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More than half of France's nuclear reactors are out of commission right now, so for the foreseeable future that "70%" is more aspirational than anything. We ar
by zukzuk 4y ago
More than half of France's nuclear reactors are out of commission right now, so for the foreseeable future that "70%" is more aspirational than anything.
We are obviously not going to meet all of our energy needs — especially for certain high-demand applications — from solar and wind alone, but there are some significant advantages to a decentralized power grid that the pro-nuclear folks don't seem to factor into their arguments. Assuming we can build it out, a decentralized grid ought to be much more resilient to the sort of problems France is facing right now.
- S201 4y agoThis is fairly liberal use of the term "decentralized." Building many more nuclear plants is still "decentralized" in that some of them can be offline and the system still works. Major solar and wind installations are typically concentrated in similar generating stations as nuclear plants are. Many more people will likely have solar on their homes, but it's not like wind and solar is going to lead to a purely decentralized grid where every small community is generating their own electricity. There will always be large scale generating stations for the bulk of grid electricity.
- Krssst 4y ago> More than half of France's nuclear reactors are out of commission right now COVID and corrosion issues being investigated led to that, but the fact is that France has had a reliable clean electricity supply for decades before that.