Summary
France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.
The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.
President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.
Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”
Renewables are far cheaper and can be built faster and if they malfunction, no one is in danger.
France already has enough Nuclear to deal with no-sun and no-wind phases (if they work properly, which is the other problem with nuclear energy in France)…
So, there is literally no reason to waste tax payer money and time like this and to force yourself to import material from Russia. Just build renewables until we get fusion energy…
Even when disasters like Chernobyl are included, nuclear energy kills fewer people per Watt than any of the alternatives. E.g. dams burst and people like building towns downstream of hydro plants. Even with wind where it’s basically only deadly due to accidents when installing and repairing turbines (e.g. people falling off, fires breaking out too abruptly to climb down), it happens often enough that it ends up more dangerous than nuclear. Burning gas, coal and biomass all work out much deadlier than renewables and nuclear, but if your risk tolerance doesn’t permit nuclear, it doesn’t permit electricity in any form.
With PBR reactors, nobody is in danger if it breaks down, either. The pebble bed collapses, and fission stops.
It’s not either or situation, I hate this logic. Build both renewable and nuclear when the sun don’t shine. Nuclear has far more stability than renewables
It’s not necessarily an either-or situation, but when it comes to allocating public budgets, one can certainly come at the cost of the other.
This is generally what people talk about when advocating focus on renewables over nuclear.
I personally have no problem with privately funded and insured nuclear - if you’re able to swing that, then all the power in the world to you. The issue at hand is that nuclear fundamentally fails here - it’s too expensive to build and insure (not to mention the energy it produces being more expensive than its alternatives), hence public funding and insurance is essentially a prerequisite.
There are other considerations too, like diversification, nuclear know how, load vs on-demand, local geoeconomics, etc
Renewables cant produce an on-demand baseload supply without the addition of significant storage capacity.
This is true, and at the same time not really an issue any more at the rate that energy storage systems are progressing. Similarly to how solar and wind have absolutely plummeted in price, so is the case with energy storage systems s well. As of now, the LCOE of solar + storage is at half the price of nuclear (source) and trending cheaper. Nuclear is trending more expensive. Add on a construction time of 17 years for plants and any nuclear plant is basically economically dead on arrival.
Baseload is by definition not on-demand, baseload is always there.
France won’t shut down fission for the simple reason that they need plutonium for their bombs.
No, we already have it and do not plan increasing our nuclear arsenal.