But the "negative learning" was exactly because they abandoned the standardized approach.
"Conversely, the gradual erosion of EDF’s determination to
standardize (caving in to proposals of numerous design changes
in the wake of the ‘‘frenchifying’’ of the Westinghouse de-
sign—the P’4 reactor series—and above all to the new N4 reactor
design pushed by the CEA), as well as the abrupt slowdown of the
expansion program after 1981, paved the way towards a gradual
demise of the French success model, as borne out in lengthened
construction times and ever higher cost escalation towards the
end of the program (cf. Section 4 below)."
As a result, France's electricity grid is almost fully decarbonized (and we'd be in a better state if we didn't shut down one reactor for political reasons) while industrialized countries betting only on NREs are still counting the days they don't need to burn coal. So there are good things about it.
It’s a little more complicated as they’re importing and exporting a great deal of electricity. But overall yea it’s been good for the environment, just expensive.
It's not subsidized. In fact, cheap nuclear electricity is used to subsidize other industries.
The entire nuclear industry (construction, operation, support) cost France € 228 billion and produce 11000 TWh (by 2012). That's 2,07 cents/kWh. Not too shabby.
Your numbers are wildly off and not just from ignoring inflation when using poorly sourced numbers from 2012. Quick, how much did they spend on fuel over that timeframe? Well according to that estimate it was 0, so it’s hardly including the operating costs.
To give some perspective: “In March 2023 France's Parliament formally approved the government's nuclear investment plan – by 402 votes in favor and 130 against – which considers the €52 billion construction of six new EPR-2 PWRs at three sites.” That’s not operations that’s just for construction of 6 reactors when they have 56 in operation and that’s interest free unlike US reactor where interest is included with construction costs. One year later that’s already been increased to 67.4 billion euros: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-utility-edf-l....
France operated as a pay as you go system so they didn’t set money aside for the full cost of decommissioning their reactors etc. Last I checked there was some talk in 2017 of them setting aside 27 billion based on some ridiculously optimistic estimates but mostly the plan is just foist the costs onto future taxpayers.
The article explicitly says "overall cost" and "including all expenditures."
"Following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, the French government requested that the Court of Accounts prepare a report on the overall cost of both public and private investment in the French nuclear power industry from its beginning, including all expenditures.[225] The report estimates that the industry has cost around 228 billion euros for a yearly production of roughly 400 TWh, with a cumulative production of approximately 11,000 TWh. Among the expenses, the Court of Accounts differentiates €55 billion spent on research since 1950 (equivalent to approximately a billion dollars annually) and €121 billion spent on construction, which includes €96 billion on the 58 reactors."
Your quoting estimated future prices does not contradict what has already happened. The new reactors both have higher rated output than what is currently installed and higher capacity factors. Operating costs are small compared to initial investment, and fuel costs are a small part of the operating costs.
Let's math the shit out of this!
Assuming the 1.5 GW output for the EPR2 that's quoted in Wikipedia and a conservative 90% capacity factor, each of these reactors will produce 1.5 * 24 * 365 * 0.9 = 11826 GWh of electricity per year.
80 year running life makes that 11826 * 80 = 946080 GWh of electricity over the lifetime of the plant. Or 946 TWh. That's 946 Trillion Wh, or 946 Billion kWh. If I can sell these 948 Billion kWh for 1 cent / kWh, that's 948 billion cents or € 9.48 billion so close to the estimated cost of constructing each of these plants. So let's assume an extremely unlikely ~100% cost overrun and operating costs that are the same as originally estimated construction costs and we have 3 cents / kWh. Everything after that is profit, even with 100% cost overruns for construction.
Which maybe gives you an idea why, though the French government almost certainly does not like the cost overruns, they don't seem to be nearly as perturbed by them as the anti-nuclear activists.
And neither is the UK government. So nobody is going to claim that Hinkley Point C is going well. Nevertheless, the UK is proceeding with Sizewell C, have just selected a site for an additional pair of reactors and have made it policy to quadruple nuclear output.
Just like neither the Poles nor the Ukrainians let the problems at Vogtle-3/4 keep them from selecting the Westinghouse AP-1000 for 4 reactors each, with site-prep work having started in both countries earlier this year.
From that same Wikipedia article: “The actual cost of generating electricity by nuclear power is not published by EDF or the French government but is estimated to be between €59/MWh and €83/MWh.” that’s using numbers from 2012 in todays money €73/MWh and €103/MWh. What you were quoting was counting “investments” not total costs on an inflation adjusted basis.
In 2012 published results for ongoing costs at “The court expects EDF's projected investment programme in existing plant, including post Fukushima safety improvements, will add between 9.5% and 14.5% to generation costs, taking costs to between 37.9 and 54.2 EUR/MWh” (Note that’s annual costs excluding construction and decommissioning.) Your investment number included R&D subsidies that aren’t part of that 47 to 67 EUR/MWh in today’s money. If you wonder how these could be so wildly different it’s because France isn’t just adding up total costs and adjusting for inflation they simply don’t want to admit how large the subsidies have been because it’s so dam expensive.
France nuclear power plants don’t hit 90% capacity factors. If your generate 30% of power from nuclear you can have capacity factors that high but France ran past that and ran into the fundamental issue that people want less power on nights, weekends, and spring/fall when they don’t need heat or AC.
How about some real world numbers. From 61.4 GW of generating capacity In 2022 France produced 282 TWh, in 2023 it hit 320 TWh that’s (282 + 320)/2 / 365 / 24 * 1000 / 61.4 = 56% capacity factor.
“80 year running life” you know France is having troubles keeping a ~40 year old fleet operating, I’m sure they will have zero problems trying to hit 80 years.
Operating costs for nuclear power plants are low and consistent over time. The bulk of the cost is the initial investment, and of that the bulk is financing, i.e. interest.
This has a graph of operating costs for French nuclear plants over time on page 10. After an initial high cost of 40 centimes / kWh it settles down to slightly above 10 centimes / kWh in around 1984 and then stays flat until 2000, where the graph ends. Let's call that 12 centimes. The French franc was converted to € at a rate of 6.55 : 1 so that's slightly less than 2 euro-cents per kWh.
2. Capacity factors
Current French nuclear plants are old designs and there was significant overbuild. Modern plants easily hit > 90% capacity factors, heck, the EPR even has 4 independent cooling systems so that they can keep the plant running while doing maintenance on the cooling system! Alas, that's one of the reasons it is so difficult to build.
For the US: "Nuclear has the highest capacity factor of any other energy source—producing reliable, carbon-free power more than 92% of the time in 2021."
France is also adding renewables so the nuclear plants don't have to buffer all the variability in demand. Right now they have nuclear plants that they just shut down on weekends.
So let's low-ball this and say the capacity factor of these new plants will only be 80%. How much does this affect the calculations?
1.5 * 24 * 365 * 0.8 * 80 = 840960
So instead of producing 946 TWh over its lifetime, the plant will produce 840 TWh or 840 billion kWh. That doesn't really affect the calculations much. At 1 cent / kWh that's € 8.4 billion, which is still pretty close to the construction costs. At 2 cents / kWh we are looking at € 16.8 billion. Add another 2 cents for operating costs and we are at a total of 4 cents / kWh.
4 cents / kWh.
Now this is obviously not a perfect calculation, if such a thing can even be made. But it is very much in the right ballpark.
The claims of 20 cents / kWh or more by anti-nuclear lobbyists are not in the right ballpark. And unsurprisingly, their source for those kinds of numbers is "trust me, bro". Or Lazard, which is arguably worse than "trust me, bro".
3. Lifetime
Yes, I believe 80 years is extremely realistic, particularly for these newer reactors that were specifically designed for long operation, with lessons learned from older designs. Probably more of a lower bound than an upper bound.
"There are no technical barriers to running some nuclear plants for up to 80 years, ..."
"There are two research programs addressing the five main challenges to long-term operation: primary system metals and piping; concrete and containment structures; electrical cables; reactor pressure vessel and buried piping. “These programs have not uncovered any technical show-stoppers that would prevent the renewal of licenses from 60 to 80 years,” the study authors wrote, adding that more research is needed."
"... a majority of executives say that it is very likely their plants will operate for 80 years or longer. It is a fairly natural progression, according to Was.
"If they last till 60, maybe they can last to 80," Was said. "Heck, maybe 100?"
The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...