4 ms·

France sticks out like a sore thumb in a sea of natural gas burning neighbours. We could all be running on nuclear like them. Nuclear is safer, better for the e

by bb123 5y ago

France sticks out like a sore thumb in a sea of natural gas burning neighbours. We could all be running on nuclear like them. Nuclear is safer, better for the environment and has the nice side effect that it frees us from relying on despots like Putin and the Saudi ilk to keep the lights on. Instead here we are. At the bitter end of 30 years of shit government.

adrianN 5y ago
About a third of all Uranium is either mined or at least refined in Russia.
- masklinn 5y ago
  That's complete nonsense, unless you're asserting that Kazakstan is in Russia. Russia produces about 5% of uranium, and uranium is reduced to yellowcake on site but it is generally enriched by the country using the fuel (eurodif being a pretty significant exception). Furthermore uranium has a bunch of advantages — aside from most of the known reserves being in advanced economies (namely Australia and Canada): - because it's dense and stable (unlike gasoline or natural gas), countries can have years of enriched fuel in storage, meaning in case of supply issue they can easily wait out - ramp up of existing mines (or opening out of new mines) to compensate for one supplier shutting down or being blackballed, because - uranium requires very little infrastructure between the mine (which ships yellowcake) and the enrichment plant, yellowcake is transported in 400kg drums packed into standard shipping containers
  - PinguTS 5y ago
    That's just the imports of natural Uranium. In addition there are the imports of processed Uranium from Russia. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147442/imports-of-uranium-to-eu-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147442/imports-of-urani...
  - danans 5y ago
    > That's complete nonsense, unless you're asserting that Kazakstan is in Russia. If the West became dependent on Kazakh uranium because they shifted their entire fossil fuel generation capacity to nuclear, it would be in Russia's strategic interest to exert control over Kazakhstan's uranium, one way or another. There may be sensible ways to replace some base load on the grid with nuclear, but not by introducing a resource dependency on the vassal of a major adversary. The thing we can do right now is focus on electrification of end uses that are still fossil fuel powered. That way the end uses are mostly agnostic of the method of generation.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  Mostly because as it stands (stood), it's (was) the most economically sensible thing to do. France also gets a ton from Niger, Australia is known to have stupid amounts in their reserves (and they can't really pull the "mines are bad" argument considering just how many coal mines they have), and pretty much every country has the ability to open mines. It's just a matter of how expensive it is. The good thing with nuclear fuel is that you don't really need that much, and much of the cost of nuclear energy is in operating costs, not fuel. Additionally, had we continued research on nuclear, we might have the ability to reuse spent fuel today, which still holds a _ton_ of energy in it.
goodcanadian 5y ago
If you had looked a couple of days ago, the UK (for example) would have been a lot greener as the wind was blowing. Today is especially bad for wind which, unfortunately, does mean more gas.
- yodelshady 5y ago
  Yet today, France is as green as it was. And I'll bet money that, couple of days ago, the carbon put out by the spinning reserve that is necessary to cover a day like today wasn't counted. If you're going to advocate for wind, great. Can we examine your plans honestly, please? Because if you want to deliver an equivalent service to France, one where "SLA" and "disconnect the customers if convenient" are treated as different things, then our current plan is not wind. It is gas.
  - goodcanadian 5y ago
    It was not my intent to advocate for or against wind; I merely wanted to keep the comparison fair. But, if you insist . . . The gas required for standby is miniscule compared to what is burned under load, and frankly, I would bet money that wind was curtailed before "wasting" any gas. Even if we burn gas today, gas not burned two days ago, was not burned. So, it is nonsense to dismiss the benefits of wind. I do not know what the future picture will look like, but given the relative cheapness of wind generation, I suspect there will be a significant over capacity installed. Grid storage is also coming along. New interconnects are being installed such as the North Sea link to Norway. We are currently importing 1.4GW from Norwegian hydroelectric. I suspect wind energy was exported to Norway when it was blowing. And yes, more nuclear is being built, in the form of Hinckley Point C.
    - jillesvangurp 5y ago
      Indeed. Overcapacity for wind and solar is why batteries and other storage solutions are so important since that provides some ability to absorb the excess energy or use it when production dips. Interconnected grids provides similar grid balancing benefits. A near future thing might be lots of EVs with vehicle to grid capability adding a lot of battery to the grid. Millions of EVs would provide some non trivial amount of capacity. Several manufacturers are starting to supply cars with this capability (e.g. Ford, Kia, and a few others). And of course Tesla is already experimenting with virtual power plants as well. The future is going to be a messy process of different countries and companies rolling out bits and pieces of infrastructure and technology as it becomes available. It's a fiercely competitive space and it does not favor players that depend on costly solutions that require high energy prices to be economically sustainable. All that will happen in a market with an increasing amount of variety of supply and greater fluctuations in pricing. This actually has a re-enforcing effect. The more wind, solar, and battery comes online, the less profitable gas plants become. They only generate revenue when they are in use but they still cost money when they aren't producing. Likewise, exporting nuclear energy is not a thing when there is a surplus of cheap renewable energy unless you basically sell the energy at a loss. And turning a nuclear plant off takes a lot of planning. And turning them back on is of course expensive as well. That's one of the issues France is facing with its domestic nuclear production. It's often cheaper to import wind power from abroad and with a connected grid, power suppliers have the freedom to do so. And of course in areas where prices are higher, home owners are incentivized to find ways to reduce their energy prices by installing solar on their roofs and adding batteries to their house.
Tade0 5y ago
The EU gets 20% of its uranium from Russia, and another 20% from Kazakhstan which, despite its recent refusal to participate in the war, is still deeply tied with Russia.
- masklinn 5y ago
  Unlike natural gas though, uranium is easy to stockpile and doing so is pretty standard (IIRC france keeps 2~3 years worth of fuel stockpiled, plus a 5 years strategic reserve), and there are no new pipelines to build and install if you look for a new supplier, it's "just" a question of that supplier ramping up production or opening mines for whatever price they are interested in. The steps inbetween are pretty much standard international shipping in intermodal containers.
- smotah 5y ago
  The main difference is that: - the weight of uranium compared to the weight of coal needed for the same amount of energy produced is absolutely ridiculous: 2.5 metric tons vs. 7 grams of uranium 235. That make it easy to stockpile it for years to come - Some "waste" are already being recycled and used again - uranium is uniformly distributed on earth, there's not the same geopolitical issues that we experience for fossil energy sources such as oil and gas - I'm not sure whether those 20%/20% proportions are true since some EU countries does not disclose the part of uranium imported from each countries - Australia, Niger and Canada are also some major players for EU uranium import, none of which want to back Russian war, quite the contrary according to the UN vote.

by bb123 5y ago

adrianN 5y ago

About a third of all Uranium is either mined or at least refined in Russia.

masklinn 5y ago
That's complete nonsense, unless you're asserting that Kazakstan is in Russia. Russia produces about 5% of uranium, and uranium is reduced to yellowcake on site but it is generally enriched by the country using the fuel (eurodif being a pretty significant exception). Furthermore uranium has a bunch of advantages — aside from most of the known reserves being in advanced economies (namely Australia and Canada): - because it's dense and stable (unlike gasoline or natural gas), countries can have years of enriched fuel in storage, meaning in case of supply issue they can easily wait out - ramp up of existing mines (or opening out of new mines) to compensate for one supplier shutting down or being blackballed, because - uranium requires very little infrastructure between the mine (which ships yellowcake) and the enrichment plant, yellowcake is transported in 400kg drums packed into standard shipping containers
- PinguTS 5y ago
  That's just the imports of natural Uranium. In addition there are the imports of processed Uranium from Russia. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147442/imports-of-uranium-to-eu-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147442/imports-of-urani...
- danans 5y ago
  > That's complete nonsense, unless you're asserting that Kazakstan is in Russia. If the West became dependent on Kazakh uranium because they shifted their entire fossil fuel generation capacity to nuclear, it would be in Russia's strategic interest to exert control over Kazakhstan's uranium, one way or another. There may be sensible ways to replace some base load on the grid with nuclear, but not by introducing a resource dependency on the vassal of a major adversary. The thing we can do right now is focus on electrification of end uses that are still fossil fuel powered. That way the end uses are mostly agnostic of the method of generation.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
Mostly because as it stands (stood), it's (was) the most economically sensible thing to do. France also gets a ton from Niger, Australia is known to have stupid amounts in their reserves (and they can't really pull the "mines are bad" argument considering just how many coal mines they have), and pretty much every country has the ability to open mines. It's just a matter of how expensive it is. The good thing with nuclear fuel is that you don't really need that much, and much of the cost of nuclear energy is in operating costs, not fuel. Additionally, had we continued research on nuclear, we might have the ability to reuse spent fuel today, which still holds a _ton_ of energy in it.

goodcanadian 5y ago

If you had looked a couple of days ago, the UK (for example) would have been a lot greener as the wind was blowing. Today is especially bad for wind which, unfortunately, does mean more gas.

yodelshady 5y ago
Yet today, France is as green as it was. And I'll bet money that, couple of days ago, the carbon put out by the spinning reserve that is necessary to cover a day like today wasn't counted. If you're going to advocate for wind, great. Can we examine your plans honestly, please? Because if you want to deliver an equivalent service to France, one where "SLA" and "disconnect the customers if convenient" are treated as different things, then our current plan is not wind. It is gas.
- goodcanadian 5y ago
  It was not my intent to advocate for or against wind; I merely wanted to keep the comparison fair. But, if you insist . . . The gas required for standby is miniscule compared to what is burned under load, and frankly, I would bet money that wind was curtailed before "wasting" any gas. Even if we burn gas today, gas not burned two days ago, was not burned. So, it is nonsense to dismiss the benefits of wind. I do not know what the future picture will look like, but given the relative cheapness of wind generation, I suspect there will be a significant over capacity installed. Grid storage is also coming along. New interconnects are being installed such as the North Sea link to Norway. We are currently importing 1.4GW from Norwegian hydroelectric. I suspect wind energy was exported to Norway when it was blowing. And yes, more nuclear is being built, in the form of Hinckley Point C.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    Indeed. Overcapacity for wind and solar is why batteries and other storage solutions are so important since that provides some ability to absorb the excess energy or use it when production dips. Interconnected grids provides similar grid balancing benefits. A near future thing might be lots of EVs with vehicle to grid capability adding a lot of battery to the grid. Millions of EVs would provide some non trivial amount of capacity. Several manufacturers are starting to supply cars with this capability (e.g. Ford, Kia, and a few others). And of course Tesla is already experimenting with virtual power plants as well. The future is going to be a messy process of different countries and companies rolling out bits and pieces of infrastructure and technology as it becomes available. It's a fiercely competitive space and it does not favor players that depend on costly solutions that require high energy prices to be economically sustainable. All that will happen in a market with an increasing amount of variety of supply and greater fluctuations in pricing. This actually has a re-enforcing effect. The more wind, solar, and battery comes online, the less profitable gas plants become. They only generate revenue when they are in use but they still cost money when they aren't producing. Likewise, exporting nuclear energy is not a thing when there is a surplus of cheap renewable energy unless you basically sell the energy at a loss. And turning a nuclear plant off takes a lot of planning. And turning them back on is of course expensive as well. That's one of the issues France is facing with its domestic nuclear production. It's often cheaper to import wind power from abroad and with a connected grid, power suppliers have the freedom to do so. And of course in areas where prices are higher, home owners are incentivized to find ways to reduce their energy prices by installing solar on their roofs and adding batteries to their house.

Tade0 5y ago

The EU gets 20% of its uranium from Russia, and another 20% from Kazakhstan which, despite its recent refusal to participate in the war, is still deeply tied with Russia.

masklinn 5y ago
Unlike natural gas though, uranium is easy to stockpile and doing so is pretty standard (IIRC france keeps 2~3 years worth of fuel stockpiled, plus a 5 years strategic reserve), and there are no new pipelines to build and install if you look for a new supplier, it's "just" a question of that supplier ramping up production or opening mines for whatever price they are interested in. The steps inbetween are pretty much standard international shipping in intermodal containers.
smotah 5y ago
The main difference is that: - the weight of uranium compared to the weight of coal needed for the same amount of energy produced is absolutely ridiculous: 2.5 metric tons vs. 7 grams of uranium 235. That make it easy to stockpile it for years to come - Some "waste" are already being recycled and used again - uranium is uniformly distributed on earth, there's not the same geopolitical issues that we experience for fossil energy sources such as oil and gas - I'm not sure whether those 20%/20% proportions are true since some EU countries does not disclose the part of uranium imported from each countries - Australia, Niger and Canada are also some major players for EU uranium import, none of which want to back Russian war, quite the contrary according to the UN vote.