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China is not immune from the international environmentalists. Most of those reactors since 2008 were Westinghouse and thus subject to plenty of (non-Chinese) r

China is not immune from the international environmentalists. Most of those reactors since 2008 were Westinghouse and thus subject to plenty of (non-Chinese) regulatory pressure. They are now switching to much more modern designs and even successfully demonstrated modular reactors (Huaneng Group Co.) that can basically be dropped into coal plants to convert the to much more environmentally friendly nuclear. It's important to recognize that costs of nuclear in many countries are high because of the environmentalists. It's very easy to generate endless lawsuits, or convince your state/country to shut down perfectly safe reactors just because they are nuclear. This behavior just destroys the value prop. Look at the number of reactors California has shut down, and France's pledge to go from 70% to 50% nuclear by 2035. The environmentalists stage protest after protest, then when they succeed at getting some shutdown they say "oh look, they're not economically viable".

Retric 3y ago
France reduced nuclear due to capacity factor. 70% of the power generated in France was nuclear, but significantly less than 70% of the electricity used in France came from nuclear. They needed to import power in high demand periods and export it in low which at market rates was a large net loss, on top of this they couldn’t export enough so they needed to curtail generation which raised cost per kWh. Other countries installing wind/solar impacts how much nuclear power France can export going forward. Even with the vast subsidies France was willing to supply it’s just hard to justify internally. > It's important to recognize that costs of nuclear in many countries are high because of the environmentalists. It's very easy to generate endless lawsuits, or convince your state/country to shut down perfectly safe reactors just because they are nuclear. This behavior just destroys the value prop. Things aren’t that simple. It’s a long and complicated history with different issues happening at different time periods in different countries. Other countries aren’t like the US, and we ran into capacity factor issues with nuclear. The US stopped adding nuclear largely because increasing demand for electricity stalled out. EV’s might slowly push demand up, but battery backed PV is simply cheaper across most of the US.
- seec 3y ago
  That's complete nonsense and the fact that France had to import some electricity has everything to do with the massive regulations and environmentalism. Reactors were shut down because of fear mongering (needing "repairs/maintenance" that was not actually needed, and shut downs for a lack of funding and support). Nuclear has been politically dead in France for over 20 years and only recently got a bit a traction (because there is no other choice anyway). In fact, most of the problem in France are due to German environmentalists that successfully imposed laws regarding electricity for the EU. Many of those laws were written purely to make EDF less competitive because otherwise nobody could compete with cheap nuclear energy. The reason France export when electricity is cheap and import when it should be expensive is purely because of regulation. They are forced to sell a fixed amount at fixed low price. So realistically you better do it when the electricity is at the lowest point. In winter thanks to Germany reliance on coal and because of their imposed regulation at Bruxelles they can sell their polluting electricity much cheaper than actual cost (without externalities from CO2). If EDF could compete fair and square it would be completely different. And historically France has always been a net exporter of electricity, way before shitting on the CO2 released by coal was fashionable and way before renewable technology were half viable (they still aren't, no matter the propaganda). From Wikipedia : " Since 1990, each year, France roughly exports 10% of its annual production. Its annual exchange sold has always remained positive.[7] France was the leader in the export of electricity in 2008: 48 TWh followed by Paraguay 46 TWh and Canada 32 TWh.[41]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France And in French, they say in 2019 France was the first electricity exporter in the whole world: "La France était en 2020 le premier pays exportateur d’Europe, par son solde exportateur de 43,2 TWh, et en 2019 le premier pays exportateur au monde, effectuant 17,3 % des exportations mondiales." https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_en_Franc... You say things are not so simple, they are, you just want to make them complicated for political reasons. Nuclear is an extremely successful technology and without the fear mongering, massive regulation and anti-competitive behavior from Germany it would look even better.
  - Retric 3y ago
    > That's complete nonsense and the fact that France had to import some electricity has everything to do with the massive regulations and environmentalism. Grids need to be balanced on a second by second basis so both importing an exporting power is a sign of a problem here. Exporting subsidized power is a net loss, and if everyone had significant nuclear then nobody would want to import it. Similarly, imports mean you lack sufficient domestic production thus if Germany goes nuclear suddenly France loses money and might face blackouts. You really need to understand the underlying issues here. US nuclear power plants averaged between 90% and 93% every year from 2013 to 2021 without exporting or importing significant electricity. France has never gotten close to those numbers. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51978 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51978 Demand is spiky, trying to add 1GW of nuclear in France would be useless if they are already curtailing nuclear power. Thus each additional reactor is useful for fewer hours a year. This means no they can’t avoid importing power, if they doubled the number of nuclear reactors they could do so but only at a truly ruinous costs. Random French nuclear reactors capacity factor: 72.60% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belleville_Nuclear_Power_Plant 75.15% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant 73.78% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattenom_Nuclear_Power_Plant 71.6% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Nuclear_Power_Plant 70.6% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chooz_Nuclear_Power_Plant 69.4% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruas_Nuclear_Power_Plant By comparison you see plenty of US reactors with lifetime capacity factors approaching 90%. It here’s a random selection: 89.55% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_S... 88.45% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Stati... 87.70% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callaway_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callaway_Nuclear_Generating_St... 88.40% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_Peak_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_Peak_Nuclear_Power_Pl... There’s some overlap between the most used French reactors and the least used US reactors but we aren’t exporting that power. Subsidizing energy that you then export is clearly a cost. They do this because getting some money per kWh generally beats turning them off.

Retric 3y ago

France reduced nuclear due to capacity factor. 70% of the power generated in France was nuclear, but significantly less than 70% of the electricity used in France came from nuclear. They needed to import power in high demand periods and export it in low which at market rates was a large net loss, on top of this they couldn’t export enough so they needed to curtail generation which raised cost per kWh. Other countries installing wind/solar impacts how much nuclear power France can export going forward. Even with the vast subsidies France was willing to supply it’s just hard to justify internally. > It's important to recognize that costs of nuclear in many countries are high because of the environmentalists. It's very easy to generate endless lawsuits, or convince your state/country to shut down perfectly safe reactors just because they are nuclear. This behavior just destroys the value prop. Things aren’t that simple. It’s a long and complicated history with different issues happening at different time periods in different countries. Other countries aren’t like the US, and we ran into capacity factor issues with nuclear. The US stopped adding nuclear largely because increasing demand for electricity stalled out. EV’s might slowly push demand up, but battery backed PV is simply cheaper across most of the US.

seec 3y ago
That's complete nonsense and the fact that France had to import some electricity has everything to do with the massive regulations and environmentalism. Reactors were shut down because of fear mongering (needing "repairs/maintenance" that was not actually needed, and shut downs for a lack of funding and support). Nuclear has been politically dead in France for over 20 years and only recently got a bit a traction (because there is no other choice anyway). In fact, most of the problem in France are due to German environmentalists that successfully imposed laws regarding electricity for the EU. Many of those laws were written purely to make EDF less competitive because otherwise nobody could compete with cheap nuclear energy. The reason France export when electricity is cheap and import when it should be expensive is purely because of regulation. They are forced to sell a fixed amount at fixed low price. So realistically you better do it when the electricity is at the lowest point. In winter thanks to Germany reliance on coal and because of their imposed regulation at Bruxelles they can sell their polluting electricity much cheaper than actual cost (without externalities from CO2). If EDF could compete fair and square it would be completely different. And historically France has always been a net exporter of electricity, way before shitting on the CO2 released by coal was fashionable and way before renewable technology were half viable (they still aren't, no matter the propaganda). From Wikipedia : " Since 1990, each year, France roughly exports 10% of its annual production. Its annual exchange sold has always remained positive.[7] France was the leader in the export of electricity in 2008: 48 TWh followed by Paraguay 46 TWh and Canada 32 TWh.[41]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France And in French, they say in 2019 France was the first electricity exporter in the whole world: "La France était en 2020 le premier pays exportateur d’Europe, par son solde exportateur de 43,2 TWh, et en 2019 le premier pays exportateur au monde, effectuant 17,3 % des exportations mondiales." https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_en_Franc... You say things are not so simple, they are, you just want to make them complicated for political reasons. Nuclear is an extremely successful technology and without the fear mongering, massive regulation and anti-competitive behavior from Germany it would look even better.
- Retric 3y ago
  > That's complete nonsense and the fact that France had to import some electricity has everything to do with the massive regulations and environmentalism. Grids need to be balanced on a second by second basis so both importing an exporting power is a sign of a problem here. Exporting subsidized power is a net loss, and if everyone had significant nuclear then nobody would want to import it. Similarly, imports mean you lack sufficient domestic production thus if Germany goes nuclear suddenly France loses money and might face blackouts. You really need to understand the underlying issues here. US nuclear power plants averaged between 90% and 93% every year from 2013 to 2021 without exporting or importing significant electricity. France has never gotten close to those numbers. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51978 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51978 Demand is spiky, trying to add 1GW of nuclear in France would be useless if they are already curtailing nuclear power. Thus each additional reactor is useful for fewer hours a year. This means no they can’t avoid importing power, if they doubled the number of nuclear reactors they could do so but only at a truly ruinous costs. Random French nuclear reactors capacity factor: 72.60% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belleville_Nuclear_Power_Plant 75.15% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant 73.78% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattenom_Nuclear_Power_Plant 71.6% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Nuclear_Power_Plant 70.6% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chooz_Nuclear_Power_Plant 69.4% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruas_Nuclear_Power_Plant By comparison you see plenty of US reactors with lifetime capacity factors approaching 90%. It here’s a random selection: 89.55% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Nuclear_Generating_S... 88.45% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Stati... 87.70% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callaway_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callaway_Nuclear_Generating_St... 88.40% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_Peak_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_Peak_Nuclear_Power_Pl... There’s some overlap between the most used French reactors and the least used US reactors but we aren’t exporting that power. Subsidizing energy that you then export is clearly a cost. They do this because getting some money per kWh generally beats turning them off.