4 ms·

Liberté, égalité, Radioactivité

• kleiba 1y ago
  And interesting, this is in stark contract to France's biggest neighbor: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-its-last-nuclear-power-stations/a-65249019 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-its-last-nuclear-po... However, the opposition to nuclear is currently being reevaluated by the German government.
  • huhkerrf 1y ago
    I still get annoyed when I think of this tweet by French Green party Senator Melanie Vogel after Germany shut down its last reactor: https://x.com/Melanie_Vogel_/status/1647352302171308036 https://x.com/Melanie_Vogel_/status/1647352302171308036 > Sex is good but have you tried having your country shutting down its last nuclear power plants in 30 mn? It's so absolutely horribly short sighted.
    • Iridescent_ 1y ago
      We have the ecologists we deserve... and boy do we not deserve anything nice... Afaik this is one of the least terrible of them we have...
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    • blueflow 1y ago
      There is no reasonably safe solution for storing the active waste. Continuing with nuclear power will increase the size of the problem.
      • ohdeargodno 1y ago
        [dead]
      • achierius 1y ago
        What do you mean by that? Deep geological storage seems to work pretty well, and the 'size' of the problem is so small that even if we were to 100x it it would still be minuscule when compared to e.g. coal ash runoff, which includes fun things like arsenic and mercury and is currently 'disposed' of by stuffing it in landfills or even uncovered open-air pools.
        • stefantalpalaru 1y ago
          [dead]
        • blueflow 1y ago
          > Deep geological storage seems to work pretty well Not well enough - the crystalline parts of earth's crust are still too porous to reliably keep it contained. It would - in the long term - leak like radon gas.
      • southernplaces7 1y ago
        You're saying a flatly mistaken thing in absolutist terms from pure fucking igonrance, as if you knew what you were talking about, at that. There are many ways to store nuclear waste very safely, just as there are many ways to store all kinds of dangerous things safely and do all kinds of dangerous things we need to do as a civilization, safely. As for the size of the "problem" growing. Go look at how much space even all the world's known HL nuclear waste combined requires, and how slowly that space (hint: it's tiny, as in, fits-into-a-college-sports-auditorium with room to spare for a quick basketball game tiny) grows year over year, or would grow even if we exponentially increased our use of nuclear. People such as yourself, just blandly stating plain nonsense with certainty are cause for many problems in the world, and for nuclear energy, they're as common as fruit flies, buzzing around any serious debate.
        • kleiba 1y ago
          Just to give a little context: in Germany, which the OP was about, just the search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste started in 1999 with the formation of a working group of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety [1]. It is expected that the result of the search process will not be available until the year 2046 [2]. Maybe it's not quite as easy as the layman thinks, especially considering that Germany has a lot less space then, say, the US. -- [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150217045132/http://www.bfs.de/de/endlager/faq/langfassung_abschlussbericht_akend.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150217045132/http://www.bfs.de... [2] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/endlager-atommuell-1.5694547?reduced=true https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/endlager-atommuell-1.569...
          • blueflow 1y ago
            ... and this research is done by people like my partner, who is currently writing their thesis about that. I could cite their previous publications here but that would dox me.
          • seec 1y ago
            So we are waiting for the bureaucrats to find a solution for something that doesn't even have a real pressure to be done (meanwhile the stuff is stored on facility and it doesn't cause much problem). The bureaucrats already take forever to do anything because they get paid regardless and they even have an incentive to make stuff look more complicated than they are (look how important the work is). Add to that your typical political nonsense, especially from a government that was readily hostile. Add to that the typical nonsensical German overengineering, where they find ways to make stuff in an absurdly complex manner for what are generally little benefits. They briefly mentioned that problem in the article: Flamanville was very late, in large part because it was a collaboration with Siemens, who forced the use of stupid German regulations. The result is that nobody wants to buy this stupid design, because why would they, when there are perfectly viable alternatives without the German overengineering bullshit. By the way, I have a strong feeling that this is industrial sabotage from Germany, using Siemens as pawn. Considering their reluctance for nuclear since basically forever, it makes no sense that they pretend to even be working on it. So, if there is one thing that should be absolutely clear to anyone not ideologically corrupted, is that nobody should give two shits about whatever Germany does/think around nuclear power. They have proved to be largely incompetent and politically corrupt in the matter.
      • throwayay5837 1y ago
        Storing all of the highly active radioactive waste that France produced over a year takes about 47 40-foot shipping containers. Small feeder shops can contain a few hundred containers. Actual container shops contain thousands. 47 does not seem like much?
        • cycomanic 1y ago
          And what about the mid to low radioactive waste? Also let's not forget France does not have any long term storage facility for their highly radioactive waste yet. Why if it is so easy have they not managed?
        • blueflow 1y ago
          Nuclear-level containment on geological timescales is potentially impossible. Its not like you can put it into a dump and its "gone" like household trash. Radioactivity is ionizing, so it corrodes all materials and cannot be physically contained. The earth's crust is to porous (i mentioned the radon problem in another post) to keep it underground.
      • ninalanyon 1y ago
        A partial solution is to build reactors that can use that waste. Thorium reactors can do that and have the advantage that you can't make a bomb from it and that it is easier to control.
  • Archelaos 1y ago
    One of the best things Germany ever did. We already have produced enough poison for a million years. Renewables and perhaps nuclear fusion is the future.
    • ninja3925 1y ago
      Can you expand? What is “poison” referring to? Surely, burning coal as Germany’s current pace can’t be seen as a success, can it?
      • Archelaos 1y ago
        Radiation poisoning. Fossil fuels fall into the same category. The alternative is not nuclear vs. fossil. We should focus entirely on renewable energies. Of course Germany is now in a transition period, and there are a lot of conservative politicians who have been shying away from the high investments required for a fast transition. I think the main problem here is that the fossil-nuclear advocates shift the main problems to future generations (climate change, long-term storage of nuclear waste), the general public (large subsidies, minimal security standards, no or unsufficient insurance of power plants against desasters) or other countries (placing nuclear plants or waste deposits at the border, relaying on other countries for long term storing of nuclear waste). Together with extremely optimistic estimates, this makes their energy costs appear low on paper, when in reality the overall costs are immense. In contrast, there do not appear to be many cost elements of renewable energy installations that can be concealed or embellished. The reserve funds for their demolition are perhaps the only exception. But these only account for a small part of the costs at any rate.
    • ohdeargodno 1y ago
      [dead]
    • southernplaces7 1y ago
      And nuclear could have drastically reduced that production of "poison" by the way. Arguments about how much we've contaminated with X are sort of immaterial to arguments in favor of a different thing with its own much more specific (and useful) dynamics. It's a bit absurd, what you say, like arguing that it's good to stop using a stove in your apartment and just eat food raw, because one of your neighbors already did enough bad because they burned their entire house down while trying to make a bonfire with piles of coal in their yard.
  • cladopa 1y ago
    France biggest neighbour is Spain...
    • kleiba 1y ago
      Not by head count which I would say is the more relevant metric than area when we're talking about a country's energy supply.
  • detaro 1y ago
    Led by the same party who when not in power cried loudly about how important it is to keep nuclear running, but in the 16 years it was in power before, when there would've actually been time to change things, didn't actually do anything except a small flip-flop once that cost the state billions in damages to the energy companies. It's just deeply unserious. They'll talk about how we should be open to nuclear, cut funding for renewables, give some money to some startups or consultancy firms and nothing will actually be built.
• hilios 1y ago
  >France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today. Today France takes more than a decade to build a single reactor (Flamanville 3) and the debts incurred nationalizing EDF, are now causing serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting. As clean and safe as nuclear power might be, I think the world will be fine not following that example.
  • James_K 1y ago
    Perhaps you should read beyond the first sentence.
  • medlazik 1y ago
    What's causing "serious concerns about the whole nation defaulting" is billionaires not paying enough taxes, not taking back 15% of what was ours in the first place...
  • thrance 1y ago
    Flammanville is a prototype, and much of the talent that was used to mass-produce reactors is long gone to time. The dumb thing now that Flammanville is finished would be to not follow up on it.
    • ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      Or you know just just accept the sunk cost instead of wasting another €100-200B on subsidies for the EPR2 program?
    • fulafel 1y ago
      The other early EPR project, OL3, took 18 years to build.
• usrnm 1y ago
  Why do we need to look 50 years back when China is doing the same right now? Maybe we should start learning from them?
  • alex_duf 1y ago
    The article describes how France helped China reach that point. I did not know that.
  • yorwba 1y ago
    France had their construction boom earlier, so they're ahead of the curve. The article suggests that the secret of cheap reactor construction is mostly economies of scale: if one reactor is too expensive, buy fifty instead. China has been reducing approvals for new reactors in recent years, to the point where the share of nuclear electricity generation is actually going down. Maybe 40 years down the line, they'll want to build just one more reactor to deal with increased demand and discover that the supply chain has atrophied so the project becomes an expensive boondoggle.
  • cycomanic 1y ago
    Yes learning from China is banking on renewables. Their nuclear build out is behind schedule and the ambitions are being reduced because it makes so much more sense to build renewables. China added 277GWh of solar (45% increase) and 80 GW of wind (+18%) in 2024 compared to 3.9 GW of nuclear (+3%). While the percentage of nuclear power of overall electricity generation was increasing between 2012 and 2020 it is falling again. The national plan was for 200 GW of generation capacity from nuclear by 2035, that less than what was added from solar alone in 2024 and unlikely to happen (approved projects would add another 60 GW to the current 60 GW total in the next 5 years, but it is not clear if they will be build). Sources https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/china-installs-record-capacity-solar-45-and-wind-18-2024.html https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/chin... https://energyandcleanair.org/analysis-clean-energy-contributed-a-record-10-of-chinas-gdp-in-2024/ https://energyandcleanair.org/analysis-clean-energy-contribu... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
• forty 1y ago
  Not that it's really hidden, but this article is biased toward pro nuclear point of few and carefully not mention when we (France) had to import electricity from other European countries right when the prices were super high due to Russia's war to Ukraine because half of our reactors were shut down because of technical issues...
  • afiori 1y ago
    Is that a problem with nuclear or with building almost no new ones in the last 25 years?
  • dan-robertson 1y ago
    Wouldn’t the outcome be similar to if France had used a lot of Gas generation instead of having those temporarily-shut down reactors?
    • forty 1y ago
      A cheaper alternative could have been solar for example. I don't mind keeping our nuclear capacity (it's certainly better than coal) while we switch to renewable and find good (eco friendly) and cheap storage but I don't really see it as a good target for producing the majority of our energy given the downsides. On this, another funny story that pro nuclear also don't mention: this summer when it was very hot (and electricity demand for AC was high) they had to shut down several reactors because the cooling river would have been over heated too much. People criticize renewable for not being available all the time (which is indeed a problem without storage) but here thankfully solar saved the day by being available when it was needed. Last thing that people tend to forget when they criticize ecologists views on nuclear: part of many ecologist program is to make it so that we use less energy. Heating and cooling poorly insulated housing is wasteful and stupid. Having everyone having their own transportation mean rather than having collective and energy efficient transportation system or having housing too far from commodities such that people can't walk or bike to them is also wasteful. And AI... Bref, let's fix that then maybe we won't need that much nuclear power in the end.
      • 1y ago
• Sweepi 1y ago
  Is their somewhere a (honest!) exploration/essay on why there are so few nuclear power plants being build? Like South Korea is building some, and China (but they invest way more in renewables). All other countries are either building 0, building less then retire, or on the process of building very little but taking ages. If nuclear fission is "cheap, abundant and carbon-free", why has nobody put their money where their mouth is?
  • huhkerrf 1y ago
    The UAE just brought some new nuclear online (with a lot of help from the South Koreans): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Ar...
  • seec 1y ago
    It takes a lot of engineering skills and you basically need to buy a pre-existing design because it's not something you can reverse engineer easily. Figuring things out yourself is basically too expensive for any countries that is already part of the rich few that can. Then you have to deal with the geopolitics around nuclear material, since you could very much use it for military purpose (Iran problems, for example). To finish, you basically need to build a specialized industry around it and it has to be very local. You would probably need to hire outside expertise for the first build to even be sure that all requirements/quality levels are met. It's not something that you decide to buy overnight and just do. Since it benefits greatly for economies of scale (makes no sense to just build 1) you basically need to have full industrial planning for a very very long term. At the very least 15 years, but since you also need to deal with the waste and maintenance, you are basically committed for at least 50 years. Which is exactly why once you know and can do it at the country level, it makes no sense to let go and do something else. You will have to deal with the maintenance of current reactors anyway and still have to deal with waste with no chance for potential repurpose. But our current world is extremely dominated by neo-liberalism and that means short-term thinking and profit maximisation. This can be seen in the ever-changing political climate (at least in France). I actually think this is the real major reason so many are infatuated with renewables: it can make money and they can profit from it. The funny thing is that this money-making is only possible thanks to the reliability of nuclear and coal/gas plants in Germany for example. From the most part this is predatory behavior, where they get to make the profits while not paying the full costs that would be necessary to be a truly equivalent solution (reliable electricity at any time/season).