> Minor? Your link is outdated. EDF was forced to prolong the shutdowns recently [1]. Your link doesn't say anything about the severity of the issue, just the

> Minor? Your link is outdated. EDF was forced to prolong the shutdowns recently [1]. Your link doesn't say anything about the severity of the issue, just the number of reactors it impacts (12, which is the same number I indicated). > It will, but the drought is likely to reappear next summer Sure, by then the welding issues are hopefully finally addressed (the plan is to have the maintenance done by January, but I strongly suspect this will slip by a few months) and then it's only the regular refueling which has been happening in summer for almost 50 years. > which is why not just the spot electricity market is bananas but also the futures market Well, no, that's due to a lack of electricity production capacity. Issues with the french nuclear fleet are part of that problem, but they're not all of that problem. > even a tiny fuck up has the potential to irradiate a large region for decades Absolutely not. Tiny fuckups happen all the time and have no consequence. Major fuckups happen once in a while and also have no consequence (TMI, for example). Huge fuckups have happened twice in the past 40 years, and only once with major irradiation consequences (Fukushima Daiichi has roughly no exclusion zone left at this point 11 years after the accident, the last town has been reopened earlier this year). The nuclear industry has learned from all these fuckups, from the tiniest ones to the catastrophic ones, and something like the issue at Chornobyl just cannot happen in France.