"Since about 2001 the term nuclear renaissance has been used to refer to a possible nuclear power industry revival, driven by rising fossil fuel prices and new concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emission limits."
Just like today.
Since 2001 and now, mostly nothing happened which could be seen as an "nuclear renaissance" in France. Other than the EPR having extreme cost increases and extreme construction times.
Why should the "nuclear renaissance" happen, this time? Given that the situation is only worse: engineers are aging, plants are aging, current nuclear technology/companies are not delivering, money is tight, ...
Note the "large majority". To be precise it was "approved with 402 votes in favour and 130 against." That's a whopping 75% of the vote. Doesn't seem particularly controversial.
France's Assemblée Nationale adopts 'nuclear acceleration' bill on first reading
It's an all-government show now. EDF had earlier this year 64.5 Billion Euro debt. It sells electricity to the consumer, operates the grid, operates the power plants, build the power plants. Their mismanagement is amplified by the lack of competition. It hides the large losses of the electricity sector. Now they also pay for the "favor" to construct a nuclear power plant in the UK, where they carry the rising losses, which the Chinese now are refusing to pay. They would need to increase the electricity price to be profitable, but that's impossible, just in case the politicians want to be reelected -> debt goes to the taxpayer. I wonder how the finance all this debt? French debt is now at > 3000 billion Euro. 115 % debt/gdp.
It's a mostly state owned monopoly on electricity. It's not a market-oriented energy landscape at all. Energy socialism.
Delivery is the problem. See the main tasks of a) keeping the aging and outdated reactors online, b) building new plants, c) developing new types of plants, d) innovating and e) financing the whole show with government money.
They are so desperate, such that EDF is still cooperating with Rosatom/Russia...
I love it how you don’t even bat an eyelid when one of your outlandish claims turns out to be made up out of thin air…and just move on to the next one.
I love how you go on, having exposed that you even don't know the difference between a powerplant and a reactor. All the while you claim others to be 'comically incorrect'. You should really tone down and don't say that anti-nuclear people are clueless, while you are yourself demonstrating a lot of ignorance.
In common usage, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, particularly in Germany where plants often consist of a single reactor. But yeah, that bit of terminological sloppiness is a total game changer...about what exactly?
Pretty much all your claims are, in fact, comically incorrect:
1. nuclear is too expensive.
It is not. It is clearly and obviously cheaper than renewables. See France v. Germany electricity prices.
Taking the most expensive outlier in cost and claiming that to be the norm is comically incorrect. Well, if you assume an honest mistake, which admittedly is difficult with that level of wrong. So OK: not comically incorrect, just plain old dishonest.
2. nuclear is unsafe
It is not. It is either among the safest or the safest form of energy production we have.
3. nuclear takes too long
It does not. Average time to build is 7.5 years, consistently. France converted their electricity production to nuclear in 20 years, Germany hasn't managed half of that in 20 years with renewables.
Again, focusing on a few outliers that take a very long time and claiming that to be the norm is comically incorrect. Or just dishonest see above.
4. nuclear is on the way out
There is a massive expansion going on. It was on the way out a few years back, but the catastrophe that is the German Energiewende made non-ideologically captured countries realize they need reliable grid-level supply. Russian gas backup isn't it.
But you obviously know better than those countries as to what they are actually doing.
Again, either comically incorrect or dishonest.
5. nuclear waste storage is unsolved
Do tell the countries that have built long-term storage that they haven't. And tell the facilities that are doing the intermediate storage just fine that it isn't working.
This one I wouldn't classify as just plain old incorrect, not comically so, as it is somewhat tricky to navigate through all the misinformation and find out what's going on.
> particularly in Germany where plants often consist of a single reactor
We were arguing about nuclear power in Japan. In 2011 Fukushima had one of the largest plants in the world, with six reactors. Many powerplants in Japan had more than one reactor. But you did not know that?
You also never seemed to have heard of the events at the other reactors, like the four ones in Daini.
Your list reads like that one of a fanboy, it has very little to do with reality.
European made wind still dominates European installs.
China supplies its own massively growing domestic market as well as others.
It's starting to make inroads into Europe, Japan and other places where politicians have sabotaged the renewable transition to the detriment of local manufacturing, but that's a relative recent phenomenon for wind, slightly behind the pace blazed by the same countries on solar.
"Expensive" French nuclear electricity is around half the price of "cheap" German electricity.
The numbers that get passed around the anti-nuke fan-communities are usually completely bogus, for example one uses the price of the Vogtle plant in the US, pretty much the plant with the most time + cost overruns, as the "cost of nuclear".
With that level of wrong, it is hard to attribute it to just incompetence and not malice.
p.s.: As the biggest part of the cost of a nuclear plant currently is finance, i.e. interest payments, time delays = cost overruns.
EDF had to be bought by the state because it failed to make any profits. The price of nuclear power in France is regulated, which is why EDF failed to make profits. The actual cost for EDF to produce power is secret. The financials leave zero room for new construction, barely cover maintenance and there is insufficient money for decommissioning existing plants.
EDF was bought out by the state because the state had been siphoning off all its profits.
> The price of nuclear power in France is regulated, which is why EDF failed to make profits.
Exactly. Cheap nuclear electricity was used for decades to subsidize all sorts of industries and endeavors, never allowing EdF to actually profit from the cheap generating capacity.
