France To Shut Down All Coal-Fired Power Plants By 2023 (independent.co.uk)

French president Francois Hollande announced at an annual UN climate change conference on Wednesday that France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023. He also "vowed to beat by two years the UK's commitment to stop using fossil fuels to generate power by 2025," reports The Independent: Mr Hollande, a keynote speaker at the event in Marrakech, Morocco, also praised his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama for his work on climate change, and then appeared to snub president-elect Donald Trump. "The role played by Barack Obama was crucial in achieving the Paris agreement," Mr Hollande said, before adding, in what has been perceived as a dig at Mr Trump, that becoming a signatory to the treaty is "irreversible." "We need carbon neutrality by 2050," the French President continued, promising that coal will no longer form part of France's energy mix in six to seven years' time. France is already a world leader in low-carbon energy. The country has invested heavily in nuclear power over the past few decades and now derives more than 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear fission. It produces so much nuclear energy, in fact, that it exports much of it to nearby nations, making around $2.66 billion each year.

Comments

What Hollande says

[manu0601]

Anyone still believe what president Hollande says? At least in France he does not have much trust left.

Re:What Hollande says

[Dutch Gun]

I can't speak for France's trust (or lack thereof) of Hollande. But one thing the US could do in emulating France is to start replacing our coal plants with more nuclear, especially in areas where solar or wind aren't a good fit. It's not like it isn't a proven, feasible technology. I still can't understand how environmentalists could be opposed to it, if they truly believe what scientists are telling us about what's happening with AGW and what the long term effects may be. Yes, nuclear is a compromise. We have to extract ore, it's potentially dangerous, and it generates very nasty waste products. But wouldn't it be worth compromising on this point a bit to get to carbon neutrality faster? We have the rest of history to start phasing nuke power plants out with better technologies, and there are theoretical ways to deal with the waste products other than simply burying it in the ground.

Maybe we should tell Trump that building a bunch of nuclear plants would really piss off the wacko environmentalists, create a bunch of new 'murican jobs, and help lessen oil dependency from all those foreign commies and terrorists. Sometimes, you just have to sell these things with your target audience in mind.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that many European countries have successfully dealt with it. Only the fucking stupid Americans have decided to not reprocess fuel rods, and consequently are generating stupid quantities of radioactive waste. Get over your 1970's Jimmy Carter stupidity, start reprocessing fuel rods, and deal with two issues at once.

Re:What Hollande says

[CapOblivious2010]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

As opposed to coal and other fossil fuels, where we have a very effective way of dealing with the waste products: just let them go up the smokestack!

P.S. You do know that coal mining releases more radiation into the air, and kills more people, than nuclear power - right?

Re:What Hollande says

[bzipitidoo]

Seems that mistake in Scientific American will never be lived down:

In response to some concerns raised by readers, a change has been made to this story. The sentence marked with an asterisk was changed from "In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—and other coal waste contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste" to "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J. P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.

Coal waste is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste. The difference is that nuclear waste is not dumped into the environment, while waste from coal burning is. Nuclear waste is stored, and storage space is limited. Permanent dumps for nuclear waste are difficult to engineer. They must be designed to hold nuclear waste for millennia.

The big problem with nuclear power is that accidents are extremely dangerous and costly. That wouldn't be a problem if accidents were extremely unlikely. We know how to design and operate nuclear power plants safely, the problem is that we won't. Fukushima showed that. That accident was entirely avoidable. They needed only to build the walls higher. They had good information on how high the walls needed to be, and the recommended height was not a strain on our engineering capabilities. But management chose to ignore the recommendations and build a lower wall, to save a little money. The fools in those management positions did not understand that the risk they were taking was very high, they chose instead to ignore the warnings. Disaster could still have been averted had they not also cut another corner to save a little money, and the backup generators had been in working order and not located in the basement.

Re:What Hollande says

[aberglas]

Are you agreeing or disagreeing?

The claim was that coal dumps more radiation *into the air*. Would make sense given that their is very little nuclear radiation leak into the air.

As to accidents, with the notable exception of Cherbynol, there have been very few and most of the cost has been due to the hysteria. Very few people died in Fukushima compared to those killed by the tidal wave itself.

Re:What Hollande says

[Dutch Gun]

This is what happens when something turns into an -ism. I think opposition to nuclear is based more on dogma and irrational fear than anything else at this point.

Here's a thought: maybe we should listen to specialists (say, nuclear scientists and engineers, and throw in some statisticians to tally up safety records) about whether modern nuclear power is safe and effective enough to use. Because, I'm pretty sure the science is settled at this point. Should we also should start calling opponents "nuclear deniers"?

Re:What Hollande says

[SvnLyrBrto]

Easy solution: Give regulatory control of the nuclear power industry to the navy. No joke. The US Navy has been operating nuclear reactors... hundreds of them... for nearly as long as there's been such a thing. And they have a perfect operational safety record. That is: zero nuclear accidents in the 62 years since the USS Nautilus was launched in 1954. (They *have* lost two nuclear submarines at sea. But neither the Thresher nor Scorpion were lost due to reactor accidents.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

They do it by standardizing on a small number of reactor designs (Generally one per ship/sub class. Though the S5W persisted from the Skipjack class until it was replaced by the S6G with the Los Angeles.), training the sweet holy hell out of their people (There are stories of standing desks at power school, so trainees don't fall asleep while sitting and studying... and of the occasional *thump* when someone standing falls asleep anyway.), and holding them strictly accountable to operations and safety standards throughout their careers.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Your stupidity. There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective. Disagree, name the nuclear power plant that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

You can't do that because that nuclear power plant doesn't exist. Because nuclear power is corporate welfare masking ongoing nuclear weapons programs.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Personal attack side, you are wrong.

Fainting couch aside, no. I'm not.

You can choose between nuclear, fossil and renewable energy. Given that renewable is not cheap and stable enough at the moment

In the context of nuclear power??? That's like saying you can't afford $2,000 to fix your leaky roof (before hurricane season) so you can take a $200,000 vacation to Paris.

Renewables are already cost effective next to coal, much less the mother-of-all-corporate-welfare-programs, nuclear power. There is no nuclear power plant in existence that charges its customers the full cost of mining, refining, construction, security, maintenance, disaster preparedness and waste disposal.

All of this has been known since the '70's, and nothing has changed. So, drab and beige, or maybe a nice bondi blue? The color of the plug in your head, I mean.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Reprocessing produces MORE waste, than not reprocessing.
You are mixing up spent fuel with waste.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Chernobyl was not localized.
In south germany and south sweden you still can not eat mushrooms harvested from the woods and game is unsafe to eat.

Re:What Hollande says

[Sique]

Apparently not in Great Britain, where HInkley Point C seems to get more expensive every year without actually being running yet, and even with the current 25 billion pounds in subsidies, the operators coming from France and China want to get out as they fear to lose too much money on the project.

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

The science isn't the issue, it's the engineering. In theory you can build a very safe reactor (not perfect, but very very good). In practice you have to design it, make sure that the design is flawless, then build it exactly to spec, and do it on a budget that will attract commercial investment. Then you have to operate it for decades, with constant pressure to reduce operating costs. You have to anticipate that 40 years later someone will say "we could use new material X to save a few bucks" or "this part was over-engineered and has never failed, we can downgrade it", and somehow make sure that they are as careful and diligent as you were before your retirement/death.

Turns out engineering is quite difficult. You need multiple people, all at the top of their game. Geologists, metallurgists, scientists, architects, software engineers, electrical engineers... The list is long, and some of their fields are still a long way from having a complete understanding of how they work or what the risks are. Many of the nuclear plants in Japan that were thought to be completely safe have now been found to rest on previously unknown fault lines, for example. The geologists in the 60s and 70s when they were planned and built weren't even incompetent, their field just wasn't advanced enough and sensitive enough equipment didn't exist.

These issues could be overcome, but I don't think people would like the cost. If you can find a cheaper way or convince people to pay, then maybe we can talk.

Re:What Hollande says

[Rei]

Nearly the entire new generation of nukes has been one giant economic disaster after the next, both in the US and Europe. The most expensive "things" on Earth are now predominantly nuclear power plants (ISS tops the list if you count it as "on Earth", otherwise, the first "thing" on the list that's not a nuke plant is the LHC, which comes in several slots down). Hinkley Point tops the list among nuclear plants (~$35B USD and counting if you count interest and such, at least $18B if you just count construction costs), but it's got lots of company. By contrast, the Burj Khalifa was a piddling $1,5B.

In the US at least, nuclear power has always had more popularity on K Street than Wall Street. Nuclear died for decades, and the new "renaissance" died as well, not because of NIMBYs, but because investors abandoned it. Indeed, when you look at the cost breakdowns, "NIMBYs" have almost nothing to do with it. Look, for example, at the Olkiluoto #3 reactor in Finland. The project started in 2000. Construction started in 2005, with plants to open in 2010. Now it's not expected to open 2018-2020 (and I wouldn't bet my life on even that). Why? From Wikipedia:

In February 2014, TVO said that it is could not give an estimate of the plant's startup date, because it was "still waiting for the Areva-Siemen [sic] consortium to provide it with an updated overall schedule for the project."[37] Later the same month it was reported that Areva was shutting down construction due to the dispute over compensations and unfinished automation planning. According to Kauppalehti the estimated opening was delayed until 2018–2020.[27]

The delays have been due to various problems with planning, supervision, and workmanship,[5] and have been the subject of an inquiry by STUK, the Finnish nuclear safety regulator.[38] The first problems that surfaced were irregularities in the foundation concrete, and caused a delay of months. Later, it was found that subcontractors had provided heavy forgings that were not up to project standards and which had to be re-cast. An apparent problem constructing the reactor's unique double-containment structure also caused delays, as the welders had not been given proper instructions.[38]

In 2009, Petteri Tiippana, the director of STUK's nuclear power plant division, told the BBC that it was difficult to deliver nuclear power plant projects on schedule because builders were not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites, since so few new reactors had been built in recent years.[39]

At the end of 2013, TVO said that the Areva-Siemens consortium plans to reduce workers and subcontractors on the construction site and says that it expects the contractor to provide details about the expected impact on the project's schedule.[40]

After the construction of the unit started in 2005, Areva began constructing EPRs in Flamanville, France, and in Taishan, China. However, as of July 2012, the construction of the EPR in France is four years behind schedule,[6] and it seems that the two EPRs being constructed in China will be the first ones to enter service.[36]

Cost

The main contractor, Areva, is building the unit for a fixed price of €3 billion, so in principle, any construction costs above that price fall on Areva. In July 2012, those overruns were estimated at more than €2 billion,[36] and in December 2012, Areva estimated that the full cost of building the reactor would be about €8.5 billion, well over the previous estimate of €6.4 billion.[2][3] Because of the delays, TVO and Areva are both seeking compensation from each other through the International Court of Arbitration. In October 2013, TVO's demand for compensation from Areva had risen to €1.8 billion, and Areva's from TVO to €2.6 billion.[41] In December 2013, Areva increased its demand to €2.7 billion.[42] As of November 2016, the case is still ongoing.[43]

According to some estimates, Olkiluoto reactor could be the

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're making the wrong comparison, on three different levels. First, wildlife as a population can be fine even if some individuals suffer. The safety precautions (regarding eating mushrooms etc.) protect individuals. We know that many individuals fare badly around Chernobyl. Second, humans are much more long-lived that your wildlife, so there's more room for deleterious long-term effects in humans. Third, the reason why wildlife around Chernobyl thrives is much less because of the induced increase in mortality due to contamination being small and much more because of the decrease in mortality due to removal of humans being large.

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

This is what happens when something turns into an -ism. I think opposition to nuclear is based more on dogma and irrational fear than anything else at this point.

I'm so very glad you bough that up, check my sig friend, it's not my ism I am talking about.

Here's a thought: maybe we should listen to specialists (say, nuclear scientists and engineers, and throw in some statisticians to tally up safety records) about whether modern nuclear power is safe and effective enough to use.

OK, let me get you started. This is the peer reviewed science that show nuclear power provides no Net Energy Return with contributions from about 10 Universities around the world, including CERN.

Because, I'm pretty sure the science is settled at this point. Should we also should start calling opponents "nuclear deniers"?

That would be like saying climate change is bullshit, but I kind of like it.

Yeah fuckit, I'm a nuclear denier. I deny Nuclear is a real solution to climate change. I'll start calling the nutty nukker fanbois, physics deniers, better FACT deniers or 'unable to provide fact'ers - but I jest ho ho ho.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Jzanu]

Sure there is: Lower cancer rates (Burning coal releases more actual Uranium into the atmosphere), and lower asthma, COPD, etc. from lower NOX and particulate pollution. Radioactive waste can be contained and when reprocessed as part of waste disposal generates more electricity and limits hard storage time to decades.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[imidan]

They thought about what they would find to be most insulting to themselves. They find 'cuck' to be so demeaning because it plays upon their own deep insecurities, and they project those insecurities onto those around them and therefore assume that trying to undermine their opponents' masculinity will be maximally hurtful. It would be emasculating to them to have a woman president who would 'dominate' them in the sense that she holds the highest office in the country. In their minds, then, men who voted for Hillary would be 'cuckolded' because we chose submission to a woman. Fortunately, most of us are secure enough in our masculinity that the attempted insult completely fails to connect.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[skids]

I was going towards 'hairpiece' myself but then again ....

Rogainosets?

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[pushing-robot]

It comes from cuckold, a derogatory term for the husband of an adulteress, and from Cuckoo, a bird which lays eggs in others' nests to be raised and supported by unsuspecting parents.

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

It was later abbreviated to 'Cuck' and took on more connotations as it spread through the alt-right, most to do with some kind of perceived emasculation, submissiveness, or 'selling out': Men who allow women to hold too much power ('feminazis', 'SJWs', etc.), people who are accepting of foreigners (to 'steal our jobs' and leech off our social services), globalists who sell America out to the Jews, socialists who would turn the country over to freeloaders, etc, etc.

Re:Are they insane?

[dcollins]

"Trump's Plan for Coal Industry Revival Means Big EPA Changes" (Nov-14)

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-coal-industry-revival-plan/2016/11/14/id/758745/

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Solandri]

Actually, most of that "waste" can be reused as fuel. Modern light water nuclear plants only use about 3% of the energy in uranium. That's why the waste is "hot" for so long - it's like burning 3% of a gallon of gas and declaring the rest of it waste which has to be buried. A breeder reactor can use the "waste" as fuel, and in the process convert it into a form which can be sent back to light water reactors for use as fuel. Done properly, about 90%-95% of the energy from the uranium can be extracted, and the remaining waste is only "hot" for a few hundred years.

France uses breeder reactors, so they don't have anywhere near the nuclear waste problem that we do. (Jimmy Carter banned the commercial use of breeder reactors in the U.S. because they can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.)

Also, nuclear in the U.S. produces about 800 TWh of electricity per year. The amount of spent fuel that's created to produce that much energy is about a single tractor trailer's worth (the entire volume of nuclear waste produced since we began using nuclear power would about fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool). Contrast that with coal. A ton of coal produces about 2000 kWh of electricity. So to produce 800 TWh would require about 400 million tons of coal, or about 300 million cubic meters - enough to fill a thousand oil tankers. It also produces 1.14 billion tons of CO2.

So compare that single tractor trailer of nuclear waste (which still contains 97% of the energy in the uranium because we don't reprocess) to a thousand oil tankers full of coal. Still think nuclear is such a bad idea?

Re: irreversible

[skids]

Explain to me how nationalism valuing America first is anti American

Because it is counterproductive and leaves the country in a worse place than being a responsible member of the international community does. Also, it is too easily leveraged into white nationalism.

For them to put the interests of foreign nations or even the international community above the interests of the US seems treasonous on its face.

We have many conflicting interests as a nation, many of which are the same interests as the international community (like defeating ISIS.) In order to make progress on some of our national interests, it is necessary to compromise on others.

In other words, you can wish really hard that America exists in a vacuum, but wishing does not make it so.

Re:irreversible

[Capsaicin]

You are a hyperbolic idiot, this isn't the Breitbart comment section

And you continue the hyperbole ...

This is the Breitbart comment section?!

Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[raymorris]

Read some of the recent articles by the elder statesmen of the environmentalist movement, such as one of the founders of Greenpeace. They are now acknowledging that they spread a lot of FUD about waste. Here are the two biggest lies:

Intentionally conflating alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. They really hyped things up, through out a lot of numbers and such, about "radiation", carefully cherry-picking things about completely different types of radiation, while making it sound like all the statements went together. Of course you know there are different types of radiation - light from a light bulb is radiation, warmth radiating from a fireplace is radiation. When discussing nuclear waste, the two main types are alpha and beta. Here's the funny thing - alpha is stopped by almost anything - tissue paper, a few centimeters of air, moisture in the air, etc. Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you. So when any old 1980s article talks about radiation, ask "are they taking about ALPHA radiation, the kind that's blocked by even tissue paper?" Often they are.

The even bigger lie is intentionally conflating short half-life with long half-life. You know a candle radiates visible light, heat, uv, etc. Gunpowder radiates the same wavelengths - light, heat, etc. The difference between a candle and a bomb is that the candle releases the energy slowly, a little bit a time, while gunpowder releases it's energy quickly. So quickly, in fact, that there's a dangerous amount of energy, for about 50 milliseconds. Nuclear materials are the same. Some release their energy quickly, so there's a dangerous amount of radiation for a short time. Roughly 14 days, in one common case. Other nuclear materials release their energy incredibly slowly, over thousands of years. At any given time, the slow ones are releasing such a small amount of energy you could WEAR the waste on your head all day and it would have absolutely zero effect. In fact I, and many others, DO wear tritium on our belts.

There is waste that releases enough radiation in a year to be dangerous, and there's other waste that releases so little as at a time that it takes a thousand years before most of it is used up. Dumping the energy fast is like a firecracker which burns metal powder very quickly - it's dangerous, for a very short period of time. Releasing it over a thousand years is like the heat generated as a bolt rusts - it's an almost indetectable, and completely safe, level of energy being released.

It's really it like showing somebody a firecracker and saying "this is metal oxydizing" (true) and "the metal in your car could oxydize at any moment" (also true, your car is oxydizing all the time).

Re:Are they insane?

[theycallmeB]

"The Coal Industry Isn't Coming Back" Nov-15 Opinion piece
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11...
tl;dr version: coal's problem isn't Obama, its Exxon-Mobile and natural gas, and coal is not going to win that fight

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Cyberax]

Uhm... Where do I start?...

Modern light water power plants use more than 3% of energy in fuel and they also produce quite a bit of (non weapons grade) plutonium. This plutonium can be extracted and re-used in MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in regular reactors, US does NOT do this but France and Russia do. Spent fuel also contains some nasty minor actinides that have long half-lives and must be stored for a long time, they are chemically extracted during reprocessing. It is possible to transmute them into less harmful elements by enough fast neutron flux.

Right now the only 2 working fast neutron reactors are in Russia (BN-600 and BN-800), France terminated its fast neutron reactor project long ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). Fast neutron reactors are not necessarily breeder reactors (breeder reactors allow to produce more fissile products than they get) but in most cases they are.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[blindseer]

Actually, most of that "waste" can be reused as fuel. Modern light water nuclear plants only use about 3% of the energy in uranium. That's why the waste is "hot" for so long

That's not quite right. The uranium has a half life of billions of years, so it will be radioactive for a long time but that is not what makes spent fuel "hot". Just as a candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long a radioactive material with a long half life puts out very little radiation. Uranium has such a long half life and therefore very little radiation from it that uranium is routinely used as a shield against radiation.

Another thing about uranium is that most isotopes of the element are alpha emitters upon decay. In a solid fuel reactor the uranium is encased in a metal tube, an alpha particle would not leave the tube. Even if it did about a foot of air would stop it.

What makes spent fuel "hot" is the fission products, and to a lesser extent the transuranic elements. A fission product is from the uranium nucleus taking in a neutron and fissions into two smaller nuclei. The transuranic elements are from when the uranium takes a neutron and doesn't fission but instead decays into a heavier element, such as plutonium. These fission products and transuranic elements can be beta and gamma emitters upon decay, these require more shielding to stop, such as a few feet of water or other dense material.

In a solid fuel reactor it is very difficult to remove these elements. This is a problem because some of these elements like to soak up neutrons with a greater affinity than the uranium fuel. At some point the fission products will take up so many neutrons that a chain reaction cannot be maintained in the reactor, when this happens the fuel is "spent" even though there is still a large amount of uranium fuel in the fuel rod.

There's several ways to address this problem but one that is gaining traction is to use a liquid fuel. The uranium in a solid fuel reactor is usually a ceramic (an oxide), because in that form it can hold up to a lot of heat and radiation without turning into something else. In a liquid fuel reactor the uranium fuel is in the form of a salt, usually a fluoride (like the sodium fluoride in toothpaste). This salt can also withstand the radiation but it melts at a relatively low temperature, which make it easy to turn into a liquid. In liquid form many of the worst fission products, like xenon, will bubble out of the fuel and get collected at the top of the reactor tank. Many of the others, like noble metals, will fall to the bottom. With these fission products out of the way just about all the fuel can be burned. With the addition of a chemical processor on the liquid fuel the transuranic elements can be removed before they can become a problem of soaking up neutrons, becoming a weapon proliferation problem, or generally a nuisance. Some of these fission products and transuranic elements are quite valuable and would become a salable product for medicine and industry.

With a solid fuel the spent fuel rods are effectively worthless because the valuable elements are mixed in with the really radioactive stuff that built up over time. This is difficult to process until it has "cooled" which also means a lot of the really valuable elements have decayed away. A liquid salt reactor would save a lot of trouble by not producing this waste, and potentially save a lot of lives because many of the fission products the reactor could produce is used to treat and diagnose a lot of medical conditions. Some of them could also be used to disinfect surgical tools, find leaks in pipes, and make it easier to explore space.

A very good reactor using this liquid fuel is called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, designed by Flibe Energy. Look it up.

I know you are but what am I

[rsilvergun]

seriously though. Coal and Gas are much, much more expensive than nuclear when you can't _externalize_your_costs_. The pollution gets into the air, water and land. It causes massive health problems to anyone living anywhere near the plant. You also need to risk miner's lives to mine it cheaply or you need to do fracking (which has it's own unique problems: earthquakes, water you can light on fire, etc).

All of this either gets paid for by the taxpayer or you let the people hurt by it suffer and die (google "Cancer Villages"). Sorry, but you really have no idea wtf you're going on about...