Comment by natmaka
5 months ago
> When you consider long term, it gets even worse for intermittent renewables. Nuclear, on the other hand is a license to print money
Non-backed-up nonsense.
> With all due respects to your "analysis", the French auditors came to a different conclusion.
Once again: source? The reality is that the French Cour of Audit officially declared 5 years ago that there could be no more nuclear project without a financial direct public guarantee. Proof: https://www.challenges.fr/top-news/nucleaire-la-cour-des-com...
Its last report on nuclear, published last January, is TITLED: "DES RISQUES PERSISTANTS" (persistent risks). Proof: https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2025-01/20250114...
> The graph you linked to proves my point: the reduction is laughable
Nope, 538 geqCO2/KWh (2013) to 344 (2024) with a huge coal industry which cannot be quickly phased out and while shutting down all nuclear reactors is very good.
> France's specific CO₂ emissions are less than 1/10th of Germany's per kWh.
The reasons are well-known (France, during the 1960's, had no other option): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/messmer-pl...
> at a fraction of the cost.
Nope (TCO), as already exposed (along with sources): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....
>> France ("Flamanville-3" reactor) and the US (Vogtle, VS Summer) did so, and it failed.
> Again, the opposite is true
OMG. According to you they are successes, and even official reports conclude that they failed.
> compared to intermittent renewables. The standards are just so different.
That's patently not the trend: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
> those projects "failed" (relative to other nuclear projects) precisely because far too little was being built.
Nope, this appeal to some strong and persistent benefit induced by batching projects is void, and the industry knows it for quite a while: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
> They are all First of a Kind (FOAK) builds
The EPR is explicitly and officially very similar to existing reactors, it only is an evolution of existing designs and not a new concept. Proof: https://recherche-expertise.asnr.fr/savoir-comprendre/surete...
> and built in countries that built little to no new nuclear in the last 20-40 years.
The projects started 15 to 25 years ago, just a few years after the last reactor built before them. Moreover those nations have active reactors fleets and massive public nuclear R&D budgets, therefore the fable "no-one worked on all this" is ridiculous.
> most of the cost is financing, i.e. interest payments
True, but only because the projects were extremely late.
> China builds
Renewables. Facts (sourced! just try to do so): https://sites.google.com/view/nuclaireenchine/accueil
> They are now building
Very few reactors. Their EPR were officially late and overbudget.
> France's primary problem was lack of maintenance
Source? Not at all. The nuclear authority is very, very picky here.
> due to the de-emphasis of nuclear during the Mitterand years
Nope. Mitterrand heavily helped nuclear, and this is now a well-known fact. M. Boiteux, EDF boss at the time, also did reckon it. French ahead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rvP1zstk68
> and deferred maintenance during COVID.
Source? Not at all, in practice, as many 'Grand Carénage' subprojects were completed in due time while respecting budgets (this is very rare in this industry and was touted). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage
> to achieve steady state you can't build out your entire fleet in 10-20 years, because then you industry has nothing to build for the next 80-90 years and withers.
In France the solution was to try to sell reactors to various nations, and
>> Even the official report about it states explicitly that this building project was a failure.
> No it didn't.
Wrong, once more. Proof: "La construction de l’EPR de Flamanville aura accumulé tant de surcoûts et de délais qu’elle ne peut être considérée que comme un échec pour EDF". Source: conclusion of the official report analyzing the EPR at Flamanville, page 31
https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/media/organes-parleme...
> "modest" profitability. Which, once again, is better than the best intermittent renewables projects.
Source?
> And FV3 is not "the nuclear industry". It is that particular project.
Granted. Which project succeeded since year 2000?
>> There are claimed intentions to build at least 2 new reactors since 2022, nothing else.
> The current plan is to build 6 EPR2
Yes: it only is a plan. Nothing more. And "6" is "at least 2". Right now we only know where 2 of them can theoretically be built (at the existing plant at Penly).
> Sites have been selected for the first 6
Which ones? Sources?
> engineering contracts for the first 2 have been awarded
Yes, for preparatory work. There is a long route ahead...
> If that's "nothing"
Compared to renewables? Nothin' indeed! https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
[nuclear license to print money]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
"Jetzt müssen RWE und Co. die ausgedienten Gelddruckmaschinen sicher abwickeln."
But that was the well-known pro nuclear lobby group...greenpeace.
https://www.greenpeace.de/klimaschutz/energiewende/atomausst...
"Atomkraftwerke sind Gelddruckmaschinen."
But that was the well-known pro nuclear lobbyist...Jürgen Trittin
https://www.presseportal.de/pm/57706/1010574
Anyway, you are just regurgitating the same old counter-factual nonsense as before, and the irrelevant "but China is also building renewables".
Once again: nuclear and renewables are only a contradiction in the minds of anti-nuclear advocates. Industrial nations do both.
> Plan to build 6 then 8 more EPR2 → "only a plan"
That is incorrect. As stated before, the approvals are being sought, 3 sites have been selected and multi-billion € contracts have been awarded.
> Sites have been selected for the first 6
https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/bugey-chosen-to-host...
> [engineering contracts] → long road ahead
Newsflash: yes, nuclear power plants are big.
Once again: if multi-billion contracts are "nothing", please give some of that "nothing". I will send you my bank details.
Apologies about pointing at Mitterand, that was incorrect. I meant Hollande.
https://www.ewmagazine.nl/kennis/achtergrond/2022/10/bernard...
Translation: 'Green cabal paralyzes the nuclear industry’
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ePZUamAzNA4IzdR1dlkE2wtl...
You quote assertions. It doesn't proves anything about the nuclear industry. An indictment must specify who did what, when, and with what effect.
> the irrelevant "but China is also building renewables".
No, I state the fact: China is building WAY, WAY MORE renewables than nuclear.
> nuclear and renewables are only a contradiction in the minds of anti-nuclear advocates. Industrial nations do both.
They try to do nuclear (with meager effects) just like many of them do coal: inertia, political pressure...
>> Plan to build 6 then 8 more EPR2 → "only a plan"
> That is incorrect. As stated before, the approvals are being sought, 3 sites have been selected and multi-billion € contracts have been awarded.
Here, also, only acts prove anything. Everything started in 2022 and, 3 years later, only one site preparation project has begun.
>> Sites have been selected for the first 6
> https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/bugey-chosen-to-host...
"Selected" is far from "nuclear-specific work is in order"!
> Apologies about pointing at Mitterand, that was incorrect. I meant Hollande.
Which action of F. Hollande did hurt the nuclear sector? Not a single one! No, not Fessenheim (French ahead, AFAIK a software translator does the job): https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....
> Translation: 'Green cabal paralyzes the nuclear industry’
The interviewee, Bernard Accoyer, does not make any specific accusations; it is a conspiracy theory. He is well-known for this in France.
I never disputed that it's a fact that China currently builds more renewables than nuclear. I said it is irrelevant. Those are different things. It's also not "way" more...unless you don't understand the irrelevance of nameplate capacity with intermittent renewables.
China is also currently seeing the bottom drop out of their renewables industry, with over a third of the workforce laid off and massive drops in installs and production due to a reduction in subsidies.
The EPR2 projects could not even have started in 2022, because he law that prohibits increasing nuclear capacity beyond the currently installed 63.2GW was only repealed in March 2023. And yes, reversing course so massively takes a little while, particularly when they still have to deal with a lot of the fallout of the failed "soft exit" policy.
As to site selection: you disputed, I showed. Then you change the subject.
The interviewee was the president of the French parliament, and he is quite specific.
And he is not the only source, this is really well known...unless you bury your head in the sand.
Here's a long look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isgu-VrD0oM
1 reply →