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Nuclear is nowhere near as reliable as you are claiming. In 2022, more than half the French reactor fleet had to be taken offline at some stage or another - out

by derriz 3y ago

Nuclear is nowhere near as reliable as you are claiming. In 2022, more than half the French reactor fleet had to be taken offline at some stage or another - output over the year was 65% of the previous year. In August of that year, nuclear was delivering 40% of what would have been expected and the country ended up being the largest importer of electricity in Europe for the year. There's been a recovery this year but that recovery has faltered last month with about a 15% unexpected fall in output. Whenever France is hit by a heatwave, nuclear output drops significantly - the water of the rivers used for cooling/condensing becomes too warm to operate plants at full capacity safely. And even with effective monopoly advantage, nuclear generation is a money pit - French government had to bail out EDF at the start of this year - taking on 65B euro of debt.

vlovich123 3y ago
Yes, we've let global warming be so much of a problem that existing nuclear power plant designs are now struggling to get cool enough to operate. But heat engines aren't the only way to convert fissile energy into electricty. We should 100% be researching direct capture so that the ability to generate electricty is not bounded by our ability to cool the reactor. And yet even with all that, most of the electricity generated still remains fossil free. > nuclear generation is a money pit - French government had to bail out EDF at the start of this year - taking on 65B euro of debt. Power generation is a money pit period. California has to constantly bail out PG&E here too because of all the lawsuits about fires & I see this happen frequently all over the world. Pretending like large scale power generation isn't a substantial government problem and the free market can solve it by itself AFAICT is a complete pipe dream. Hell in California there's a massive fight now because California is having to alter the rules to support grid solar installations by making roof top solar less attractive & this is a common problem facing all grid operators. And honestly, 65B euro is a pittance to have such a major reduction in fossil fuels for the year. Think about it this way - would you add a $300B line item to the US budget to bail out nuclear if it meant that only 10% of grid energy would be generated by fossil fuels? Like that seems like a laughably small number. France has 56 nuclear reactors and the US has 96 spread across 60 plants despite being 5x the size. In France, fossil fuels have seen 0 growth in terms of TWh produced since the 80s & in fact a small dip. Nowhere else in the world is that true including Germany which invested in renewables early & by a lot.

by derriz 3y ago

vlovich123 3y ago

Yes, we've let global warming be so much of a problem that existing nuclear power plant designs are now struggling to get cool enough to operate. But heat engines aren't the only way to convert fissile energy into electricty. We should 100% be researching direct capture so that the ability to generate electricty is not bounded by our ability to cool the reactor. And yet even with all that, most of the electricity generated still remains fossil free. > nuclear generation is a money pit - French government had to bail out EDF at the start of this year - taking on 65B euro of debt. Power generation is a money pit period. California has to constantly bail out PG&E here too because of all the lawsuits about fires & I see this happen frequently all over the world. Pretending like large scale power generation isn't a substantial government problem and the free market can solve it by itself AFAICT is a complete pipe dream. Hell in California there's a massive fight now because California is having to alter the rules to support grid solar installations by making roof top solar less attractive & this is a common problem facing all grid operators. And honestly, 65B euro is a pittance to have such a major reduction in fossil fuels for the year. Think about it this way - would you add a $300B line item to the US budget to bail out nuclear if it meant that only 10% of grid energy would be generated by fossil fuels? Like that seems like a laughably small number. France has 56 nuclear reactors and the US has 96 spread across 60 plants despite being 5x the size. In France, fossil fuels have seen 0 growth in terms of TWh produced since the 80s & in fact a small dip. Nowhere else in the world is that true including Germany which invested in renewables early & by a lot.