Slashdot Mirror
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."
LEGAL NOTICE: From now on, I will be posting the following quote whenever there is a discussion here on Slashdot about climate change or renewable energy:
You are welcome on my lawn.
Less energy and more efficient usage is the key to real environmentally savvy policies.
Renewables and lower prices can lead to higher energy use.
And maybe we'd be less people on the planet. But this is another story.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
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.
Good thing they're delaying the nuclear plant closures rather than the coal plants. Otherwise, Netherlands would have to build a larger sea wall -- and make the ocean pay for it.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Designed in France. Made in China. When China becomes to expensive, try a deal with Indonesia, Laos.
The French population can then read books and be calmed with TV at night under the glow of lights.
Total deindustrialisation.
Metro, work, sleep, zero
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Macron tries to justify himself staying in to power despite deceiving the population.
He ran for office as a moderate reformer, and he has governed as a moderate reformer. So where is the deception?
Being a reformer means going against entrenched interest groups. So of course he has made some enemies. If he deserves any criticism, it is for being too timid. But France is not an easy place to fix.
France has one of the best, most realistic and cleanest power generation systems on the planet.
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.
There are some very sunny areas in southern France, and plenty of wind in Brittany.
France has been a world leader in nuclear energy for decades.
75% of France's current electricity use is currently generated by nuclear power. They are also the world's largest exporter of electricity because of it. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx
All of Europe will suffer higher electricity costs generated by less cleaner methods because of this foolish move. I don't believe they'll actually follow through though, this is just a virtue signal announcement to appease those who want Macron deposed.
Quite literally: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27...
Refusing to cave in to the demands of a mob is not a threat to democracy.
It is more accurate to say the mob is the threat. The protesters should take their demands to the voters, rather than rioting in the streets.
Feel free to open your backyard to store our nuclear wastes, thanks.
Totof
It's a political move, not a pragmatic one. France is bottom of Europe when it comes to CO2 emissions per generated energy specifically because of proliferation of nuclear power across the country. Their eastern neighbour is a great example of what happens when you try to close nuclear plants for wind and solar. You get more fossil fuel burning, and your trend of reducing emissions goes straight toward "miss all the CO2 emissions targets you were previously on track to meet".
One has to remember what is the political environment in which these calls are made. Macron is extremely unpopular in France across the board, after being elected as essentially "that bankster that managed to get to run-off against the woman media called every nasty name they can think of for decades". He was fairly unpopular when he was elected, and since he conducted his policies as would be expected out of a man who's essentially a full on elitist throughout his career, his popularity is worse than Hollande's.
So he's going from scandal to scandal, protest to protest. These loud announcements are just the next step in his game of "make loud declarations to deflect attention from current issues".
As far as I know, without having figures to support this claim, prices are rising because of privatization of public companies. EDF, Électricité de France, now Engie, is slowly rising prices, as a consequence of competition. Wait ? What ? Competition ? Sarkozy said he would not allow this. He lied (about this as well as about many other subjects). Also, the nuclear lobby is very strong in France. So strong that France is not prepared for the transition. And as I said in another comment, anyone is free to store our nuclear wastes in his own backyard.
Totof
But me nukular! Thur takin mu nukular! Me Precious! Me Precious!!!
FREEZE PEACH!!!
That’s one way to put it. Another, less autocratic way, would be to hold a referendum, which he would handily lose, because 77% of the country are against this bullshit. That’d be democracy.
Could someone explain to me why wind and solar are better than *MODERN* nuclear plants, particularly fast breeder reactors, that output very little waste and are relatively safe? Nuclear plants don't vary with the sun and wind and so have no need for expensive/complex energy storage solutions to go along with them. Is the replacement of nuclear purely down to the green lobby not liking the word "nuclear" or is there any justification that has a scientific basis?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Getting rid of old first gen reactors?
That's good by any measure. You could argue it is too bad they are not replaced with new ones, but 75% nuclear was a bit high for a balanced load anyway.
What will they do in a cloudy day with no wind?
Indeed. Macron only won 24% of the turned out vote in the first round of the elections (it's difficult to know how much he gained in the second as he was against Le Pen, so potentially a lot of protest/fear votes involved). He certainly does not have the majority of the country behind him, not by a long shot.
It's really this weird English idea where you just 'keep calm and carry on' as the Tory's destroy you country, despite them not winning the popular vote in a semi-democratic First-Past-The-Post system. I don't really get it, but it seems to be ingrained into their culture of civil obedience to those with power (and money).
French electricity demand always exceeds the available nuclear power supply even in the low-demand summertime when they schedule shutdowns for inspections, maintenance and refuelling. France is unusual in that it uses electricity to provide a lot of home and industrial heating since it's cheap and readily available. Other "green" countries like Germany, Denmark etc. burn gas to supply this heating requirement and the resulting CO2 gets dumped into the atmosphere.
By the time they are being closed in 2035 (assuming the government don't change their mind again) the M910 reactors in question will have been in operation for about 55-60 years. They could probably get revamped (replacing most of the ancillary plant, turbine-generator sets etc.) and run for another twenty years or so but that would cost a chunk of money. The later reactors built in the early 1980s are more powerful than the first set (five-loop steam generators rather than three-loop in the earlier plants) and they're likely to continue in use for a bit longer, maybe into the 2050s or even further, especially if the supplies of cheap gas (the actual planned energy replacement for these reactors) start running out.
No no no. Voters are "the mob", you see. Much better to have the elite rule over us. They know what's best for you, peasant.
>> So where is the deception?
Hmm.
Less taxes for the rich.
Necessarily more taxes for everybody else.
That's not good.
aaaaaaa
That's exactly what King George III said about those pesky colonial revolutionaries!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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.
"Too timid" is another word for "moderate".
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Quite literally: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27...
You don't understand the difference between democracy and tyranny of the minority. Quite Literally.
For hydro, you need a big river, a place you can dam that river at a high altitude, and a way you can make a relatively short pipe to a low altitude.
For Norway, a fairly wet country with high mountains and deep fjords, there's lots of opportunities for that. So Norway has lots of hydro power, uses it to cheaply supply energy intensive industry, and exports power to the rest of Europe.
But Norway is not a normal country. Most countries are rather flat and/or rather dry. They exploit what hydro they can, but it is limited.
There's not enough possible hydro to power the world. Wind and solar aren't always available, storage is difficult. We need something that isn't coal to make up the gap, and the only option left is Nuclear.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
That's a nonsensical put-down. What he says is true, but it hasn't been done. The reasons for that are fairly obvious: France doesn't need or want to generate all the world's energy, they don't want to pave over all of France, and the political decision to invest heavily in solar has not been made in the past: that's the bit that's happening right now.
"It would already have been done" is a ludicrously stupid thing to say in this context.
One has to remember what is the political environment in which these calls are made. Macron is extremely unpopular in France across the board, after being elected as essentially "that bankster that managed to get to run-off against the woman media called every nasty name they can think of for decades". He was fairly unpopular when he was elected, and since he conducted his policies as would be expected out of a man who's essentially a full on elitist throughout his career, his popularity is worse than Hollande's.
I'll just leave these facts here: In the runoff, Macron got twice as many votes as his opponent, who only managed to win in two departments. In the subsequent legislative elections, En Marche won an absolute majority in the National Assembly (308 to 8 for the National Front). In America, we would say, "Macron ate Le Pen's lunch." Macron's popularity is no worse than that of Hollande, Sarkozy, or Chirac at the same point in their terms, and he's actually doing slightly better than Hollande.
Even if your obvious hate-boner for Macron didn't make your bias evident, your portrayal of the fascist Mme Le Pen as some sort of victim of the media certainly does.
Why are you so reluctant to name her or her party, BTW?
And, yes, my current sig is a quote ("There is no planet B") from the man. Why not? It's true.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
But power consumption is not constant 24/7/365. So you're going to need storage anyway.
Great so they only have to cover one three hundred and sixty fifths of the entire area of France. No problem I guess.
0.3%. I know it is a huge investment, but take into account, that 52% of area of France is used for agriculture. Having half of land area used for food is normal, but using 0.3% of land area for energy needs is already outrageous? I think that if that would be as simple as giving up 1% of your land to never have to worry about electricity again with zero pollution, every country in the world would jump on it. There are many other serious issues, but I don't think that area needed for solar farms is the showstopper.
I want to point out that in this long complaint, never once have you addressed any of my points. You avoided them like a plague.
That if anything should tell anyone reading this thread just how much you agree with me on my points. When you opponent cannot even begin to address your actual points, and has to instead go "french woman bad", you know that he has nothing.
Make French tax payers pay for many battery packs.
A battery pack for every chateaux and household.
A set of solar-panel options for roofs.
Build really big grid battery for the grid.
Th lights stay on at night.
Industrialization becomes part of French history as power gets too expensive to use in France.
French exports become uncompetitive.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Emissions are rising in EU. In 2017: https://planetsave.com/2018/05... and will again in 2018: https://www.thedailystar.net/w...
Europe talks a good game, but has very little action. They do like to sign fancy "accords" and have meetings about it though.
France can build a repository. Find an area with a low populated and go deep under ground.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The headline is BS. It's the opposite of the announcement. Here's what the announcement actually said:
We had planned on getting to 50% by 2025, but our new target is 2035.
In other words, they announced that wind and solar are NOT. going to work out like they had previously said. By 2035 Macron will be long out of office and it will be somebody else's problem to explain why the new target is 2055.
In 2017 in France:
Transportation generate 130Mt CO2 - stable since 2000
Building heating gives 80Mt CO2 - stable since 2000
Industry is about the same (70Mt) - decreasing every year
Energy Industry is 40Mt CO2 - decreasing since 1976 (thanks nuclear)
There is a relatively "easy" target here: make buildings burn less energy. This would give:
1/ rapid benefits in CO2 emission
2/ more cash to people living in those buildings (energy is really expensive those days)
3/ a great deal of business
Guess what: that's the only one we are not actively fighting today !
Increasing gas price using tax is somehow coherent (but very unfair) as long as we *use* the money for something useful, such as reducing heating needs
Not the case obviously... we need that for nation budget (if only tax evasion was lower...)
Well done guys, keep going.
Be sure he did not go against interest groups. He gave a lot to those who put him where he is. Yes, in France too, money can buy you an election.
:
... Those who are poor need to take their car for many reason (job, children, groceries). They have no choice. They will cut more and more on health spendings and so on.
Explain how moderate this his
- tax on big fortunes : removed. "You'll see, money will fall back down to the poors". Still waiting.
- CICE : free money given without anything but a promise in exchange. Employment should be the counterpart. Here are the figures : it was 20 B€, it's going to be 40 B€. How many jobs created ? Do the math : each job created with the help of this free money should be payed between 100 000€ and 200 000€ per year. Never heard of somebody suddenly getting paid that lot.
- flat tax : I don't know a lot about this one, but rich also said thank you
The reason of the demonstration of late : an increase of diesel taxes, in the name of ecology, for the planet ! Quel faux cul, quel menteur
People are not stupid : this is obvious that he is taking from the poor to give to the rich. He is called a reversed Robin Wood for a reason.
But these diesel taxes are just the thing too much. Macron looks down on people. His language is arrogant. "les gens qui ne sont rien", "les fénéants", "les premiers de cordées". There are many like these.
Remember that he was elected against the far right candidate.
This is not the first time this is happening in my country. But this is the first time a president is so badly elected, with only about 65% of the votes, and many many abstentions.
The problem is : how will look the next election ? Many European countries went far right. Next time in France, is it's right against far right again, I'm afraid far right wins. Smells so bad, smells so 30s.
Totof
Tell the people of Bure (small village in France) that you are willing to get what is being imposed against their will. Democracy ?
Totof
The way to deliver solar power when and where you need it is the real problem, but at 50% nuclear they may actually have a better solution than many other countries.
Btw. Mainland France has between 1500 and 2800 hours of sun per year (4 to 8 per day). So 3 to 5 hours is a conservative estimate based on insolation.
https://www.currentresults.com...
Efficiency of the panels will drop by rougly 1% per year over 20 years.
https://www.engineering.com/De...
For windmills the issues are similar, but they may actually help a little (more wind on cloudy days).
"Politician promises politically popular thing, to happen in the politically indefinite future."
All those bad regimes that didn't work, lead by psychopaths.... not real socialism. And if you eliminate all the oppressive regimes lead by psychopaths, there's nothing left. So I guess it's true what socialists say.... socialism has never been tried.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Those 14 nuclear plants will require 4200 3MW turbines to replace them, and that's when they're operating at maximum output.
Once you factor in the actual real world output that number rises to 17500, and that's assuming someone has cracked the grid scale storage problem.
France, with about 70% nuclear and very little renewable energy, has by far the cheapest electricity prices in Europe
Only because the real price is hidden from you. Those nuclear plants are heavily, heavily subsidised. And now they are too big to fail, it's basically corporate welfare for the likes of EDF. French voters are fed up with it, they know that the kWh price they pay is only a fraction of the cost.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Aptly enough, confirmation and selection biases are types of cognitive bias on their own.
Ezekiel 23:20
Your 4 sun hours/day is also wildly optimistic.
He included some of the oversea territories in the area figure...
Interesting. French Kerguelen is the windiest place I’m the world. The cabling is going to be a bitch, though.
And wind and solar are heavily subsidized everywhere, also. Your argument falls apart rather easily.
Do you have ESP?
So is everyone just ignoring the riots from the last set of regulations that is crippling the poorer people of France? And did I really see someone post about democracy when these regulations were forced down the throats of French citizens?? Hey maybe we can sell them all that "excess" energy we all heard California and Arizona is producing that is "free" that has seemed to disappear.
On-shore wind is profitable even without subsidy in Europe. The rest is subsidised at far lower rates than nuclear now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Hydro messes with a few large areas where it's possible to use it. Nuclear can be installed anywhere including in really foolish locations and by dangerous parties.
Hydro does some long term harm to relatively small local ecosystems; but it's not that big of a deal even if the physical space impacted is relatively large. Nature very slowly does a lot more changes to the landscape... a volcano or a massive fire... they have big quick natural impacts too... but nuclear fall out, political cover for weapons, unnaturally strong concentrations of super toxic waste that lasts longer than our civilization will is a bigger problem.
Furthermore the corruption involved around nuclear power companies seems to me to be more than hydro power. Needing new fuel all the time and dealing with waste, I think is a big factor.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
A solution to calm and clouds may involve storage devices like what Tesla has been prototyping at Hornsdale, South Australia.
Even if electricity is 'free' 2/3 of the cost on your bill is transmission
love is just extroverted narcissism
because 77% of the country are against this bullshit
But not against it enough to take part in a tiny mob?
despite them not winning the popular vote in a semi-democratic First-Past-The-Post system.
That's interesting. I think I'm reading praise for FPTP systems. In the mean time countries who have this system often wish they didn't because there's nothing democratic about the natural stable end result of FPTP: A 2 party system.
Pretty soon we'll be mining coal and dumping into a big hole at taxpayer's expense due to a lack of market. Thanks T-Rump!
The protesters are voters. And since when is peaceful protest (I didn't read the whole thing but I think if it had turned violent that would have been at the top) a threat to democracy? Letting the government know you disapprove of something they're doing is at the core of democracy.
This is not the first time this is happening in my country. But this is the first time a president is so badly elected, with only about 65% of the votes, and many many abstentions.
I don't know what you mean by this. In the 2nd round, Macron won with 20,743,128 votes. In 2012, Hollande won with 18,000,668 and in 2007 Sarkozy won with 18,983,138. So Macron had about 2 million more votes in the 2nd round than each of them...and a much bigger percentage.
You are right about the turnout, of course. Le Pen lost so badly because she won only 10,638,475 votes, much less compared to the losers in 2012 and 2007 (Sarkozy 16,860,685 and Royal 16,790,440, respectively).
The first (that Macron had more votes than Hollande and Sarkozy) is explained, I think, by the fact that his opponent was Le Pen. So many people came out to vote for him to stop the far-right from gaining power. The second (the low turnout) is explained, I think, by the same fact: there are a lot of people who didn't like Macron, but didn't like Le Pen either. So they abstained. Would Macron have won had his opponnent been Fillon or a leftist candidate? Who knows, but I think he would hover around 16-18 million vote mark nonetheless.
I think the first round is more interesting. Macron came first there too, but only with 8,656,346 votes or 24.01%. He only had about 1 million more votes than Le Pen. Also, the next 2 candidates (FIllon and Melenchon) were close, about 1.5 million votes behind Macron. This is a much worse performance than the top TWO candidates in the previous two elections (2012: Hollande 10,272,705 or 28.63%, Sarkozy 9,753,629 or 27.18% - Le Pen was more than 3 million votes behind Sarkozy; 2007: Sarkozy 11,448,663 or 31.18%, Royal 9,500,112 or 25.87% - Bayrou was more than 3 million votes behind Royal).
Basically, Macron's huge win in the 2nd round is very deceptive and only happened because Le Pen was his opponent. In reality, the election in the first round was very close compared to the previous two elections. Macron is a bit of an accidental president (not as much as his predecessor, Hollande, who was elected just because people were sick of Sarkozy's dramatics and wanted the polar opposite, a bland, almost invisible president). Hollande was widely seen as ineffectual, so much so that he decided not to run; nonetheless this did not help the Socialists, who failed to present an anti-Hollande to capture the voters' imagination. So, the leftist vote splintered among many candidates - although Melenchon was quite close to the 2nd round. The front-runner was originally Fillon from the centre-right, but he got destroyed by the scandals that were created by opponents within his own party (the ones he defeated in the primaries). He refused to step down and let someone else run for the UMP which might've changed the ellection by quite a bit - still, even the scandal-plagued Fillon came third and was within less than 1.5% of getting into the second round.
In the end, Macron was lucky to have Le Pen make it to the second round. For someone who had A LOT of luck for things to perfectly line up for him to win the election, he should be a lot less arrogant and full of himself, and a lot more humble. His "mandate" from the people is nowhere near as strong as he likes to present it.
It is base load. Renewable are not, until a major tech advance is not. That alone relegate renewable to side load.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
France is unusual in that it uses electricity to provide a lot of home and industrial heating since it's cheap and readily available.
It's not that unusual, the Province of Quebec is like this as well, but due to the abundant hydroelectricity available as opposed to nuclear in France.
Most the wind is indirectly solar powered.
Hydro only works because water moves by air blowing it around.
Now if you store a million years of solar and you get fossil fuels... Nuclear is the only non-solar power source. (massive space explosions etc are not solar even if they involve stars.)
Just thought I'd point out a little less obvious facts given how some fool is always talking down to the rest of us by reminding us that the sun sets at night or the wind doesn't always blow... with a smug "checkmate" look on their face.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Bigmouth strikes again.
Meanwhile Germany - with the largest uptake for wind and solar - has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe.
This is because Germany made a political decision to adopt wind and solar years ago, way before it was economical to do so.
Here is the way you should do it:
1. Develop tech that works.
2. Deploy it.
Germany did it the other way around.
Exactly.
Being loud and obnoxious does not make you the majority. Thank goodness for that, too.
I tend to rant.
Buys power from France!
France shuts power plants down!
Buys power from????
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you say gigawatt is more kilowatt, so the "plan" makes no sense, that's just because you hate nature and want everybody to die.
The audience for this stuff thinks about "should" and "want", not "how". How it's supposed to work is totally irrelevant, and doesn't even enter the minds of the people he's pandering to.
It's not that they actually think declaring / wishing something will make it magically happen like it does in the eco-cartoons. They don't think that saying "the government should give everyone free _____" will make stuff magically appear. It's that how, what the cost is, and unintended affects simply aren't relevant and never enter their mind. All that matters is what you want.
Some other countries also use electricity for most of their home heating and industrial requirements when electricity is cheap and abundant. Iceland, for example and Norway -- it's said that Norwegians don't know a light switch works in both directions. Norway relies on having a lot of hydro power on tap, a small population and a significant land area with the right geography to harvest hydro power from.
France has some hydro power from the Alps but only a few GW at best depending on the season. They have a large population but their non-carbon nuclear power is cheaper for heating than importing and burning lots of fossil gas like other nearby countries do. Sometimes they buy in surplus electricity from their neighbours such as Spain, Britain and Germany but usually they're net exporters to places like Switzerland and Italy.
Nuclear is the correct answer right now. Long term, extracting energy from existing gradients will be better, but we can't extract enough energy efficiently from the existing energy gradients yet. So, Nuclear Power is the ideal choice until we get the details ironed out on "renewables".
Physics 101: A gradient is required to extract energy from a system.
Knowing that, we can either create our own gradient (nuclear, coal, gas, fire in any form) or extract energy from existing gradients (Wind, Solar, Geothermal, wishing for ponies).
Creating our own gradient can cause issues. What to do with the generated heat that was unable to be turned into useful energy? What to do with the combustion/fission/fusion products from creating a gradient? etc etc etc.
Extracting from existing gradients is ideal. There are no byproducts from creating gradients. HUGE WIN! It makes the environment more stable (less energy floating around, fewer hurricanes/typhoons/etc). The devices themselves are generally passive. Very few long term issues here.
The problem with "renewables" are the short-term issues. People are trying to force them in ways that do not even make sense. It is like the Gold Rush or some such. Sooooo much fraud, disinformation, etc all in a bid to get rich quick.
*sigh* humans.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Seriously, they are headed in the right direction. Shutting down ALL of their coal plants first is a huge issue. We need other nations to follow this example.
In particular, America needs to get Nuclear SMRs going to replace coal AND Nat Gas. With trump's allowing the export of nat gas and unprocessed oil.
And of course, China needs to quit adding new plants.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Meanwhile Germany - with the largest uptake for wind and solar - has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe.
This is because Germany made a political decision to adopt wind and solar years ago, way before it was economical to do so.
Here is the way you should do it:
1. Develop tech that works.
2. Deploy it.
Germany did it the other way around.
1. Seems like their tech did work.
1a. Many/most things are expensive until they're scaled up for production.
1b. Waiting until things are cheap means some things never go to production.
2. Having deployed said working solution, does this give early adopter benefits?
2a. Skills and knowledge should allow entrepreneurship to provide economical benefits.
2b. This can be exported to other places that did wait for prices to come down.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
France *snip* has by far the cheapest electricity prices in Europe.
Not even remotely true.
Estonia & Bulgaria are far cheaper & countries like Finland & the UK are on par with France.
All in all, France (even with massive subsidies for Nuclear) has fairly average prices for electricity in Europe.
Unless of course by Europe, you meant "German and Scandinavia (but not Finland).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
2. Having deployed said working solution, does this give early adopter benefits?
2a. Skills and knowledge should allow entrepreneurship to provide economical benefits.
2b. This can be exported to other places that did wait for prices to come down.
Global market share for German-made solar panels: 0%.
While other countries were investing in R&D, Germany was spending a fortune to pay roofers to install expensive crap in one of the world's cloudiest locations.
In hindsight that was not a good strategy. At the time it seemed pretty stupid as well.
Youâ(TM)d never know it from TFA, but there are literally riots in the streets of France over the fallout from these same energy policies.
It's so cute when you answer yourself and congratulate yourself on having a tiny echo chamber of science denialists.
"Much less scandal". Right. Riiiiiiiiiiight. In other news, pigs fly, Sun rises from the West and Moon is made of cheese.
As for "elected with more voices", he got elected with a hell of a lot fewer than anyone before him in the first round. Second round, only his core was voting for him. Everyone else was voting against "French woman bad". In this regard, you're correct that they got what they deserved.
It still doesn't address any of my points.
Most French reactors are 2nd gen.
Solar is pretty cheap now and wind is even more. This is was the primary goal. To me this seems to be quite a success.
It's 26 square meters per capita. Is that such a huge deal? Even population density in French cities is way lower than that.
Ezekiel 23:20