[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.

[godelski]

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

> They literally are, and have formally said so

Citation needed.

As I stated in another reply to you, reducing dependence on nuclear has a lot of advantages unrelated to "nuclear is bad" or "nuclear is not clean" or etc. Like I said before, no matter what your energy source is, 75% of your power being produced from a singular source is not a good idea. You may be familiar with the old saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." This is the same reason we don't invest in a single stock. Dropping to 50% is far from getting rid of nuclear and it is an absurd claim.

> But that does not change the fact that many of the reactors will not be replaced when they hit end-of-life.

Many, but many are planed to be replaced. You're focusing too much on the reduction aspect. Reduction is not elimination. France has no plans on eliminating nuclear in the foreseeable future. The only way this would happen is if ITER was a major success and small versions could reliably be developed and deployed. I'm not counting on that.

[CogentHedgehog]

> Citation needed.

I already provided a citation for this - https://www.reuters.com/article/france-electricity-solarpowe...)

Quote

>> 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.

A quick google will turn up dozens of other sources discussing that if you like.

> reducing dependence on nuclear has a lot of advantages unrelated to "nuclear is bad" or "nuclear is not clean" or etc

When did I even say that? Please have the decency NOT to convert my educated and reasoned points into a straw-man argument. I spent years working in nuclear physics. I'm not making some idiotic "nuclear reactors will turn us into glowing mutants" argument here.

The real issues with nuclear are -- and always have been -- simple, practical problems of cost, time to construct, and the usual problems of cost overruns and delays that you see with constructing a very complicated system. The Flamanville EPR has been a fiasco, with costs triple its original estimate and a timeline that ballooned to 15 years.

In comparison, the competition from renewable energy has heated up rapidly. Economies of scale are rapidly driving down the costs renewables and batteries (and the underlying technology is improving rapidly). Between 2010 to 2019 wind energy become 70% cheaper and solar became 89% cheaper: https://www.lazard.com/media/451082/lcoe-8.png

Battery costs have dropped 75% over the last 6 years: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...

Nuclear energy in 2020 is often quite expensive compared to renewable energy, and the comparison is only getting worse over time.

> France has no plans on eliminating nuclear in the foreseeable future.

In 2020, Energy Minister Élisabeth Borne announced the government would not decide on the construction of any new reactors until Flamanville 3 starts operation after 2022. Citation: https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfrance-to-decide-on-new...

"France has undertaken to cut the nuclear share in its electricity mix from around 75% to 50% by 2035 while increasing the share of renewable solar, wind and biomass."

“Whether we are looking at 100% renewables or a percentage of new nuclear, we want to consider all the elements, including technical, economic,” she noted. “On such important subjects, we must make rational, reasoned decisions, and that is the objective of the various studies that have been launched.”

To put that all together: France is cutting their use of nuclear, and waiting to decide whether or not to replace reactors that are fast approaching end-of-life. They're going to look and see how the energy market shakes out.