France To Reduce Reliance On Nuclear Power 484
AmiMoJo writes: French lawmakers have approved a bill to reduce the country's reliance on nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2025. The policy was one of President Francois Hollande's campaign pledges. The legislation also includes a target of reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, compared to the level in 1990. The new law aims to eventually halve France's energy consumption by 2050 from the 2012 level. The ambitious goal came in the lead-up to the COP 21 climate change conference in Paris later this year. France will chair the meeting.
Not downsizing nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not downsizing nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
"During the parliamentary debate, some opposition lawmakers criticized the legislation. They said it would be unrealistic to close more than 20 of 58 reactors now in operation in the next 10 years."
Doesn't this imply that they are anticipating that nuclear will in fact shrink?
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When I went to France I noticed a lot of people use resistive heating because the electricity is cheap. If a lot of people switched to central heating the country could probably be more energetically efficient. Somehow I suspect once they close the nuclear power plants the electricity prices will go up. A lot.
Re:What are they going to replace with? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a lot of people switched to central heating the country could probably be more energetically efficient.
Why central? Retro-fitting to old buildings would be unnecessarily expensive. (except perhaps single-storey homes, but they are not common.)
Just replace the electric radiators with split-system reverse-cycle air-conditioners. Modern systems can use a quarter the energy, or less.
And the next time a summer heatwave hits, the French won't be dying en-masse from heat exhaustion.
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Re:What are they going to replace with? (Score:5, Informative)
So you really should study your basic thermodynamics and entropy because you don't know it. You want to look at a carnot efficiency and heat engines/refrigeration.
Re:What are they going to replace with? (Score:4, Informative)
In Europe, central heating means that you have radiators in every room or underfloor heating or wall heating. And you can regulate it in every room. Central heating means that you have one energy source in the building heating the water for these radiators. Nowadays these systems work with lower temperatures (e.g., 40 C) which is quite efficient. In addition in larger buildings central heating is installed separately in every apartment.
It is and was really decided long ago (Score:2)
By not building new capacity as the old is retired it is going to shrink, and by not committing to new construction some years ago this policy was effectively already in place.
I expect people to note before replying that nothing in that statement is against or for nuclear power, just an observation of the situation. If you have a thin skin either way please scratch it elsewhere.
Re:Not downsizing nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says that they are considering closing 20 of 53 reactors by 2025. They are very much shrinking it.
Re: Not downsizing nuclear (Score:3)
Germany is selling electricity to France every year especially through summer.
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Germany needs overcapacity because wind and solar have pretty crappy capacity factors.
Year on year Germany exports to Danemark, Luxembourg, Holland, Poland, Austria and Switzerland, and imports from France, the Czech republic and Sweden. (Yes, Germany does export more than it imports).
In 2014 Germany exported 77.1 TWh, for which it earned 4591 million dollars.
France exported 37 TWh, for which it earned 3234 million dollars.
France is getting paid 46% more per Watt because it's selling when people need it's
Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking luck (Score:2, Interesting)
What a bunch of idiots.
Re:Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking lu (Score:4, Insightful)
not difficult since the EU have already legislated maximum wattage ratings for vacuum cleaners, kettles, space heaters, boilers, immersion heaters and shower units.
Which makes not a lick of sense since you just end up using the appliance for longer to get the same fuckin' result. Carbon footprint remains the same.
These would be the same tools who mandated the use of CCFL lights which contain mercury and white phosphorous, over incandescants which contain a chemically inert gas and a chemically inert filament inside a chemically inert container.
Re:Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking lu (Score:4, Interesting)
The EU is a shrine to bureaucracy. I guess after more than a thousand years of war, and you pile the weather on top of that, people are just to tired to resist.
Re:Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking lu (Score:5, Insightful)
There are also things like design efficiency in the rest of the unit as well as in the electric motor itself. How much energy the product uses versus how much of that energy actual is expressed in it's useful function. Placing limits on energy consumption forces better design to make better use of that energy limit, why, because FUCKING GREED. Lazy greedy fuckers will just up the engine energy consumption to make up for poor design but hey its FUCKING CHEAPER that way. Also up the warranty requirements to substantially reduce energy used to produce goods that fail shortly after the 90 fucking day warranty. How about mandated 10 YEAR warranties, a decade of product reliability, it will certainly cost more but the energy used to replace a product 40 fucking times versus one product that lasts a decade will be substantially reduced. Why does it have to be legislated because of psychopathic corporate greed.
So how much energy would be saved with mandated decade long warranties on all applicable products. Boy could you imagine the complaints from psychopathic corporations who would demand the right to produce crap products that would be replaced 40 fucking times in that decade long time period. You want a real look at psychopathic planet destroying greed, look no further than a 90 fucking day warranty.
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I did look at the warranty. Price of chinese-made el-cheapo trail bike? AUD$1000. Warranty? 30 days. The salesman not only kept a straight face, he told me "you won't need a longer warranty, these things are bulletproof".
Price of six-month-old second-hand Yamaha: ~AUD$5000. Still had 18 months of factory warranty.
My yamaha still goes - starts first time and just goes. My son's friend's el-cheapo bike? It goes, in between repairs and replacement of el-cheapo parts. He might be happy to settle for that kind o
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Modern electric drills for the consumer are rated for about 20 hours use before they die.
Unless you are in blackburn lancashire, that's probably a lot more holes than you will ever need.
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not difficult since the EU have already legislated maximum wattage ratings for vacuum cleaners, kettles, space heaters, boilers, immersion heaters and shower units.
Which makes not a lick of sense since you just end up using the appliance for longer to get the same fuckin' result. Carbon footprint remains the same.
These would be the same tools who mandated the use of CCFL lights which contain mercury and white phosphorous, over incandescants which contain a chemically inert gas and a chemically inert filament inside a chemically inert container.
Don't forget the low flow toilet you have to flush three times.
Re:Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking lu (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Australia, we have had drought for many years at one stage prompting our government to change all the water saving ratings making all the best devices 1 star to promote even further water reduction, and restricting water usage to 120L /person /day. We have water free chemical urinals, water saving devices on all faucets and the local council even reduced the mains water pressure.
I have never had to flush the ceramic throne more than once.
Get yourself a better toilet.
he needs a "better" body, by your standards (Score:2, Informative)
This rating system explains half of the situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
I'm guessing you are normally a 5, 6, or 7.
I'm normally 1, 2, or 3.
There is more to it than just that though. There is also length and diameter. I can produce one that is 16 inches (40 cm) long. It's pretty thick too, just a bit less than 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Sometimes they have tar-like parts that stick to the bowl.
To handle these, my toilet would need to operate like a blender: close the lid, push th
Re:he needs a "better" body, by your standards (Score:5, Funny)
your entire post is crap
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The lesson, for the millionth time in engineering, is if you change one part of the design you may need to change another. Not doing that means a low flow cistern with a bowl that needs a high flow cistern sucks with a lo
Over-reaction (Score:2)
There is NO
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What other features do you need in a toilet apart from a bowl, water and a way of flushing it?
The way British toilets flush is very wasteful. If you look at Japanese toilets they accelerate the water and make it rush around the bowl, which seems to clean it out better. It also eliminates the overhanging lip so it is easier to clean, you don't need one of those "duck" shaped bottles to squirt bleach up from underneath.
Soft close seats, heated seats for the winter, odour elimination, built in bidet, auto-flush... And for really saving water, some have a basin attached. When you flush the water comes o
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Don't forget the low flow toilet you have to flush three times.
you might want to try a laxative
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vacuum cleaners range from 3000 watts to a good workout with a straw broom. are you suggesting that a 0 watt stick broom cleaner is somehow not saving power compared to using a 3000 watt vacuum? is burning 'better' than a old standby cleaner like a broom. carpet may feel nice but it uses more resource than throw rugs that are good for beating out when they get dusty. I know some people who used to collect used t-shirts and make rugs from them. too lazy to do the math but http://science.howstuffworks.com [howstuffworks.com]
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These would be the same tools who mandated the use of CCFL lights which contain mercury and white phosphorous, over incandescants which contain a chemically inert gas and a chemically inert filament inside a chemically inert container.
And did so with the understanding that the generation of dirty power is an order of magnitude worse for the environment and that CCFLs can be a relatively quick change (life of a bulb) vs mandating clean energy (massive changes in power generation industry, massive changes in energy pricing, etc).
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(which as the parent pointed out require a lot of toxic stuff to be used in the manufacturing process compared to the relative simple making of an incandescent bulb.)
This effect is miniscule compared to the toxic stuff released during the generation of the extra electricity required for the incandescent bulb.
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Why are you insulting the French? This reduction is possible. And it is already happening in the EU. As the same laws of physics apply to the US, it would be possible in the US too. It would be even easier because you waste so much more then Europeans. Instead of using SUVs as city vehicle you could use smaller cars. By that you could reduce CO2 emissions in the car sector by 50% or more. And you could insulate your homes which would require less heating in the winter and less cooling in the summer. Ah yes
Re:Legislate 50% less consumption? Good fucking lu (Score:5, Funny)
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They could just export the electricity (Score:3, Insightful)
They can keep the plants going, build more capacity and export the rest, reducing the "reliance" on nuclear power.
A cynical way to fulfill a keepable promise.
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That sounds brilliant actually.
France is a Major Exporter of Electricity (Score:5, Informative)
France is one of the world's biggest energy exporters, selling electricity to most of Western Europe. They aren't going to build too many more nuclear plants, but they sure as hell aren't going to be tearing down the ones the have already. They are going to run them as hard as they can as they add capacity with wind, solar, and hydro.
Yes, nuclear will be a smaller fraction of the portfolio, but total nuclear generation isn't going away any time soon. The wording of Hollande's "promise" was crafted to sound good to the anti-nuke crowd, but the folks in the power sector who can actually do fractional arithmetic know what the actual intent is.
France is a Major Exporter of Electricity II (Score:4, Insightful)
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they may be able to reduce the amount they generate once the Chinese Government get done building the six nuclear reactors along the South coast of England. I shit you not, they have got the no-bid contract. http://www.world-nuclear-news.... [world-nuclear-news.org] (and yes, the plants we have now are owned by the French).
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Thatcher economic politics at their best. Rather unsurprisingly you need government investment to be a top dog in nuclear.
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Time, neutron bombardment, corrosion etc do that whether we like it or not. Eventually it gets to the point where it is cheaper to build a new one than keep the old one going.
An underlying issue: Bad design. (Score:3)
Construction and maintenance is much easier when there are multiple smaller reactors. See, for example, Small Nuclear Power Reactors [world-nuclear.org].
Er .... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)
... Poland will be building more coal power plants to export more electricty to western europe so that idiot evironementalists can be duped by corrupt politicians into thinking that CO2 consumption has been reduced when all that happened was they started importing electricity instead of directly producing it themselves.
The same thing is going on all over europe and it is very common in the US as well. California for example has dramatically lowered their statistical carbon foot print by shutting down power
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what about those DC lines coming in from the North? Where are they going?
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Be specific please... or I'm just going to say Santa's industrial toy factory in the north pole populated almost entirely by a race of magically enslaved elf laborers.
You know where the elves went at the end of Lord of the rings... their magical island of eternal life etc... yeah...
Gandolf enslaved them all, developed an eating disorder, and now gives the children of the world toys as a kind of ego boost.
Sorry... I don't know what else to respond with to extremely vague comments. So I either polish my smack
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I'd love to subscribe to your news letter.
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*gives nerd swirly*
you know... the ice cream cone...
From the end of a dog... ...just the way the ice cream dispenser is shaped... It is ice cream...
Chocolate flavored... with nuts... and corn kernels...
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really need to do proper third party accounting on the carbon emissions of imported electricity
A carbon tax with 100 percent dividend, levied at the point of entry of first point of sale would address imported carbon and allow the marketplace, not politicians, to make investment decisions. It would also allow a reduction in sales and income taxes - two things we ought to be encouraging rather than taxing.
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I'm not even talking about money. I'm talking about their little statistics where they claim "we reduced our carbon foot print by X percent in Y year"... what they don't tell you is that they did that by exporting power production outside of the scope of the statistics thus rendering the statistics themselves little more than a circle jerk.
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Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Poland yells at Germany that coal is profitable any more because of all the wind energy surplus in East Germany which has to go somewhere. So I think they will not build more coal plants. If they would replace their only Soviet style plant with newer ones, then that would reduce CO2 massively.
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind... [sourcewatch.org]
Total 4,582MW from out of state coal.
That's twice the capacity of the old san onofre nuclear power plant.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wind power. Also natural gas from the Magreb (think Algeria and perhaps Libya) to cover wind variability.
It will lead to higher consumer prices. The advantages? Someone will get paid a lot of money to erect windmills and others will get paid to rent space so people can erect windmills on top. Probably farmers. France has a lot of farmers.
The end user of electricity (which is basically everyone) be damned.
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Also natural gas from the Magreb (think Algeria and perhaps Libya)
Libya? So will they trade with ISIS once it's running the place? (and let's face it, the way it's going, it almost certainly will... in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up running the entire North Africa)
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Increased access to Maghreb natural gas is considered an important factor in the EU plans for future energy development in Italy [wikipedia.org] and France [reuters.com].
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The main reason is cost. Nuclear power can't compete on price with neither fossil fuels nor renewable energy like solar or wind. So basically every french nuclear power station is a hole into which the consumers are shoveling money into.
You simply can't build or operate a nuclear reactor power station anywhere in the world that can compete on market prices.
For France, the ever more connected EU electricity grid means an ever increasing pressure on the energy sector to be able to compete on EU electricity pr
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
The main reason is cost. Nuclear power can't compete on price with neither fossil fuels nor renewable energy like solar or wind. So basically every french nuclear power station is a hole into which the consumers are shoveling money into.
You simply can't build or operate a nuclear reactor power station anywhere in the world that can compete on market prices.
For France, the ever more connected EU electricity grid means an ever increasing pressure on the energy sector to be able to compete on EU electricity prices. The long term prospects for nuclear energy to ever be able to compete on prices looks bleak, even if fossil fuel prices rises significantly.
In the meantime much more nimble energy technologies like solar and wind continues to make significant progress in cost and efficiency. And unlike nuclear power plants, they can quickly deploy the newest technology in the field.
So it really makes a lot of sense for France to lower its reliance on nuclear power and start to invest more in renewable energy resources.
Then why does France have some of the lowest energy prices in the developed EU [wikimedia.org] and why are they exporting energy to Britain [wikipedia.org]?
I mean it's not proof that France's electricity generation is fundamentally cheaper, or that Nuclear power has anything to do with it, but I can't find any evidence to back up your claims.
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Then why does France have some of the lowest energy prices in the developed EU [wikimedia.org] and why are they exporting energy to Britain [wikipedia.org]?
because they haven't yet paid for the eventual disposal of the waste
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then why does France have some of the lowest energy prices in the developed EU [wikimedia.org] and why are they exporting energy to Britain [wikipedia.org]?
because they haven't yet paid for the eventual disposal of the waste
It's underway [bbc.com] though I don't know how much a full solution would affect cost. And realistically I think we overemphasize Nuclear waste because it's Nuclear, we generate lots of nasty industrial waste that we don't treat with the same paranoia.
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that we don't treat with the same paranoia.
In January 2014 it was made public that a total of 875 trillion becquerel (Bq) of tritium are on the site of Fukushima Daiichi; it would take 59 years to safely discharge this amount of tritium to the sea.
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Why would you want to discharge tritium? It has many practical applications (and is fairly expensive because of that).
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Humans - and you in particular, it seems - lack the capacity for analyzing catastrophic events that occur with very low probabilities.
There is a 100% probability that the nuclear waste at Hanford is going to cost untold billions to clean up, if ever.
There is a 100% probability that the Columbia river will be heavily contaminated with nuclear waste within a few years.
There is a 100% probability that the US taxpayer will end up paying over and over and over again to dispose of nuclear waste.
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Well, it's a good thing fewer and fewer Americans are taxpayers these days.
Who doesn't pay taxes? There is sales tax, property tax, excise tax, telephone tax, meals tax, parking tax, gasoline tax, luxury tax, estate tax, the taxes go on and on.
Who are these people who don't pay taxes? I am curious.
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I don't know how much a full solution would affect cost.
remember what the nuclear people used to say: "electricity too cheap to meter"
now it's "we don't know what it will actually cost"
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I don't know how much a full solution would affect cost.
remember what the nuclear people used to say: "electricity too cheap to meter"
now it's "we don't know what it will actually cost"
We don't know how much anything truly costs, we're barely aware of what happens to solar panel waste the moment it's built [nationalgeographic.com], much less 10,000 years from now. We're just putting a lot more effort into figuring it out for Nuclear.
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Solar generation machinery only pollutes when it's being manufactured.
Power plant machinery also pollutes when it is being manufactured... and then it continues to pollute for its entire lifespan.
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France reprocesses [world-nuclear.org] spent nuclear fuel. So unlike countries where the anti-nuclear lobby has made sure that spent fuel gets classified as "waste" with huge disposal costs to try to make nuclear unattractive and uneconomical, France just turns it into more fuel [world-nuclear.org] for its nuclear plants. Only about 3% of what other countries call "nuclear waste" gets turned into actual waste. The rest is converted back into more fuel.
3%? Where did you get that from? (Score:2)
Re:3%? Where did you get that from? (Score:4, Interesting)
Approximately 96% of "spent" fuel rod is fissile material. The reason it's considered "spent" is mechanics of the process which make it less economic to use at that point.
In much of the world, a mix of anti-nuclear lobby and anti-proliferation lobby declare this 96% spent fuel "waste". In France, they recycle it into fuel.
It's pulled out, enriched back to normal levels and put back into the reactor. Remaining 3-4% are the generated impurities. The portion of this that is "high grade" is actually fairly easy to deal with - you just let it sit and break itself down. The more radioactive it is, the shorter half life it has and the faster it destroys itself. It's the low grade stuff that is problematic, as you can't just wait for it to break itself up, you need to actually store it somewhere. That's what most of the nuclear waste storage brouhaha is about.
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How to cheaply, efficiently and safely dispose of nuclear waste:
1. Enclose it in a huge solid block of glass (just melted sand, so it's cheap).
2. Take it to any deep ocean trench and dump it.
3. Tectonic plate subduction takes care of the rest.
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How to cheaply, efficiently and safely dispose of nuclear waste:
1. Enclose it in a huge solid block of glass (just melted sand, so it's cheap).
2. Take it to any deep ocean trench and dump it.
3. Tectonic plate subduction takes care of the rest.
Since 1993, ocean disposal has been banned by international treaties.
good luck with that
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Political problems are self-induced. When there's a genuine engineering or scientific challenge to be overcome, we have an excuse for not doing it just yet. But when all that stops us is some form of NIMBY or "la la la it's not happening" or "I just don't care", there's no excuse, just stupidity. Same goes for AGW denialists, anti-vax etc.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The electricity prices are still low in France thanks to government regulation, but they are scheduled to rise significantly over the next years. The prices have been artificially held low so that the French nuclear energy sector (EDF etc.) have been bleeding money and raking up debt like there is no tomorrow, while taxpayers have footed the rest of the bill.
So the French nuclear sector are also effectively subsidizing their nuclear power by making French tax payers pay the bill. Yes, they still have low electricity prices, but that is only because they pay more taxes on their wages to keep the electricity prices artificially low. This can't go on.
The move to reduce dependency on nuclear power is made because France is moving away from subsidized prices, so the consumers will pay more in line with what it actually cost to produce the energy directly instead of hiding the costs in higher taxes or forcing the utility companies to sell at too low prices.
The problem for the nuclear sector is that it is unable to compete on market prices. So if you want a more competitive and less regulated energy market in France, you have to reduce the reliance on nuclear power.
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The electricity prices are still low in France thanks to government regulation, but they are scheduled to rise significantly over the next years. The prices have been artificially held low so that the French nuclear energy sector (EDF etc.) have been bleeding money and raking up debt like there is no tomorrow, while taxpayers have footed the rest of the bill.
So if EDF is losing money that tells me the power might be underpriced, but even rising 30% they'll still be one of the cheaper rates.
So the French nuclear sector are also effectively subsidizing their nuclear power by making French tax payers pay the bill.
Where are the subsidies? The EDF has its own finances. If it goes bankrupt maybe you could say the government subsidized it by losing equity but I'm not sure I'd buy that. Besides, all other power generation including fossil fuel and renewables are heavily subsidized as well.
The move to reduce dependency on nuclear power is made because France is moving away from subsidized prices, so the consumers will pay more in line with what it actually cost to produce the energy directly instead of hiding the costs in higher taxes or forcing the utility companies to sell at too low prices.
You're talking about a pretty intense subsidy to justify that price, and other than the fact that the
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French electricity prices and subsidization is highly complex, including extra subsidization for families below a certain income level. And now it is changing yet again. The new change will introduce a element of market pricing. This is why Moody's and Standard and Poor have been downgrading EDF stock:
https://www.moodys.com/researc... [moodys.com]
Be wary of using simple charts of electricity prices across EU: the one you quoted includes various taxes too, so it doesn't reflect _production prices_ at all, only what the c
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EDF has been losing money not on generation but on building projects that had bad management practices. Generation is highly profitable, as most of the plants long paid for themselves and are generating pure profit at this point.
Some electricity generation is profitable because they have a de facto monopoly and can sell to consumers at artificially high prices. If they had to compete on market prices most nuclear reactors would sell electricity at a loss.
That is exactly the reason there isn't a free market working in France on electricity; it would bankrupt the nuclear industry.
The nuclear sector in France have state guaranteed profits. Even the new electricity tarif scheme with some market elements in it, ensures that they get gu
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if the plants are properly maintained?
never has happened, isn't happening, never will happen
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have minimum impact on environment.
---
In January 2014 it was made public that a total of 875 trillion becquerel (Bq) of tritium are on the site of Fukushima Daiichi; it would take 59 years to safely discharge this amount of tritium to the sea.
---
The most significant challenge at Hanford is stabilizing the 53 million U.S. gallons (204,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. As of 1998 about a third of these tanks had leaked waste into the soil and groundwater.
Nearby aquifers contain an estimated 270 billion U.
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Mistakes have been made, the past isn't perfect... but using your logic, since we polluted once, we should never do so again, so we might as well just shut it all down, turn off the lights, and go back to caves.
Yea, that is stupid, as is turning off the nuclear power because of mistakes make before the EPA even existed!
Why not learn from those mistakes and control the waste better in the future? The anti-nuclear people are just insane, no intelligence whatsoever...
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Even the most cursory research will show you that the nuclear industry has significant CFC *greenhouse* gas emissions used in the enrichment process. Dig a little deeper and you will find the US enrichment is driven my coal generating facilities.
The failure to tolerate the most straight forward introspection shows that the nuclear fanbois out there do more damage to the Nuclear Industry than anyone, preventing any significant progress to the industry. No facts, no reason, no argument - every single time.
short sightedness and anti-science (Score:3, Insightful)
So we are reaching a point where fossil fuels are becoming harder to harvest, climate change is becoming more evident, and people are using more electricity than ever. Instead of researching safer nuclear, which would provide us enough energy to last us millennia even with increasing usage, they are simply turning their backs on the idea, and reaching for what? Solar? Windfarms? I'm as hardcore left as one can get, I support alternative energy, and whatnot, and yet I feel like I'm one of the few rational ones that look at things like verifiable science, statistics, and research to direct my views rather than blind ideology and common opinion.
From what I've read, the only viable alternative that is right now available that can fulfill our needs is primarily nuclear with other alternatives merely supplementing those needs. If I'm wrong I'd like to see some evidence, preferably from less biased sources.
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Wind is ok assuming you have a lot of pumped-storage hydro capacity around. Take Denmark. They use Norwegian pumped-storage hydro to store excess generation and smooth shortfalls. If you do not have a lot of pumped-storage hydro around then its a bad idea to have a lot of wind generation. The alternative is nuclear. Barring that the alternative is coal. As usual.
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If you do not have a lot of pumped-storage hydro around then its a bad idea to have a lot of wind generation.
yeah because battery technology is never going to get any better
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We have been waiting over a century for this. Maybe it will happen but I won't bet on it.
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EOS energy is just 1 example.
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You forgot natural gas. Though that may have unfortunate geopolitical implications depending on where it is.
Cut energy consumption in half (Score:2)
Youpie ! . . On va tous crever.
cue the nuclear fanbois (Score:2, Interesting)
The polarization of this debate makes it difficult to discuss even the most benign criticism of the Nuclear industry. No doubt I'll be modded down for that however if the Nuclear industry wasn't so fragile perhaps it could tolerate the criticism and overcome many of the issues it has.
The peer reviewed science [stormsmith.nl] shows that Nuclear power provides no net energetic return and is not viable in its current form. Perhaps France has identified that and the vote will identify how well understood that is, unfortunate
Re:cue the nuclear fanbois (Score:5, Informative)
The peer reviewed science shows that Nuclear power provides no net energetic return and is not viable in its current form.
From your own link:
The energy payback time of the currently operating nuclear energy systems, measured over the full cradle-to-grave period, is about 9 full-load years at the current world average uranium ore grade. The average operating lifetime in 2011 of the world operating nuclear fleet was about 21 full-load years.
So what are you on about?
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The section on climate change and nuclear energy in your linked to article is rediculous. It tries to discredit nuclear power's impact on climate change because its low and decreasing share of global power production means that it's current impact on climate change is small and shrinking. Obviously the problem here is that not enough plants are being built, not that there is a problem with the energy source itself. The article, however, does its best to make this seem like a negative for the power source.
Th
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Obviously the problem here is that not enough plants are being built, not that there is a problem with the energy source itself.
The article, however, does its best to make this seem like a negative for the power source.
It is not an article, it is the peer reviewed science that was used by the European Parliament and other credible bodies. This is what scientific research on the Nuclear Industry found.
to attribute all of the energy going into uranium enrichment and other accociated energy needs to energy produced from CO2 emitting sources when a nuclear power plant produces electricity at vastly greater scales then what is required for these things.
*IF* it was able to extract the potential energy there instead of the 0.3% that reactor technology can extract.
I'll admit though, after two completely bogus claims I stopped reading so maybe that site has something that stands up to simple reasoning somewhere in its contents.
And what do you offer to back up the claim that the actual science is bogus? FYI, these are the Universities internationally that contributed to the report. Australia. University of Sydney, University of New South W
Smart if done right (Score:2)
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has very little waste,
http://vtdigger.org/2012/10/10/study-vermont-yankee-thermal-discharge-into-connecticut-river-exceeds-limits/
The study found that from 2006-2010, between the months of May and October, Vermont Yankee’s discharge exceeded the permitted rise in temperature 58 percent of the time. In June, that number rose to 74 percent. The report also noted that temperature increases near the nuclear plant held at least 22.5 miles downstream in Massachusetts.
In August, TEPCO admitted that up to 400 tons of contaminated
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Issues to be concerned about to be certain but these issues amount to almost nothing when scaled against the long term problem of global warming.
And even that's still ignoring the massive health issues parts of the world are currently "enjoying" due to carbon emitting power plants.
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these issues amount to almost nothing when scaled against the long term problem of global warming.
These issues are happening NOW, with our current level of nuclear use.
They will be even worse if nuclear capacity increases.
It will only take one more tsunami or earthquake to put a major portion of the world's population in jeopardy.
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all of those issues are due to running OLD reactors that should have been replaced by now, with NEW gen IV reactors.
Nuclear advocates have NEVER been able to tally up the actual costs of what they are proposing, why should we believe them now?
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It's because... NUCLEAR (booga! booga! booga!) The radioactive waste will last 10,000 years! Just ignore all that talk about reprocessing, mind you. And make sure to oppose any plan to actually deal with the waste in a sane manner. NUCLEAR!!!
Seriously, don't ask for a logical reason. Environmentalists have spent the last thirty or forty years convincing themselves and anyone who listened to them that nuclear power is the devil. It's a little hard to turn those beliefs and feelings around on a dime, no
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That is how you lower your energy use.
Now, with that said, I think that France would be much smarter getting rid of their fossil fuel plants, which they have.
At the same time, they really need to push electric vehicles so as to quit importing oil/nat gas