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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 poss

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...
- panick21_ 4y ago
  France has not done great job with their advanced nuclear unfortunately. To be fair there were many headwinds. So I assume they are just really pessimistic about its potential. They shouldn't be, because they have the nuclear industry and education to make it happen. Its just a matter of will and imagination They killed their sodium reactor project: https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-astrid-idUSL5N25Q1MU https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-astrid-i... One of the problem with GenIV is that every country wants to develop it and then use that reactor to consume the waste of the GenIII reactors. The problem is that this makes it doubly difficult and expensive. Essentially making GenIV pay for the 'sins' of GenIII. The problem with this is that given climate change, what should matter is building the most economical possible reactor, nuclear waste is not they primary problem they should try to fix. Overall, I am not really a fan of Sodium reactors but the French had them working and not just a initial prototype, but a fully operational reactor that produced grid energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix Unfortunately the anti-nuclear people of course were extremely threatened by these and tried to prevented them any way the could. And managed to do so. People protested and threw molotov cocktails. A crazy swiss guy literally shot at the reactor with a rocket-propelled grenade (and this hurts me as a swiss person). > A 1998 "Inquiry commission on Superphenix and fast neutrons reactor sector" [3] reported that "decision to close Superphénix was included in Jospin's program ... in the agreement between Socialist Party and Green Party". Also the same report says "despite many difficulties, the technical results are meaningful". In the explanation of vote at the end of the report, commission members says "give up on Superphenix has been a big error" and "Superphenix has to die because is a symbol". France could easily have built 10-30 more of these designs in the 90s and 2000s. By now this would be far cheaper then building EPR and it would be safer. The whole project cost 9.1 billion euro and that was a first of its kind reactor with many issues, that seems to me a very acceptable price for such a ground breaking project. What is beyond sad is that its the Green Party (and generally leftist parties) all over the world that is anti-nuclear. And the right usually happy to go with the cheaper fossil fuel option. So for a long time nuclear just didn't have a home. Even worse France stopped all progress, had they continued on pace from 1980-2000 they would be in an amazing position right now, but nuclear output is essentially flat since then. I prefer molten salt cooled designs over sodium cooled. Some interesting current examples are: - Stable Molten Salt Reactor by Moltex Energy (basically a sodium reactor but replace sodium with a liquid coolant salt, and fill the assemblies with fuel salt) - KP-FHR Kairos Power (a liquid fluoride salt cooled pebble reactor) - IMSR by Terrestrial Energy (liquid salt cooled and fueled fast burner) In my opinion advanced industrial countries like France, Germany or Europe in General could easily take any of these designs and build up to 100% nuclear by 2050. All of these are small enough that you can make large parts of them in a factory.

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...

panick21_ 4y ago
France has not done great job with their advanced nuclear unfortunately. To be fair there were many headwinds. So I assume they are just really pessimistic about its potential. They shouldn't be, because they have the nuclear industry and education to make it happen. Its just a matter of will and imagination They killed their sodium reactor project: https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-astrid-idUSL5N25Q1MU https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-astrid-i... One of the problem with GenIV is that every country wants to develop it and then use that reactor to consume the waste of the GenIII reactors. The problem is that this makes it doubly difficult and expensive. Essentially making GenIV pay for the 'sins' of GenIII. The problem with this is that given climate change, what should matter is building the most economical possible reactor, nuclear waste is not they primary problem they should try to fix. Overall, I am not really a fan of Sodium reactors but the French had them working and not just a initial prototype, but a fully operational reactor that produced grid energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix Unfortunately the anti-nuclear people of course were extremely threatened by these and tried to prevented them any way the could. And managed to do so. People protested and threw molotov cocktails. A crazy swiss guy literally shot at the reactor with a rocket-propelled grenade (and this hurts me as a swiss person). > A 1998 "Inquiry commission on Superphenix and fast neutrons reactor sector" [3] reported that "decision to close Superphénix was included in Jospin's program ... in the agreement between Socialist Party and Green Party". Also the same report says "despite many difficulties, the technical results are meaningful". In the explanation of vote at the end of the report, commission members says "give up on Superphenix has been a big error" and "Superphenix has to die because is a symbol". France could easily have built 10-30 more of these designs in the 90s and 2000s. By now this would be far cheaper then building EPR and it would be safer. The whole project cost 9.1 billion euro and that was a first of its kind reactor with many issues, that seems to me a very acceptable price for such a ground breaking project. What is beyond sad is that its the Green Party (and generally leftist parties) all over the world that is anti-nuclear. And the right usually happy to go with the cheaper fossil fuel option. So for a long time nuclear just didn't have a home. Even worse France stopped all progress, had they continued on pace from 1980-2000 they would be in an amazing position right now, but nuclear output is essentially flat since then. I prefer molten salt cooled designs over sodium cooled. Some interesting current examples are: - Stable Molten Salt Reactor by Moltex Energy (basically a sodium reactor but replace sodium with a liquid coolant salt, and fill the assemblies with fuel salt) - KP-FHR Kairos Power (a liquid fluoride salt cooled pebble reactor) - IMSR by Terrestrial Energy (liquid salt cooled and fueled fast burner) In my opinion advanced industrial countries like France, Germany or Europe in General could easily take any of these designs and build up to 100% nuclear by 2050. All of these are small enough that you can make large parts of them in a factory.