5 ms·

Even the most pro-nuclear scenario the French came up (N03) includes 50% of renewable. And we are talking about one of the most nuclearized country in the world

Even the most pro-nuclear scenario the French came up (N03) includes 50% of renewable. And we are talking about one of the most nuclearized country in the world. Nuclear is a great ally but not a silver bullet. They need to ramp up the production of renewable energy immediately. https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-10/Futurs-Energetiques-2050-principaux-resultats_0.pdf https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-10/Futurs-Ene... page 17

lucb1e 4y ago
What's an ENR? What makes you conclude that, because they're not choosing it, it must be not a silver bullet? What are the actual reasons behind this? I see some stats in french on page 17, not sure if it also mentions reasons somewhere. (E.g. germany is also not choosing it, but for the stupid reason of the public being riled up (mislead) about its risks by various parties for decades, so now it's not politically acceptable anymore to leave nuclear running while phasing out coal, let alone build more nuclear. In such a case, I would not use "oh germany is not choosing it, must be bad then" as a reason to conclude "nuclear is not a silver bullet".)
- it_citizen 4y ago
  I replaced ENR by renewable. > because they're not choosing it That report does not take a stance. It is listing different possible scenarios to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The document I linked is a summary, but it is better explained in the full report. The TL;DR is that 100% nuclear is nowhere to be achievable in a reasonable timescale despite France being one of the most knowledgable country on nuclear energy. Cost and time are the main problems. The bottom of page 27 shows how even the most aggressive scenario fall short. I remember the CEO of Orano himself saying that they wouldn't be able to make it. Don't get me wrong though. I think it would be stupid for France to give up on its nuclear park. The pro-nuclear scenarios looks way simpler to achieve than the full renewable ones. But if we look at the big picture, renewables are not optional, nuclear however might be. So maybe let's spend a little bit more time talking about how France is not doing nearly enough on the renewable side, whatever your opinion is on nuclear.
  - LunaSea 4y ago
    Solar panels requires a dependency on China which doesn't seem too smart.
    - philipkglass 4y ago
      China is the largest but far from the only solar-manufacturing country. Solar manufacturing in Italy: https://www.enelgreenpower.com/who-we-are/innovation/3SUN-factory https://www.enelgreenpower.com/who-we-are/innovation/3SUN-fa... Solar manufacturing in the USA: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/17/2282230/0/en/First-Solar-Breaks-Ground-on-new-680m-3-3-GW-Ohio-Manufacturing-Facility.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/17/228223... In Singapore: https://usa.recgroup.com/news/rec-group-kicks-mass-production-its-ground-breaking-alpha-module-singapore https://usa.recgroup.com/news/rec-group-kicks-mass-productio... In Germany: https://www.pv-tech.org/meyer-burger-optimising-production-expansion-to-1-4gw-in-germany-to-cater-for-european-demand/ https://www.pv-tech.org/meyer-burger-optimising-production-e... In Turkey: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/01/19/turkish-pv-manufacturer-report-reveals-countrys-annual-production-capacity-is-5610-mw-year/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/01/19/turkish-pv-manufactur... In India: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/24/indias-solar-module-manufacturing-capacity-on-track-to-soar-400-in-four-years/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/24/indias-solar-module-m... Soon, in France: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/13/french-hjt-solar-plant-battery-projects-land-eu-funding/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/13/french-hjt-solar-plan...
      - towaway15463 4y ago
        I’d like to see the pie chart comparison of production. My guess is China looks like PacMan on it.
      - LunaSea 4y ago
        Cool, now show production volumes and chips and boards country of origin.
  - Kuinox 4y ago
    The documents you linked doesn't says what you say. The risk table nicely show it: all renewable are red. Yes, 100% nuclear is not achievable without risk, but with less risk than the 50% renewable you are proning.
panick21_ 4y ago
There is no reason why nuclear can not provide all energy needed. Just because this french document doesn't make a scenario like that doesn't mean its not possible. France did a great job deploying nuclear, but they have overall done a really bad job at developing next generation nuclear. I would like to read the document you linked below and understand by what logic they exclude 100 nuclear. How is it possible that they manged to build a nuclear reactor in 5 years in the 80s and can't do so now. France doesn't need that much more energy in 2050. If they just repeated what they did in the 70-90s in the next 20 years they clearly reach it. It really don't see any rational argument why this shouldn't be possible. Maybe its not possible continuing to do more or less what they want. But a determined government effort, bringing the technologies online that they have to to make it work should be considered. Given modern technology, shouldn't they not be at least 2-4x more efficient at building new capacity then they were in the 80s? Edit: Looking at the document, why would France need +350GW of energy production. That seems totally over the top given population trends. Edit 2: Looking further: > 14 EPR et plusieurs SMR entre 2035 et 2050 That seems a small number. If they have a working design that they can start building in say 2030. IF you put the necessary education system in place to educated people, you should be able to build way more in 15 years. If you split the teams while on-boarding new people you can start many reactors every year.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  The increased electricity production would be needed to shift fossil usage in industry to electricity.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    That accounts for some of that, but more then 3x seems to much.
- it_citizen 4y ago
  > Just because this french document doesn't make a scenario like that doesn't mean its not possible. I am re-quoting what I wrote below because they clearly state that it is not possible if they want to respect the deadlines. Page 26: > The study concludes, without any ambiguity, that a sustained development of electrical renewable energies is essential in France to respect its climate commitments. Which defacto exclude a 100% nuclear mix. (According to the report, maybe the report is wrong) > How is it possible that they managed to build a nuclear reactor in 5 years in the 80s and can't do so now. > Given modern technology, shouldn't they not be at least 2-4x more efficient at building new capacity then they were in the 80s? I know right? I have a hard time wrapping my head around it too. In theory that's how it should be. But in practice, it doesn't seem to be the case. Most projects end up being giant clusterfuck with years of delays and billions in over cost. And we keep seeing the same story repeating over and over. There is lack of qualified people and expertise got lost (the famous welders). We can probably train new people but can we do it in a sufficient timeframe and quantity? There is also the problem of the massive amount of upfront capital to mobilize. Three bad EPR projects almost bankrupted the french nuclear industry. And we could also dive into the massive amount of corruption that goes with those large sums. Ohio being the last one of a long trend. For the big plants, it seems that the costs and time to build have not fallen: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
Manuel_D 4y ago
This article is in French and is thus inaccessible for many on HN. It sounds like it's assuming that there's going to be vast amounts of storage to accommodate renewables intermittency - at least if "stocker" and "dèstocker" refer to storage. This is very wishful thinking. Storage at anywhere near relevant scales is not achievable with existing storage mechanisms. This is often the case for most plans that call for a significant portion of energy coming from renewables. Intermittency would otherwise require a carbon-free source to provide energy during periods of non-production. Unfortunately for intermittent sources, peak demand coincides with periods of non production in the evening. If you build enough nuclear plants to fulfill this period of non-production, then you have enough nuclear plants to fulfill demand for the rest of the day and thus the intermittent sources are redundant. If someone does eventually invent a storage system that's nearly free and can scale to terawatt hours then renewables are great. But until then, they do not provide a path to decarbonization.

lucb1e 4y ago

What's an ENR? What makes you conclude that, because they're not choosing it, it must be not a silver bullet? What are the actual reasons behind this? I see some stats in french on page 17, not sure if it also mentions reasons somewhere. (E.g. germany is also not choosing it, but for the stupid reason of the public being riled up (mislead) about its risks by various parties for decades, so now it's not politically acceptable anymore to leave nuclear running while phasing out coal, let alone build more nuclear. In such a case, I would not use "oh germany is not choosing it, must be bad then" as a reason to conclude "nuclear is not a silver bullet".)

it_citizen 4y ago
I replaced ENR by renewable. > because they're not choosing it That report does not take a stance. It is listing different possible scenarios to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The document I linked is a summary, but it is better explained in the full report. The TL;DR is that 100% nuclear is nowhere to be achievable in a reasonable timescale despite France being one of the most knowledgable country on nuclear energy. Cost and time are the main problems. The bottom of page 27 shows how even the most aggressive scenario fall short. I remember the CEO of Orano himself saying that they wouldn't be able to make it. Don't get me wrong though. I think it would be stupid for France to give up on its nuclear park. The pro-nuclear scenarios looks way simpler to achieve than the full renewable ones. But if we look at the big picture, renewables are not optional, nuclear however might be. So maybe let's spend a little bit more time talking about how France is not doing nearly enough on the renewable side, whatever your opinion is on nuclear.
- LunaSea 4y ago
  Solar panels requires a dependency on China which doesn't seem too smart.
  - philipkglass 4y ago
    China is the largest but far from the only solar-manufacturing country. Solar manufacturing in Italy: https://www.enelgreenpower.com/who-we-are/innovation/3SUN-factory https://www.enelgreenpower.com/who-we-are/innovation/3SUN-fa... Solar manufacturing in the USA: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/17/2282230/0/en/First-Solar-Breaks-Ground-on-new-680m-3-3-GW-Ohio-Manufacturing-Facility.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/17/228223... In Singapore: https://usa.recgroup.com/news/rec-group-kicks-mass-production-its-ground-breaking-alpha-module-singapore https://usa.recgroup.com/news/rec-group-kicks-mass-productio... In Germany: https://www.pv-tech.org/meyer-burger-optimising-production-expansion-to-1-4gw-in-germany-to-cater-for-european-demand/ https://www.pv-tech.org/meyer-burger-optimising-production-e... In Turkey: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/01/19/turkish-pv-manufacturer-report-reveals-countrys-annual-production-capacity-is-5610-mw-year/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/01/19/turkish-pv-manufactur... In India: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/24/indias-solar-module-manufacturing-capacity-on-track-to-soar-400-in-four-years/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/24/indias-solar-module-m... Soon, in France: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/13/french-hjt-solar-plant-battery-projects-land-eu-funding/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/13/french-hjt-solar-plan...
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      I’d like to see the pie chart comparison of production. My guess is China looks like PacMan on it.
    - LunaSea 4y ago
      Cool, now show production volumes and chips and boards country of origin.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  The documents you linked doesn't says what you say. The risk table nicely show it: all renewable are red. Yes, 100% nuclear is not achievable without risk, but with less risk than the 50% renewable you are proning.

panick21_ 4y ago

There is no reason why nuclear can not provide all energy needed. Just because this french document doesn't make a scenario like that doesn't mean its not possible. France did a great job deploying nuclear, but they have overall done a really bad job at developing next generation nuclear. I would like to read the document you linked below and understand by what logic they exclude 100 nuclear. How is it possible that they manged to build a nuclear reactor in 5 years in the 80s and can't do so now. France doesn't need that much more energy in 2050. If they just repeated what they did in the 70-90s in the next 20 years they clearly reach it. It really don't see any rational argument why this shouldn't be possible. Maybe its not possible continuing to do more or less what they want. But a determined government effort, bringing the technologies online that they have to to make it work should be considered. Given modern technology, shouldn't they not be at least 2-4x more efficient at building new capacity then they were in the 80s? Edit: Looking at the document, why would France need +350GW of energy production. That seems totally over the top given population trends. Edit 2: Looking further: > 14 EPR et plusieurs SMR entre 2035 et 2050 That seems a small number. If they have a working design that they can start building in say 2030. IF you put the necessary education system in place to educated people, you should be able to build way more in 15 years. If you split the teams while on-boarding new people you can start many reactors every year.

Kuinox 4y ago
The increased electricity production would be needed to shift fossil usage in industry to electricity.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  That accounts for some of that, but more then 3x seems to much.
it_citizen 4y ago
> Just because this french document doesn't make a scenario like that doesn't mean its not possible. I am re-quoting what I wrote below because they clearly state that it is not possible if they want to respect the deadlines. Page 26: > The study concludes, without any ambiguity, that a sustained development of electrical renewable energies is essential in France to respect its climate commitments. Which defacto exclude a 100% nuclear mix. (According to the report, maybe the report is wrong) > How is it possible that they managed to build a nuclear reactor in 5 years in the 80s and can't do so now. > Given modern technology, shouldn't they not be at least 2-4x more efficient at building new capacity then they were in the 80s? I know right? I have a hard time wrapping my head around it too. In theory that's how it should be. But in practice, it doesn't seem to be the case. Most projects end up being giant clusterfuck with years of delays and billions in over cost. And we keep seeing the same story repeating over and over. There is lack of qualified people and expertise got lost (the famous welders). We can probably train new people but can we do it in a sufficient timeframe and quantity? There is also the problem of the massive amount of upfront capital to mobilize. Three bad EPR projects almost bankrupted the french nuclear industry. And we could also dive into the massive amount of corruption that goes with those large sums. Ohio being the last one of a long trend. For the big plants, it seems that the costs and time to build have not fallen: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

Manuel_D 4y ago

This article is in French and is thus inaccessible for many on HN. It sounds like it's assuming that there's going to be vast amounts of storage to accommodate renewables intermittency - at least if "stocker" and "dèstocker" refer to storage. This is very wishful thinking. Storage at anywhere near relevant scales is not achievable with existing storage mechanisms. This is often the case for most plans that call for a significant portion of energy coming from renewables. Intermittency would otherwise require a carbon-free source to provide energy during periods of non-production. Unfortunately for intermittent sources, peak demand coincides with periods of non production in the evening. If you build enough nuclear plants to fulfill this period of non-production, then you have enough nuclear plants to fulfill demand for the rest of the day and thus the intermittent sources are redundant. If someone does eventually invent a storage system that's nearly free and can scale to terawatt hours then renewables are great. But until then, they do not provide a path to decarbonization.