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French Nuclear Industry In Turmoil As Manufacturer Buckles
mdsolar writes with bad news for France and its nuclear industry. "France's nuclear industry is in turmoil after the country's main reactor manufacturer, Areva, reported a loss for 2014 of 4.8 billion euros ($5.3 billion) — more than its entire market value. The government of France, the world's most nuclear dependent country, has a 29% stake in Areva, which is among the biggest global nuclear technology companies. The loss puts its future — and that of France as a leader in nuclear technology — at risk. Energy and Environment Minister Segolene Royal said Wednesday she asked Areva and utility giant Electricite de France to work together on finding solutions, amid reports of a possible merger or other link-up. The government said in a statement that it's working closely with Areva to restructure and secure financing, and would 'take its responsibility as a shareholder' in future decisions about its direction. Areva reported Wednesday 1 billion euros in losses on three major nuclear projects in Finland and France, among other hits. Areva has lost money for years, in part linked to delays on those projects and to a global pullback from nuclear energy since the 2011 Fukushima accident."
Nuclear is cheap. Project delays are not cheap in nuclear, or a dam (hydro if you will) or a tunnel or any large scale project. Uncertain political environment is a death knell for large scale projects.
once you have reactors, you're stuck with them for the better part of a century and when shit goes wrong, it goes really wrong.
can we start switching over to solar panels and batteries yet? seriously, we are bombarded by free power every single day!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Nuclear used to be cheap when directly connected to military money (and thus to tax money). Now it has to stand more and more on its own feet. I think it just ain't worth the hassle.
Makes me sad for the great French people who have been enticed to over-invest in this dud
Those dangers pale to uncertainty and mismanagement caused by political instead of scientific evidence and method based environments.
Other energy sources would be vastly more costly if their waste products weren't already grandfathered in to the public mindset and their true impacts to safety and environmental impact (which is far more spread out than the catastrophic results failures induced by idiocy and insanity cause newer power sources) were actually measured and factored in to the comparison.
Yeah, that's what they're saying over there in Fukishima. "Nuclear is cheap, but this uncertainty is killing us!"
When you begin counting the cost of nuclear, you've got to count ALL the costs. Including, as at Fukishima, basic engineering errors that ultimately cost astronomical amounts years after construction.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Yeah, that's what they're saying over there in Fukishima. "Nuclear is cheap, but this uncertainty is killing us!"
When you begin counting the cost of nuclear, you've got to count ALL the costs. Including, as at Fukishima, basic engineering errors that ultimately cost astronomical amounts years after construction.
you mean the basic engineering error where the project manager wouldn't sign off due to the mistake made in concrete formulation so he was fired and a more lenient approver installed in his place?
Every reactor will become old tech in a few decades. And people aren't going to change, so they'll continue to build them in awful places.
It's not just neutron bombardment either. Your fuel is producing almost every element in the periodic table, anisotropically and varying across time. It's pretty much the worst situation one could come up with from a containment standpoint inside the fuel even before you factor in neutron bombardment.
Then there's the nature of nuclear disasters: they're disasters in slow motion. The upside is that few people usually die from them because there's usually plenty of time to get away. The downside is that they take bloody forever and a king's ransom to clean up, where it's even possible. Picture, for example, an accident at Indian Point that would increase NYC residents' rate of cancer over the next 10 years by two to three orders of magnitude. You could evacuate over days to weeks and it'd have little impact on public health. But you'd be having to pay for the loss and cleanup of New York City. That is, of course, an extreme case, but it's an illustration of the financial challenge faced by an industry that deals with large amounts of chemicals that are incredibly toxic even in the minutest quantities. Screwups can turn out to be REALLY BIG screwups.
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
As opposed to US companies, which are completely transparent?
That's exactly what they said when they were building the old reactors.
That's exactly what they said when they were building the old reactors.
And from a tech point it's entirely true. In this case it's the politics killing it.
No one wants (politically) to build new nuclear plants. No one wants to build coal plants either. Enough people don't want renewables blotting large areas of the landscape. The energy has to come from somewhere so those old, dirty coal plants and well-past-their-retire-date, old and less safe than new tech nuclear plants keep getting extension after extension because people really don't want blackouts.
The problem here is all politics, not technology.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
All of Areva's renewables investments combined are less than 10% of their business. And they're performing far better than their core nuclear business. I find it amazing that you argue that they shouldn't have invested in the few projects they're involved in that are actually paying off.
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
Nuclear is not expensive, it requires an upfront investment.
And of course, you usually get the public/government to pay for the downstream costs like storage of waste and de-commissioning.
If only it wasn't for those pesky Health and Safety rules, it would be a licence to print money.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
> Nuclear is cheap.
Nuclear is expensive. http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf Look at page 11.
> Project delays are not cheap in nuclear, or a dam (hydro if you will) or a tunnel
Too true. But it is also true that reactor construction has a history of going overbudget on average by two times, making it one of the most consistently bad investments in history.
> Uncertain political environment is a death knell for large scale projects
Also very true. Which is why wind and solar are the fastest growing sources of power in history: a large wind farm can go from napkin sketch to pumping electrons in 18 months. Residential PV can be completely installed in 2 weeks. Arranging financing for these projects is akin to arranging a car loan. The $30 billion needed for 5 years for a reactor? Not so easy.
AREVA's losses have more to do with poor investments in African mining operations than to do with the Olkiluoto setbacks, as well as other poor investment decisions they appear to have made over the last 10 years.Olkiluoto is a big chunk as well, but its not the majority of their debt problems.
And as far as Olkiluoto, they were simply unprepared to pull off that first of a kind project by themselves, and the Finish supply and regulatory elements faltered as well, a perfect storm of problems. But this is more poor execution than a technology issue. Other plants, including the EPR plants in China, are being completed on a reasonable schedule, more driven by money than anything else.
Then learn to live without technology
I agree! Modern medicine and agriculture is sooooo overrated.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.