3 ms·

Well, currently a lot of electricity goes from Germany to France, as 50% of the French nuclear plants are not operational at the moment. (A lot need maintenance

by _ph_ 4y ago

Well, currently a lot of electricity goes from Germany to France, as 50% of the French nuclear plants are not operational at the moment. (A lot need maintenance, others are down because of the heat)

scythe 4y ago
This doesn't contradict anything I said. - Everything needs maintenance; nuclear plants are by no means unique in this regard. France may have planned badly, so that many plants are down at once, but this is not a systemic problem with nuclear power. - Europe overall was unprepared for the heat wave, but we are not really concerned with energy demand during heat waves (which are short, and when sunshine is plentiful) but rather during the winter (which is long, and dark in EU). So again, more nuclear capacity in Germany could offset gas-fired power plants throughout EU.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  I would not be so arrogant to assume the German power industry would solve the problems so much better than the French. The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. And of course: Germany currently has 3 operational reactors, new ones could be available in 10-15 years earliest. There had been plenty of warnings, because in the last 10 years it was quite common for the French grid to be borderline in the summer, cooling always was a tight spot. And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at.
  - scythe 4y ago
    >I would not be so arrogant The rest of your comment contradicts this. >The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. This is another red herring. You complained that French reactors are down for maintenance, I responded to that. Construction costs do not cause reactors to go down for maintenance. To your second paragraph, again, the energy supply in the summer is not the central problem. Existing solar does well in the summer. >And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at. Alone, this is true. However, batteries take up very little space and large installations can be put up quickly. Solar is nice in the long term but takes a long time to install at reasonable scale.

by _ph_ 4y ago

Well, currently a lot of electricity goes from Germany to France, as 50% of the French nuclear plants are not operational at the moment. (A lot need maintenance, others are down because of the heat)

scythe 4y ago

This doesn't contradict anything I said. - Everything needs maintenance; nuclear plants are by no means unique in this regard. France may have planned badly, so that many plants are down at once, but this is not a systemic problem with nuclear power. - Europe overall was unprepared for the heat wave, but we are not really concerned with energy demand during heat waves (which are short, and when sunshine is plentiful) but rather during the winter (which is long, and dark in EU). So again, more nuclear capacity in Germany could offset gas-fired power plants throughout EU.

_ph_ 4y ago
I would not be so arrogant to assume the German power industry would solve the problems so much better than the French. The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. And of course: Germany currently has 3 operational reactors, new ones could be available in 10-15 years earliest. There had been plenty of warnings, because in the last 10 years it was quite common for the French grid to be borderline in the summer, cooling always was a tight spot. And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at.
- scythe 4y ago
  >I would not be so arrogant The rest of your comment contradicts this. >The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. This is another red herring. You complained that French reactors are down for maintenance, I responded to that. Construction costs do not cause reactors to go down for maintenance. To your second paragraph, again, the energy supply in the summer is not the central problem. Existing solar does well in the summer. >And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at. Alone, this is true. However, batteries take up very little space and large installations can be put up quickly. Solar is nice in the long term but takes a long time to install at reasonable scale.