[cygx]

These are rare anomalies

Note that partial shutdowns due to excessive heat happen regularly in France, e.g. in 2018, 2019 and 2022. The problem's been around for a while, see e.g. this article [1] from 2009 that also mentions the heatwave of 2003, where regulators had to grant special exemptions to allow discharging 30°C water into waterways, well past the 24°C limit.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110612153407/http://business.t...

[troupo]

> Note that partial shutdowns due to excessive heat happen regularly in France, e.g. in 2018, 2019 and 2022.

And they affect a very small number of plants and energy output. The largest disruption so far has been when French government finally got its head out of its butt and stopped a few plants for long overdue maintenance

[cygx]

Even before the most recent maintenance period, there were problems: In 2019, French regulators had to ask industry to cut consumption by 1.5GW to keep the grid stable as utility frequency was dropping significantly [1]. That issue comes up basically every other winter, but so far, we've avoided catastrophic results.

[1] https://www.cre.fr/actualites/RTE-fait-appel-aux-industriels...

[troupo]

They asked to cut consumption because of nuclear power plants or because insufficient supply of electricity?

[cygx]

Insufficient supply in winter times due to electric heating, mostly. Nuclear power plants are relevant insofar that they (in particular the older generation of power plants) are bad at providing energy on-demand. So while everyone worries about Germany and the issues associated with variable availability of solar and wind power, there are also documented cases where Germany had to fire up its coal plants to meet nuclear posterchild France's electricity demands.

I used to read German online magazine Telepolis regularly. They've got a writer who advocates for renewable energy, hence I used to come across related articles every now and then.

[troupo]

> Nuclear power plants are relevant insofar that they (in particular the older generation of power plants) are bad at providing energy on-demand.

This is, of course, an easily verifiable lie.

During winter nuclear power plants already work at near 100% capacity. They can't give you more than 100%, other sources cannot meet demand, and somehow you blame nuclear.

[cygx]

> This is, of course, an easily verifiable lie.

It's not a lie, you just failed to get the point:

Assume, for the sake of the argument, that you have a power plant that always works at 100% capacity and cannot be shut off. To provide energy security, you would have to budget capacity to account for highest possible demand. But if you do so, you will over-produce electricity most of the time, and there are economic incentives against doing so.

> somehow you blame nuclear

I don't blame nuclear energy production, I blame an over-reliance on nuclear energy production.

[mahkeiro]

The largest US nuclear plant is Palo Verde just west of Phoenix were temperature can get crazy hot and nowhere near a body of water. It’s running with waste water of the city. So I’m pretty sure in a country way more humid like France you can have a backup plan, like building larger condenser towers.

[cygx]

Sure. It's not so much a physical limitation, but a failure of policy.