Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm.
It's one of the safest when compared to coal. How exactly do you accurately calculate the "safety" of something that produces toxic waste with a lifespan in the thousands of years?
Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems, not because of any safety or operational constraints. Many of these limits were set years ago, when the water temperature in rivers was lower, and haven't been increased since - leading to very tight margins. When the grid is stretched, the plant operators usually get a temporary authorization to exceed the environmental limits.
Every year this is big news for some reason, even though it amounts to a roughly 0.3% reduction of yearly electricity generation. It only impacts river cooled plants, and only those that don't also have a cooling tower.
So what you're saying is, nuke plants can operate in any weather if you give zero fucks about how they affect nature..?
This affects all thermal plants, it has nothing to do with nuclear.
And as the parent pointed out, it only affects plants where you cheap out and skip building the otherwise required cooling towers.
So it’s trivially solvable: build cooling towers.
No, no they didn't. Most reactors that were shut down that summer were shut down for maintenance after a decade or more of neglect.
I mean, if that claim of negligance would be true which I doubt it is of course...those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades but hey...new ones are planned...maybe in a decade one will even be finished...
More details on the problems: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredealing-with-cra...
No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear
> those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades
"Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs.
Even the countries who "diversified" depend on those with stable electricity production all the time. See example from just today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274335
> No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear
How? Proper maintenance would increase the price of electricity produced by nuclear.
> "Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs.
Their nuclear reactors are 37 years old on average (they were originally only commissioned to run for 40 years, until an extension in 2012) [1]. They don't have a reactor younger than 21 years old [2]. So I would argue they did not just not diversify, they also neglected to keep up with building nuclear reactors.
Their flagship EPR reactor (Flamanville 3) has been been delayed and delayed. Work started in 2007, in 2020 when it was already significantly delayed it was 5 times over budget and it is still not in operation. The current date is early 2024, but that's almost a running gag now. [3]
They are also planning to build new reactors which are supposed to come online earliest 2035, but based on what happened with Flamanville, that's completely unrealistic.
So in summary decades is very justified.
I encourage everyone to read the wikipedia article on Flamanville. You can't make this up. Construction started in 2007 with estimated costs of 3.3 billion euro and completion date of 2012. The last estimate was in 2020 with costs at 19.1 billion and a commissioning date at the end of 2022. Well that didn't happen yet. And somehow we are supposed to throw more money at this completely incompetent industry?
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/03/the-long... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351839/age-of-nuclear-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
Yup. Thanks to anti-nuclear lobby.
Please show us some sources.
1. France isn't an isolated country.
2. That "lobby" is decades of various actvists fear-mongering and politicians afraid of unpopular decisions.
And so you have:
--- start quote ---
In May 2001, an Ipsos poll found that nearly 70% of the population had a 'good opinion' of nuclear power, however 56% also preferred not to live near a nuclear plant.
In 2006, BBC/GlobeScan poll found 57% of the French opposed to nuclear energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France?wprov=...
--- end quote ---
Follow the link above for a description of anti-nuclear activism
What is this supposed to mean? Do you want to imply that the German Green party for example, dictates the politics in France??
> 2. That "lobby" is decades of various actvists fear-mongering and politicians afraid of unpopular decisions.
Nuclear is popular in France...your own quote says it.
Not wanting to live near a nuclear plant is hardly an argument against nuclear power itself. You are twisting the facts.
> Follow the link above for a description of anti-nuclear activism
I did. The newest info on this powerful lobby:
> In March 2014, police arrested 57 Greenpeace protesters who used a truck to break through security barriers and enter the Fessenheim nuclear in eastern France.
This is hilarious. THIS is supposed to be that powerful anti-nuclear lobby in France? 57 Greenpeace protesters? Are you joking?
Adding to what cycomanic wrote already:
Germany has replaced what it lost on the nuclear shutdown with renewables years ago. They also reduced coal and even have a law to phase it out completely. The fact that Germany imported nuclear power doesn't say anything about the fact that they HAD to import it. Just like anyone connected to the grid, they buy when it's cheap and sell when it's expensive. Due to Germany's mix they're flexible there while France has to keep on running and selling as much as they can since they're losing money. See EDF.
Funny how today they were burning 20GW of coal because they replaced 20GW of nuclear power with renewables.
> The fact that Germany imported nuclear power doesn't say anything about the fact that they HAD to import it.
Of course they had to. Because they don't have enough energy generation of their own when the day is like today: cloudy and quiet.
This is a lie.
Germany has been reducing coal and will keep on doing so until there is none. It's a law.
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag...
> Of course they had to. Because they don't have enough energy generation of their own when the day is like today: cloudy and quiet.
This is a lie also.
Germany is an energy export nation since 2002 even with the EEX trading you probably never heard of. https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153533/umfrag...
Funny indeed...
They were literally burning 20GW of coal yesterday because the 200% overprovisioned renewables were producing only 15% of their maximum output
As I have said: the transformation is not finished yet. Germany did almost nothing during Merkels time and renewables have still generated more than they lost due to the shutdown of nuclear.
Meaning: Germany would STILL burn coal even if they'd have kept nuclear.
It's not that hard to understand if you know the facts and the facts are that Germany has a law to phase out coal completely while expanding renewables. A law which few (no other?) countries even have. Even France will keep on burning coal when the last plant is closed in Germany.
It's not that it's one of the safest energy sources in existence that works in all weather conditions?