Summary
France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.
The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.
President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.
Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”
By pouring endless amounts of money down the drain? Great strategy.
It is if your intention is to not introduce carbon into the atmosphere over the 60 year life’s lifespan to 90 year lifespan of the power plant
Then, the priority should still be renewables, because they are far cheaper, can be build faster and if they malfunction, no one is in danger. France has enough Nuclear to deal with no-sun and no-wind phases (if they work fine, which is the other problem with nuclear energy in France)…
We don’t have enough resources yet for all the renewables we’ll need. Like there simply isn’t enough copper being mined fast enough.
Nuclear needs to be part of the solution.
Prices of renewables are dropping for years. If building them becomes difficult because of missing materials, the prices would rise, which is not happening at the moment. Why not just building renewables as long as it’s the far cheaper solution?
Solar panels have indeed become cheaper and cheaper, and you are right to argue that the materials used to build solar panels are priced in. However, solar requires some infrastructure besides the panels themselves, such as inverters and storage, and that infrastructure needs additional materials, some of which are expensive. Copper, for instance, surged in price in 2020, and there is not enough investment to expand mining operations despite the great profits it has been yielding. This is an ongoing saga in the mining industry, with BHP attempting to take over Anglo American in part for its copper portfolio.
I am not arguing against solar; I just think it cannot be scaled to the extent necessary to cover most of our current and projected future electricity consumption. To get rid of fossil fuels and generate ever more electricity for EVs, the AI black hole and goddamn cryptocurrencies, I think we will need nuclear. I wish we would build more public transportation, break from the AI spell and ban cryptocurrencies, but I’m not hopeful. In any case, the pace solar has picked up these past years is very encouraging and we should do what we can to push it further.
I’m not suggesting we stop building renewables. 🙄
Great! At the current rate it’ll only take them 200 more years to replace all their old time bombs.
Looks like there was an end to it.
Going over budget and missing deadlines is normal for large infrastructure projects.
If anything, seeing people’s shock at this should reveal how little they know about development.
And yet their electricity is still cheaper than Germany’s …
French nuclear energy is so heavily subsidised by the state that direct comparison seams hardly fair
Hey, we don’t do common sense here!
They mean cost, not consumer price.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
France has old nuclear, Germany has old gas. Neither are leaders in renewables.
Yet the prior means that France is one of the least carbon intensive economies in the world. Each German unit of GDP has twice the CO2 emissions compared to France.
Germany has mostly old coal. Gas is relatively new. I totally agree that Germany needs to do more for its renewable production, like many other European countries need to do. However on a cost per energy level, renewables are beating all other production methods currently known.
Even worse then. Costs per kWH Solar have been sinking faster than some Russian battleships.
Yeah, Germany isn’t a leader in solar energy by a long shot…
What’s your point? Solar getting cheaper and cheaper has nothing to do with Germany. Our booming solar industry got axed by conservatives years ago.
This thread is about France vs Germany
So? Germany pays the same price for solar panels as everyone else. The cost of solar energy is sinking everywhere.
Don’t you understand line must go up, quarterly profits now consequences never .what the fuck is a long-term investment. Get that ideology out of my power plant this instant. /S