[HN Gopher] France prepares for possibility of electricity black...
___________________________________________________________________
France prepares for possibility of electricity blackouts during
winter months
Author : geox
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-12-03 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rfi.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rfi.fr)
| cm2187 wrote:
| I don't understand the advice of switching off appliances and
| lights at night. Surely if France has an energy production
| shortfall, it must be at peak period which is during the day from
| 9am until about 7pm [1], not in the middle of the night.
| Particularly given the vast majority of its production costs the
| same whether you use it or not (nuclear, wind). And even for gas,
| the problem isn't the quantity of gas available, it is the output
| of the gas power plants available. So saving gas during the night
| doesn't help peak production.
|
| [1] https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-production-
| delectricit...
| hinata08 wrote:
| On top of the peak production issue, there is also a fuel
| reserve issue
|
| As half of the the nuclear power plants are down, they have to
| rely on gas. And gas has become difficult to import.
|
| France feels both the liberalisation of the electricity
| production : Private operators promised to produce cheaper and
| cleaner power back in the 2000s. But they didn't. Virtually all
| of them used a scheme (the Arenh system) to get public
| electricity in bulk, sold to them at a loss and at a fixed
| price, so that they could compete with the public company on
| retail prices. Then the government was still in their
| privatization bubble, lobbies told them everything was fine,
| and they began to stop to maintain and to phase out public
| nuclear power plants.
|
| And now we no longer have electricity.
|
| The backup would be electricity made with natural gas. But you
| need to save that natural gas now. Russia froze the export of
| natural gas. And other companies know that gas is in short
| supply, so prices skyrocket.
|
| So yeah, we have to turn everything off at night.
| Normille wrote:
| >Russia froze the export of natural gas...
|
| France [and the rest of the EU] announced they were going to
| stop buying Russian oil and gas, blocked Russia's access to
| the world banking system so Russia couldn't receive payment
| for their gas in $$$ or EUREUREUR, then refused to pay for it
| in Roubles instead. Consequently, Russia froze the export of
| natural gas... because they weren't going to give it away for
| free.
|
| 'FTFY'... as the kids say.
|
| Amazing how the narrative has changed to "Russia froze gas
| exports". You'd maybe expect the historical timeline to get a
| bit vague after a few decades. But we're talking events which
| occurred only this year. We can all remember what actually
| happened and in what order. Why are so many people, --who
| must remember as well as I do, the actual sequence of
| events-- willing to go along with this doublethink version of
| history, just because Russia are the 'bad guys' in this
| conflict?
| hinata08 wrote:
| Whatever, there is no Russian gas anymore
|
| I disagree with your russian narrative (payments for gas
| would have been processed despite the swift ban). But the
| objective part of this story is that EU has no gas anymore.
| And debates about Russia won't fuel power plants
| gattilorenz wrote:
| > France [and the rest of the EU] announced they were going
| to stop buying Russian oil and gas, blocked Russia's access
| to the world banking system so Russia couldn't receive
| payment for their gas in $$$ or EUREUREUR, then refused to
| pay for it in Roubles instead.
|
| As far as I remember, it was still possible (in terms of
| banking systems/santions) to pay the gas in Euros as usual;
| Russia decided, unilaterally, that they would require the
| payment to be in Rubles (to try and limit its plummeting
| value). For ther rest, you're correct.
| alwayseasy wrote:
| Your recollection is correct. He is falling for the same
| thing he accused op of.
| f6v wrote:
| Why would Russia want to be payed in EUR when their
| foreign assets were frozen? Russia relied on foreign
| financial infrastructure which has proven to be
| unreliable for them.
| analognoise wrote:
| It's a funny twist of logic to say the Russians found the
| foreign financial infrastructure to be unreliable for
| them... When they were booted out for attacking a
| neighboring country, isn't it?
|
| It's so unreliable! All they have to avoid is invading
| their neighbors, but they couldn't manage that. Russia is
| the unreliable party.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am sure France isn't contemplating blackouts to save on the
| gas supply.
| hinata08 wrote:
| No
|
| i'm just saying there are 2 issues nowadays :
|
| peak production issue
|
| and how to keep producing electricity in the next year, as
| gas is difficult to source, and the tank might eventually
| run out.
|
| The government is just making a single campaign to simplify
| the PR ! In the same ads, they ask citizens to both reduce
| energy consumption (eg lower heating to 18degC), and to
| delay intensive usage out of peak hours (eg use you washing
| machine or the space heater during the day and not in the
| evening)
| Loic wrote:
| In France, a lot of heating is done during the night (Water,
| buildings with so cold "accumulator electrical heating").
|
| You also need to think that France is not alone. If they can
| save during the night, this is extra power which can be
| exported to Germany where the base production relies on coal
| and gas. This way, Germany uses less gas during the night and
| can export more during the day to help France.
|
| We are fully interconnected, we need to look beyond "just our
| country".
| cm2187 wrote:
| But that assumes the blackouts are the result of gas power
| plants not running at full capacity at peak period because of
| a lack of gas. I don't believe that is the case, at least not
| this winter.
| hinata08 wrote:
| they run at full capacity, but the capacity of natural gas
| power plant is very limited
|
| Nuclear power plants used to make up for the steady base
| consumption. Natural gas power plants used to be the last
| ones to be solicited. They were just used to adjust to the
| marginal needs, not to produce most of the power.
| masklinn wrote:
| FWIW https://energygraph.info/d/cM9gMNZ4k/availability-
| timeline?o... has a timeline of the various french reactors, and
| shows that some (tricastin 3, 4, cruas 3, budget 4, belleville 2)
| were restarted during november.
|
| I assume the part of the bars which is after the green ("update")
| dashed line is previsional.
|
| It shows that more reactors should be restarting in the next few
| days although several (most notably all 4 N4 still) will remain
| offline over winter. And Cattenom 1 and 3 are apparently not
| planned to restart before late feb / early march.
|
| There's also an overview dashboard which is just... sad:
| https://energygraph.info/d/q7IpAJHVz/overview?orgId=1&refres...
| daVe23hu wrote:
| oezi wrote:
| lizardactivist wrote:
| You cannot be serious. Why would Russia blow up their own
| pipeline instead of just saying "no"?
|
| Did you even listen to the US in the weeks leading up to the
| invasion of Ukraine? They were agitating more about Nord
| Stream and their own Energy Dominance agenda than actually
| talking about Ukraine, and to top it off Biden literally said
| right in front of the cameras that we want to stop the EU
| from buying Russian gas, and in fact we have a way of doing
| that.
| oezi wrote:
| Because it is part of Russia's strategy to drive European
| energy prices higher and by forcing a hard winter to bully
| their way to negotiations in Ukraine.
|
| Europe already made it clear it won't go back to Russian
| energy so the pipelines aren't needed anymore. This also
| explains why nobody started with any repairs.
|
| For your insinuation that the US did it, there doesn't seem
| to be any evidence or motive. And if anybody wanted to
| really disrupt any Gas flow they would have needed to blow
| up all 4 pipes. Yet only 3 were destroyed.
|
| Also it would have been much too dangerous for any NATO
| member to engage with a military action against Russian
| property.
|
| It is most likely that Russia had already installed bombs
| during construction and just had to pull a trigger.
| [deleted]
| kazen44 wrote:
| > You cannot be serious. Why would Russia blow up their own
| pipeline instead of just saying "no"?
|
| because it denies the non hardline faction inside the
| russian political sphere the option of negotiating with the
| west. This further solidifies putin's position.
|
| Blowing up the pipeline made sure the war in ukraine had to
| continue, because stoppping the war will not result in the
| resumption of gas trade with the west.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Only 5% of french electricity comes from gas and of these 5%
| only 20% come from Russia
| brainchild-adam wrote:
| France is not alone in this. In a way it seems Europe in general
| is headed for a challenging winter when it comes to energy
| supply.
|
| I wonder where this will lead.
|
| I assume that once larger parts of the population start feeling
| the effects of these energy shortages, some dynamics might
| change.
|
| At the moment, most do not seem to take much notice or care, not
| that I blame them. Life can be stressful enough as it is.
| kazen44 wrote:
| at the same time, gas supplies are at an all time high.
|
| The main issue seems to be absolutely atrocious timing of
| nuclear reactor maintenance. (which is just bad luck).
|
| > I assume that once larger parts of the population start
| feeling the effects of these energy shortages, some dynamics
| might change.
|
| I sure as hell hope that the dynamic will increase in providing
| ukraine with the weapons required to end of the war far more
| quickly. From a geopolitical standpoint, making sure russia
| does not win this war or end it in a stalemate is absolutely
| vital for European stability.
|
| Also, it could lead to further defence integration in europe.
| (this has already been fast tracked once the war started).
| lzooz wrote:
| In what way will Ukraine winning (whatever that means) help
| us in terms of energy?
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Russia is already going broke. They could be forced to
| resume gas sales by financial need.
| Raed667 wrote:
| And yet we allow extravagant malls all over France to light and
| heat 24/7 with open doors and no accountability. All streets are
| filled with large high-definition ad screens & computers that
| cool and heat all day long. Restaurants and bars can just heat
| the outside terrace air, etc...
|
| And the liberal take has been: This is fine as long as they're
| paying their bills.
| 323 wrote:
| If malls waste it like that it means that the electricity is
| too cheap and still plenty.
|
| I bet that a lot of it it's subsidized in good old French
| tradition.
| f6v wrote:
| Same in Denmark. A shitload of storefronts lit up at night.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| I have no idea of what you are talking about.
|
| Blackouts are a solution to consumption surges. We are not
| seeing surges right now so there is no reason to restrict
| anyone. We can't store electricity after all. In case of a
| surge, the commercial sector is the first being hit, long
| before houses. Plus the issue is mostly heating, lights consume
| next to nothing.
|
| France electricity is mostly clean by the way.
|
| > Restaurants and bars can just heat the outside terrace air.
| etc...
|
| That's been illegal for more than a year.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| France's energy production is not as clean as one may think.
| There is considerable damage to the environment in countries
| in Africa, where Uranium is mined/extracted. Probably still
| better than lots of CO2 output, but not actually clean.
| kergonath wrote:
| Any source at all?
|
| (Good luck finding one that supports your position).
|
| FWIW: yes, mining is bad. But uranium is unbelievably
| energy-dense and the amounts are ridiculously small
| compared to any other source of energy. All things
| considered, nuclear causes fewer emissions per MWh than
| most solar panels (which are not radioactive but still need
| heaps of metals and semiconductors). Also, there is no
| contest with coal, oil, and gas, which is the thing that is
| actually used when you don't have nuclear energy available.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| No energy production is clean. Actually, I'd be curious to
| compare the damage to the environment caused by uranium
| extraction vs producing batteries and solar panels.
| kergonath wrote:
| Nuclear and solar panels are about the same. Better than
| wind and hydro. But all of these are very similar, and
| are miles better than fossil fuels. It's difficult to
| have accurate projections for batteries because the
| technology that can be used at these scales is not clear
| (though he vast majority of them need cobalt, which is a
| huge issue on several levels).
| guggle wrote:
| Indeed, there is no clean energy, it's all relative. I'd
| like more people to realize this.
| pitaj wrote:
| > There is considerable damage to the environment in
| countries in Africa, where Uranium is mined/extracted.
|
| That's equally of not more true of renewables like solar
| and batteries that require large amounts of rare metals.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Doesn't change the fact, that it is not actually clean,
| does it?
| loeg wrote:
| Most uranium comes from Kazakhstan. Australia and Canada
| are also major producers. Namibia produces some, but far
| from the majority. This isn't exactly a "western countries
| dumping environmental problems in Africa" story.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| So is the Uranium extraction story better in those
| countries? I think that would then be the next question.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| In Australia at least most of it comes from a copper mine
| that happens to intersect a uranium vein, so as long as
| the demand for copper exists its extraction is
| essentially environmentally free
| loeg wrote:
| I don't think it's particularly bad per GWh of energy
| produced. You just don't need that much uranium. Compare
| coal (still being actively mined and burned for energy!),
| natural gas, exotics for batteries/solar.
| Raed667 wrote:
| > the commercial sector is the first being it
|
| That's not what they announced, the day before an area code
| will be revealed, and all electricity will be cut (including
| schools, public utility and telephone towers)
|
| > That's been illegal for more than a year
|
| There is an exception if terrace area is "covered". Guess
| what everyone installed in the past year?
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| What they announced is in addition to what's always done.
| The commercial sector has always been the first to be cut.
| Some companies actually have special contracts which mean
| they can be cut with barely any notice.
|
| If they do large scale blackouts it's that they can't
| manage the load without cutting normal customers so
| obviously it's going to hit everyone.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Same stuff in Germany. We ask households to save energy, but at
| the same time store windows and malls and whatnot are lit up
| all night long. Maybe it needs a separate higher energy price
| for businesses to change that behavior.
| oezi wrote:
| I can talk only about Berlin but many furniture stores have
| started to switch all lights off at night. Even the Ikea sign
| isn't lit anymore.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I guess the take on that is, that there is no good
| regulation for it. If it can be one way in one city, for
| some of the shops, and different for other cities or other
| shops, then the measures/policies are not really reaching
| the target. Apparently one cannot rely on people doing the
| right thing, especially not, when they are in some kind of
| loosely associated group like a business, where no one
| feels responsible at the end. It might be a topic which
| needs intervention by the state to get the desired effect.
| bushbaba wrote:
| In the US industrial & large electric consumers often pay a
| cheaper $/Kwh price. But they also have additional peak
| demand surcharges.
| morelisp wrote:
| While I'm sure there's a ton of possible places for
| commercial use to optimize that aren't being done yet, stores
| leaving signs on all night was banned by the EnSikuMaV back
| in August.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| They should come to my city then and start fining
| businesses for violating that.
| septune wrote:
| After Fukushima nuclear accident, France green party shot on
| French nuclear plants, it was the new cool thing to push for
| sustainable only energy and bring down our nuclear industry.
| Newly elected socialist president stared at the green party so he
| also pushed against. 10 years later we have no plumbers, no
| welders, old plans, no gas. And more to come : because of Ukraine
| war and increasing EV, electrical power consumption is
| anticipated to reach peaks and cause outages. Thats what you get
| when politicians only consider their popularity, ignoring what
| experts used to warn.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| No one takes the Green Party seriously in France. They won a
| few cities because the socialists are a mess and people wanted
| to punish Macron but generally speaking they are only useful as
| the butt of jokes. It's not a serious political party in any
| way.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| What's the reason that nuclear is so unreliable recently in
| France?
| lm28469 wrote:
| A bit of everything, 5 have been stopped due to cracks:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_corrosion_cracking
|
| A few are having their once in a decade maintenance check
|
| Some are waiting for maintenance which were delayed due to
| covid
|
| We didn't train enough maintenance workers because everyone was
| talking about shifting out of nuclear in favor of renewable
| (we're using American contractors now afaik)
|
| So mostly bad decisions and poor management, it's a political
| issue more than anything else, it worked fine since the 70s to
| more or less a decade ago
| gobip wrote:
| You forget to mention a key point: these maintenance workers
| were on strike and they were also part of the problem.
| kkfx wrote:
| Nothing is "unreliable recently", the mess is decade old,
| simply when EDF was private, after have acquired public made
| energy systems, they reduce investments to the minimum creating
| the present mess. Once the damage was so big they can't mask it
| again they left, leaving the mess to the public.
|
| The public, who is abetter, have managed to push some excuses
| to avoid finger point any private friend and so reveal the mess
| all at once.
| [deleted]
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Short answer: Lack of investment caused by incompetent
| politicians, supported by public opinion. Lot of French are
| anti-nuclear.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Wikipedia says the plants are managed by EDF, a private
| company. Ordinary asset management would have prevented known
| problems, so there must be a few things that went wrong at
| the same time.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| EDF being a public company owned by the state means that it
| gets hurt by two things:
|
| * It has to make money, instead of being a utility that the
| state provides, so decisions have to be taken in accord
| with all shareholders.
|
| * When it does make these decision, well, politicians have
| been selling off EDF piece by piece on the right, and
| sacrificing it to get votes from the green party on the
| left.
|
| All in all, incompetent fucks with a 5 year foresight
| running it like a pawn on a chessboard, happily sacrificing
| it to get a meager advantage.
| detaro wrote:
| A "private company", owned to 85% by the French state,
| taking price policy orders from the French state, getting
| regular cash injections from the French state to not go
| bankrupt.
| ttymck wrote:
| Investment in _what_? The plant is still running, no? Do they
| need _more_ plants, _repairs_ to existing, or _upgrades_ to
| existing? How do I dig further?
| guggle wrote:
| > Do they need more plants, repairs to existing, or
| upgrades to existing?
|
| All of these... but no political will because "nuclear bad,
| renewables good".
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Well, what is there to say given the state of Flamanville
| 3? Currently sitting at ~ EUR13 B compared to the initial
| estimate of EUR3.3 B. With a tentative start date for end
| of 2023.
|
| All the while EDF is being nationalized. Should more
| money have been spent in even deeper pits?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_P
| lan...
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > Should more money have been spent in even deeper pits?
|
| If we want electricity in a world without less fossil
| fuels, I'd say yes.
|
| EDIT: renewable can't be the only solution. They are
| cheap only because they are built on top of existing
| nuclear/fossil solutions.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Renewables already fill that gap at vastly lower costs.
| Unless you specify that you're one of the about a million
| people living north of the arctic circle, then sure, do
| whatever you need.
| martin_a wrote:
| In the summer they had lots of cooling issues due to low water,
| if I remember the news correctly.
|
| The article speaks of "ongoing or delayed maintenance, or
| corrosion problems" as the next reason for the problems.
| martin_a wrote:
| > At the moment, half of the country's reactors are offline
| because of ongoing or delayed maintenance, or corrosion problems.
| The new generation of power stations has yet to be built.
|
| Meanwhile, in Germany, pushing renewable energies is frowned upon
| and people are saying "look to France, they're doing nuclear,
| THAT would save us, too".
|
| (Even more) Strange times ahead.
| lm28469 wrote:
| lm28469 wrote:
| From absolute gold standard electric production/infrastructure in
| the 70s to barely able to light school rooms in 2022
|
| I miss politicians who had a vision that didn't stop at the end
| of their term.
|
| We even had to restart a coal power plant last week...
| kkfx wrote:
| The issue is simple: privatizations.
|
| The public in the past have invested for the public interests.
| After the private have do not profiting from old State made
| investments leaving anything else falling apart. When they
| reach a certain level of mess they going out, leaving the State
| arrange the mess and handle the rage, waiting to came back once
| a new wave of investments will repair the mess.
|
| Unfortunately people seems to ignore that, allowing such model
| to prosper.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Not sure what privatisations have to do with the problem. My
| understanding is that it is a combination of a technical
| problem (corrosion happening at an unexpected pace) and the
| impact of covid lockdowns which deferred critical
| maintenance.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Privatization has everything to do with the problem. Let's
| take EDF and our nuclear plants. Why is EDF struggling
| financially today ? Because, through the magic of _opening
| up to the market_, they have been forced to sell up to
| 100TWh are prices as low as EUR40/MWh. The new private
| operators that came in simply resold that. And right now ?
| They're even kicking out clients, just so they could sell
| on the market at EUR1000/MWh. What does EDF struggling
| financially mean ? Among others, fully depending on the
| state to give them the money they need to exist, not being
| able to keep training and maintain specialists to repair
| such corrosion (we needed to import people because there
| were simply not enough qualified engineers for that), not
| being able to build more plants and therefore losing our
| edge in nuclear power.
|
| Why are most of our public services struggling ? Because
| over time, they've been handed out to private companies.
| Unemployment office ? Partly privatized. Tax collection
| from employers ? Privatized. Healthcare ? Partly
| privatized, and the beast is being starved so they can
| privatize it more.
|
| There has not been a single, memorable outcome of a public
| service being privatized in France and it getting better.
| skellington wrote:
| Incomplete and biased analysis. What you describe as
| 'privatization' is nothing like a free market which is
| what most people think you're describing.
|
| Privatization in your case is crony capitalism combined
| with state power to manipulate markets in favor of
| certain actors. The key enabler in this scheme is
| government power corrupted by money.
|
| The commonality in all the different areas that are
| failing -- power, healthcare, homelessness, etc.. --- are
| the regulatory systems that are grossly distorted by
| corrupted government interventions.
|
| The main problem with governments and their services
| today is that there is no real feedback loop and systems
| without feedback are doomed to fail. You can vote liberal
| or conservative and nothing changes because they are two
| wings of the same bird.
| analognoise wrote:
| Maybe there's no "good" capitalism? What we used to think
| of as "good" capitalism was really heavy government
| investment leading to a "virtuous feedback loop", for
| which the Government got no credit?
|
| I think that's more accurate then the "not TRUE
| capitalism"/no true Scotsman interpretation.
| alwayseasy wrote:
| > Among others, fully depending on the state to give them
| the money they need to exist, not being able to keep
| training and maintain specialists to repair such
| corrosion (we needed to import people because there were
| simply not enough qualified engineers for that), not
| being able to build more plants and therefore losing our
| edge in nuclear power.
|
| EDF is struggling because the state kept intervening and
| asking them to shut down future nuclear plants. You can't
| have specialists if they are retiring and the state
| destroyed any career prospects due to planning they would
| shut down plants...
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Have a look at Flamanville 3 and then try to sell another
| 20 of those to the public.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_P
| lan...
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > they have been forced to sell up to 100TWh are prices
| as low as EUR40/MWh.
|
| Should be plenty. The Swedish paid off nuclear plants
| operate around EUR25/MWh. Lazard similarly puts the range
| for paid-off nuclear plants at $24-$33/MWh.
|
| It's simply mismanagement of a golden goose.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| forty wrote:
| It's easy to underpay nuclear power then realize heavy
| investments are needed after a while to either keep the
| plants alive with modern safety norms or to dismantle
| them (we have done that a lot here, electricity used to
| be cheap).
|
| Also EDF has been trying to build the EPR in England,
| Finland and France, and it costed much more to build than
| budgeted. And someone has to pay the difference. And it
| seems that this someone is us :) (French tax payers and
| consumers)
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > Also EDF has been trying to build the EPR in England,
| Finland and France, and it costed much more to build than
| budgeted. And someone has to pay the difference. And it
| seems that this someone is us :) (French tax payers and
| consumers)
|
| My view is that it is a subsidy for the naval nuclear
| reactors and weapons programs in UK and France that they
| choose to pay from a national security perspective. The
| French and UK public simply gets to eat the costs with
| barely any say in the matter.
| akiselev wrote:
| It's "simply mismanagement" is a trivial tautology that
| can be applied to any situation.
|
| Team didn't deliver? Mismanaged the team. Team failed to
| deliver because they didn't do any work? Mismanaged the
| hiring process. Massive wild fire? Mismanaged forests.
| Asteroid wipes out all life on Earth? Mismanaged the
| planetary defense systems. Andor escapes from Narkina 5?
| Mismanaged imperial prison complex.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Given that nuclear power plants are known entities and
| the list of "unknown unknowns" should be non-existent
| given their safety critical nature it simply is
| mismanagement.
|
| If your nuclear plant costs more than $33/MWh to operate
| then you are doing something wrong and stop trying to
| blame "the green movement", "privatization" or whatever.
| katbyte wrote:
| so costs to build operate and maintain something never
| changes and is the exact same everywhere and in every
| country and if it's different then what you think it's
| "mismanagement"?
|
| Because I'm pretty sure it's going to be different from
| France to America to poland
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > The LCOE figures for existing Generation II nuclear
| power plants integrating post-Fukushima stress tests
| safety upgrades following refurbishment for extended
| operation (10-20 years on average): (in 2012 euros)
| EUR23/MWh to EUR26/MWh (5% and 10% discount rate).
|
| There, from a source extremely positively biased towards
| nuclear.
|
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-
| aspec...
|
| Putting the 2012 EUR23/MWh to EUR26/MW in an inflation
| calculator gives EUR26/MWh to EUR29/MWh.
| gobip wrote:
| Your own argument is busted by.. your own argument. EDF has
| been nationalized again and here we are. The issue isn't
| "privatizations".
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Lol no it hasn't. As of last year, the state owned 83% of
| EDF, along with everything that being a publicly traded
| company entails. The renationalization process has been
| started, then immediately halted by shareholders that sued
| to block it. Additionally, things don't get magically fixed
| because it belongs to the state again. The current state of
| things is the result of 20 years of selling off EDF, piece
| by piece to vultures.
| kevingadd wrote:
| This is like watching a new administration take over
| government and then blaming them a month later for problems
| caused by the previous administrators. It takes time to fix
| years of neglect and malicious incompetence.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The issue with "privatisation" (they're not all the same) IMO
| is that it's usually done by politicians trying to get
| something for nothing.
|
| Lets say the benefits of privatisation are 10% cheaper
| widgets or power stations, a politician will aim for 30%.
| Goodbye future.
| guggle wrote:
| Private or public, nuclear does not like short-term
| management. And there has been too much of it lately,
| mostly because politics.
| ttymck wrote:
| Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I can't quite follow what
| you're saying. I know it's anti-privatization, but I can
| really make out the rest.
|
| What does this mean > "After the private have do not
| profiting from old State made investments leaving anything
| else falling apart. When they reach a certain level of mess
| they going out, leaving the State arrange the mess and handle
| the rage"
| oezi wrote:
| He means that a publically built monopoly rarely benefits
| from privatization. Because the efficiency gains will
| largely be extracted by the private owners.
| Raed667 wrote:
| there was also an (ideology motivated) sabotage, where
| EDF is forced to sell at a loss to private competitors
| who produce nothing, who then will turn around and sell
| to customers at a cheaper price than EDF. So they can
| claim that private is obviously better.
| [deleted]
| kergonath wrote:
| It's all a house of cards anyway, as the "alternative
| providers" who were supposed to provide all that magical
| agile goodness through the wonders of competition fold
| one after the other and are actively pushing their
| customers to EDF.
|
| That's cargo cult economics: someone said competition was
| good so we're going to have all the appearances of it
| without giving up on our large publicly-funded
| infrastructure. Because at the end of the day we need
| electricity and all these rent seekers are only good at
| extracting value from existing installations. Utterly
| disgusting.
| lairv wrote:
| Sure, obviously this has nothing to do with a 40-year anti-
| nuclear policy.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Sure, obviously this has nothing to do with a 40-year
| anti-nuclear policy.
|
| Ah, the good ol' French anti-nuclear policy: I remember
| when French intelligence blew up a ship belonging to a pro-
| nuclear lobby group. Wait, that was the _Rainbow Warrior_
| [0], which belonged to Greenpeace, en route to
| demonstrations against French nuclear tests
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_War
| rior
| lairv wrote:
| We're talking about nuclear power here, not weapons, I
| thought that was implicit, and no the two are not
| necessarily related
| hinata08 wrote:
| the anti-nuclear policy was in Germany
|
| France was proud of the nuclear energy. It had plenty of
| cheap and carbon-free electricity (it was once exported to
| all the neighbouring countries) It was a way to be
| independent energy wise, as more countries can export
| nuclear fuel than oil. It was building power plants, and
| processing nuclear waste from other countries
|
| And it made plenty of engineers busy ! France used to be a
| country led by engineers.
| kergonath wrote:
| The Superphenix closure was entirely political. The
| turning point was when the socialists had to ally with
| the environmentalists because they were getting short on
| votes. That would be the "gauche plurielle" circa 1997.
| In parallel the Gaullist old guard, who were all about
| sovereignty were overtaken on the right by neo-liberals
| looking to get a quick buck, for whom the Russian
| oligarchs were role models, also in the mid-1990s. But
| even at that point it was uneasy. I think most informed
| people would have been pro-nuclear, but that was a
| politically risky thing to say out loud.
|
| The environmentalists (well, most of them anyway; there
| always were some who saw that the alternative to nuclear
| was coal and oil, not sunshine and rainbows) were always
| against because they were mostly hippies doubtful of any
| state-run project and somehow nuclear bombs.
|
| > France used to be a country led by engineers.
|
| And teachers and doctors. But we've got the politicians
| we vote for.
| lairv wrote:
| Anti-nuclear policy sure was more significant in Germany
| as it has led to the complete stop of its use, but in
| France it has also slowed down the development of the
| industry.
|
| Although it has evolved positively over the last three
| years, nuclear energy remains controversial in public
| opinion [0,1], and many ecologist and left-wing movements
| have militated against nuclear power for the last 30
| years. Whether or not it had an impact on the country
| policy toward nuclear power would require a more in-depth
| and complete archive work, but just remember that
| Emmanuel Macron was advocating toward reducing the share
| of nuclear power when he was elected for the first time
| in 2017 [2] (he has now changed)
|
| [0] https://www.ifop.com/publication/lopinion-des-
| francais-sur-l...
|
| [1] https://www.lesechos.fr/politique-
| societe/societe/sondage-ex...
|
| [2] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x87skbx
| [deleted]
| cdot2 wrote:
| So the issue is that many of their nuclear plants require long
| maintenance downtime simultaneously? That seems like something
| that could have been foreseen.
| seszett wrote:
| Maintenance had been postponed during the corona crisis. What
| had not been foreseen was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and
| the associated general energy crisis in Europe.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Can't forsee covid though, nor the war in Ukraine
|
| Without these two things we most likely wouldn't have blackouts
| Normille wrote:
| >What had not been foreseen was the Russian invasion of
| Ukraine and the associated general energy crisis in Europe...
| >Can't forsee covid though, nor the war in Ukraine...
|
| Yes. Who could possibly have foreseen that announcing you're
| stopping imports of gas from Europe's biggest supplier, in
| the run up to winter, might lead to... er... a shortage of
| gas supplies.
|
| No-one in the corridors of power in the EU or UK, apparently.
| lm28469 wrote:
| If you plan for these events you'll quickly stop all
| imports and exports because you'd have to be self
| sufficient 24/7
| f6v wrote:
| > No-one in the corridors of power in the EU or UK,
| apparently.
|
| The whole conflict is just the other party calling bluff.
| But both the West and Russia have invested so much neither
| is going to settle. So they up the stakes and get dragged
| downwards. The only thing left is to complain that "it's
| unfair the the US is profiting".
| sgt wrote:
| And those pesky Norwegians.
| oezi wrote:
| If anything can be learnt here it is
|
| A.) that many things cannot be easily foreseen which includes
| record draughts and the Ukraine conflict.
|
| B.) It makes sense to have a diversified energy mix where no
| single source is used predominantly.
| masklinn wrote:
| Yes and no. The 10 years maintenance was foreseeable, but
| during that they discovered a stress corrosion issue, initially
| on the (somewhat beleaguered) N4 plants but which turned out to
| be a lot more widespread than that.
|
| It's also chicken-decisions coming home to roost: maintenance
| delays due to covid, poor maintenance conditions leading to
| strikes, and training of new maintenance staff had apparently
| been slashed because an expected shift to renewables means you
| apparently don't need to train staff to maintain 50+ nuclear
| plants expected to run for decades more.
| coulditbenow wrote:
| I wonder how this will affect people's circadian rhythms and
| subsequent health benefits, prime time for a study.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-03 23:00 UTC)