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Read the Twitter link I posted: only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal. Those plants were put on stand by

Read the Twitter link I posted: only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal. Those plants were put on stand by because wishful thinking is not a good policy, but they were mostly idle. A quarter of France plants were out unplanned, another quarter were in planned maintenance. This was all documented extensively, we should not debate facts. On top of that the EDF kept blowing its own deadlines all year. Summary from the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr... "A record 26 of its 56 reactors are off-line for maintenance or repairs after the worrisome discovery of cracks and corrosion in some pipes used to cool reactor cores." Shutting down a quarter of your fleet because of worrisome discovery of cracks, causing panic on the energy markets across the continent does not sound like predictable to me. Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction because they are so distributed. The chart says Germany produced 165TWh from coal in 2021 and roughly 250TWh in 2010. I believe you should check the dictionary for the words "modest" and "predictable".

mpweiher 4y ago
Stop spreading disinformation. > only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal 1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection. 2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things. Unlike renewables, which you you can't schedule at all, and the only thing you really know is that they will produce the least energy when you need it most. 3. Once again: this was scheduled maintenance/inspection. And during the scheduled inspection they found some cracks. This is something that happens when you inspect things. That is why you do the inspections: so you find stuff that you then fix. [The regularly scheduled car inspection found some problems with the engine that were duly fixed. Germans: OMG!!! WE MUST IMMEDIATELY BAN ALL CARS!!!! ] 5. "Modest". Yep, that's fairly modest, particularly when compared to considering a tripling of gas use as "unchanged". And that reduction went hand-in-hand with an overall reduction in demand in the last years. Also, you need to look at the lignite coal numbers, because lignite is the worst polluting kind: hardly changed at all. We did reduce the hard-coal a bit more due to shutting down the mines (by removing subsidies).
- locallost 4y ago
  No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet. A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. When it became clear the EDF doesn't have the situation under control the futures prices exploded everywhere but especially in France. At one point the futures prices there reached almost 2000$ per MWh. I've posted one link that documented the problem from a reputable source, and posted a quote directly here. That you choose to ignore reality and live in a constructed world is a testament to the wishful thinking mentality of the pro nuclear crowd. But like I posted elsewhere it doesn't really matter -- Europe needs to remove fossil fuels and this will happen a lot quicker than most people assume. The ink on the plans for new nuclear plants won't even dry.
  - mpweiher 4y ago
    > No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet Yes it did. > A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. Great to hear that you are backing off from your "collapse" narrative. But still not quite correct. These were planned shutdowns for planned maintenance/inspections. Some of these inspections found problems, as inspections sometimes do and therefore the plants were offline longer than just the original inspection period and some additional checks were performed and problems were found that had to be remedied. Example here: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/edf-updates-its-nuclear-output-estimate-in-france-for-2022 https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ... And once again: these checks were scheduled for the summer (extended to fall), and even with some of the extended maintenance required most plants were operational again in winter. > Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction LOL. I would really like to be able to schedule our "Dunkelflauten" for the summer ... The only thing that is predictable about renewables is when they definitely won't be available. Which is when we need energy the most. Yay! > This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. LOL. Attributing the spike in energy prices mono-causally to the scheduled maintenance (taking slightly longer than planned) of a part of France's nuclear fleet that you yourself write didn't take that much to replace is ... cute. Do you think there may have been other events in that time that could have had some impact on energy prices? Like maybe the largest disruption of Europe's energy supply in the last half century? Nah, that can't be it. And it is also important to remember that these are water pipes running under high pressure. Cracks are an expected feature of this system, ask any plumber. Of course they need to be fixed in time, which is why there are regular inspections, but it's not as if there's some catastrophic flaw that was revealed the way it is presented in the press (particularly the German press, though the NY Times article is also pretty bad). And of course you can expect more leakage/cracks as these plants reach the end of their service life, and especially if you defer the needed inspections/maintenance as was done during COVID. It should also be noted that the extraordinary success of the French nuclear program has led to complacency and underinvestment, as that success was increasingly taken for granted. Fortunately that is starting to change, the French are taking their nuclear industry seriously again, and not killing it off in favour of renewable dreams that don't (and didn't) pan out. That success is also reflected in public opinion: "Nearly 80 percent of the French public support nuclear energy, up 20 points from 2016". https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-prized-nuclear-sector-stalled-in-europe-s-hour-of-need https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri... So yes, there are problems. But they're not what you claim (and seem to believe) they are.

mpweiher 4y ago

Stop spreading disinformation. > only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal 1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection. 2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things. Unlike renewables, which you you can't schedule at all, and the only thing you really know is that they will produce the least energy when you need it most. 3. Once again: this was scheduled maintenance/inspection. And during the scheduled inspection they found some cracks. This is something that happens when you inspect things. That is why you do the inspections: so you find stuff that you then fix. [The regularly scheduled car inspection found some problems with the engine that were duly fixed. Germans: OMG!!! WE MUST IMMEDIATELY BAN ALL CARS!!!! ] 5. "Modest". Yep, that's fairly modest, particularly when compared to considering a tripling of gas use as "unchanged". And that reduction went hand-in-hand with an overall reduction in demand in the last years. Also, you need to look at the lignite coal numbers, because lignite is the worst polluting kind: hardly changed at all. We did reduce the hard-coal a bit more due to shutting down the mines (by removing subsidies).

locallost 4y ago
No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet. A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. When it became clear the EDF doesn't have the situation under control the futures prices exploded everywhere but especially in France. At one point the futures prices there reached almost 2000$ per MWh. I've posted one link that documented the problem from a reputable source, and posted a quote directly here. That you choose to ignore reality and live in a constructed world is a testament to the wishful thinking mentality of the pro nuclear crowd. But like I posted elsewhere it doesn't really matter -- Europe needs to remove fossil fuels and this will happen a lot quicker than most people assume. The ink on the plans for new nuclear plants won't even dry.
- mpweiher 4y ago
  > No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet Yes it did. > A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. Great to hear that you are backing off from your "collapse" narrative. But still not quite correct. These were planned shutdowns for planned maintenance/inspections. Some of these inspections found problems, as inspections sometimes do and therefore the plants were offline longer than just the original inspection period and some additional checks were performed and problems were found that had to be remedied. Example here: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/edf-updates-its-nuclear-output-estimate-in-france-for-2022 https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ... And once again: these checks were scheduled for the summer (extended to fall), and even with some of the extended maintenance required most plants were operational again in winter. > Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction LOL. I would really like to be able to schedule our "Dunkelflauten" for the summer ... The only thing that is predictable about renewables is when they definitely won't be available. Which is when we need energy the most. Yay! > This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. LOL. Attributing the spike in energy prices mono-causally to the scheduled maintenance (taking slightly longer than planned) of a part of France's nuclear fleet that you yourself write didn't take that much to replace is ... cute. Do you think there may have been other events in that time that could have had some impact on energy prices? Like maybe the largest disruption of Europe's energy supply in the last half century? Nah, that can't be it. And it is also important to remember that these are water pipes running under high pressure. Cracks are an expected feature of this system, ask any plumber. Of course they need to be fixed in time, which is why there are regular inspections, but it's not as if there's some catastrophic flaw that was revealed the way it is presented in the press (particularly the German press, though the NY Times article is also pretty bad). And of course you can expect more leakage/cracks as these plants reach the end of their service life, and especially if you defer the needed inspections/maintenance as was done during COVID. It should also be noted that the extraordinary success of the French nuclear program has led to complacency and underinvestment, as that success was increasingly taken for granted. Fortunately that is starting to change, the French are taking their nuclear industry seriously again, and not killing it off in favour of renewable dreams that don't (and didn't) pan out. That success is also reflected in public opinion: "Nearly 80 percent of the French public support nuclear energy, up 20 points from 2016". https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-prized-nuclear-sector-stalled-in-europe-s-hour-of-need https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri... So yes, there are problems. But they're not what you claim (and seem to believe) they are.