[loup-vaillant]

Well, now France is not being serious about climate, and has not been since at least 10 years, when we had Hollande on the throne. We've had talks about closing down nuke plants that are still in working order, the next one is taking forever, and we still have many people who want to shut it all down in the very name of the environment (overall, the French people are woefully misinformed about the pros and cons of nuclear energy).

I think it is getting better, though. Environmentalists are slowly waking up to the fact that nuclear energy is not nearly as bad as we make it out to be, even compared to windmills & solar panels, which requires many more times the ground surface and/or concrete.

Oh, and we got a recent report from our national energy company (or something close), that laid out several plans to reduce our CO2 emissions, and most contingencies involved both nuclear and renewable, including the "nuke max" scenario. We'll definitely need renewables, but it's pretty clear shutting down nuclear plants is one of the riskiest plans — hopefully our politicians will wake up to that.

[immmmmm]

Yeah things are getting better. The IPCC report was discussed for one 1 day in French medias.

> Oh, and we got a recent report from our national energy company (or something close), that laid out several plans to reduce our CO2 emissions, and most contingencies involved both nuclear and renewable, including the "nuke max" scenario. We'll definitely need renewables, but it's pretty clear shutting down nuclear plants is one of the riskiest plans — hopefully our politicians will wake up to that.

Great. Hope they don't forget what scientists say: we must use much less energy.

[Reason077]

> "windmills & solar panels, which requires many more times the ground surface and/or concrete"

There is no scenario where a comparable wind or solar farm requires more concrete than a nuclear plant. Not even close. A modern nuclear plant requires hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of concrete (ie: over a million tonnes), as well as hundreds of thousands of tonnes of steel.

Yes, a solar farm may require more land surface area, but it can be very quickly and easily deconstructed and removed when no longer required. Where as decommissioning a nuclear plant can cost tens of billions of Euros, and can take 60 years or more to complete.

[loup-vaillant]

Yes, a modern nuclear plant requires tons & tons of concrete. Yes, it costs tons & tons of money. It also gives you gigantic amounts of energy, and you can adjust its output. Windmill and solar panels only produce energy when there's wind or sun, so their actual energy output is much lower than their peak power output, and you can't decide to turn them on or off at will like you can with a nuke plant to adjust it to the energy needs of the country.

You want to be renewable only? Then you need to install several times the power output you need, and enough energy storage to have your energy at will: dams, batteries… This is going to cost a lot.

Also, shutting down a nuke plant takes about a minute, then you need very little water to keep it cool. Completely dismantling it takes much longer of course, but it takes so little surface compared to its energy output that you might as well just leave it there to rot.

[Reason077]

> "overall, the French people are woefully misinformed about the pros and cons of nuclear energy"

Not as bad as the Germans. The decision to build new nuclear plants is one thing, but to close down perfectly good and safe existing nuclear in the name of the environment is madness.

Especially when the alternative to those nuclear plants is to burn more lignite coal and build new pipelines to import more Russian natural gas.