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France To Close Four Coal-Fired Power Plants By 2022, 14 Nuclear Reactors By 2035 (cleantechnica.com)
Socguy shares a report from CleanTechnica: French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech on Tuesday in which he announced a raft of new energy policies, including a promise to close the country's remaining four coal-fired power plants by 2022 and 14 of the country's 900 MW first-generation nuclear reactors by 2035. "The generation capacity will be replaced with wind and solar," adds Slashdot reader Socguy. The closure of the 14 nuclear reactors will reduce nuclear's contribution to the energy mix from its current level of 75% to 50% by 2035.
"I would have liked to be able to do it as early as 2025, as provided for by the Energy Transition Law," Macron added, "but it turned out, after pragmatic expertise, that this figure brandished as a political totem was in fact unattainable. We therefore decided to maintain this 50% cap, but by postponing the deadline to 2035."
"I would have liked to be able to do it as early as 2025, as provided for by the Energy Transition Law," Macron added, "but it turned out, after pragmatic expertise, that this figure brandished as a political totem was in fact unattainable. We therefore decided to maintain this 50% cap, but by postponing the deadline to 2035."
With every inch of the country covered with solar panels they wouldn't produce as much and then there'd be no place for a ll the toxic batteries to store it.
You have no idea how wrong you are. France consumes 431,000,000,000 kWh/Year. "every inch of the country" is 643,801 km2. The insolation in France ranges from 3 sun hours/day in the north to 5 sun hours/day in the south, take an average of 4 sun hours/day. "covered with cheap 18% solar panels". That generates 463,536,720,000 kWh/Day, you could power the entire France for a year in just one single day. In fact that is enough to power the whole world 8 times over with 169,190,902,800,000 kWh/Year, the world only consumes 21,776,088,770,300 kWh/Year.
Mostly because, unlike these fast breeders you are talking about, wind and solar power plants actually do exist in real life.
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Three reasons. One, cost. I hope even you understand that one. Two, risk. Three, complexity of production chain. Yes nuclear has advantages in some environments, but at great cost and with considerable risk regardless.
Talk of ubiquitous micro-reactors unguarded throughout society is just retarded on the merits, and if you don't see that maybe you don't understand reality. *MODERN* lol, you must be completely new to this subject.
Also a rather expensive one. About 0.15 euro = 0.17 USD per kwh. That is not so high by EU standards, but hurts them globally, leading to trade deficits and chronically high unemployment. France needs to be more competitive.
Solar and wind can generate power for about 0.03 euro per kwh.
You're hilarious. France, with about 70% nuclear and very little renewable energy, has by far the cheapest electricity prices in Europe. Meanwhile Germany - with the largest uptake for wind and solar - has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe. But yeah, wind and solar can like totally make electricity cheaper ... they just don't ... because reasons.
So what about the widespread opposition to further subsidies to nuclear power companies like EDF? The French electorate are kind of fed up of bailing them out when their nuclear plants fail to be profitable or experience expensive problems that need fixing. Worse still a lot of that money is flowing overseas with vague promises that there will be some ROI one day maybe, thanks to multiple failing construction projects around the EU.
Commercial nuclear in France is a basket case, reliant on government support just to survive and keep the lights on. Too big to fail, continually writing off assets and downgrading valuations.
If the Cors Des Comptes is screaming about renewable subsidies they must being having a heart attack over the nuclear ones.
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Commercial nuclear in France is a basket case, reliant on government support just to survive and keep the lights on. Too big to fail, continually writing off assets and downgrading valuations.
This is the first I've heard of this. There's a lot of talk in the US about how France is the model for a successful nuclear energy program.
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