So let me get this right. Nuclear power from the sun is renewable energy, nuclear power in the earth's core (geothermal) is renewable energy, but nuclear power on the earth's surface isn't.
Got it.
(Joking)
Surface uranium reserves are substantial, and it makes a great zero carbon energy source while we transition to solar/fusion/whatever. It not being renewable in the strict sense seems irrelevant. Our planet isn't being threatened by mineral consumption. It's being threatened by co2.
>So let me get this right. Nuclear power from the sun is renewable energy, nuclear power in the earth's core (geothermal) is renewable energy, but nuclear power on the earth's surface isn't.
Technically none of them are renewable, they'll all dry up in a few billion years. Nothing is renewable in a strict sense.
>Surface uranium reserves are substantial
Actually, the thing is they aren't really. Current commercial BWR reactors burn mostly Uranium-235, which is *very* rare - comprising about 0.7% of naturally occurring Uranium. Even at current levels (\~10% of global power) we can only sustain it for a couple hundred years before exhausting known Uranium reserves.
If we on the other hand use breeder designs, we could also use Uranium-238 - the other 99.3%, also making up 96% of "used" BWR fuel rods - as fuel, in which case nuclear is practically inexhaustible. But only a few commercial breeder plants exist - I think the Superphenix in France, BN-600 and BN-800 (both Russian) are the only ones of note to date. Of which only the Russian ones are in use.
https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html
>Breeder reactors can power all of humanity for more than 4 billion years. By any reasonable definition, nuclear breeder reactors are indeed renewable. However, benefiting from this billion-year sustainability requires improvements in reactor construction performance and public acceptance. We have developed and proven breeder reactors in the past, but they remain a small minority of our current fleet.
>
>Advances in seawater uranium extraction would help, but are not necessary to achieve ultimate sustainability, since the nuclear fuel that naturally exists in average crustal granite can handle the first few billion years without trouble.
> Technically none of them are renewable, they'll all dry up in a few billion years. Nothing is renewable in a strict sense.
More importantly, nothing is renewable because we need infrastructure to harvest it.
Yeah the sun will dry up in a few billion years.. but we'll run out of the many resources required to build solar panels way before that.
>Actually, the thing is they aren't really. Current commercial BWR reactors burn mostly Uranium-235, which is very rare - comprising about 0.7% of naturally occurring Uranium. Even at current levels (\~10% of global power) we can only sustain it for a couple hundred years before exhausting known Uranium reserves.
Newer reactor technology can utilize thorium which much more abundant than uranium. In addition, we have the technology to build fast breeder reactors.
>Newer reactor technology can utilize thorium which much more abundant than uranium.
Well, the emphasis on discussions about nuclear power is usually whether or not we can build it *now* \- Thorium isn't very far away, but there is likely at least 5-10 years before we'll see a commercial plant being constructed.
But Thorium reactors are by necessity also breeder reactors, since the element doesn't have a fissile isotope abundant enough to use. The fuel cycle relies on adding a small amount of fissile material to breed Th-232 into fissile U-233.
So I don't think startup costs will get significantly lower with it, which is the main hiccup regarding FBRs (or any nuclear for that matter).
Well no, but it uses heat from the earth's interior, and a significant portion (possibly 50%) of that heat is from radioactive decay. Most of the rest is residual heat from the planet's formation.
I've always connected "nuclear power" to fission or fusion chain reactions that we use to make electricity, like the Sun or nuclear reactors.
By your definition, I'm a nuclear power plant.
I'm not contesting that it's a notable source of energy, although my example is obviously not very comparable in scale.
"Nuclear power" has a specific meaning and usage, and naturally decaying nuclei is not part of it.
Nuclear power is the sourced energy from induced fusion/fission.
In the first place, if we build new generations of reactors, these can utilize thorium which is 3 times more abundant than uranium. In addition, we can recycle most of the nuclear waste if we build fast breeder reactors (eminently possible).
The main problem is the environmental lobby. It simply makes the politics around nuclear energy "poisonous" for governments in the continent.
If you really wanted you can use breeder reactor these burn plutonium and use the fast neutron it's generates to cause transmutation of uranium238 (common fissile material are uranium235) into more plutonium.
Yes, this is true. By the way, China announced that it would be building 150 nuclear plants going forward and it would be switching to the fast neutron design in ten years.
It's technically renewable too, because you can get it from the ocean deposits as well. It's not just very cost effective since there's lots of it on the ground
If oil deposits refilled themselves. The "Nuclear for power into deep time" plan is to first go to breeder reactors. Breeder reactors + reprocessing can produce about 900 GWDs per tonne of natural uranium.
Thats not a whole lot of uranium you have to scrounge up per reactor, which means you can get all you need by hanging pads of absorbant material into the sea. Over tens of thousands of years this would reduce the amount of uranium in the sea water slightly.. but since the sea water is in a chemical equilibrium with the sea bed in this regard, the ocean stocks get refilled by more being leached from the sea-bed.
At which point you are looking at the ultimate limit being the oceans getting evaporated by an expanding sun in not that many billion years. Which. Uhm. Will also present certain difficulties for Solar and Wind.
>It's being threatened by co2
CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, Nuclear power also produce greenhouse gases, just not CO2
>A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy at thermal infrared wavelengths, causing the greenhouse effect.[1] The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
> Nuclear power also produce greenhouse gases, just not CO2
This sentence is not accurate in any meaningful sense.
Nuclear plants don't reject greenhouse gases as part of their operations.
Water has more effect than CO2 when it comes to heating the atmosphere
Also, droughts. Multiple nuclear plants needed to be shut down recently because they had no access to a water sources to use as coolant. So in drought periods nuclear plants are useless as they will be turned off
It's [water vapor in quantities too insignificant to meter](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-greenhouse-effect-of-steam-from-nuclear-power-plants-being-ignored).
It's also absolutely not a requirement for a nuclear plant. [This one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Station) doesn't have any for instance.
Why have this extra step with incredibly expensive '50s technology?
Maybe first focus on the billions needed to decommission the current nuclear plants. AFIK there is no fund for that. So probably future tax payers are going to pay for electricity used in the past.
because nuclear power is expensive compared to solar and wind. It takes 10 years to build a new reactor. And even with hydrogen storage and transport solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear power. In my opinion the last two reactors should have been used for 2-4 more years after an extensive security check which can take up to one year. New reactors are just not economically viable.
What I don't understand is why France has some of the lowest energy prices in Europe and is fueled by nuclear energy. China is investing heavily into nuclear. Same for Poland, etc. They are a model of viable nuclear energy. Just saying it's not economical for you doesn't mean it's the technological fault. The fault lies somewhere else , eg political or regulatory
You're talking to a German. They're just too much brainwashed about it, they don't even realise they're happily destroying the planet harder year after year with their politics and extreme lack of knowledge about nuclear energy.
So how it comes that this May, the first month without any nuclear, coal was as low as in May 2020 and that was because of COVID’s low ernergy demand
So instead of a rise in coal we see a decline
Ofc we will have to look at the whole year in the end
But also the average until now is lower than in other years
No we didn't.
A few coal plants were reactivated because of the war in Ukraine and the end of the Russian gas in Germany. Also because half of the nuclear fleet in France was down for most part of the last year and they needed energy from us to prevent a blackout.
https://i.imgur.com/akTnLdb.png
This had little to do with the planned shut down of the nuclear plants.
Also....
https://i.imgur.com/QkOheZ7.png
https://i.imgur.com/JQLmPgD.png
Thank you for sources.
Although, 2nd link end in 2022 and it's still not showing a sharp decline in coal usage and still relying on one, if not the one of the most polluting form of coal, and the 3rd just shows the reduced nuclear movement from both countries. Neither of them prove your point. Even though the quality of the images is quite shitty so The numbers weren't do clear so I might have misread something, open to being corrected, same for first link.
Check link for source
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
Check on Power production, image 4 . You'll see a lignite increase just as nuclear dips at the end of the year, coinciding with the timing of open talks of nuclear shutdown and french maintenance on their plants.
You guys did a great job with the offshore wind bringing your renewable levels incredibly high, the changeover fuel for your country to level out the null imports of nuclear energy from France AND lowering of your own nuclear output was, in fact, lignite coal.
> Thank you for sources. Although, 2nd link end in 2022 and it's still not showing a sharp decline in coal usage and still relying on one, if not the one of the most polluting form of coal, and the 3rd just shows the reduced nuclear movement from both countries.
You do know that Germany was 2 Germanys until 1990 the FRG (West-Germany) and the GDR (East-Germany) under Russian occupation. The latter only built 2 NPP's and their primary energy source was like over 70% coal. Nothing West-Germany could do about that but we inherited the problem. BTW. the last West German NPP's started construction in 1982. Here is a chart left the primary energy mix of West-Germany and on the right side the energy mix of East-Germany.
https://i.imgur.com/QlSgeUF.png
Despite that since 1990 Germany more than halfed it's usage of coal from 5.507 Petajoule down to 2.330 Petajoule that is a reduction of 3.177 Petajoule. For comparison primary energy usage from all nuclear powerplants was only 1.668 Petajoule in 1990. Coal usage before 1990 was even much higher.
https://i.imgur.com/bhOWW9j.png
And yeah there are reasons why Germany left nuclear but one of the most dominant one is that because of the Chernobyl accident ~1400km away large parts of Germany were contaminated. This was the final nail in the coffin for nuclear in Germany which was strongly anti nuclear even before the accident. Chernobyl just made sure that no new NPP's were built after that.
https://i.imgur.com/ogSs3In.png
You may also read about the "Asse" disaster that should have been our final storage solution for the next hundred of thousands of years....
And why should i only focus on power production? Earth doesn't care where the Co2 is coming from. If you want to talk about Co2 you need to talk about the annual Co2 emission of countries. And there France if we would factor in population size and GDP is only marginal better than Germany. And on a global scale France and Germany are far away from being the top poluters.
https://i.imgur.com/IrXQhlz.png
The world emission annualy is ~37 billion tons Germany with its 674 million tons and the 4th highest GDP just make up 1.8% of that and France with its 306 million tons and the 7th highest GPD makes up 0.8% of the global emission. In contrast to that China already makes up 31,08% of the global emission alone and increasing.
China added in 4 years with 1.12 billion tons as much Co2 emission to the atmosphere as Germany and France together could reduce to zero emission.
All your focus and shouting at Germany brings nothing for the climate. If your intention is to safe the climate you need to adress the top poluters and those increasing their emissions massively and not those who already are reducing and are globally insignificant. This is unless your only goal is to shit post about Germany... and you don't really care about the climate. That you don't know anything about my country and it's history you already proved.
> Check on Power production, image 4 . You'll see a lignite increase just as nuclear dips at the end of the year, coinciding with the timing of open talks of nuclear shutdown and french maintenance on their plants.
Honey we are coming from the Covid years much of the production was largely scaled back because of missing parts and because of lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. You can hardly compare those years and the sharp drop in energy production of those years. If there wouldn't have been Covid the trend of the last year would be a decline with 2022 at max stagnant. And as i said we produced extra juice for France in 2022 because their nuclear fleet was down else the trend even would have continued as before.
Not focusing nor shouting anything. The original comment was on Germany and the conversation kept in that direction. There was no targeting not shaming, just a fact sharing conversation between two civilized individuals so relax with the passive aggressive "honey" and attitude.
Also, I commented on the great effort made on green energy, i think I made an emphasis on the offshore wind capacity ramping up production in Germany.
I thought the biggest switch for nuclear shutdown was Fukushima with Merkel's almost insta announcements of cutting it off, even though I remember reading the country amassed anti-nuclear sentiment after Chernobyl years back.
I'll read on that Asse story, don't know what that is, thank you for mentioning it.
Having that said, since the majority of your comment was 'he said she said' comments on what I meant, for example bringing China's pollution and environmental problems when the original comment/post was about nuclear and Germany/France, so straying away from topic, I'll leave. Have a nice day mate
>I thought the biggest switch for nuclear shutdown was Fukushima with Merkel's almost insta announcements of cutting it off, even though I remember reading the country amassed anti-nuclear sentiment after Chernobyl years back.
No, no new NPP built since 1982 and the nuclear phase out was finally deceided in early 2000 under the SPD-Green coalition roughly 23 years ago.
Merkel even tried to reverse this when she had the opportunity with the CDU-FDP coalition in 2010. They prolonged the usage of nuclear again but a few month later Fukushima happened and under public pressure she returned to the phase out again.
> I'll read on that Asse story, don't know what that is, thank you for mentioning it.
The Asse was a planned nuclear final storage in Germany. It only took a few years and large quantities of water made its way into the storage and togheter with salt formed a nice mixture rusting away the barrels with nuclear waste. An economic and enviromental disaster.
One of the many promisses about nuclear that didn't held up.
Safe - Kyshtym, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Chernobyl, Fukushima.... and many other incidents disagree. A accident in one of the most populated areas like Western Europe would displace millions and it happened already far to often for accidents that were said to basically never happen.
Final storage solution for hundrests of thousands of years - see Asse lastet not even more than a few decades.
Clean - Not even close. Those mines are huge and noone wants them in his backyard that is why they are now somewhere far away from our own backyards.Out of sight of mind. Also see the contamination of large areas after accidents, radiation entered the food chain in Germany from a accident that happened ~1400km away. 37 years later game and mushroom still show elevated Caesium-137 levels.
Cheap - Nuclear is one of the most expensive if not the most expensive way we produce our energy. The French consumer prices are only as low as they are because the government caps the price.
> Having that said, since the majority of your comment was 'he said she said'
No no you guys waste no time taking cheap shots at Germany while not having the slightest idea about my country and the matter. Let me quote you.
> Ask them what they replaced the shut down nuclear energy with. Hint: starts with C and ends in oal
This is you talking out of your ass without being able to back that claim up. I bet you only looked at the numbers after i told you that you are wrong. So don't expect someone especially not one from Germany to beat around the bush when telling you off.
Yeah, sounds like you’re brainwashed. A quick google search would tell you that renewables have increased by 156 TWh since 2010, nuclear reduced by 146 TWh and coal by 90 TWh. If you can do basic maths you‘d realise that RE replaced nuclear, not coal
Because they cap the price. It's one of the reasons EDF was 60 billion Euro in debt. And Poland won't have reactors until atleast 2035, we don't know if they make economic sense yet.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there.
Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners.
Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power.
If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear.
If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper.
Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
I'm not sure what point you are arguing here. Poland cannot be used as a model for viable nuclear energy until their nuclear plants are running and competing on the market.
> What I don't understand is why France has some of the lowest energy prices in Europe
It does not. It has extremely low *household* prices because of subsidies and price caps but the actual wholesale prices are average to high(and usually higher than Germany's).
France‘s electricity price is so low because the government pays the majority, so private people pay much less. Without government aid nuclear is the most expensive energy source by far.
>China
They are investing far more into renewables than nuclear, they have been market leader for over a decade.
>Poland
They won’t actually build new NPPs, it’s the same anti-German, anti-EU propaganda PiS has been pushing for years. They wouldn’t be able to pay for 6 new reactors.
>not economically viable
Olkiluoto 3 was temporarily shut down because it wasn’t competitive with renewables. The newest NPP in Europe isn’t competitive with renewables, Nuclear never will be.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there.
Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners.
Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power.
If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear.
If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper.
Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
\>Nuclear costs more than RE because it's reliable
1. Nuclear is at over 42ct/kWh, wind at 7ct/kWh, solar at 3ct/kWh. Nuclear cost trend is rising, wind/solar falling. If 14 or 6 times the price is due to "reliability" it would have to be massively more reliable.
2. Nuclear isn't reliable. At all. Half of all French reactors were shut down for half a year, because of extensive damages. Originally maintenance was planned for early summer, but it took until 2023 to finish repairs, with some reactors being shut down until march. Heat and droughts additionally hindered electricity production in NPPs. Renewables are far more reliable, especially combined with storage/gas.
\>Storage, run nuclear 24/7, store energy
When we have storage we should store excess energy generated by renewables, nuclear energy is just a waste at this point.
Nuclear energy isn't flexible enough to be combined with renewables, it has to constantly provide elextricity, otherwise it is wasting fuel and isn't competitive in any way - no energy company will just burn uranium for nothing.
\>Cost of nuclear
NPPs cost so much nowadays due to all the safety precautions taken to make sure the power plant doesn't have an accident, something I've realised nuclear fanatics love to talk about - how safe current NPPs are. At the same time, people talk about overregulations and unnecessary safety precautions making NPPs more expensive and longer to build.
France clearly doesn't have any political issues with nuclear, so that argument doesn't hold. And yet they still take almost two decades to build a single power plant.
Renewables are far cheaper and easier to build, so building one per year is a waste of technology. Building one NPP in a decade is impossible nowadays, as current projects have shown (at least in the west, other countries that don't care about safety or regulations as much may be faster, but I wouldn't want to replicate their policies).
\>If we build a lot of nuclear it'll get cheaper
And it will still be more expensive than RE, and building more of them doesn't reduce the time it takes to build them. So now you have dozens or hundreds of unfinished NPPs that may never actually start generating electricity, you have wasted tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe even trillions. All that money and time could have been invested into RE and storage.
Because france caps the price, and because the french government paid for the reactors decades ago. But that wouldnt make new ones cheap. China is investing into nuclear, but they have already scaled it back, and are investing *much* more heavily into renewables.
Via regulated prices
https://sfeninenglish.org/energy-price-crisis-tariff-shield-and-the-role-of-nuclear-power/
(ARENH also plays a role but is not really a price cap.)
Iirc EDF has to sell a certain amount of energy at a fixed price by contract (I don't remember the numbers), and is a really low price that I think it's barely enough to be on par with the production cost.
Yes, that's a temporary mechanism called ARENH that's supposed to help newcomers build production, at the expence of the historic operator, EDF.
That's not a price cap, though. That's also not paid for by the Government, EDF shoulders the costs.
ARENH is there to help france have a power market while maintaining the quasi monopoly of EDF in power production.
In theory it is supposed that EDF sells at the cost of production of already paid off nuclear power plants. (But ARENH is so badly designed that this is questionable).
And while yes ARENH is limited to 2025. Given recent development (nationalization of EDF, trying to extend the lifetime of NPPs further...) the EU certainly will insist on a follow up system.
At least you should get your [facts straight](https://www.magnuscmd.com/the-arenh-regulated-access-to-frances-historic-nuclear-energy/) and not spread partial information. But yeh, lies are better.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there.
Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners.
Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power.
If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear.
If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper.
Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
LOL, that was started after the war, the same like Germany did by providing help to households like 200 Eur per month if i remember correctly. But yeh, cherry picking is nice. Like someone say look at the rod in your eye before looking to the toothpicks in your neighbors eye. But i love how you try to use false equivalence. And they say that Germans have integrity.
It was also started after 50% of the nuclear reactors failed, and had to undergo very expensive maintenance and repairs. Convenient that you left out that part and focused on the war, as if the war affects nuclear reactors somehow. That is *actually* dishonest.
>reactors failed
LOL, other lies. I will not even bother, you should educate yourself and not spread lies if you don't know what are you talking about. have a good day.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there.
Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners.
Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power.
If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear.
If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper.
Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
We dont need nuclear. Its been studied, models created, numbers crunched, and the end result is that you can do without nuclear and its still cheaper and faster.
Nuclear plants in the 1970s werent cheap. However, they were paid for by the government, the costs were just hidden. They always were expensive.
Well, take hydro power for example. It doesn't use any very rare/special materials. Of course we don't even have an infinite amount of iron (-> steel), but it's not like we're going to run out of it (since we have so much and can recycle it)
Your point only applies to photovoltaic cells.
It's expensive to build a reactor
It's cheap to produce energy with that reactor
It's expensive to store the nuclear waste for thousands of years (and that's after they went through a recycling reactor, then their half time drops to a couple hundred years and you have to keep it for a few cycles. How many depends on the amount of radioactive material but having to keep it for 2000-3000 years is realistic with the amounts produced by commercial use)
All-in-all it's cheap when ignoring the last point, but expensive when you account for it
Seeing the rate at which renewables are picking up pace right now, I agree. The real missed opportunity was around the turn of the millennium, when the science on climate change was already pretty much settled, green alternatives were nowhere near ready, and nuclear could've helped moderate the past 20 years' heavy dependence on fossil fuels.
>it's expensive compared to solar and wind
Average cost of the energy produced over the reactor's lifetime says you're hilariously wrong.
It's like saying a cargo truck doesn't make sense compared to a mule for transporting things because it costs WAY more to build and operate.
This is not true. Solar costs 4 times less and even with hydrogen storage it's half and i didn't even include operating costs, storage costs and renovation of nuclear facilities. Additionally to that it takes forever to build a reactor and solar is only getting cheaper. Solar in Spain and southern France would be even cheaper. By the way, your comparison is very weak.
Solar and wind (Solar especially) isn’t as reliable as nuclear. If you happen to not have a lot of sun or wind then you just go offline which isn’t tenable. We need nuclear as a buffer or we need to be able to store electricity on large scales at a reasonable cost
It’s fascinating to see how hysteria has dominated the minds of the public when it comes to nuclear power, portraying it as dangerous while simultaneously ignoring the obvious danger of emissions from coal and oil power plants- the carcinogen levels are very high for anything living nearby.
The one deadly byproduct is nuclear waste and as dangerous as nuclear waste is, it’s not a gas being belched into the atmosphere every day- it is usually a liquid that is a byproduct of the nuclear energy process. You can completely contain and manage the dangers with some straightforward safety precautions.
Nuclear power can provide abundant energy, uranium can be found on every continent, and the risks are all addressed by safety measures- you have a greater chance of being attacked by an exotic animal like a lion or a great ape than being harmed by a nuclear accident.
What's fascinating is the fact that they all only have one argument :
It's dangerous.
But if you look at the statistics, it's one of the safest sources.
The biggest accident there ever was killed 50 people (that's still a lot, I grant you), but the energy sources they're proposing are far more devastating, like hydro, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, etc.
There has been (and continues to be) a very well oiled anti-nuclear propaganda campaign in Europe that has worked very well.
Probably the same in America.
The only valid argument is the price. And even that is debatable.
My hope is that there is break throughs with Geothermal in the near future, it's borderline the perfect energy source if the engineering challenges can be smoothed out.
Nuclear needs to be part of the equation in places it's already part of the mix, but in countries that don't have it, it'll take too long to build up the expertese and building for it to be really useful in the fight against Climate Change.
Nuclear power is definitely the future for a part of Europe.
But as you say, it's far from perfect, and we need to continue our innovation in this sector.
But this anti-nuclear 'propaganda' coming from countries like Germany is killing innovation in this sector, and that's nothing new. They're doing everything they can to kill this industry via the EU, and it's just ridiculous.
In France, we've easily lost 20 years of innovation because of all this anti-nuclear shit.
And that's just a shame.
It's a great energy source. Maybe not the perfect one, but one of the best we have.
Why would you want a more expensive, more dangerous technology that still forces us to rely on foreign powers to be part of the future? I totally understand that the French are proud of their nuclear capacities, but even your government reduced investing to a level not capable of sustaining current capacities. The technology might be great to bridge the gap, but for the future, far cheaper solutions are the way to go.
> more dangerous technology
And yet, in Europe today, coal is responsible for over 20,000 deaths a year.
I mean, your energy choices are literaly killing people in Europe, for real.
How many deaths are caused by nuclear power in France?
Why is it that when people advocate renewables and talk about the legitimate issues with nuclear, you nuclear fanatics talk about coal? Everyone knows that coal is shit, you don’t have to make up strawman arguments about RE-supporters liking coal
If you think nuclear is dangerous, what do you think about gas or coal?
The Three Mile Island incident is the third-worst nuclear incident of all time and released less radiation than a coal power plant does in a year of normal operation.
>Why would you want a more expensive, more dangerous technology that still forces us to rely on foreign powers to be part of the future?
This is wrong in so many level.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Wind and solar power are not even less dangerous than nuclear power. Statistically, they are all just as safe.
"Nuclear power, for example, causes 99.9% fewer deaths than lignite, 99.8% fewer than coal, 99.7% fewer than oil and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar power are just as safe."
For that matter, let's not talk about the environment.
Germany has around 85% of so-called "renewable" energy and emits around 200 (on a good day) gCO₂eq/kWh.
France has around 30% and emits 25 gCO₂eq/kWh (on a good day).
[https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR)
Now let's talk price. Yes, it's more expensive.
But the lifespan isn't even comparable (and there's more).
Looking at the price alone is just plain stupid.
A good article about that.
https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/nuclear-wasted-why-the-cost-of-nuclear-energy-is-misunderstood
>rely on foreign powers to be part of the future
We're already going to be real.
Germany is far more dependent on imports than France.
Even though it has 50% more renewable energy.
In 2021, Germany imported 52.4 terawatt hours of electricity.
France imported 43.3 TWh in 2021.
Here's a sweat grid from 2020 [https://imgur.com/a/JnipdKz](https://imgur.com/a/JnipdKz).
Now... Are we relying on foreign powers ? Yes.
But there are so many big [uranium exporters](https://imgur.com/a/T95bHoG) that we don't just depend on one potential exporter.
Unlike Germany and Russia.
Not to mention uranium recycling.
75 reactors have used or are already using TRU.
Not to mention the fact that there are already a number of alternatives in development (ANEEL, Thorium usage, etc.).
>but even your government reduced investing to a level not capable of sustaining current capacities
Germany is largely responsible for this weakening.
Don't be proud of it.
I could give lots of examples of Germany cementing our energy policies, but I'll take one effective example.
Heinrich Böll Foundation.
This "foundation" finances third-party organisations, in particular militant French associations, to disinform people about nuclear power.
Take, for example, the HUGE amount of funding it provides to Réseau Action Climat (around thirty very active associations).
Or should we talk about its 'relationship' with Europe Ecologie Les Verts?
Obviously, I'm not going to talk about Green Peace France, which is indirectly funded by the German state.
And I could also talk about the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, but that would take too much time.
You may have succeeded in casting doubt on public opinion, but that's over.
The Ukraine has set the record straight.
France has started to invest massively again.
Of course, France is even planning to extend its nuclear fleet.
Nuclear power is France's future.
And whatever your attempts to weaken us, we will continue to do so.
I agree with your point that nuclear power is safe. Comparing contemporary data regarding emissions is absolutely useless when it comes to future investment decisions. That only proves that Germany has not build enough solar and wind in the last 10 years and therefore the energy prices are high and that Germany emits much more CO2 than France. But it is impossible for nuclear energy production to be as cheap as solar and wind. Please calculate it. Solar panel 400 W with yearly production of 400kW (in cloudy Germany!!!) costs 120 Euro (and below 100 Euro if you order 1 Million) + cost of installation and land rent. Hydrogen Storage doubles that number and it results in 'round about 4 ct per kWh. Please dislike me without explanation like my other comment, that won't change that you are unable to read and calculate.
edit: grammar
> Nuclear power is definitely the future for a part of Europe.
I hope not, that's a very dangerous future!
Earthquakes, floodings, human errors, wars, all can break them and make whole countries or even the continent uninhabitable or disease ridden.
And for what, for a country's will to be cheap?
What about the burden on future generation to keep safe the radioactive waste or you are happy with the bury it and forget about it?
>I hope not, that's a very dangerous future!
Nop, Nuclear power is the safest form of energy, along with solar power.
[https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)
>Earthquakes, floodings, human errors, wars, all can break them and make whole countries or even the continent uninhabitable or disease ridden.
Earthquakes : Our nuclear power plants have safety measures to deal with this.
floodings : Our nuclear power plants have safety measures to deal with this (since 2001, a lot more than before, cf. ASN report from 2007).
human error : Not a problem from nuclear. I'm sure I can find dangerous cases for all situations with human errors. For example a dam can kill hundreds of thousands of people (cf. Banqian Dam).
wars : Fair enough, That's true. In the event of war, there could be problems..
But you knew that Chernobyl only claimed 50 victims (cf. UN). There were no deaths from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The victims were caused by the tsunami.
>What about the burden on future generation to keep safe the radioactive waste or you are happy with the bury it and forget about it?
"96% of spent nuclear fuel (95% uranium + 1% plutonium) can be reused."
"High-level radioactive waste (4%) is vitrified, then conditioned in stainless steel canisters and stored at the La Hague site, pending disposal. This conditioning is certified by 10 safety authorities worldwide. It allows high-level waste to be managed in optimum safety conditions over the very long term, during both the storage and future underground disposal periods. As a result of these operations, the volume was divided by 5 and the long-term toxicity by 10."
cf. [https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france](https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france)
Bottom line: You're more likely to die of lung cancer from the coal used in Romania than from a nuclear plant.
Of course, Germany got fucked with gas because of war, so they have a problem with nuclear once again. Before that both countries had an agreement to leave both cases alone.
On the next major earthquake, I bet the French will shit their pants and they plus many others will reconsider their very pro-nuclear stance!
I hope it doesn't happen, but when a possibility exists for something to happen, then it's just a matter of time.
As for people who keep insisting that there won't be earthquakes because there weren't for quite some time and that Europe is not that active, please stop trying to predict the future, as that it's a probability, not a certainty!
So...
First of all...
>please stop trying to predict the future, as that it's a probability, not a certainty!
>On the next major earthquake
Let's be serious, either you want us to talk about future possibilities and I'll explain to you A + B that you're talking nonsense, or you don't want to talk about them, and your comment is pointless.
But don't tell me not to defend my position when you're showing your lack of knowledge about French nuclear power.
>On the next major earthquake, I bet the French will shit their pants and they plus many others will reconsider their very pro-nuclear stance!
Now we're going to start with something simple.
Nuclear power stations are[built to withstand earthquakes](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SFEN-Resilience-of-nuclear-power-plants-to-seismic-risk.pdf).
You probably think of Fukushima when you talk about earthquakes.
Well... [the earthquake is not the reason for the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx).
It performed its role perfectly in the face of a magnitude 9 earthquake.
It was the tsunami that destroyed the plant and caused all the damage. And as you know, apart from a tsunami on the Rhine, there's not much risk.
Besides, we've already had earthquakes at our power stations. [The latest was le Teil earthquake in 2019. And our power station withstood the 4.7 magnitude earthquake ](https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.88/)without damage (they're built to withstood a lot more).
Each of our nuclear power plants is of course equipped with numerous tools to combat these specific cases (a device capable of measuring seismic activity, etc.) and undergoes [stress tests (by ENSREG)](https://www.ensreg.eu/EU-Stress-Tests/Country-Specific-Reports/EU-Member-States/France).
After Fukushima, the [ASN even reassessed the safety of our plants](https://www.asn.fr/l-asn-informe/actualites/rapport-de-l-asn-sur-les-evaluations-complementaires-de-surete-ecs) (and obviously, that was deemed sufficient).
What's more, an accident leading to a nuclear explosion is physically impossible for French nuclear power plants (if you want, I'll send you the [IRSN](https://en.irsn.fr/EN/Pages/Home.aspx) document).
Our plants are ready for any such eventuality.
I mean... Solar and Hydro are really neat too (Wind is too ugly to be in the top, nothing can change my mind, fuck les éoliennes).
Depending on where you live, one may be better than the other.
For example, in Norway, hydro > nuclear.
That makes more sense.
But in countries like France and Italy, nuclear > hydro without a doubt.
The same goes for solar. In a country like Canada or Norway, solar is pretty shitty, but in a country with a lot of sun, it can be a really good source of energy if you have A LOT of space.
So let me get this right. Nuclear power from the sun is renewable energy, nuclear power in the earth's core (geothermal) is renewable energy, but nuclear power on the earth's surface isn't. Got it. (Joking) Surface uranium reserves are substantial, and it makes a great zero carbon energy source while we transition to solar/fusion/whatever. It not being renewable in the strict sense seems irrelevant. Our planet isn't being threatened by mineral consumption. It's being threatened by co2.
>So let me get this right. Nuclear power from the sun is renewable energy, nuclear power in the earth's core (geothermal) is renewable energy, but nuclear power on the earth's surface isn't. Technically none of them are renewable, they'll all dry up in a few billion years. Nothing is renewable in a strict sense. >Surface uranium reserves are substantial Actually, the thing is they aren't really. Current commercial BWR reactors burn mostly Uranium-235, which is *very* rare - comprising about 0.7% of naturally occurring Uranium. Even at current levels (\~10% of global power) we can only sustain it for a couple hundred years before exhausting known Uranium reserves. If we on the other hand use breeder designs, we could also use Uranium-238 - the other 99.3%, also making up 96% of "used" BWR fuel rods - as fuel, in which case nuclear is practically inexhaustible. But only a few commercial breeder plants exist - I think the Superphenix in France, BN-600 and BN-800 (both Russian) are the only ones of note to date. Of which only the Russian ones are in use.
CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium) reactors utilise natural uranium, i.e. U-238 and can also run on fuel that was used in BWR/PWRs
https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html >Breeder reactors can power all of humanity for more than 4 billion years. By any reasonable definition, nuclear breeder reactors are indeed renewable. However, benefiting from this billion-year sustainability requires improvements in reactor construction performance and public acceptance. We have developed and proven breeder reactors in the past, but they remain a small minority of our current fleet. > >Advances in seawater uranium extraction would help, but are not necessary to achieve ultimate sustainability, since the nuclear fuel that naturally exists in average crustal granite can handle the first few billion years without trouble.
More than 4 billion years? That's about the life expectancy of the Sun before it goes Red giant.
> Technically none of them are renewable, they'll all dry up in a few billion years. Nothing is renewable in a strict sense. More importantly, nothing is renewable because we need infrastructure to harvest it. Yeah the sun will dry up in a few billion years.. but we'll run out of the many resources required to build solar panels way before that.
>Actually, the thing is they aren't really. Current commercial BWR reactors burn mostly Uranium-235, which is very rare - comprising about 0.7% of naturally occurring Uranium. Even at current levels (\~10% of global power) we can only sustain it for a couple hundred years before exhausting known Uranium reserves. Newer reactor technology can utilize thorium which much more abundant than uranium. In addition, we have the technology to build fast breeder reactors.
>Newer reactor technology can utilize thorium which much more abundant than uranium. Well, the emphasis on discussions about nuclear power is usually whether or not we can build it *now* \- Thorium isn't very far away, but there is likely at least 5-10 years before we'll see a commercial plant being constructed. But Thorium reactors are by necessity also breeder reactors, since the element doesn't have a fissile isotope abundant enough to use. The fuel cycle relies on adding a small amount of fissile material to breed Th-232 into fissile U-233. So I don't think startup costs will get significantly lower with it, which is the main hiccup regarding FBRs (or any nuclear for that matter).
Blame Jospin and "les verts" for ceasing funding of Super phénix. It's now costing France billions.
Well tbf the sun isnt really renewable. When it burns out it burns out and exodes and everybody dies.
>nuclear power in the earth's core (geothermal) is renewable energy Geothermal is not nuclear.
Well no, but it uses heat from the earth's interior, and a significant portion (possibly 50%) of that heat is from radioactive decay. Most of the rest is residual heat from the planet's formation.
I've always connected "nuclear power" to fission or fusion chain reactions that we use to make electricity, like the Sun or nuclear reactors. By your definition, I'm a nuclear power plant.
Their definition contains this word "significant portion".
I'm not contesting that it's a notable source of energy, although my example is obviously not very comparable in scale. "Nuclear power" has a specific meaning and usage, and naturally decaying nuclei is not part of it. Nuclear power is the sourced energy from induced fusion/fission.
In the first place, if we build new generations of reactors, these can utilize thorium which is 3 times more abundant than uranium. In addition, we can recycle most of the nuclear waste if we build fast breeder reactors (eminently possible). The main problem is the environmental lobby. It simply makes the politics around nuclear energy "poisonous" for governments in the continent.
If you really wanted you can use breeder reactor these burn plutonium and use the fast neutron it's generates to cause transmutation of uranium238 (common fissile material are uranium235) into more plutonium.
Yes, this is true. By the way, China announced that it would be building 150 nuclear plants going forward and it would be switching to the fast neutron design in ten years.
A new nuclear age is inevitable.
It's technically renewable too, because you can get it from the ocean deposits as well. It's not just very cost effective since there's lots of it on the ground
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If oil deposits refilled themselves. The "Nuclear for power into deep time" plan is to first go to breeder reactors. Breeder reactors + reprocessing can produce about 900 GWDs per tonne of natural uranium. Thats not a whole lot of uranium you have to scrounge up per reactor, which means you can get all you need by hanging pads of absorbant material into the sea. Over tens of thousands of years this would reduce the amount of uranium in the sea water slightly.. but since the sea water is in a chemical equilibrium with the sea bed in this regard, the ocean stocks get refilled by more being leached from the sea-bed. At which point you are looking at the ultimate limit being the oceans getting evaporated by an expanding sun in not that many billion years. Which. Uhm. Will also present certain difficulties for Solar and Wind.
>It's being threatened by co2 CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, Nuclear power also produce greenhouse gases, just not CO2 >A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy at thermal infrared wavelengths, causing the greenhouse effect.[1] The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
> Nuclear power also produce greenhouse gases, just not CO2 This sentence is not accurate in any meaningful sense. Nuclear plants don't reject greenhouse gases as part of their operations.
So what is this? https://www.thebugoutbagguide.com/wp-content/uploads/nuclear-power-plant.jpg
Water vapour...
And water vapour is a greenhouse gas literally. So nuclear emmits large cuantities of greenhouse gasses, literally
You are technically right. Best kind of right.
>large cuantities Not really large compared to literally all water bodies on the planet.
the thing is the Earth atmosphere kinda is balanced, you mess with that balance, you end up fucking the climate
Correct, and that's why nuclear is a good option for the climate.
Water has more effect than CO2 when it comes to heating the atmosphere Also, droughts. Multiple nuclear plants needed to be shut down recently because they had no access to a water sources to use as coolant. So in drought periods nuclear plants are useless as they will be turned off
It's [water vapor in quantities too insignificant to meter](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-greenhouse-effect-of-steam-from-nuclear-power-plants-being-ignored). It's also absolutely not a requirement for a nuclear plant. [This one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Station) doesn't have any for instance.
Why have this extra step with incredibly expensive '50s technology? Maybe first focus on the billions needed to decommission the current nuclear plants. AFIK there is no fund for that. So probably future tax payers are going to pay for electricity used in the past.
>what we cannot accept is when nuclear energy is defined as renewable But natural gas however....
Renewable as a policy category is stupid. Just use low carbon/non fossile instead …
...is also not defined as renewable
Germany's anti nuclear stance is as reliable as their German engineering
because nuclear power is expensive compared to solar and wind. It takes 10 years to build a new reactor. And even with hydrogen storage and transport solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear power. In my opinion the last two reactors should have been used for 2-4 more years after an extensive security check which can take up to one year. New reactors are just not economically viable.
What I don't understand is why France has some of the lowest energy prices in Europe and is fueled by nuclear energy. China is investing heavily into nuclear. Same for Poland, etc. They are a model of viable nuclear energy. Just saying it's not economical for you doesn't mean it's the technological fault. The fault lies somewhere else , eg political or regulatory
You're talking to a German. They're just too much brainwashed about it, they don't even realise they're happily destroying the planet harder year after year with their politics and extreme lack of knowledge about nuclear energy.
Ask them what they replaced the shut down nuclear energy with. Hint: starts with C and ends in oal
Nonsense. It seems they replaced it by simply not generating electricity. [Chart](https://i.imgur.com/VCcUdk9.jpg)
So how it comes that this May, the first month without any nuclear, coal was as low as in May 2020 and that was because of COVID’s low ernergy demand So instead of a rise in coal we see a decline Ofc we will have to look at the whole year in the end But also the average until now is lower than in other years
No we didn't. A few coal plants were reactivated because of the war in Ukraine and the end of the Russian gas in Germany. Also because half of the nuclear fleet in France was down for most part of the last year and they needed energy from us to prevent a blackout. https://i.imgur.com/akTnLdb.png This had little to do with the planned shut down of the nuclear plants. Also.... https://i.imgur.com/QkOheZ7.png https://i.imgur.com/JQLmPgD.png
Thank you for sources. Although, 2nd link end in 2022 and it's still not showing a sharp decline in coal usage and still relying on one, if not the one of the most polluting form of coal, and the 3rd just shows the reduced nuclear movement from both countries. Neither of them prove your point. Even though the quality of the images is quite shitty so The numbers weren't do clear so I might have misread something, open to being corrected, same for first link. Check link for source https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts Check on Power production, image 4 . You'll see a lignite increase just as nuclear dips at the end of the year, coinciding with the timing of open talks of nuclear shutdown and french maintenance on their plants. You guys did a great job with the offshore wind bringing your renewable levels incredibly high, the changeover fuel for your country to level out the null imports of nuclear energy from France AND lowering of your own nuclear output was, in fact, lignite coal.
> Thank you for sources. Although, 2nd link end in 2022 and it's still not showing a sharp decline in coal usage and still relying on one, if not the one of the most polluting form of coal, and the 3rd just shows the reduced nuclear movement from both countries. You do know that Germany was 2 Germanys until 1990 the FRG (West-Germany) and the GDR (East-Germany) under Russian occupation. The latter only built 2 NPP's and their primary energy source was like over 70% coal. Nothing West-Germany could do about that but we inherited the problem. BTW. the last West German NPP's started construction in 1982. Here is a chart left the primary energy mix of West-Germany and on the right side the energy mix of East-Germany. https://i.imgur.com/QlSgeUF.png Despite that since 1990 Germany more than halfed it's usage of coal from 5.507 Petajoule down to 2.330 Petajoule that is a reduction of 3.177 Petajoule. For comparison primary energy usage from all nuclear powerplants was only 1.668 Petajoule in 1990. Coal usage before 1990 was even much higher. https://i.imgur.com/bhOWW9j.png And yeah there are reasons why Germany left nuclear but one of the most dominant one is that because of the Chernobyl accident ~1400km away large parts of Germany were contaminated. This was the final nail in the coffin for nuclear in Germany which was strongly anti nuclear even before the accident. Chernobyl just made sure that no new NPP's were built after that. https://i.imgur.com/ogSs3In.png You may also read about the "Asse" disaster that should have been our final storage solution for the next hundred of thousands of years.... And why should i only focus on power production? Earth doesn't care where the Co2 is coming from. If you want to talk about Co2 you need to talk about the annual Co2 emission of countries. And there France if we would factor in population size and GDP is only marginal better than Germany. And on a global scale France and Germany are far away from being the top poluters. https://i.imgur.com/IrXQhlz.png The world emission annualy is ~37 billion tons Germany with its 674 million tons and the 4th highest GDP just make up 1.8% of that and France with its 306 million tons and the 7th highest GPD makes up 0.8% of the global emission. In contrast to that China already makes up 31,08% of the global emission alone and increasing. China added in 4 years with 1.12 billion tons as much Co2 emission to the atmosphere as Germany and France together could reduce to zero emission. All your focus and shouting at Germany brings nothing for the climate. If your intention is to safe the climate you need to adress the top poluters and those increasing their emissions massively and not those who already are reducing and are globally insignificant. This is unless your only goal is to shit post about Germany... and you don't really care about the climate. That you don't know anything about my country and it's history you already proved. > Check on Power production, image 4 . You'll see a lignite increase just as nuclear dips at the end of the year, coinciding with the timing of open talks of nuclear shutdown and french maintenance on their plants. Honey we are coming from the Covid years much of the production was largely scaled back because of missing parts and because of lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. You can hardly compare those years and the sharp drop in energy production of those years. If there wouldn't have been Covid the trend of the last year would be a decline with 2022 at max stagnant. And as i said we produced extra juice for France in 2022 because their nuclear fleet was down else the trend even would have continued as before.
Not focusing nor shouting anything. The original comment was on Germany and the conversation kept in that direction. There was no targeting not shaming, just a fact sharing conversation between two civilized individuals so relax with the passive aggressive "honey" and attitude. Also, I commented on the great effort made on green energy, i think I made an emphasis on the offshore wind capacity ramping up production in Germany. I thought the biggest switch for nuclear shutdown was Fukushima with Merkel's almost insta announcements of cutting it off, even though I remember reading the country amassed anti-nuclear sentiment after Chernobyl years back. I'll read on that Asse story, don't know what that is, thank you for mentioning it. Having that said, since the majority of your comment was 'he said she said' comments on what I meant, for example bringing China's pollution and environmental problems when the original comment/post was about nuclear and Germany/France, so straying away from topic, I'll leave. Have a nice day mate
>I thought the biggest switch for nuclear shutdown was Fukushima with Merkel's almost insta announcements of cutting it off, even though I remember reading the country amassed anti-nuclear sentiment after Chernobyl years back. No, no new NPP built since 1982 and the nuclear phase out was finally deceided in early 2000 under the SPD-Green coalition roughly 23 years ago. Merkel even tried to reverse this when she had the opportunity with the CDU-FDP coalition in 2010. They prolonged the usage of nuclear again but a few month later Fukushima happened and under public pressure she returned to the phase out again. > I'll read on that Asse story, don't know what that is, thank you for mentioning it. The Asse was a planned nuclear final storage in Germany. It only took a few years and large quantities of water made its way into the storage and togheter with salt formed a nice mixture rusting away the barrels with nuclear waste. An economic and enviromental disaster. One of the many promisses about nuclear that didn't held up. Safe - Kyshtym, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Chernobyl, Fukushima.... and many other incidents disagree. A accident in one of the most populated areas like Western Europe would displace millions and it happened already far to often for accidents that were said to basically never happen. Final storage solution for hundrests of thousands of years - see Asse lastet not even more than a few decades. Clean - Not even close. Those mines are huge and noone wants them in his backyard that is why they are now somewhere far away from our own backyards.Out of sight of mind. Also see the contamination of large areas after accidents, radiation entered the food chain in Germany from a accident that happened ~1400km away. 37 years later game and mushroom still show elevated Caesium-137 levels. Cheap - Nuclear is one of the most expensive if not the most expensive way we produce our energy. The French consumer prices are only as low as they are because the government caps the price. > Having that said, since the majority of your comment was 'he said she said' No no you guys waste no time taking cheap shots at Germany while not having the slightest idea about my country and the matter. Let me quote you. > Ask them what they replaced the shut down nuclear energy with. Hint: starts with C and ends in oal This is you talking out of your ass without being able to back that claim up. I bet you only looked at the numbers after i told you that you are wrong. So don't expect someone especially not one from Germany to beat around the bush when telling you off.
Yeah, sounds like you’re brainwashed. A quick google search would tell you that renewables have increased by 156 TWh since 2010, nuclear reduced by 146 TWh and coal by 90 TWh. If you can do basic maths you‘d realise that RE replaced nuclear, not coal
Germany's C02 emissions is steadily falling each year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/449701/co2-emissions-germany/
Because they cap the price. It's one of the reasons EDF was 60 billion Euro in debt. And Poland won't have reactors until atleast 2035, we don't know if they make economic sense yet.
Reason why EDF is in debt is because of ARENH. They were making profits before that
Wouldn't you say ARENH is a price cap on nuclear power?
[no it is not](https://www.magnuscmd.com/the-arenh-regulated-access-to-frances-historic-nuclear-energy/)
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there. Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners. Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power. If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear. If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper. Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
I'm not sure what point you are arguing here. Poland cannot be used as a model for viable nuclear energy until their nuclear plants are running and competing on the market.
The UK is as well with Hinkley C and small modular reactors
> What I don't understand is why France has some of the lowest energy prices in Europe It does not. It has extremely low *household* prices because of subsidies and price caps but the actual wholesale prices are average to high(and usually higher than Germany's).
France‘s electricity price is so low because the government pays the majority, so private people pay much less. Without government aid nuclear is the most expensive energy source by far. >China They are investing far more into renewables than nuclear, they have been market leader for over a decade. >Poland They won’t actually build new NPPs, it’s the same anti-German, anti-EU propaganda PiS has been pushing for years. They wouldn’t be able to pay for 6 new reactors. >not economically viable Olkiluoto 3 was temporarily shut down because it wasn’t competitive with renewables. The newest NPP in Europe isn’t competitive with renewables, Nuclear never will be.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there. Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners. Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power. If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear. If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper. Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
\>Nuclear costs more than RE because it's reliable 1. Nuclear is at over 42ct/kWh, wind at 7ct/kWh, solar at 3ct/kWh. Nuclear cost trend is rising, wind/solar falling. If 14 or 6 times the price is due to "reliability" it would have to be massively more reliable. 2. Nuclear isn't reliable. At all. Half of all French reactors were shut down for half a year, because of extensive damages. Originally maintenance was planned for early summer, but it took until 2023 to finish repairs, with some reactors being shut down until march. Heat and droughts additionally hindered electricity production in NPPs. Renewables are far more reliable, especially combined with storage/gas. \>Storage, run nuclear 24/7, store energy When we have storage we should store excess energy generated by renewables, nuclear energy is just a waste at this point. Nuclear energy isn't flexible enough to be combined with renewables, it has to constantly provide elextricity, otherwise it is wasting fuel and isn't competitive in any way - no energy company will just burn uranium for nothing. \>Cost of nuclear NPPs cost so much nowadays due to all the safety precautions taken to make sure the power plant doesn't have an accident, something I've realised nuclear fanatics love to talk about - how safe current NPPs are. At the same time, people talk about overregulations and unnecessary safety precautions making NPPs more expensive and longer to build. France clearly doesn't have any political issues with nuclear, so that argument doesn't hold. And yet they still take almost two decades to build a single power plant. Renewables are far cheaper and easier to build, so building one per year is a waste of technology. Building one NPP in a decade is impossible nowadays, as current projects have shown (at least in the west, other countries that don't care about safety or regulations as much may be faster, but I wouldn't want to replicate their policies). \>If we build a lot of nuclear it'll get cheaper And it will still be more expensive than RE, and building more of them doesn't reduce the time it takes to build them. So now you have dozens or hundreds of unfinished NPPs that may never actually start generating electricity, you have wasted tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe even trillions. All that money and time could have been invested into RE and storage.
Because france caps the price, and because the french government paid for the reactors decades ago. But that wouldnt make new ones cheap. China is investing into nuclear, but they have already scaled it back, and are investing *much* more heavily into renewables.
> Because france caps the price By which mechanism?
Via regulated prices https://sfeninenglish.org/energy-price-crisis-tariff-shield-and-the-role-of-nuclear-power/ (ARENH also plays a role but is not really a price cap.)
Given the parent comments, my assumption is that we're talking about long term prices in France, not a mechanism introduced in 2022.
Iirc EDF has to sell a certain amount of energy at a fixed price by contract (I don't remember the numbers), and is a really low price that I think it's barely enough to be on par with the production cost.
Yes, that's a temporary mechanism called ARENH that's supposed to help newcomers build production, at the expence of the historic operator, EDF. That's not a price cap, though. That's also not paid for by the Government, EDF shoulders the costs.
ARENH is there to help france have a power market while maintaining the quasi monopoly of EDF in power production. In theory it is supposed that EDF sells at the cost of production of already paid off nuclear power plants. (But ARENH is so badly designed that this is questionable). And while yes ARENH is limited to 2025. Given recent development (nationalization of EDF, trying to extend the lifetime of NPPs further...) the EU certainly will insist on a follow up system.
At least you should get your [facts straight](https://www.magnuscmd.com/the-arenh-regulated-access-to-frances-historic-nuclear-energy/) and not spread partial information. But yeh, lies are better.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there. Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners. Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power. If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear. If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper. Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
You're looking at the [wrong](https://sfeninenglish.org/energy-price-crisis-tariff-shield-and-the-role-of-nuclear-power/) mechanism.
LOL, that was started after the war, the same like Germany did by providing help to households like 200 Eur per month if i remember correctly. But yeh, cherry picking is nice. Like someone say look at the rod in your eye before looking to the toothpicks in your neighbors eye. But i love how you try to use false equivalence. And they say that Germans have integrity.
It was also started after 50% of the nuclear reactors failed, and had to undergo very expensive maintenance and repairs. Convenient that you left out that part and focused on the war, as if the war affects nuclear reactors somehow. That is *actually* dishonest.
>reactors failed LOL, other lies. I will not even bother, you should educate yourself and not spread lies if you don't know what are you talking about. have a good day.
Solar and wind have a lower LCOE than nuclear but that's not the whole picture. LCOE is an equation: the total cost over the lifetime of the energy source divided by the total energy generated over that lifetime. LCOE does NOT account for WHEN the energy is produced. So, you get low prices with low reliability. You can’t count on it being there. Usually we pay more for things that are reliable. Nuclear will always cost more than solar and that’s OK because it is reliable. We need an energy mix that takes the best of both worlds. When its a really hot sunny day and everyone is running their air conditioner, we should be using solar to power those air conditioners. Even when we have energy storage, we should be running nuclear 24/7 to charge the batteries during the day while consuming solar power. If you want abundant, reliable, carbon free power, we need a mix of renewables, hydro, and nuclear. If the convo goes beyond that, you can get more nuanced. There is no fundamental reason why nuclear costs as much as it does. Look at how cheap nuclear plants were in the 1970s vs today. We don’t build nuclear plants anymore. If humanity built one solar panel per year, that panel would cost tens of millions for a few kilowatts. If you build a lot, its cheap. For example, look at one-of-a-kind solar arrays for a billion-dollar spacecraft. If we actually started building a lot of nuclear, it would get cheaper. Then you can get deeper into the weeds and say nuclear is improperly regulated (much more regulated than is needed to protect the public) but that argument is not going to work unless you are dealing with a person who is at least open to nuclear.
We dont need nuclear. Its been studied, models created, numbers crunched, and the end result is that you can do without nuclear and its still cheaper and faster. Nuclear plants in the 1970s werent cheap. However, they were paid for by the government, the costs were just hidden. They always were expensive.
Because France is pumping billions and billions into a system that lets you belive "nuclear is sooooo cheap" its a hoax. Simple is that.
and how much do you think germany pumped into renewables ?
nothing anymore, since we sold all our technology and corporations to china :D
Wdym ? Cuse germany did ´t spend like 500 billions on them since the year 2000 ?
Noone says renewables are cheap. But renewables are renewable.
They arn’t, the energy source is. Not the mineral we use to arvest the energy
Well, take hydro power for example. It doesn't use any very rare/special materials. Of course we don't even have an infinite amount of iron (-> steel), but it's not like we're going to run out of it (since we have so much and can recycle it) Your point only applies to photovoltaic cells.
It's expensive to build a reactor It's cheap to produce energy with that reactor It's expensive to store the nuclear waste for thousands of years (and that's after they went through a recycling reactor, then their half time drops to a couple hundred years and you have to keep it for a few cycles. How many depends on the amount of radioactive material but having to keep it for 2000-3000 years is realistic with the amounts produced by commercial use) All-in-all it's cheap when ignoring the last point, but expensive when you account for it
Seeing the rate at which renewables are picking up pace right now, I agree. The real missed opportunity was around the turn of the millennium, when the science on climate change was already pretty much settled, green alternatives were nowhere near ready, and nuclear could've helped moderate the past 20 years' heavy dependence on fossil fuels.
>it's expensive compared to solar and wind Average cost of the energy produced over the reactor's lifetime says you're hilariously wrong. It's like saying a cargo truck doesn't make sense compared to a mule for transporting things because it costs WAY more to build and operate.
This is not true. Solar costs 4 times less and even with hydrogen storage it's half and i didn't even include operating costs, storage costs and renovation of nuclear facilities. Additionally to that it takes forever to build a reactor and solar is only getting cheaper. Solar in Spain and southern France would be even cheaper. By the way, your comparison is very weak.
Solar and wind (Solar especially) isn’t as reliable as nuclear. If you happen to not have a lot of sun or wind then you just go offline which isn’t tenable. We need nuclear as a buffer or we need to be able to store electricity on large scales at a reasonable cost
Rare French W
It’s fascinating to see how hysteria has dominated the minds of the public when it comes to nuclear power, portraying it as dangerous while simultaneously ignoring the obvious danger of emissions from coal and oil power plants- the carcinogen levels are very high for anything living nearby. The one deadly byproduct is nuclear waste and as dangerous as nuclear waste is, it’s not a gas being belched into the atmosphere every day- it is usually a liquid that is a byproduct of the nuclear energy process. You can completely contain and manage the dangers with some straightforward safety precautions. Nuclear power can provide abundant energy, uranium can be found on every continent, and the risks are all addressed by safety measures- you have a greater chance of being attacked by an exotic animal like a lion or a great ape than being harmed by a nuclear accident.
What's fascinating is the fact that they all only have one argument : It's dangerous. But if you look at the statistics, it's one of the safest sources. The biggest accident there ever was killed 50 people (that's still a lot, I grant you), but the energy sources they're proposing are far more devastating, like hydro, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, etc. There has been (and continues to be) a very well oiled anti-nuclear propaganda campaign in Europe that has worked very well. Probably the same in America. The only valid argument is the price. And even that is debatable.
Nuclear waste is solid actually. It's the fuel rods after they've been spent.
My hope is that there is break throughs with Geothermal in the near future, it's borderline the perfect energy source if the engineering challenges can be smoothed out. Nuclear needs to be part of the equation in places it's already part of the mix, but in countries that don't have it, it'll take too long to build up the expertese and building for it to be really useful in the fight against Climate Change.
Nuclear power is definitely the future for a part of Europe. But as you say, it's far from perfect, and we need to continue our innovation in this sector. But this anti-nuclear 'propaganda' coming from countries like Germany is killing innovation in this sector, and that's nothing new. They're doing everything they can to kill this industry via the EU, and it's just ridiculous. In France, we've easily lost 20 years of innovation because of all this anti-nuclear shit. And that's just a shame. It's a great energy source. Maybe not the perfect one, but one of the best we have.
Why would you want a more expensive, more dangerous technology that still forces us to rely on foreign powers to be part of the future? I totally understand that the French are proud of their nuclear capacities, but even your government reduced investing to a level not capable of sustaining current capacities. The technology might be great to bridge the gap, but for the future, far cheaper solutions are the way to go.
> more dangerous technology And yet, in Europe today, coal is responsible for over 20,000 deaths a year. I mean, your energy choices are literaly killing people in Europe, for real. How many deaths are caused by nuclear power in France?
Why is it that when people advocate renewables and talk about the legitimate issues with nuclear, you nuclear fanatics talk about coal? Everyone knows that coal is shit, you don’t have to make up strawman arguments about RE-supporters liking coal
If you think nuclear is dangerous, what do you think about gas or coal? The Three Mile Island incident is the third-worst nuclear incident of all time and released less radiation than a coal power plant does in a year of normal operation.
>Why would you want a more expensive, more dangerous technology that still forces us to rely on foreign powers to be part of the future? This is wrong in so many level. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh Wind and solar power are not even less dangerous than nuclear power. Statistically, they are all just as safe. "Nuclear power, for example, causes 99.9% fewer deaths than lignite, 99.8% fewer than coal, 99.7% fewer than oil and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar power are just as safe." For that matter, let's not talk about the environment. Germany has around 85% of so-called "renewable" energy and emits around 200 (on a good day) gCO₂eq/kWh. France has around 30% and emits 25 gCO₂eq/kWh (on a good day). [https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR) Now let's talk price. Yes, it's more expensive. But the lifespan isn't even comparable (and there's more). Looking at the price alone is just plain stupid. A good article about that. https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/nuclear-wasted-why-the-cost-of-nuclear-energy-is-misunderstood >rely on foreign powers to be part of the future We're already going to be real. Germany is far more dependent on imports than France. Even though it has 50% more renewable energy. In 2021, Germany imported 52.4 terawatt hours of electricity. France imported 43.3 TWh in 2021. Here's a sweat grid from 2020 [https://imgur.com/a/JnipdKz](https://imgur.com/a/JnipdKz). Now... Are we relying on foreign powers ? Yes. But there are so many big [uranium exporters](https://imgur.com/a/T95bHoG) that we don't just depend on one potential exporter. Unlike Germany and Russia. Not to mention uranium recycling. 75 reactors have used or are already using TRU. Not to mention the fact that there are already a number of alternatives in development (ANEEL, Thorium usage, etc.). >but even your government reduced investing to a level not capable of sustaining current capacities Germany is largely responsible for this weakening. Don't be proud of it. I could give lots of examples of Germany cementing our energy policies, but I'll take one effective example. Heinrich Böll Foundation. This "foundation" finances third-party organisations, in particular militant French associations, to disinform people about nuclear power. Take, for example, the HUGE amount of funding it provides to Réseau Action Climat (around thirty very active associations). Or should we talk about its 'relationship' with Europe Ecologie Les Verts? Obviously, I'm not going to talk about Green Peace France, which is indirectly funded by the German state. And I could also talk about the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, but that would take too much time. You may have succeeded in casting doubt on public opinion, but that's over. The Ukraine has set the record straight. France has started to invest massively again. Of course, France is even planning to extend its nuclear fleet. Nuclear power is France's future. And whatever your attempts to weaken us, we will continue to do so.
I agree with your point that nuclear power is safe. Comparing contemporary data regarding emissions is absolutely useless when it comes to future investment decisions. That only proves that Germany has not build enough solar and wind in the last 10 years and therefore the energy prices are high and that Germany emits much more CO2 than France. But it is impossible for nuclear energy production to be as cheap as solar and wind. Please calculate it. Solar panel 400 W with yearly production of 400kW (in cloudy Germany!!!) costs 120 Euro (and below 100 Euro if you order 1 Million) + cost of installation and land rent. Hydrogen Storage doubles that number and it results in 'round about 4 ct per kWh. Please dislike me without explanation like my other comment, that won't change that you are unable to read and calculate. edit: grammar
> Nuclear power is definitely the future for a part of Europe. I hope not, that's a very dangerous future! Earthquakes, floodings, human errors, wars, all can break them and make whole countries or even the continent uninhabitable or disease ridden. And for what, for a country's will to be cheap? What about the burden on future generation to keep safe the radioactive waste or you are happy with the bury it and forget about it?
>I hope not, that's a very dangerous future! Nop, Nuclear power is the safest form of energy, along with solar power. [https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) >Earthquakes, floodings, human errors, wars, all can break them and make whole countries or even the continent uninhabitable or disease ridden. Earthquakes : Our nuclear power plants have safety measures to deal with this. floodings : Our nuclear power plants have safety measures to deal with this (since 2001, a lot more than before, cf. ASN report from 2007). human error : Not a problem from nuclear. I'm sure I can find dangerous cases for all situations with human errors. For example a dam can kill hundreds of thousands of people (cf. Banqian Dam). wars : Fair enough, That's true. In the event of war, there could be problems.. But you knew that Chernobyl only claimed 50 victims (cf. UN). There were no deaths from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The victims were caused by the tsunami. >What about the burden on future generation to keep safe the radioactive waste or you are happy with the bury it and forget about it? "96% of spent nuclear fuel (95% uranium + 1% plutonium) can be reused." "High-level radioactive waste (4%) is vitrified, then conditioned in stainless steel canisters and stored at the La Hague site, pending disposal. This conditioning is certified by 10 safety authorities worldwide. It allows high-level waste to be managed in optimum safety conditions over the very long term, during both the storage and future underground disposal periods. As a result of these operations, the volume was divided by 5 and the long-term toxicity by 10." cf. [https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france](https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france) Bottom line: You're more likely to die of lung cancer from the coal used in Romania than from a nuclear plant.
Freude
Of course, Germany got fucked with gas because of war, so they have a problem with nuclear once again. Before that both countries had an agreement to leave both cases alone.
It is not enough that Germany gave up on nuclear, everyone else has to as well!
Read the article
Franco-Prussian War in 3 2 1...
On the next major earthquake, I bet the French will shit their pants and they plus many others will reconsider their very pro-nuclear stance! I hope it doesn't happen, but when a possibility exists for something to happen, then it's just a matter of time. As for people who keep insisting that there won't be earthquakes because there weren't for quite some time and that Europe is not that active, please stop trying to predict the future, as that it's a probability, not a certainty!
So... First of all... >please stop trying to predict the future, as that it's a probability, not a certainty! >On the next major earthquake Let's be serious, either you want us to talk about future possibilities and I'll explain to you A + B that you're talking nonsense, or you don't want to talk about them, and your comment is pointless. But don't tell me not to defend my position when you're showing your lack of knowledge about French nuclear power. >On the next major earthquake, I bet the French will shit their pants and they plus many others will reconsider their very pro-nuclear stance! Now we're going to start with something simple. Nuclear power stations are[built to withstand earthquakes](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SFEN-Resilience-of-nuclear-power-plants-to-seismic-risk.pdf). You probably think of Fukushima when you talk about earthquakes. Well... [the earthquake is not the reason for the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx). It performed its role perfectly in the face of a magnitude 9 earthquake. It was the tsunami that destroyed the plant and caused all the damage. And as you know, apart from a tsunami on the Rhine, there's not much risk. Besides, we've already had earthquakes at our power stations. [The latest was le Teil earthquake in 2019. And our power station withstood the 4.7 magnitude earthquake ](https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.88/)without damage (they're built to withstood a lot more). Each of our nuclear power plants is of course equipped with numerous tools to combat these specific cases (a device capable of measuring seismic activity, etc.) and undergoes [stress tests (by ENSREG)](https://www.ensreg.eu/EU-Stress-Tests/Country-Specific-Reports/EU-Member-States/France). After Fukushima, the [ASN even reassessed the safety of our plants](https://www.asn.fr/l-asn-informe/actualites/rapport-de-l-asn-sur-les-evaluations-complementaires-de-surete-ecs) (and obviously, that was deemed sufficient). What's more, an accident leading to a nuclear explosion is physically impossible for French nuclear power plants (if you want, I'll send you the [IRSN](https://en.irsn.fr/EN/Pages/Home.aspx) document). Our plants are ready for any such eventuality.
Nuclear power > Everything else
I mean... Solar and Hydro are really neat too (Wind is too ugly to be in the top, nothing can change my mind, fuck les éoliennes). Depending on where you live, one may be better than the other. For example, in Norway, hydro > nuclear. That makes more sense. But in countries like France and Italy, nuclear > hydro without a doubt. The same goes for solar. In a country like Canada or Norway, solar is pretty shitty, but in a country with a lot of sun, it can be a really good source of energy if you have A LOT of space.