[CogentHedgehog]

The Messmer plan (France's big reactor build) was enacted 40-50 years ago. The energy market looked vastly different then. It would not work in 2020. In fact, France is looking to REDUCE their dependence on nuclear energy now. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/france-electricity-solarpowe...

> France aims to rapidly develop renewable wind, solar and biomass capacity to curb its dependence on atomic power, reducing its share in its power mix to 50 percent by 2035, from 75 percent today.

[godelski]

This "France is looking to reduce their dependence on nuclear energy" statement can get dicey because of different contexts that it is used. So I apologize if I am responding to a context you aren't implying. It is often used as "look, even France doesn't want nuclear!" which frankly just isn't true.

We have to look at France and how much carbon it produces. Right now it is one of the lowest producers in Europe. Let's look at the electricity map[0]. Sweden, Norway, and France are leagues ahead of others in terms of carbon emissions. France's plan is first to replace existing natural gas, biomass, and coal with renewable resources. The second part of the equation is that their reactors are reaching EOL, so do you build more or replace them? If you pay attention to energy trends solar and wind (something France has an abundance of) is getting much cheaper and battery storage is getting cheaper (France doesn't have to bet as much on battery storage since they can over produce and sell excess energy, which they currently do a fair amount of). So if you're going to take bets this is still a good bet. A big part of a good and stable power grid is by having a diversification of energy resources. 75% of your energy being dependent upon one resource is not a good idea. No matter the resource. Even 50% is high, but acceptable. They aren't planning from going away from reactors, there's even one under development. But you also want to hedge your bets. If any of these factors (solar, wind, battery storage, smart grids, ITER, etc) don't pay off, then they need to maintain their nuclear grid. It would take a large revolution in energy development for France to be able to still produce so little carbon and provide its citizens with a modernized (electrified) country.

Also consider that France doesn't have good access to hydro like Norway and Sweden do so its options for clean energy are nuclear, solar, and wind (lots!). They should, and are planning on, using a diversification of these. Nuclear provides a strong baseload and the others supplement. You may notice that this is a key argument made by many proponents of nuclear. Anyone that says the grid should be entirely nuclear is an armchair scientist who understands very little about nuclear or the climate. But the same is true for those that think we can solve the issue with just solar and wind.

So if you're saying France is turning away from nuclear, then this is adding desires into a plan that does not express or concern itself with those desires. A big part of this decision is about diversification and increasing energy independence (just like recycling fuel is a big part of their energy independence, which they power a whopping 17% of their grid with recycled nuclear alone).

[0] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR

[stjohnswarts]

If it worked then it could work now. It's only cowardly politics that stop newer, safer reactors from being built.

[manfredo]

Plans they continue to delay, because there's no feasible alternative to geographically independent and dispatchable energy save for fossil fuels: https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/French-bill-delays-n...

[CogentHedgehog]

You realize that World Nuclear News is not an unbiased source, right?

The UK is doing fine with a renewables-heavy powergrid, as are Spain and Portugal. 40% of their electricity comes from this, and the share is rising steadily.

[sir_bearington]

The above source is quoting a bill written by the French government:

> However, the bill also calls for "realistic goals to transform our energy model by increasing the timeframe for reducing nuclear power to 50% by 2035 instead of 2025, which would have required the construction of new gas-fired plants, and would have involved an increase in our greenhouse gas emissions."

I'm sure World Nuclear News is more favorable to nuclear power, but I don't see how that is relevant. Do you believe that this article fabricated the contents of the French bill?

This comes off more as a cheap jab than a substantive claim of bias.

[CogentHedgehog]

Nothing in there actually refutes my point that France wants to REDUCE its dependence on nuclear energy overall. France is the poster-child for a nuclear-focused powergrid. If they want to move away from nuclear, that suggests it is not working out as well as people claim.

Legislation gets written and rewritten as timelines get tweaked. That's a reality. The core goal is unchanged.

[sir_bearington]

The point is, they make lip service towards moving away from nuclear but don't actually make any strides towards doing so. The claim that France wants to reduce its share of nuclear would hold more water once they actually start doing so. Talk is cheap, actions are not.

[Iwan-Zotow]

They closed FESSENHEIM-1 and FESSENHEIM-2 this year

[godelski]

It seems like you're implying "nuclear = bad because France is moving away from it" which is not what France is doing.

[CogentHedgehog]

> which is not what France is doing.

They literally are, and have formally said so. They're not shutting down all their reactors right away or anything. But for a country that took pride in betting big on nuclear, officially planning to go from 70% nuclear to 50% is a pretty huge drop. They've already shut down the first two reactors at Fessenheim as part of this.

Yes, they're kicking the can down the road slightly at last news. That's not surprising since many of the reactors may be possible to life-extend to 50 years, and renewable energy costs are dropping quickly. Delaying a few years saves some money. But that does not change the fact that many of the reactors will not be replaced when they hit end-of-life.