5 ms·

"- nuclear can supply the base load" Looking over the border to France, can it? The forecasted load factor for French nuclear power generation this year is 51.

by tpm 4y ago

"- nuclear can supply the base load" Looking over the border to France, can it? The forecasted load factor for French nuclear power generation this year is 51.5% and the energy there is probably the most expensive in whole of Europe. https://mastodon.energy/@Sustainable2050/109625562357246897 https://mastodon.energy/@Sustainable2050/109625562357246897

snehk 4y ago
The most recent (complete data) we have shows that electricity prices in France are below EU and Euro zone average: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- tpm 4y ago
  Those are household prices, pretty much irrelevant in this case as they are decided by national regulators and often subsidised. Have a look at wholesale prices. Those were around 1000e/MWh between August and November: https://mobile.twitter.com/Emericdevigan/status/1609973029932601345 https://mobile.twitter.com/Emericdevigan/status/160997302993...
rolenthedeep 4y ago
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Nuclear is an ideal base load provider because nuclear plants really like to run 100% of the time, only shutting down for refueling or maintenance. Which is exactly what you want to meet a demand that exists 100% of the time. If you have enough generation, nuclear is an ideal base load provider.
- tpm 4y ago
  That's exactly the counterpoint I'm trying to make: a lot of French reactors were and are down "for maintenance", making it very much not the ideal base, or any, load provider. That's something we never hear from nuclear power proponents, why?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    My understanding is France's electricity issues are mostly due to shutting down all their gas and coal power plants. As a result, the confluence of maintenance and safety updates to the nuclear fleet are a greater issue effecting supply than they otherwise would be. Compare USA in 2021, nuclear provided 19% of electricity while having only 8% of total nameplate capacity. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity
    - xg15 4y ago
      Many french power plants use nearby rivers as a source of coolant. A big issue last summer was that rivers carried not enough water to reliably provide cooling. Thanks to climate change, this situation will likely become more common in the future.
      - trashtester 4y ago
        France's electrical grid has a vastly lower climate footprint than, for instance, Germany's, due to the nuclear plants. If it turns out that water supply remains and issue in future years (and was not just a fluke), I expect they will find ways around that (either by allowing sligtly warmer spill water or by using hydro dams to store more energy for the summer. Anyway, Germany and France are essentially the same grid, so differences in consumer prices tend to be determined largly by transport costs and the costs of neighboring countries. German power gets cheap when they can import from Scandinavia, Poland and Central Europe, and expensive when they have to export to those. French power is similarly affected by imports/exports to Spain, Italy and the UK. If you want to compare nuclear costs to other sources, you have to look at production costs for PLANNABLE energy for a conglomerate of sources, adjusted for risks and externalities (dry spells, reliance on dictatorships or other unstable or adverserial countries, market prices for commodities, pollution and climate change, etc). If you adjust for all externalities, especially polution and climate change, I'm convinced French electrical production is far, far cheaper per stable GW of output than Germany's.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago

by tpm 4y ago

snehk 4y ago

The most recent (complete data) we have shows that electricity prices in France are below EU and Euro zone average: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

tpm 4y ago
Those are household prices, pretty much irrelevant in this case as they are decided by national regulators and often subsidised. Have a look at wholesale prices. Those were around 1000e/MWh between August and November: https://mobile.twitter.com/Emericdevigan/status/1609973029932601345 https://mobile.twitter.com/Emericdevigan/status/160997302993...

rolenthedeep 4y ago

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Nuclear is an ideal base load provider because nuclear plants really like to run 100% of the time, only shutting down for refueling or maintenance. Which is exactly what you want to meet a demand that exists 100% of the time. If you have enough generation, nuclear is an ideal base load provider.

tpm 4y ago
That's exactly the counterpoint I'm trying to make: a lot of French reactors were and are down "for maintenance", making it very much not the ideal base, or any, load provider. That's something we never hear from nuclear power proponents, why?
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  My understanding is France's electricity issues are mostly due to shutting down all their gas and coal power plants. As a result, the confluence of maintenance and safety updates to the nuclear fleet are a greater issue effecting supply than they otherwise would be. Compare USA in 2021, nuclear provided 19% of electricity while having only 8% of total nameplate capacity. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity
  - xg15 4y ago
    Many french power plants use nearby rivers as a source of coolant. A big issue last summer was that rivers carried not enough water to reliably provide cooling. Thanks to climate change, this situation will likely become more common in the future.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      France's electrical grid has a vastly lower climate footprint than, for instance, Germany's, due to the nuclear plants. If it turns out that water supply remains and issue in future years (and was not just a fluke), I expect they will find ways around that (either by allowing sligtly warmer spill water or by using hydro dams to store more energy for the summer. Anyway, Germany and France are essentially the same grid, so differences in consumer prices tend to be determined largly by transport costs and the costs of neighboring countries. German power gets cheap when they can import from Scandinavia, Poland and Central Europe, and expensive when they have to export to those. French power is similarly affected by imports/exports to Spain, Italy and the UK. If you want to compare nuclear costs to other sources, you have to look at production costs for PLANNABLE energy for a conglomerate of sources, adjusted for risks and externalities (dry spells, reliance on dictatorships or other unstable or adverserial countries, market prices for commodities, pollution and climate change, etc). If you adjust for all externalities, especially polution and climate change, I'm convinced French electrical production is far, far cheaper per stable GW of output than Germany's.
- robertlagrant 4y ago