. Nuclear energy allows to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing the economy. It's particularly smart in this moment of tension with Russia, as Europe depends a lot on Russian energy. But whether this happens or not remains to be seen.
- Nbox9 5y ago
  > It's particularly smart in this moment It may be particularly smart for this moment in internal French politics, but energy independence is a smart move for any sovereign.
  - baud147258 5y ago
    well, with nuclear you're (and in this case, we're) still dependent on uranium mines and all the equipment that's require to build and maintain those power plants, some of which might not be manufactured in the countries
    - mlyle 5y ago
      That may be a problem in the long term, but there's not some spigot of gas you can turn off and cause an immediate problem.
      - Sanzig 5y ago
        Uranium is also much easier to trasport than gas thanks to the ridiculously high energy density of uranium. Reactor grade uranium has an energy density of about 3,500,000 MJ/kg in a light water reactor, whereas natural gas is about 55 MJ/kg - so uranium is about 64,000 times more energy dense on a per kilo basis. You don't need pipelines or fancy LNG terminals, either - it's pretty easy to transport in relatively unexciting bulk containers. So, once the security concerns are addressed, you can buy uranium from any country willing to sell it to you and ship it. The number two and number three producers of uranium worldwide are Canada and Australia, both of which France is very friendly with (a submarine kerfuffle with the latter notwithstanding).
oblib 5y ago
Meanwhile in Japan...
- loeg 5y ago
  France is not building reactors forty years ago, with generators below sea level, on a major fault line.
  - oblib 5y ago
    We and France are no where near solving that problem. And it's likely we never will... https://www.power-technology.com/features/managing-nuclear-waste-france-long-short-game/ https://www.power-technology.com/features/managing-nuclear-w...
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  > Fukushima would have survived if they followed Europe's lead and improved the plant's design. In short, had Tepco and the nuclear safety agency followed international standards and best practice, the Fukushima accident would have been prevented. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-have-been-prevented.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-h...
  - rq1 5y ago
    This is an illusion of control. Once someone doesn’t follow some guideline or makes a mistake somewhere. Would you come again with an article saying: oh it’s safe, if only we didn’t do X or Y or Z… Yes if only… Elevation of sea levels (and rivers), elevation of temperature lead to plants downtimes because either the plants can’t be cooled down or the water level is too high for safe operations. So it has its own intermittences. The other issue is nuclear waste. A small one. I would prefer them to put a higher effort on the Tokamak iter and develop orbital plants with microwave lenses.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Nuclear is much safer if the construction and operation are not allowed to make a single mistake (and that is what it would take, as we cannot predict ahead of time which mistake will be the fatal one.) Of course, then the nuclear stans will complain about the cost of excessive regulation. Perhaps nuclear proponents should advocate investment in crystal balls, so we can know ahead of time which mistakes to avoid.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
jdkee 5y ago
Facts on U.S. nuclear reactors: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3
freeflight 5y ago
I wonder how France is gonna plan to finance those additional "tens of billions", when those tens of billions are already missing for the existing infrastructure [0]; > France, which operates Europe’s largest fleet of nuclear plants, is heavily underfunded. It has earmarked assets only worth 23 billion euros, less than a third of 74.1 billion euros in expected costs. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP2KN https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP...
voz_ 5y ago
The idea of a power source that, when failed, can wipe out a significant amount of live-able land, large swaths of population, irradiate rivers, etc, seems insane. The risk reward factor just does not seem to be there. Sure there are redundancies. Sure there are threat models. However, everything fails. Mistakes happen, black swan events occur. What is the calculus here? How can it ever be made in good faith?
- kuang_eleven 5y ago
  I find the truth to be quite the opposite; nuclear opponents vastly overstate risks and don't consider externalities from other power sources. For example, coal power plants largely don't have a scary, infrequent failure mode, but they cause far more deaths per kW generated than nuclear from ongoing emissions and more frequent lower scale events.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  Fossil fuels are already wiping out a significant amount of livable land, through normal operation. We need to invest in carbon-free energy sources that won't cause blackouts at the whim of the weather. Reaching 100% decarbonization via wind/solar will be very difficult because it requires overbuilding, days to weeks of storage, and transmission upgrades.
- jszymborski 5y ago
  Currently, we're mostly consuming oil and coal. The equation there isn't _whether_ it'll wipe out a significant amount of live-able land, but rather a guarantee that it will. Nuclear Reactors destroy the environment when they fail, oil and coal destroys it when it works. Nothing is w/o a footprint. Solar and wind requires batteries which require rare earth metals which cause environmental and social inequalities. Right now, however, the focus needs to be on decommissioning coal and oil as fast as we can, and nuclear has an important role to play in that.
- gnulinux 5y ago
  Risk: happened literally once, we have all kinds of engineering knowledge how to prevent it. Reward: energy that doesn't destroy the planet.
morelish 5y ago
Every time Nuclear comes up (rational) people complain of two things: 1) cost, and; 2) safety. I think the cost argument is really an irrelevance. The electricity grid is probably the most important engineering system ever developed. Everything really relies on the electricity grid. Without it, we'd do so much less. (Think about everything that depends on it. Is anything else so significant?) For example, the National Academy of Engineering considers the grid the greatest engineering achievement since 1900. See https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchievementsandGrandChallenges https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchieve... In that regard, producing a stable electricity supply should be considered nearly the most cost-effective investment we can make. Arguing that nuclear is more costly than other forms is just arguing about a few pennies in the dollar. The dollar is the benefit we get from electrification. The pennies are the 'extra' cost of nuclear. (Tbh, I don't think nuclear is more costly. I think we can just _calculate_ the cost of nuclear better than alternatives. What's the cost of fossil fuels when you add in the external climate change impact? Who knows? What's the cost of renewables when you consider they don't always produce power/might not be able to meet demand/need significant grid reconstruction to work? Who knows?) Regarding safety. This will always be a big consideration. But how safe is the world if the climate warms? I'd say not very. From what I've seen on nuclear engineering, it seems nowadays westerners really do understand how to run the nuclear plants safely. I don't believe there has been a really bad accident in the West. (5 Mile Island came close but was controlled. Fukushima was operator error compounded by cultural issues associated with Japanese management.) There will always be some risk of an accident. But, from what I've seen, actually it's pretty safe. The accidents I've heard of, can be explained as poor operation choices. I think what really gets people in the energy debate is they are hoping for 'perfect' solutions which have no downsides. Unfortunately, there isn't one available right now. The other thing that gets people is they consider choosing nuclear to be more risky than not choosing nuclear because they feel they know nuclear is dangerous. Whereas, from what I can see, _not_ choosing nuclear is a lot more dangerous than choosing nuclear. If we are to believe the climate change warnings, it seems that danger is much much greater than anything nuclear poses. TLDR nuclear is risky but that risk is a lot less than climate change or bad electricity supplies. People weight nuclear risk too heavily because we understand it more and people perceive nuclear as dangerous to their person. They fail to properly account for risks they cannot easily perceive that are associated with the alternatives. Go France!
dghughes 5y ago
Is it my imagination or has France lately been trying hard to be more noticeable on the world stage? I feel as if the soured sub deal pissed them off. Now they seem to be wanting to be seen as a bigger world power.
- gnulinux 5y ago
  This is a good thing. The way I see the more EU states take attention away from Russia and especially China the better it is for the world. Well, I'm biased but as an American I think US has been nothing but utter farce last few years in every way possible, so I'm happy to see other democracies thriving at least on paper. Excited to see shit actually happening.
kerneloftruth 5y ago
Germany needs to apply its great industrial engineering talent towards doing the same thing, to reverse the amazingly stupid decision they made to close theirs.
j16sdiz 5y ago
The linked article is thin on material. It is 6 by 2028, 14 by 2050 Related article: - France to build up to 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050, says Macron https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-buil... - Announcing new reactors, Macron bets on nuclear power in carbon-neutral push https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-reactors-macron-puts-nuclear-power-at-heart-of-carbon-neutral-push https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-r... - France announces a major buildup of its nuclear power program. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro...
- exadeci 5y ago
  Also first one to be in service from 2035
m348e912 5y ago
For as controversial and catastrophically dangerous nuclear power has been over its history, it still shows signs of being one of the best power sources out there. There is plenty of opportunity for better designs, the introduction of thorium reactors vs uranium. This week MIT announced a major breakthrough in fission technology. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633 In an ever growing power hungry world, nuclear shows the best promise in moving the world to a reliable power source that isn't reliant on geo-politically sensitive fossil fuels and eliminates greenhouse gas issues dramatically. I'll add that wind and solar get a lot of hype, but being cyclic and weather dependent doesn't make it suitable as primary wide-spread grid power source.
ike0790 5y ago
Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending "climate emergency". Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.
- epistasis 5y ago
  They will be serious if they actually build it, unlike Flamanville. While you call non-nuclear options "virtue signaling," the attempts at building it in France and the US have been virtue signaling. We don't have the industrial capacity to build nuclear. Meanwhile, we are deploying GW of solar, wind, and storage on time, on budget, ar ever decreasing costs. Locking in the high costs of nuclear, for the 60 year lifetime of a nuclear reactor, after a 15 year delay for building, is not a serious solution for climate change.
  - visarga 5y ago
    Once a few years, we get a few weeks without much wind and solar. What do we do then? Solar and wind can't store enough energy to last for weeks.
    - innermate 5y ago
      Batteries can store enough energy to last for a few weeks.
      - azinman2 5y ago
        Industrial-scale batteries are far from a solved problem, and require a lot of excess energy production to fill them that doesn't already get depleted at night. A far more realistic solution is to be able to flex with things like gas plants that don't need to be always running and can function on demand.
        5y ago
DisjointedHunt 5y ago
The economic benefits from having a "fuck you" amount of energy ready to go at any point cannot be overstated. Fresh water shortage due to drought? Desalinate ocean water. Heat/cold wave? Announce that all electricity bills will be waived for the month. See popularity skyrocket. Provide near unlimited compute budgets to universities etc on older hardware for their research and other work. When shackles are taken off, innovation kicks off.
- fulafel 5y ago
  A huge amount of additional energy seems like an overoptimistic take on the impact of this. See eg this article telling how 14 (smaller, admittedly) reactors are due to decommission in the same timeframe. https://apnews.com/article/9db52eeef7ea47a76f64653c2a854b17 https://apnews.com/article/9db52eeef7ea47a76f64653c2a854b17
  - DisjointedHunt 5y ago
    I'd say it's the reversal of the trend that excites me more than the single instance of the announcement itself. For decades, Europe (and admittedly the US) has sat back and moaned against using the single most powerful energy source known to man (measured in energy density). Germany actually proclaimed in 2011 that they would be turning away completely from nuclear energy. This is a start, executed well . . it lays the foundation for a generational shift.
annexrichmond 5y ago
Chart showing Wind/Solar Capacity vs Electricity Prices in Europe: https://twitter.com/briangitt/status/1491556458671968259 https://twitter.com/briangitt/status/1491556458671968259
dragonelite 5y ago
I will believe it when they break ground in France to start the building process. Saying things and making empty promises is a art western politicians have perfected over the centuries.
02020202 5y ago
jokoon 5y ago
As a french I'm pretty happy about this. France also bought back some important turbines from general electrics On the other hand, there were announcements of rust in critical parts of a few nuclear plants.
danielfoster 5y ago
France is smart to think ahead and budget for Germany’s future energetic needs.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
afroboy 5y ago
The suffering of Niger people will never end.

688 points by cyrksoft 5y ago

I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?" I wonder whether any will change their minds based on this news.

rdtsc 5y ago
> I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?" A cynical person might even imagine French infiltrators behind the scenes supporting anti-nuclear sentiments in neighboring countries in order to eventually sell them electricity. Energy independence and energy costs have started wars before, so it would just be pocket change spent for a future "investment".
- polotics 5y ago
  The word you're looking for is "paranoid", not cynical I think. Reasonably, to drop CO2 emissions by 5% each year, ie. to have a change of keeping climate drift below 2°C avg, these reactors won't even be enough for French energy needs...
  - cjbgkagh 5y ago
    Cynical is indeed the correct word.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    "Only the paranoid survive."
- 323 5y ago
  Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder is now chairman of Russian energy company Rosneft, and was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs. It's not funny, it's bluntly wrong. The German nuclear phase-out was precedented by the EEG, the first green electricity feed-in tariff scheme in the world [0]. It was part of the Energiekonsensgespräche that went on in the 90s, and ultimately resulted in ratifying the nuclear phase-out in 2002 [1] where nuclear would be replaced with renewables subsidized trough the EEG. It's particularly wrong in the context of Germany using most of its gas not for electricity production, but rather for industrial and chemical production, and household utilities, only 14% of German gas is used for electricity generation [2]. Nuclear fission reactors would do nothing for that, they don't help with high temperature smelting were gases need to be injected, as it's for exampled needed for metal alloys that go into all those cars Germany manufactures. They only way nuclear fission could help there is by using nuclear energy to electrolyze hydrogen, and use that as natural gas replacement. But renewables can very much do the same, without creating very complicated waste, while also fixing what's currently holding renewables back the most; Storage [3] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source... [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomkonsens https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomkonsens [2] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/37985/umfrage/verbrauch-von-erdgas-in-deutschland-nach-abnehmergruppen-2009/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/37985/umfrage... [3] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/dutch-pin-hopes-on-hydrogen-valley-to-revive-declining-gas-region/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/dutch-pin-hopes...
    - mrDmrTmrJ 5y ago
      Your citation #2 shows Household, Power Supply, and District Heating to total 52% of natural gas usage. Nuclear power can take over both for electric power supply and for home and district heat via electric heat pumps - which can be 250-350% efficient[0]. So, over 50% of German natural gas usage can be replaced by nuclear electrical power, based on the citations you provided :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
- Krasnol 5y ago
  You have to be joking... France just had to turn off 3 of their rotting reactors[0] and they lowered their estimates for this year to 295-315 TWh[1]. They're desperate, it's election year and they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future. Luckily the recent taxonomy decision may help to avoid sharp tax rises to finance this backward and hilariously expensive[2] strategy but those EU funds won't run forever. Expensive times coming up for the French taxpayers. Why would you need conspiracies when the failure is so clear in front of you? [0] https://then24.com/2022/02/08/three-nuclear-reactors-shut-down-for-checks-following-suspicions-of-corrosion/ https://then24.com/2022/02/08/three-nuclear-reactors-shut-do... [1] https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/epresspack/2447/5c9aa66cd253dc8deb73da5ac2b429d5.pdf https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/epresspack/2447/5c9aa... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-announces-new-delay-higher-costs-flamanville-3-reactor-2022-01-12/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-announces-new-de...
  - B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
    > Why would you need conspiracies Sense of purpose. Mere incompetence is disheartening.
  - Krssst 5y ago
    > they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future Why diversify? If you have enough power when you need it without emitting CO2 I would think that would be enough. However, no new nuclear construction for that many years does look like a mistake as France looks like it is slightly increasing use of coal this winter: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220112-france-fires-up-coal-power-in-policy-reversal-over-feared-nuclear-shortfall https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20220112-france-fires-up-coal-p... If France had more NREs it would still face the same issues without adding considerable storage capabilities (any big country that does 80% NRE thanks to storage?)
    - Krasnol 5y ago
      > Why diversify? If you have enough power when you need it without emitting CO2 I would think that would be enough. Ask that question next summer when the rivers get too hot again and they have too shut down.
99_00 5y ago
Seems their mental model doesn't have predictive power.
_ph_ 5y ago
Well, France has 58 mostly old reactors and have 1 under construction and now announced 6 more. To keep their current level of nuclear production, they would have to build like 40 in the next 20-30 years.
- Bayart 5y ago
  New plants are much more powerful than the older ones. But it's true that the relative share of nuclear is meant to go down.
  - bjoli 5y ago
    I was under the impression that it is in the range of 1-2x per reactor. There are some old Swedish ones that are at 800mw, while the ones I believe the article refers to are in the ballpark of 1500mw.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      Older water pressure reactors in France are 900mw/1300mw, the EPR is 1650mw. I concede it's not as dramatic an increase as I made it sound. But it should also go hand in hand with longer uptimes and better safety.
joe_the_user 5y ago
France is the only country I know that's managed to make nuclear power work. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to export that expertise. Nuclear power plants are vast construction project. The construction and large-engineering industries combined are vastly corrupt in the US (look at the 3 billion dollars planning costs of the unbuilt high speed rail project in California, look at the Big Dig in Boston, etc). In an ideal world, nuclear might be great. In the existing US world, it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Edit: found this text on the problems of standardization of nuclear power in the US. http://www.strategicstandards.com/files/NuclearEnergy.pdf http://www.strategicstandards.com/files/NuclearEnergy.pdf
- vimy 5y ago
  Not just France. 60 % of Belgian electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. Unfortunately the green party has decided to shut them down and replace them with gas plants to “save the climate”. Green stupidity knows no boundaries.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    I don't get this logic. How does 100% reliance on Russian natural gas save anyone from anything? =) The current hike in electricity pricing is pretty much solely based on the fact that way too much of Europe's electricity is produced with Russian natural gas...
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Ukraine and Slovakia both generate the majority of their electricity from nuclear [1]. South Korea and China area also building nuclear plants at a decent rate (though the former is adding a lot of fossil fuel capacity too). When the United States built nuclear plants at scale, in serial production, plant costs were also much lower. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    South Korea had a run in with a ton of faked documentation and is essentially out of the game [1]. China likes to keep a finger in the nuclear jar for diversification but the current investments are minuscule, even though they look large from an outside raw numbers perspective. [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea#H... [2]: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annual-power-capacity-additions-in-china-in-the-announced-pledges-scenario-aps-2020-2060 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...
stubish 5y ago
I don't think it will change any minds. Bringing a new power plant online in 15 years is irrelevant to just about everybody. Most people are concerned about switching to renewables right now. It might have interested people 20 years ago, maybe even 10.
- SECProto 5y ago
  > Bringing a new power plant online in 15 years is irrelevant to just about everybody. I mean, it's very relevant to the population of France, who are currently relying on a huge number of aging nuclear plants that will be retired in the coming few decades. I for one am hugely relieved to hear this news and hope it works out.
- enaaem 5y ago
  The best time to invest in nuclear was 15 years ago. The second best time is now.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
The question is how much of the capacity they are going to retire in the next few years is going to be replaced. It's a highly political issue in France and it's an election season. Nuclear from a cost perspective continues to be expensive; also for the French. And they will in any case continue to build out solar and wind as well. So, there's that. And finally, building nuclear plants is something the French do abroad too. So, it's actually something they export that generates jobs and revenue in that way. So, they would want to at least build a few plants to keep that going. And of course they also have military interests tied up with uranium enrichment. France is fiercely protective of its status as a nuclear power. But I think overall nuclear will be slowly declining proportionally in France; just like almost everywhere else. Unless something changes on the cost front. Which does not seem to be happening

dangyousmart 5y ago

All french reactors are public or semi private? How does it work to raise funds for these ?

jguimont 5y ago
It is EDF [1] which is a mostly state owned company. The state will finance the reactors and collect it back when they come online. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_Franc...

socialdemocrat 5y ago

I am skeptical to current nuclear power, would have liked Molten Salt Reactors instead. However I see leaders having to do something. Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power, and crisis with Russia makes gas less accessible. France has a relatively good track record on nuclear power. They may pull this off. 2035 is a really long time to wait for new power to the grid though.

HideousKojima 5y ago
>Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power Environmentalists really are their own worst enemies. When I was in high school near San Diego about 15 years ago, there was a huge amount of opposition to a solar power project. From environmentalists. There was a solar power plant out in Imperial County and the environmentalists were protesting the high voltage lines that would bring the power into San Diego. Something about them going through an area full of endangered tortoises or something like that if I recall correctly.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Isn't environmentalists' argument that we should reduce our power consumption, rather than destroying the environment to keep providing so much power? That's not as crazy a position as you make it out to be is it?
  - Teknoman117 5y ago
    It's an absolutely crazy proposition because there are very few people who would choose to reduce their quality of life. It's far easier to switch to net-zero energy sources than it is to completely redefine society.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Some people think it's worth redefining society to protect the environment. I wouldn't agree with that absolutely either, but it's a logical and defensible position. It's not incoherent.

boringg 5y ago

Is this that surprising given that the largest Nuclear power company (Areva) is based in France and was owned by the state?

kergonath 5y ago
It’s not Areva anymore. It’s been split into (mostly) Orano, Technicatome, and Framatome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva
jessriedel 5y ago
Yes. It's not surprising that the largest nuclear power company is based in France because France has the largest share of power from nuclear of any country (>70%). However, like most Western countries, France's nuclear reactor building has largely stalled and they have been coasting on past accomplishments. If they succeed at building more reactors, it will be unusual (and imo good).
- kergonath 5y ago
  Areva also had a terrible track record in terms of project management. We’ll see if their successors are better.
- orra 5y ago
  Furthermore, it's not clear they are doing a fantastic job building Hinkley Point in the UK. First, in the decade or decade and a half they're taking to build it, you could build so much renewable capacity. Second, Hinkley Point only went ahead when it was guaranteed an outrageously high strike price, for the electricity it will output.
  - sideshowb 5y ago
    I'm wondering if that strike price looks quite so outrageously high now UK electricity costs have risen by 50% in the last year or so

tomdell 5y ago

I advise anyone not in the know to look into France's historical control of uranium mining in Niger. France's nuclear industry has long been fueled by a highly unequal neocolonial relationship with their former colony.

axiosgunnar 5y ago
Well, either you have a job-providing trade-inducing environmental-friendly choice or you have a choice that allows you to virtue signal. I know which one I‘d choose.
- tomdell 5y ago
  - nexuist 5y ago
    I am an ignorant prick, and if the powers that be had chosen to exploit poor people mining uranium instead of poor people mining coal 40 years ago, we would have avoided billions of metric tons of CO2 and saved millions of poor peoples' lives.
vkou 5y ago
I suppose they could burn Russian natgas instead, or burn bunker fuel to ship wood pellets from Canada...
clarus 5y ago
I do not think uranium is that expensive, compared to the price of a nuclear reactor itself or other energy sources. I advise to look at wars actually occurring for the control of oil and gas (see country like the US).
Bayart 5y ago
Those days are long gone. France's nuclear industry is fueled by a legally-mandated diversified supply, chiefly from Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada.

megaman821 5y ago

This will provide a nice data-point for those who argue nuclear makes more financial sense over wind/solar/battery, but some anti-nuclear cabal is stopping their construction. Maybe they are right and France will make lots of money selling energy to its neighbors, or they are wrong, and France will be stuck with some of the highest energy prices in the euro region.

LatteLazy 5y ago
Of course, no one will know for over a decade while these are being built. Assuming they come in on schedule. And that France ever admits the costs. And by then people will be on to arguing the next next generation really will be much better this time...
marcosdumay 5y ago
Or some group will stop their construction... I think nuclear doesn't make sense nowadays, but it's hard to disagree that there are many groups working hard to stop it. How you decided it's a conspiracy cabal somewhere eludes me, they are very visible and very loud.
- megaman821 5y ago
  Where there are large profits to be made, detractors seem to have very little effect. Why are these groups so much effective than deforestation, blood diamonds, or child labor groups?
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    You are asking why those groups can't stop what is mostly illegal activities, but have an impact on ones that are completely dependent on formal government involvement?
neamar 5y ago
France has historically been a net exporter of its mostly nuclear electricity. Electricity price is average compared to the rest of Europe, https://strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/ https://strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/

ryan93 5y ago

Absurd that discussion of nuclear power brings out people who think it’s too pricy. 30 trillion in US debt. Ten percent of that could have nuclearized this country

Gwypaas 5y ago
And say 3% makes the entire country renewable? What is the better use of money then? Energy is energy, and even better if it is vastly simpler to generate with less headaches to take care of afterwards.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  There's no even medium-size grid in the world today that runs on renewables that aren't hydro.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    South Australia is getting close. [1] Give it a year or two. > Sometimes the sun does shine and the wind does blow. That’s most of the time in South Australia, apparently. The average share of wind and solar during October was 72%. For 29 out of 31 days, 100% of the power used in South Australia (SA) was renewable. The sky didn’t fall, the grid didn’t collapse, and the apocalypse is not nigh. [1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/04/solar-wind-72-of-south-australias-electricity-in-october-world-not-turned-upside-down/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/04/solar-wind-72-of-south-...
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      Looks like Australia has relatively stable amount of sunshine during whole year. In Poland, in December there's less than one hour in a day.
      - Gwypaas 5y ago
        It's the "Electric cars will never work until I can drive across the country on one charge" argument all over that line of reasoning. Different areas will require different trade-offs. Higher latitudes, excluding inside the polar vortex, tends to have larger amount of wind in the winter. Currently storage does not make sense because the cheapest store of energy is a smart consumer. It will be very interesting to see if actual storage outside of governmental emergency backups will ever be needed in wind heavy deployments.

outside1234 5y ago

They can sell it to Germany once the US bombs the pipeline they are building to Russia (its gonna happen eventually).

d--b 5y ago

Keep in mind that the presidential election is in 3 months. Macron wants to show he is being pragmatic. Nuclear energy allows to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing the economy. It's particularly smart in this moment of tension with Russia, as Europe depends a lot on Russian energy. But whether this happens or not remains to be seen.

Nbox9 5y ago
> It's particularly smart in this moment It may be particularly smart for this moment in internal French politics, but energy independence is a smart move for any sovereign.
- baud147258 5y ago
  well, with nuclear you're (and in this case, we're) still dependent on uranium mines and all the equipment that's require to build and maintain those power plants, some of which might not be manufactured in the countries
  - mlyle 5y ago
    That may be a problem in the long term, but there's not some spigot of gas you can turn off and cause an immediate problem.
    - Sanzig 5y ago
      Uranium is also much easier to trasport than gas thanks to the ridiculously high energy density of uranium. Reactor grade uranium has an energy density of about 3,500,000 MJ/kg in a light water reactor, whereas natural gas is about 55 MJ/kg - so uranium is about 64,000 times more energy dense on a per kilo basis. You don't need pipelines or fancy LNG terminals, either - it's pretty easy to transport in relatively unexciting bulk containers. So, once the security concerns are addressed, you can buy uranium from any country willing to sell it to you and ship it. The number two and number three producers of uranium worldwide are Canada and Australia, both of which France is very friendly with (a submarine kerfuffle with the latter notwithstanding).

oblib 5y ago

Meanwhile in Japan...

loeg 5y ago
France is not building reactors forty years ago, with generators below sea level, on a major fault line.
- oblib 5y ago
  We and France are no where near solving that problem. And it's likely we never will... https://www.power-technology.com/features/managing-nuclear-waste-france-long-short-game/ https://www.power-technology.com/features/managing-nuclear-w...
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
> Fukushima would have survived if they followed Europe's lead and improved the plant's design. In short, had Tepco and the nuclear safety agency followed international standards and best practice, the Fukushima accident would have been prevented. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-have-been-prevented.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-h...
- rq1 5y ago
  This is an illusion of control. Once someone doesn’t follow some guideline or makes a mistake somewhere. Would you come again with an article saying: oh it’s safe, if only we didn’t do X or Y or Z… Yes if only… Elevation of sea levels (and rivers), elevation of temperature lead to plants downtimes because either the plants can’t be cooled down or the water level is too high for safe operations. So it has its own intermittences. The other issue is nuclear waste. A small one. I would prefer them to put a higher effort on the Tokamak iter and develop orbital plants with microwave lenses.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Nuclear is much safer if the construction and operation are not allowed to make a single mistake (and that is what it would take, as we cannot predict ahead of time which mistake will be the fatal one.) Of course, then the nuclear stans will complain about the cost of excessive regulation. Perhaps nuclear proponents should advocate investment in crystal balls, so we can know ahead of time which mistakes to avoid.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

jdkee 5y ago

Facts on U.S. nuclear reactors: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3

freeflight 5y ago

I wonder how France is gonna plan to finance those additional "tens of billions", when those tens of billions are already missing for the existing infrastructure [0]; > France, which operates Europe’s largest fleet of nuclear plants, is heavily underfunded. It has earmarked assets only worth 23 billion euros, less than a third of 74.1 billion euros in expected costs. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP2KN https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP...

voz_ 5y ago

The idea of a power source that, when failed, can wipe out a significant amount of live-able land, large swaths of population, irradiate rivers, etc, seems insane. The risk reward factor just does not seem to be there. Sure there are redundancies. Sure there are threat models. However, everything fails. Mistakes happen, black swan events occur. What is the calculus here? How can it ever be made in good faith?

kuang_eleven 5y ago
I find the truth to be quite the opposite; nuclear opponents vastly overstate risks and don't consider externalities from other power sources. For example, coal power plants largely don't have a scary, infrequent failure mode, but they cause far more deaths per kW generated than nuclear from ongoing emissions and more frequent lower scale events.
p1mrx 5y ago
Fossil fuels are already wiping out a significant amount of livable land, through normal operation. We need to invest in carbon-free energy sources that won't cause blackouts at the whim of the weather. Reaching 100% decarbonization via wind/solar will be very difficult because it requires overbuilding, days to weeks of storage, and transmission upgrades.
jszymborski 5y ago
Currently, we're mostly consuming oil and coal. The equation there isn't _whether_ it'll wipe out a significant amount of live-able land, but rather a guarantee that it will. Nuclear Reactors destroy the environment when they fail, oil and coal destroys it when it works. Nothing is w/o a footprint. Solar and wind requires batteries which require rare earth metals which cause environmental and social inequalities. Right now, however, the focus needs to be on decommissioning coal and oil as fast as we can, and nuclear has an important role to play in that.
gnulinux 5y ago
Risk: happened literally once, we have all kinds of engineering knowledge how to prevent it. Reward: energy that doesn't destroy the planet.

morelish 5y ago

Every time Nuclear comes up (rational) people complain of two things: 1) cost, and; 2) safety. I think the cost argument is really an irrelevance. The electricity grid is probably the most important engineering system ever developed. Everything really relies on the electricity grid. Without it, we'd do so much less. (Think about everything that depends on it. Is anything else so significant?) For example, the National Academy of Engineering considers the grid the greatest engineering achievement since 1900. See https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchievementsandGrandChallenges https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchieve... In that regard, producing a stable electricity supply should be considered nearly the most cost-effective investment we can make. Arguing that nuclear is more costly than other forms is just arguing about a few pennies in the dollar. The dollar is the benefit we get from electrification. The pennies are the 'extra' cost of nuclear. (Tbh, I don't think nuclear is more costly. I think we can just _calculate_ the cost of nuclear better than alternatives. What's the cost of fossil fuels when you add in the external climate change impact? Who knows? What's the cost of renewables when you consider they don't always produce power/might not be able to meet demand/need significant grid reconstruction to work? Who knows?) Regarding safety. This will always be a big consideration. But how safe is the world if the climate warms? I'd say not very. From what I've seen on nuclear engineering, it seems nowadays westerners really do understand how to run the nuclear plants safely. I don't believe there has been a really bad accident in the West. (5 Mile Island came close but was controlled. Fukushima was operator error compounded by cultural issues associated with Japanese management.) There will always be some risk of an accident. But, from what I've seen, actually it's pretty safe. The accidents I've heard of, can be explained as poor operation choices. I think what really gets people in the energy debate is they are hoping for 'perfect' solutions which have no downsides. Unfortunately, there isn't one available right now. The other thing that gets people is they consider choosing nuclear to be more risky than not choosing nuclear because they feel they know nuclear is dangerous. Whereas, from what I can see, _not_ choosing nuclear is a lot more dangerous than choosing nuclear. If we are to believe the climate change warnings, it seems that danger is much much greater than anything nuclear poses. TLDR nuclear is risky but that risk is a lot less than climate change or bad electricity supplies. People weight nuclear risk too heavily because we understand it more and people perceive nuclear as dangerous to their person. They fail to properly account for risks they cannot easily perceive that are associated with the alternatives. Go France!

dghughes 5y ago

Is it my imagination or has France lately been trying hard to be more noticeable on the world stage? I feel as if the soured sub deal pissed them off. Now they seem to be wanting to be seen as a bigger world power.

gnulinux 5y ago
This is a good thing. The way I see the more EU states take attention away from Russia and especially China the better it is for the world. Well, I'm biased but as an American I think US has been nothing but utter farce last few years in every way possible, so I'm happy to see other democracies thriving at least on paper. Excited to see shit actually happening.

kerneloftruth 5y ago

Germany needs to apply its great industrial engineering talent towards doing the same thing, to reverse the amazingly stupid decision they made to close theirs.

j16sdiz 5y ago

The linked article is thin on material. It is 6 by 2028, 14 by 2050 Related article: - France to build up to 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050, says Macron https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-buil... - Announcing new reactors, Macron bets on nuclear power in carbon-neutral push https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-reactors-macron-puts-nuclear-power-at-heart-of-carbon-neutral-push https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-r... - France announces a major buildup of its nuclear power program. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro...

exadeci 5y ago
Also first one to be in service from 2035

m348e912 5y ago

For as controversial and catastrophically dangerous nuclear power has been over its history, it still shows signs of being one of the best power sources out there. There is plenty of opportunity for better designs, the introduction of thorium reactors vs uranium. This week MIT announced a major breakthrough in fission technology. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633 In an ever growing power hungry world, nuclear shows the best promise in moving the world to a reliable power source that isn't reliant on geo-politically sensitive fossil fuels and eliminates greenhouse gas issues dramatically. I'll add that wind and solar get a lot of hype, but being cyclic and weather dependent doesn't make it suitable as primary wide-spread grid power source.

ike0790 5y ago

Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending "climate emergency". Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.

epistasis 5y ago
They will be serious if they actually build it, unlike Flamanville. While you call non-nuclear options "virtue signaling," the attempts at building it in France and the US have been virtue signaling. We don't have the industrial capacity to build nuclear. Meanwhile, we are deploying GW of solar, wind, and storage on time, on budget, ar ever decreasing costs. Locking in the high costs of nuclear, for the 60 year lifetime of a nuclear reactor, after a 15 year delay for building, is not a serious solution for climate change.
- visarga 5y ago
  Once a few years, we get a few weeks without much wind and solar. What do we do then? Solar and wind can't store enough energy to last for weeks.
  - innermate 5y ago
    Batteries can store enough energy to last for a few weeks.
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Industrial-scale batteries are far from a solved problem, and require a lot of excess energy production to fill them that doesn't already get depleted at night. A far more realistic solution is to be able to flex with things like gas plants that don't need to be always running and can function on demand.
      - 5y ago

DisjointedHunt 5y ago

The economic benefits from having a "fuck you" amount of energy ready to go at any point cannot be overstated. Fresh water shortage due to drought? Desalinate ocean water. Heat/cold wave? Announce that all electricity bills will be waived for the month. See popularity skyrocket. Provide near unlimited compute budgets to universities etc on older hardware for their research and other work. When shackles are taken off, innovation kicks off.

fulafel 5y ago
A huge amount of additional energy seems like an overoptimistic take on the impact of this. See eg this article telling how 14 (smaller, admittedly) reactors are due to decommission in the same timeframe. https://apnews.com/article/9db52eeef7ea47a76f64653c2a854b17 https://apnews.com/article/9db52eeef7ea47a76f64653c2a854b17
- DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  I'd say it's the reversal of the trend that excites me more than the single instance of the announcement itself. For decades, Europe (and admittedly the US) has sat back and moaned against using the single most powerful energy source known to man (measured in energy density). Germany actually proclaimed in 2011 that they would be turning away completely from nuclear energy. This is a start, executed well . . it lays the foundation for a generational shift.

annexrichmond 5y ago

Chart showing Wind/Solar Capacity vs Electricity Prices in Europe: https://twitter.com/briangitt/status/1491556458671968259 https://twitter.com/briangitt/status/1491556458671968259

dragonelite 5y ago

I will believe it when they break ground in France to start the building process. Saying things and making empty promises is a art western politicians have perfected over the centuries.

02020202 5y ago

jokoon 5y ago

As a french I'm pretty happy about this. France also bought back some important turbines from general electrics On the other hand, there were announcements of rust in critical parts of a few nuclear plants.

danielfoster 5y ago

France is smart to think ahead and budget for Germany’s future energetic needs.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

afroboy 5y ago

The suffering of Niger people will never end.