Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending "climate emergency". Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.
Keep in mind that the presidential election is in 3 months.<p>Macron wants to show he is being pragmatic. Nuclear energy allows to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing the economy. It's particularly smart in this moment of tension with Russia, as Europe depends a lot on Russian energy.<p>But whether this happens or not remains to be seen.
I am skeptical to current nuclear power, would have liked Molten Salt Reactors instead. However I see leaders having to do something. Environmentalists are blocking construction of more wind power, and crisis with Russia makes gas less accessible. France has a relatively good track record on nuclear power. They may pull this off. 2035 is a really long time to wait for new power to the grid though.
I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?"<p>I wonder whether any will change their minds based on this news.
The linked article is thin on material.<p>It is 6 by 2028, 14 by 2050<p>Related article:<p>- France to build up to 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050, says Macron
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-buil...</a><p>- Announcing new reactors, Macron bets on nuclear power in carbon-neutral push
<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-reactors-macron-puts-nuclear-power-at-heart-of-carbon-neutral-push" rel="nofollow">https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-r...</a><p>- France announces a major buildup of its nuclear power program.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro...</a>
This will provide a nice data-point for those who argue nuclear makes more financial sense over wind/solar/battery, but some anti-nuclear cabal is stopping their construction.<p>Maybe they are right and France will make lots of money selling energy to its neighbors, or they are wrong, and France will be stuck with some of the highest energy prices in the euro region.
I will believe it when they break ground in France to start the building process.
Saying things and making empty promises is a art western politicians have perfected over the centuries.
The economic benefits from having a "fuck you" amount of energy ready to go at any point cannot be overstated.<p>Fresh water shortage due to drought? Desalinate ocean water.<p>Heat/cold wave? Announce that all electricity bills will be waived for the month. See popularity skyrocket.<p>Provide near unlimited compute budgets to universities etc on older hardware for their research and other work.<p>When shackles are taken off, innovation kicks off.
For as controversial and catastrophically dangerous nuclear power has been over its history, it still shows signs of being one of the best power sources out there. There is plenty of opportunity for better designs, the introduction of thorium reactors vs uranium. This week MIT announced a major breakthrough in fission technology. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633</a><p>In an ever growing power hungry world, nuclear shows the best promise in moving the world to a reliable power source that isn't reliant on geo-politically sensitive fossil fuels and eliminates greenhouse gas issues dramatically.<p>I'll add that wind and solar get a lot of hype, but being cyclic and weather dependent doesn't make it suitable as primary wide-spread grid power source.
Is it my imagination or has France lately been trying hard to be more noticeable on the world stage? I feel as if the soured sub deal pissed them off. Now they seem to be wanting to be seen as a bigger world power.
Facts on U.S. nuclear reactors:<p><a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3" rel="nofollow">https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=207&t=3</a>
As a french I'm pretty happy about this. France also bought back some important turbines from general electrics<p>On the other hand, there were announcements of rust in critical parts of a few nuclear plants.
Absurd that discussion of nuclear power brings out people who think it’s too pricy. 30 trillion in US debt. Ten percent of that could have nuclearized this country
I wonder how France is gonna plan to finance those additional "tens of billions", when those tens of billions are already missing for the existing infrastructure [0];<p><i>> France, which operates Europe’s largest fleet of nuclear plants, is heavily underfunded. It has earmarked assets only worth 23 billion euros, less than a third of 74.1 billion euros in expected costs.</i><p>[0] <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP2KN" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-nuclear-idUKKCN0VP...</a>
Every time Nuclear comes up (rational) people complain of two things:
1) cost, and;
2) safety.<p>I think the cost argument is really an irrelevance. The electricity grid is probably the most important engineering system ever developed. Everything really relies on the electricity grid. Without it, we'd do so much less. (Think about everything that depends on it. Is anything else so significant?) For example, the National Academy of Engineering considers the grid the greatest engineering achievement since 1900. See <a href="https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchievementsandGrandChallenges" rel="nofollow">https://www.nae.edu/19579/19582/21020/7326/7461/GreatAchieve...</a><p>In that regard, producing a stable electricity supply should be considered nearly the most cost-effective investment we can make. Arguing that nuclear is more costly than other forms is just arguing about a few pennies in the dollar. The dollar is the benefit we get from electrification. The pennies are the 'extra' cost of nuclear. (Tbh, I don't think nuclear is more costly. I think we can just _calculate_ the cost of nuclear better than alternatives. What's the cost of fossil fuels when you add in the external climate change impact? Who knows? What's the cost of renewables when you consider they don't always produce power/might not be able to meet demand/need significant grid reconstruction to work? Who knows?)<p>Regarding safety. This will always be a big consideration. But how safe is the world if the climate warms? I'd say not very. From what I've seen on nuclear engineering, it seems nowadays westerners really do understand how to run the nuclear plants safely. I don't believe there has been a really bad accident in the West. (5 Mile Island came close but was controlled. Fukushima was operator error compounded by cultural issues associated with Japanese management.) There will always be some risk of an accident. But, from what I've seen, actually it's pretty safe. The accidents I've heard of, can be explained as poor operation choices.<p>I think what really gets people in the energy debate is they are hoping for 'perfect' solutions which have no downsides. Unfortunately, there isn't one available right now.<p>The other thing that gets people is they consider choosing nuclear to be more risky than not choosing nuclear because they feel they know nuclear is dangerous. Whereas, from what I can see, _not_ choosing nuclear is a lot more dangerous than choosing nuclear. If we are to believe the climate change warnings, it seems that danger is much much greater than anything nuclear poses.<p><i>TLDR</i> nuclear is risky but that risk is a lot less than climate change or bad electricity supplies. People weight nuclear risk too heavily because we understand it more and people perceive nuclear as dangerous to their person. They fail to properly account for risks they cannot easily perceive that are associated with the alternatives.<p>Go France!
Germany needs to apply its great industrial engineering talent towards doing the same thing, to reverse the amazingly stupid decision they made to close theirs.
I advise anyone not in the know to look into France's historical control of uranium mining in Niger. France's nuclear industry has long been fueled by a highly unequal neocolonial relationship with their former colony.
The idea of a power source that, when failed, can wipe out a significant amount of live-able land, large swaths of population, irradiate rivers, etc, seems insane. The risk reward factor just does not seem to be there.<p>Sure there are redundancies.<p>Sure there are threat models.<p>However, everything fails. Mistakes happen, black swan events occur. What is the calculus here? How can it ever be made in good faith?