Interesting. What’s the timeline and price point here? I hear they are currently running coal power to compensate for their struggling existing nuclear plants?
EDF’s EPR reactors have suffered a troubled history. EPR projects at Flamanville in France and Hinkley Point in Britain are running years behind schedule, and billions over budget, while EPR reactors in China and Finland have been hit by technical issues.
I fear that the french government has sunk so much money into this strategy that it would be hard to exit. Especially at a time where renewable power is getting very cheap. Nuclear hasn’t seen a price drop and apparently is costing the french state a lot.
He just had a meeting with Putin, it may be just about neutering Russian threats to cut off the gas supply. Otherwise why trumpet it? just get building.
Elections are ahead and energy is a pretty big topic so that’s why he communicated on this
Renewables aren’t really meeting the demand unfortunately. Germany tried to get rid of nuclear and they’re now more dependent on fossil fuels than ever. Apparently, Macron also discussed cooperation with Russia on producing new reactors at his last meeting with Putin.
I hope he at least wants to store the radioactive waste in the garden of his mansion, to be consistent.
Did you know that 4th gen reactors use the “waste” from older reactors as fuel? The process transmutes isotopes with 10 thousand year half-lives into more managable 50 year half-lives.
Yes, I know, but only a part of the waste can be recycled. It’s better than nothing but not a solucion to eliminate long time radiation waste.
Independent of accidents
The risks are multiples, both environmental and economic. A nuclear power plant has an average life of about 30-40 years, after which dismantling and decontamination can take decades, costs covered by the state, that is, the taxpayer, not the company that owns it.
The storage of highly radioactive waste, to this day, has not been solved, all attempts in salt mines or at great depths failed, meanwhile it is transported from one temporary warehouse to another by public roads (trains, trucks, suitably camouflaged ). Many times they are simply thrown into the sea.
Rivers and aquifers in the vicinity of the power plants significantly increase the temperature due to the exchange with the used cooling water, with important impacts on fauna and flora.
Until a fusion power plant works, nuclear energy is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow, it cannot be a long-term solution, it is energy for the next 30 years and problems for thousands, promoted many times as alibi for the arms industry, to justify the uranium centrifuges for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Coal, on the other hand, is not even an option. Salt today and poison tomorrow. And so we must replace it with green energy. That includes nuclear, solar, and niche exotics, because no single source is going to cover our growing demand. Hopefully we can hold it together until fusion is viable.
Coal is a better option as nuclear, for several reasons, apart from the costs.
Current coal plants can even recycle and take advantage of CO2 and sulfur emissions. They do not need the import of raw material, since most countries have enough with local mining Likewise, there are no problems in dismantling after its useful life.
The promotion of nuclear energy as an alternative always has military and economic reasons for certain lobbies.
It is true that there is a growing demand for energy, but the question remains as to why. Even so, if the countries make an effort, they can perfectly cover their energy needs with renewable energies with their own resources, without the need to depend on imports from third parties. On more than one occasion it has been shown that a building or a house can be energetically independent, it has even been shown in entire towns with the decentralized production of energy with local resources, but this naturally does not interest the big electricity companies and related politicians.
Economically, the long term running costs of nuclear are superior to coal. Have you ever seen the devastation that mining coal does to the countryside? Nuclear fuel costs win in the long run, since you don’t need to feed it mountains of kilos per year. In Greece, I saw a beautiful valley ruined by conveyor belts and open pits, because the brown coal there is so poor it’s not worth shipping it on a truck. There’s no dismantling. The coal burning plants simply dot the landscape, as they build the next one closer to the most recent pit, again because the fuel is so poor it’s not worth the cost of taking it to the abandoned plants.
As far as weapons, the nuclear energy industry buys nuclear warheads and uses them as fuel. Nuclear energy is the leading cause of reduction of the world’s nuclear arsenals. As a fuel source, nuclear energy has made the world safer!
Coal is a deal breaker because if we continue to pump more carbon into the atmosphere, we threaten our own extinction. That trumps any economic argument. If coal’s emissions can be captured, why haven’t they? Because to do so would defeat it’s only selling point: it’s insane cheapness, despite it’s toxicity.
I agree that conservation and energy reduction can account for maybe 50% of what we use now. But consumption is increasing exponentially and no one is even talking about dialing it back. Regardless, green energy MUST replace coal and solar can’t do it alone. Nuclear must step in.
