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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.
I hope they don't replace it with 50 km^2 of solar panels...
Germany and France arguing... what could possibly go wrong? It's not like there's any historical precedent or anything... where, you know, Germany was in the wrong in the past...
Better titles "France's power becomes less reliable, more expensive", " France now so ruled by the rest of Europe it can't even stand up to Switzerland", and "French president to lose next election, nuclear power plants to be brought back online".
https://www.google.de/maps/@47.9078423,7.5711826,14.75z
Distance from Germany is measured rather in meter than kilometer. With prevailing winds from the west.
About the pollution: Currently none that is made public by French authorities. What became public, however, is that a bit ago, they kept under all blankets that the reactor was out of control (control rod control and sensors were down due to water entering the elctronics) and a manual emergency shutdown with borate flooding had to be performed.
It's debatable if it was technically "out of control" as long as they were able to do an emergency shutdown, but it's gross negliance and irresponsible if an emergency shutdown is NOT reported as an incident.
Add this to the bad overall situation after 40 years of operation, microscopic fractures in the reactor vessel and the plant having more "incidents" than 3 year old after a soda spree....
This is a dirty bomb waiting to happen.
bickerdyke
15 Anti-nuke FUD submissions this week alone.
Do you not have a job or something?
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.
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.
France made a clear choice decades ago, has stuck with it, enjoys low costs as a result of standardization, and is not about to change. France has no oil and little coal, so the French Greens have never received that fountain of money from the fossil fuel lobby that their counterparts in so many other countries benefit from.
That "reduce nuclear power to 50%" campaign plank of Hollande's will be forgotten about as soon as Le Pen takes office.
So France subsidies nuclear power and meanwhile purchases electricity from Germany?
Not quite. Sometimes France imports from Germany, sometimes it exports. At the moment (14:00 CET, 7/3/2016) France is exporting around 2GW to Germany.
Also, not all French electricity is nuclear, at this moment it's 73% nuke, 13% hydro, 8% gas and 3% coal.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
Turns out switching to 100% renewable energy is cheaper for France. https://100.org/100-goes-globa...
The plant is about 500m from the border. The border fence of the plant pretty much IS the border.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Is this some kind of new slang maybe?
No, not new, and not really slang, but more commonly used in the UK than US. Pronounced to rhyme with "ow" (as in, "that hurts!"). Meaning "noisy dispute or quarrel."