5 ms·

> 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

by 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).
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Sure, and France reprocesses, too, which aids fuel security. Of course, this doesn't mean they control the entire supply chain for needed parts for nuclear-- but if some critical piece broke they wouldn't have no energy immediately, either.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  The top four producers of uranium (per tonnage) are Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia, Canada: * https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... Better than being dependent on oil and gas, especially if your current supplier is Russia.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 5y ago
    uranium doesn't matter, its fairly common. It's enriching that uranium that is held closley and is considered the 'Hard' part. Fun fact; This was the key measure in obamas iran deal. The US would give them the enriched uranium if they shut down their nuclear research.
- imnotlost 5y ago
  Dependencies are a fact of life. Question is, does Europe really want to depend on journalist/dissident-murdering Russia?
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    It is even in Russia's best interest to ne encouraged to diversify their economy before they simply run out of natural resources. If there is a steady decrease in the sale price of fossil fuels instead of a sudden one they will have more time to adapt right?
    - FredPret 5y ago
      I don't think that's really a worry (running out of resources). Our deepest mines are a paltry 4km; forests can be managed. Oil, gas, and coal will eventually run out, but the prices will have by then have risen to the point that use at scale will be impractical.
    - jurip 5y ago
      Those natural resources will last longer than Putin and his friends will be around.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  The largest uranium fuel depot in the world is Chernobyl, Ukraine. Russia nearly bankrupted itself when it contained the nuclear disaster and even Gorbachev thinks it was Chernobyl that ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. Now with this in mind, I wouldnt be surprised considering the sanctions on Russia, if they perhaps make a grab for the uranium in Chernobyl and sell it, to claw back some of the costs they incurred for cleaning up Chernobyl. Strategically, it was useful for Russian politics to have something as risky as the Chernobyl nuke power station in the Ukraine during the soviet union era, ie different country if anything went wrong nothing to do with us sort of thing. However thats how it remains until now where the Iranians need uranium after their enrichers were destroyed with Stuxnet, so you have one potential customer there, you also have India & Pakistan, Israel as well as the UK and France who will all be needing a bit more uranium as we get off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    > Strategically, it was useful for Russian politics to have something as risky as the Chernobyl nuke power station in the Ukraine during the soviet union era, ie different country if anything went wrong nothing to do with us sort of thing. The same type of reactor as Chernobyl is still in operation at the Leningrad NPP
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      It would appear that some countries also view nuke power stations like offensive firewalls, that's the Baltic sea nations captured in some respect. Germany's car industry and Russian Oil wealth is also a partnership I see.
    - djcapelis 5y ago
      > The same type of reactor as Chernobyl is still in operation at the Leningrad NPP Along with three units each in Kursk and Smolensk NPPs. Plus I think a lot of people don't realize some of the other reactor units at Chernobyl continued operating until the last one finally shut down in 2000.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
mhh__ 5y ago
Hinkley Point doesn't look so expensive now (Electricity forwards have been greater than the rate the reactor is supposed to cost since august)
- Xixi 5y ago
  Also keep in mind, a lot of the cost of Hinkley Point is not so much the cost to build the reactors, but the financing. Speaking from memory, we are talking about borrowing at something like 10% over 35 years. If France finances these new power plants, financing cost goes virtually to zero. So even if actually building the new reactors cost the same (unlikely, I hope they learnt a thing or two over the last 10 years...) they will end up a lot cheaper than Hinkley Point.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Also insurance. All plants in the USA are insured by the government, I'm sure the same is true in France as well.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Finance is not free, there is always opportunity cost.
    - tim333 5y ago
      Interest rates are very low still though. Governments can borrow at nearer to 1% than 10%.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        But that money could also be applied in other areas of the economy, that might have far better payback. And with France's current track record of nuclear construction, throwing more money at nuclear without fixing the fundamental problems first is serious misallocation of capital. Just the latest news that is the same as the last decade of bad news: > EDF now estimates the total cost of the project at 12.7 billion euros ($14.42 billion). Its expected cost has more than quadrupled from the first estimate made in 2004. 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... $15B of lithium ion battery factory would have far far greater carbon impact, dollar for dollar. $1B on early stage startups would similarly be more impactful.
stewbrew 5y ago
Speaking about independence: where does the uran come from? And how is this clever since the EDF cannot sell their nuclear power without making losses?
- eps 5y ago
  Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia Followed by Namibia, Niger, Russia, Uzbekistan, the US and China. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Uranium_production%2C_OWID.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Uranium_...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deepsun 5y ago
  > where does the uran come from All over the place. Uranite is pretty common. E.g. Canada has 200+ locations: https://www.mindat.org/min-4102.html https://www.mindat.org/min-4102.html (scroll to the very bottom).
  - natmaka 5y ago
    If a nuclear 'renaissance' arises, strategy will be at play: Russia and the US will obtain uranium from their 'partners', in Africa China will probably gain new partnerships, and other nations may encounter some difficulties. Moreover (source: UNECE): "mining impacts are technically highly dependent on ore grade, as the efforts required to extract a fixed quantity of ore is proportional to the amount of rock to be extracted, therefore inversely proportional to the grade. This is true at the individual mine level, for which such a model could be derived; more importantly, this assumption is valid for open pit and underground mines. Warner and Heath test this relationship and its influence over the full life cycle of the technology, showing that a lowering ore grade may lead to tripling life-cycle GHG emissions by 2050 in case of a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity" Read: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290... "Depending on conditions, median life cycle GHG emissions could be 9 to 110 g CO2-eq/kWh by 2050."
laserbeam 5y ago
One does not exclude the other :p In general, whatever a politician's motivation is for any particular bill may or may not be aligned to yours, even though you may both agree on the outcome of that bill. And that's ok.

by 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).
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Sure, and France reprocesses, too, which aids fuel security. Of course, this doesn't mean they control the entire supply chain for needed parts for nuclear-- but if some critical piece broke they wouldn't have no energy immediately, either.
throw0101a 5y ago
The top four producers of uranium (per tonnage) are Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia, Canada: * https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... Better than being dependent on oil and gas, especially if your current supplier is Russia.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 5y ago
  uranium doesn't matter, its fairly common. It's enriching that uranium that is held closley and is considered the 'Hard' part. Fun fact; This was the key measure in obamas iran deal. The US would give them the enriched uranium if they shut down their nuclear research.
imnotlost 5y ago
Dependencies are a fact of life. Question is, does Europe really want to depend on journalist/dissident-murdering Russia?
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  It is even in Russia's best interest to ne encouraged to diversify their economy before they simply run out of natural resources. If there is a steady decrease in the sale price of fossil fuels instead of a sudden one they will have more time to adapt right?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    I don't think that's really a worry (running out of resources). Our deepest mines are a paltry 4km; forests can be managed. Oil, gas, and coal will eventually run out, but the prices will have by then have risen to the point that use at scale will be impractical.
  - jurip 5y ago
    Those natural resources will last longer than Putin and his friends will be around.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
The largest uranium fuel depot in the world is Chernobyl, Ukraine. Russia nearly bankrupted itself when it contained the nuclear disaster and even Gorbachev thinks it was Chernobyl that ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. Now with this in mind, I wouldnt be surprised considering the sanctions on Russia, if they perhaps make a grab for the uranium in Chernobyl and sell it, to claw back some of the costs they incurred for cleaning up Chernobyl. Strategically, it was useful for Russian politics to have something as risky as the Chernobyl nuke power station in the Ukraine during the soviet union era, ie different country if anything went wrong nothing to do with us sort of thing. However thats how it remains until now where the Iranians need uranium after their enrichers were destroyed with Stuxnet, so you have one potential customer there, you also have India & Pakistan, Israel as well as the UK and France who will all be needing a bit more uranium as we get off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  > Strategically, it was useful for Russian politics to have something as risky as the Chernobyl nuke power station in the Ukraine during the soviet union era, ie different country if anything went wrong nothing to do with us sort of thing. The same type of reactor as Chernobyl is still in operation at the Leningrad NPP
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    It would appear that some countries also view nuke power stations like offensive firewalls, that's the Baltic sea nations captured in some respect. Germany's car industry and Russian Oil wealth is also a partnership I see.
  - djcapelis 5y ago
    > The same type of reactor as Chernobyl is still in operation at the Leningrad NPP Along with three units each in Kursk and Smolensk NPPs. Plus I think a lot of people don't realize some of the other reactor units at Chernobyl continued operating until the last one finally shut down in 2000.
  - arcticbull 5y ago

mhh__ 5y ago

Hinkley Point doesn't look so expensive now (Electricity forwards have been greater than the rate the reactor is supposed to cost since august)

Xixi 5y ago
Also keep in mind, a lot of the cost of Hinkley Point is not so much the cost to build the reactors, but the financing. Speaking from memory, we are talking about borrowing at something like 10% over 35 years. If France finances these new power plants, financing cost goes virtually to zero. So even if actually building the new reactors cost the same (unlikely, I hope they learnt a thing or two over the last 10 years...) they will end up a lot cheaper than Hinkley Point.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Also insurance. All plants in the USA are insured by the government, I'm sure the same is true in France as well.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- epistasis 5y ago
  Finance is not free, there is always opportunity cost.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Interest rates are very low still though. Governments can borrow at nearer to 1% than 10%.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      But that money could also be applied in other areas of the economy, that might have far better payback. And with France's current track record of nuclear construction, throwing more money at nuclear without fixing the fundamental problems first is serious misallocation of capital. Just the latest news that is the same as the last decade of bad news: > EDF now estimates the total cost of the project at 12.7 billion euros ($14.42 billion). Its expected cost has more than quadrupled from the first estimate made in 2004. 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... $15B of lithium ion battery factory would have far far greater carbon impact, dollar for dollar. $1B on early stage startups would similarly be more impactful.

stewbrew 5y ago

Speaking about independence: where does the uran come from? And how is this clever since the EDF cannot sell their nuclear power without making losses?

eps 5y ago
Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia Followed by Namibia, Niger, Russia, Uzbekistan, the US and China. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Uranium_production%2C_OWID.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Uranium_...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deepsun 5y ago
> where does the uran come from All over the place. Uranite is pretty common. E.g. Canada has 200+ locations: https://www.mindat.org/min-4102.html https://www.mindat.org/min-4102.html (scroll to the very bottom).
- natmaka 5y ago
  If a nuclear 'renaissance' arises, strategy will be at play: Russia and the US will obtain uranium from their 'partners', in Africa China will probably gain new partnerships, and other nations may encounter some difficulties. Moreover (source: UNECE): "mining impacts are technically highly dependent on ore grade, as the efforts required to extract a fixed quantity of ore is proportional to the amount of rock to be extracted, therefore inversely proportional to the grade. This is true at the individual mine level, for which such a model could be derived; more importantly, this assumption is valid for open pit and underground mines. Warner and Heath test this relationship and its influence over the full life cycle of the technology, showing that a lowering ore grade may lead to tripling life-cycle GHG emissions by 2050 in case of a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity" Read: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290... "Depending on conditions, median life cycle GHG emissions could be 9 to 110 g CO2-eq/kWh by 2050."

laserbeam 5y ago

One does not exclude the other :p In general, whatever a politician's motivation is for any particular bill may or may not be aligned to yours, even though you may both agree on the outcome of that bill. And that's ok.