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France's Oldest Nuclear Plant To Close This Year (phys.org)
mdsolar writes: France is to close down its oldest nuclear power plant, at the center of a row with neighboring Germany and Switzerland, by the end of this year, a green minister said Sunday. "The timeline is one the president has repeated to me several times, it's 2016," said Emmanuelle Cosse, who was named to President Francois Hollande's cabinet last month, referring to the Fessenheim plant. Cosse was speaking to French media after a row sparked Friday when Germany demanded that France close down Fessenheim following reports that a 2014 incident there was worse than earlier portrayed. France's Nuclear Safety Agency said that safety at the plant was "overall satisfactory" but that the government's energy policy "could lead to different choices" regarding the facility, which is near the German and Swiss borders. It said there was "no need" to shut the plant from a nuclear safety point of view. France has promised to cut reliance on nuclear energy from more than 75 percent to 50 percent by shutting 24 reactors by 2025, while stepping up reliance on renewable energy.
The French have big problems with nuclear power at the moment. The biggest company running their nuclear fleet, EDF, is in serious trouble. It has plants being built in other European countries that are way, way over budget, and is now looking likely to back out of building the two new reactors at Hinkley Point in the UK.
The basic problem is cost. EDF has a number of old reactors that need decommissioning and replacing. The new reactors are turning out to be extremely expensive. The pair in the UK are projected to cost £18bn ($26bn) but the identical ones they already started on are approximately 3x over budget and massively delayed.
So EDF is faced with massive costs from old reactors and a need to borrow massive amounts of money to build the new ones. Even the guarantee from the UK government to pay way, way over the odds for the electricity generated isn't enough any more. The French government was trying to reduce it's stake in EDF, but has recently had to switch to buying up shares again just to keep the lights on.
On top of all that, their neighbours are building a lot of renewable energy that really pushes prices down. Peak pricing used to be a massive earner for EDF, but now Germany is exporting extremely cheap energy during those times. EDF doesn't want to adapt, can't really adapt because all its cash is tied up in failing nuclear projects.
They should have fixed the roof while the sun was shining, and installed some solar panels at the same time.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
France's oldest nuclear plant is Brennilis. It ran from 1967 to 1985. It is still not fully decommissioned, this work being more complex and more expensive than foreseen...
And there is also Superphénix, running from 1986 to 1996 and far more complex to dismantle, because of plutonium and sodium.
They will not build a new one. First, Germany is super annoyed that they withheld information on an accident in the plant, as Germany would directly suffer from the consequences if the plant goes Fukushima. Second, EDF tries to build a new nuclear plant in the UK (Hinkley Point C). Their government is totally behind it. Unfortunately, the EDF finance director resigned as he sees the plant to be a economic disaster (the union also think it is stupid and will cost jobs) http://www.theguardian.com/env...
Therefore, it is not very plausible that they will build a new reactor anywhere.
Fessenheim is an old plant which had many accidents in recent years. For example they had to introduce large quantities of Bohr into the reactor cooling to inhibit chain reaction because they were unable to insert the regulator rods. Yes I know Bohr is also used during regular operation. However, in much lower quantities. They also neglected to report all details which would have been necessary for Germany to prepare in case of an accident. Fessenheim is directly at the border to Germany.
To be precise there is a non-zero distance between that reactor and germany, as the reactor isn't built at the shores of the rhine itself, but inside a channel built parralel to the rhine. There is an island around 1km wide between the reactor and germany. But it won't help all the people living in those german cities Speyer (with its great cathedral) Mannheim Mainz Koblenz Bonn (which was the german capital for a long time and now there are still lots of ministries and governmental employees) Cologne (which has over one million residents) Düsseldorf and Duisburg... They all live downstream and will get the radiating shit from fessenheim if there is a leak. Its at least 2 million germans directly affected.