France's Nuclear Reactor Has Been Delayed Again (barrons.com) 141
Welding problems will require a further six-month delay for France's next-generation nuclear reactor at Flamanville, the latest setback for the flagship technology the country hopes to sell worldwide, state-owned electricity group EDF said Friday. Barron's reports: The delay will also add 500 million euros to a project whose total cost is now estimated at around 13 billion euros ($13.8 billion), blowing past the initial projection of 3.3 billion euros when construction began in 2007. It comes as EDF is already struggling to restart dozens of nuclear reactors taken down for maintenance or safety work that has proved more challenging than originally thought.
EDF also said Friday that one of the two conventional reactors at Flamanville would not be brought back online until February 19 instead of next week as planned, while one at Penly in northwest Farnce would be restarted on March 20 instead of in January. EDF said the latest problems at Flamanville, on the English Channel in Normandy, emerged last summer when engineers discovered that welds in cooling pipes for the new pressurized water reactor, called EPR, were not tolerating extreme heat as expected. As a result, the new reactor will be start generating power only in mid-2024.
EDF also said Friday that one of the two conventional reactors at Flamanville would not be brought back online until February 19 instead of next week as planned, while one at Penly in northwest Farnce would be restarted on March 20 instead of in January. EDF said the latest problems at Flamanville, on the English Channel in Normandy, emerged last summer when engineers discovered that welds in cooling pipes for the new pressurized water reactor, called EPR, were not tolerating extreme heat as expected. As a result, the new reactor will be start generating power only in mid-2024.
It's too hard (Score:3)
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China is probably next on the list for a meltdown. Their new reactors are having problems anyway, but the speed with which they were built does not inspire confidence.
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China is probably next on the list for a meltdown.
Much more likely they will just enjoy your lunch. Slow should not be your epitome of confidence.
Re: It's too hard (Score:2)
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This is a very funny comment in a story that, on the surface at least, confirms pretty much every single trope about nuclear power - massively expensive, impossible to deliver on time, always over budget, and so on.
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I don't care either way about nuclear but this summary makes it pretty clear that EDF is super incompetent in ways that have nothing to do with nuclear.
Bridges have lots of welding work. This story could just as easily have been about a delayed bridge.
The rest of it is about their inability to get even close to a correct estimate for how long maintenance tasks require. That's incompetence again and not specific to nuclear technology.
The reasons that estimates are bad is they are designed to be bad in the case of Fission based power generation. If the actual costs were honestly assessed, the projects would never be approved.
This is where I bring up my standard "Fission reactors can be made really safe - just not by humans".
So now we have another half billion Euros tacked on to an already incredibly expensive reactor. 13.8 Billion here, 13.8 Billion there - after a few of thes it adds up to real money!
Now just imagine the pressu
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I'm not disagreeing with your assessment at all. My point is the root cause of these things is corruption and incompetence which includes the lying, pressure on engineers etc.
I don't think this behavior is in anyway isolated to the nuclear industry. I've seen it on other large construction projects. Two come immediately to mind from my area. The San Francisco bay bridge rebuild was a cluster fuck which included installing bad primary support beams that will rust out decades before the spec'd beams would
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The Russians finish their nuclear power plants on time and budget most of the time.
What is happening to the French is just the plain result of not building any nuclear power plants for two decades and then trying to build a complex reactor design like EPR. Which is probably the reactor design with the largest number of parts in existence right now.
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A combination of both. The EPR design itself is just too complicated for its own good. And know-how was lost in the 20 years without building new power plants.
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A combination of both. The EPR design itself is just too complicated for its own good.
You're wrong. EPR is expensive because the reactor design actually does incorporate improvements into the design. Such as four trains concept, separation of major facilities, moving the control room, double walled containment dome resistant to military attacks.
I am no fan of nuclear power, so I'm not spruiking it, what I'm saying is that it is over budget for a reason and if one of these behemoths are forced into my community I would rather it be an EPR reactor over AP1000.
This is what happens when you
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The rest of it is about their inability to get even close to a correct estimate for how long maintenance tasks require. That's incompetence again and not specific to nuclear technology.
Estimating the "unknown" has nothing to do with incompetence or competence.
However: you have to make an estimate - wild guess - to allocate resources and plan for replacements etc.
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I think in China the "inspectors" would pass the weld inspections for a few cartons of cigarettes. The materials used in reactors aren't your typical stainless steel they use exotic alloys like Inconel or Monel and the water chemistry can get pretty complex too. I spent a lot of years in the eddy current inspection industry.
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I think in China the "inspectors" would pass the weld inspections for a few cartons of cigarettes.
Sounds more like Russia. I don't think corruption and kleptocracy is as normalized in China, but this from my admittedly third hand accounts.
Re:It's too hard (Score:4, Funny)
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I think in China the "inspectors" would pass the weld inspections for a few cartons of cigarettes.
Sounds more like Russia. I don't think corruption and kleptocracy is as normalized in China, but this from my admittedly third hand accounts.
A modern hospital in a major Chinese city tried to cover up the COVID outbreak & the doctor who tried to blow the whistle ended up being forced by the police to sign a confession. Only difference I see in this respect between Russia & China is that Beijing will punish those are CAUGHT very harshly
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A modern hospital in a major Chinese city tried to cover up the COVID outbreak & the doctor who tried to blow the whistle ended up being forced by the police to sign a confession. Only difference I see in this respect between Russia & China is that Beijing will punish those are CAUGHT very harshly
The President of the United States of America tried to cover up the COVID outbreak and pretend that it's only a few case that will disappear immediately.
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There was a big crack down on corruption a few years back. The penalties are stiff.
Of course that won't always stop people, but it's going to cost a lot more than cigarettes.
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The penalties are stiff.
Yeah, for anyone who opposes the CCP.
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In Russia all kinds of corruption are "accepted behaviour", you get caught? You get a slap on the wrist.
In China: you get executed.
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I don't think Monel qualifies as "exotic".
When I was a kid we lived in an old house that an old natural gas water heater (30 gallons I think) made of Monel (I've got no idea which alloy). That thing wasn't the most reliable in the world because the valving/control/pilot stuff needed repairs fairly frequently and was completely replaced at least once on our dime. However the old tank never sprung a leak or imparted a nasty taste to the water. The plumbers that came out to work on it were amused by it (well,
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replacing it every seven to ten years probably has saved money in the long term when factoring in what it would cost in repair costs to keep the "mechanical" parts running and the cost of wasted energy.
Over how long a term? Our throwaway culture isn't more sustainable than just throwing away energy on inefficiency, since that's what it is.
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I just cut and pasted a earlier warning by someone
"someone" who is you
Pretending to be a different stalker is not a good look either
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How do you know the alloy used inside a water heater? Monel is like 5x the cost of stainless and it’s a trademark name. Nobody selling water heaters is going to use it.
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I can't be sure as I didn't assay the material the tank was made out of. I only know what was said of it.
The house was built around 1905 and almost certainly didn't have running hot water originally. There was an old, long abandoned and walled off, heating structure made from brick (possibly fueled by coal originally) that my father dismantled and I don't recall seeing the remnants of any tank in that area at that time. He then moved the water heater from the corner of the kitchen (where it was in plain vie
Re: It's too hard (Score:2)
Economic suicide. (Score:2)
>> project whose total cost is now estimated at around 13 billion euros ($13.8 billion),
That is an absurdly wrong estimation. The french "cour des comptes" made a real estimation, including all the small stuff, and arrived to 20 Billions. 4 years ago.
Also, do not forget that the french gov also pays for all similar cost overruns in Okiluto, and Hinkeley Point.
In short: those reactors are economic suicide.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
Peanuts (Score:2)
150 reactors would still be absolutely peanuts compared to today's 1000GW of renewables (end of the decade projected 3000 GW)t think any of those 150 reactors will be built.
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FTFY
China is building a ton of renewables too, but they are smart enough to know they cannot stand on their own. They have also built 40 new reactors since 2011, so they should be getting good enough at it that the next 150 should be easy.
Here in the west we are forecast to be burning more natural gas in 2050 than we do today. Enjoy.
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150 reactors would still be absolutely peanuts compared to today's 1000GW (3000GW nameplate with a 33% capacity factor) of renewables backed by 2000GW of natural gas.
So: they have a CF of 33%. So a 1000GW installation produces on average something like 330GW, right?
For what exactly do you need the "backup" of 2000GW? Considering that renewables have no back up, the idea that you need 6 times the back up of the average production: makes no sense at all.
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Will probably get it down to 1x one day. Lower than that will be hard.
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You said it would be backing up 1000GW ...
And: wind plants don't have a "back up", dumbass. Why would they?
Well if they won't make it in time for the winter (Score:2)
they'll make it in time for the air conditioning season.
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A lot of French people don't even have air conditioning in their cars.
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So, the solution is to build nuclear cars?
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Would you complain?
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That was perhaps true 20 - 30 years ago.
In our days you hardly find a new car without AC. And that was gradually true the recent decades already.
Pretend ... (Score:2)
You'll get it right the first time.
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They must be processing it into XO cognac, if it's taken this long.
Use Welders Who Are Good (Score:2)
It's always welding problems.
Re:Use Welders Who Are Good (Score:4, Interesting)
It's always welding problems.
That's pretty much correct, especially when welding Stainless Steel. The different component metals don't always stay where they should, and sometimes the resulting weld isn't stainless Steel any more. Ends up with way different properties.
Great headline (Score:2)
Makes it sound like this will be their first.
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France's problem is working with China (Score:2)
Le advice (Score:2)
Le put the le money in le ITER instead.
Too big and too much bureaucracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear reactors need to be commodities. Smaller, simple designs produced dozens of times. The problem with projects like this one is that they are huge, one-off projects. Sure, they claim they want to sell it, but with a 4x cost overrun that's just a fantasy.
It's exactly like the SLS vs. Falcon Heavy. One is a huge, bureaucratic project - and the other is designed to be inexpensive and efficient.
Some nuclear companies are trying to move in this direction, but the problem is government. Initially, the government was not at all supportive of space startups. Clearly they had no chance to succeed, and equally clearly they were going to disrupt the distribution of pork. That's where the nuclear industry is now...
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The reactor is only part of the problem. The containment building has to be site specific, as does the cooling system. They depend on part on the geography of the area. Then you need all the support stuff, the generators, the emergency systems, the grid connection etc. The grid tie is a lot more work when it's got to provide gigawatts out, and start-up excitement current in. Then you need roads, security, waste storage, staff facilities...
Oh and before you even start, you need to do an extensive geological
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What the Soviets did in Chernobyl was use a design that fails to meltdown state instead of fails to shut down state.
So you're saying it wasn't cheaper to do it that way? Because that's the argument.
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The Soviets decided not to bother with a containment building, to save money and because their reactor was "meltdown proof".
Later they became aware that it could melt down, but ignored that information.
Just like at Fukushima where they ignored the known defects, to save money.
Re: Too big and too much bureaucracy (Score:2)
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Nuclear reactors need to be commodities. Smaller, simple designs produced dozens of times. The problem with projects like this one is that they are huge, one-off projects. Sure, they claim they want to sell it, but with a 4x cost overrun that's just a fantasy.
Hell Fucking No.
I'm a fan of nuclear power but the reason it's so safe is that we don't treat it like a COTS product. Nuclear power is fantastically safe because we HAVE TO do it right from the word go. This means that if the welding is not 100% up to code and beyond it, the plant shouldn't be rushed ahead because it might cost money.
This means nuclear plants are expensive to set up. That's the price we have for not having another Chernobyl or even a Fukushima. Again, I'm not opposed to nuclear power
Who needs safety ? Seriously ? (Score:2)
Safety? who needs safety ? Seriously ?
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Nuclear reactors need to be commodities. Smaller, simple designs produced dozens of times.
That's more or less what France is doing. This is their "next generation" design, and it's essentially the first off the assembly line. Once they get this model right, then they will build copies of it all over the country, indeed all over the world.
If France follows their normal pattern, then the first reactor of a series will be more expensive, and the subsequent ones cheaper.
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If France follows their normal pattern, then the first reactor of a series will be more expensive, and the subsequent ones cheaper.
Question is, how much cheaper? At the moment it looks like it will have to be 5X or more cheaper in order to match the price it was supposed to be.
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That's a good question. I'll bet there's a search engine that could help answer it.
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That's a good question. I'll bet there's a search engine that could help answer it.
Ummm, huh? You think a search engine can answer the question of how much an as yet unbuilt nuclear power plant will cost in the future, when the final cost of the prototype is not yet known? Sorry, I'm pretty sure that would require magic. As it stands all we really know is that the prototype costs about 5X what it was supposed to. According to some sources (using a search engine), the real cost so far has been more like 6X the original projected cost to date (about 20 billion Euros). That is not a negligib
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You should be able to figure out why the power plant cost so much, and whether any of those costs can be avoided.
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I should figure it out myself? Why? Shouldn't it be up to the people actually promoting the construction of these boondoggles to figure out the costs? Maybe they shouldn't get the numbers so drastically wrong while they're at it. Honestly, it sounds like you're implying that there's some obvious, external reason that he cost goes so high that could easily be avoided, but for some reason you don't want to state it outright. Probably because it's nonsense. The reality is probably that they cost so much becaus
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I mean, you don't have to figure it out. You could continue posting ignorant speculation. As long as you know it's ignorant, I guess it's ok.
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I'm sorry, but I'm not the one wallowing in ignorance here. The facts are pretty evident. It was supposed to cost 3.3 billion euros and it cost up to 6X that. There's no good reason to believe that future projects built on the same design in different locations are not going to cost a similar amount to construct. If you have some good information to present for why a future version would cost vastly less, please present it. Otherwise you're just playing some ridiculous, childish game and wasting my time Gro
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Grow up and converse like an intelligent adult.
I seriously doubt if fantomfive is an intelligent adult.
The "five" part is probably his mental age.
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your repeated posts are not really adding much to the conversation.
With fantomfive, they never do.
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You think a search engine can answer the question
of how much an as yet unbuilt nuclear power plant will cost
in the future
Sure. You just have to use the WayForward Machine.
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France does not really have places where it can build nuclear plants. A huge deal of them are shut down regularly during summer because of water shortages. And with climate change that only can get worse.
The only solution would be along the coast, that would be a time to take out the popcorn and watch the news - will be entertaining.
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France does not really have places where it can build nuclear plants.
Better call them up and tell them to stop building, then. Hurry, before it's too late!
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They are not building any inside of France atm, at least not that I'm aware of.
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There was a recent story about a nuclear reactor they are currently building. Maybe you've seen it:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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Lol - I suggest to read the news.
Can't be so hard.
ATM not even 50% of the plants are running: and summer is OVER already - the water shortage however is not.
Well, it's obviously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Well, it's obviously... (Score:2)
Re: Well, it's obviously... (Score:2)
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Government can't do anything right. It should all be left up to the free market
France's initial nuclear program was all about government lead. There was no place for free market, and it achieved its goals.
The problem today is that government has no will. It seems unable to choose a long term strategy and stick to it. That would break any project, either being run by government or by subsided private companies.
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No. EDF is just incompetent. If this was a bridge or a barn or a highway or a little red wagon they'd still fuck it up.
500 million euros in additional costs for bad welding. Why were cost over runs for such incompetence not included in the contract as a cost the welders have to eat? Incompetent negotiators or corruption because the welding contractor is someone's cousin?
In other words...
Government can't do anything right.
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Given France had a successful nuclear industry for decades I'm going to assume ...
France's 56 operational reactors were built in the 80s, then the pace slowed drastically. The most recent constructed were Chooz-B2 (1985-1997), Civaux-1 (1988-1997), Civaux-2 (1991-1999). There is a gap of 16 years between the start of Civaux-2 and Flamanville-3 (the EPR), during which the remaining competences were lost to retirement homes.
Source for the reactor construction dates: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
At least France =! USA (Score:2)
Re: At least France =! USA (Score:2)
It's an old, old story (Score:2)
"The delay will also add 500 million euros to a project whose total cost is now estimated at around 13 billion euros...blowing past the initial projection of 3.3 billion euros when construction began in 2007".
Who could have seen this coming? Yet another nuclear reactor over construction time, grotesquely over budget and failing to deliver power when promised. Perhaps the funniest part is the .3 attached to the original budget estimate, implying that the proponents knew exactly what the cost was going to
Economic Suicide. (Score:2)
Building new nuclear reactors is true Economic suicide.
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A projection isn't silly just because it's precise. You're confusing the precision made in an estimate for an implication of confidence in accuracy.
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I'm not confusing anything. I'm pretty sure you know that.
EDF Involved with Code Aster, Saturn and Salome (Score:2)
Estimated Cost per MWh? (Score:2)
Called it. (Score:2)
I use this as a prime example in literally every Slashdot "we can solve global warming by building nuclear" debate. And I'm pretty sure in the last post I even wrote something along the lines of "it's scheduled to start up at the end of the year so expect to hear announcements of a schedule slip in Q4".
Ah, yes, the nuclear cretins at work (Score:2)
Slow, slower, nuclear. Always massively over budget. 4x is not even the worst possible. And then lies, lies, lies. And when called out more lies. Also, Insurance? We cannot get any bloody insurance! (Another lie. It would just be so excessively expensive that it would give even the nil-wit nuclear cheerleaders pause.) And waste storage? Unsolved and we are proud of that! These people shit where they eat and they expect everybody else to do that too. Then, wenn on of these monsters actually works, we get ele
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Why do we have this fundamentally flawed tech again?
Because coal sucks (mercury in the air), every wind power-plant comes with a natural gas power-plant as backup (serious problems with Russia right now), and solar doesn't work at night.
There's no good source of power, but having power is better than not.
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Aehm, have you ever heard of, I don't know, power storage? Or water power as backup? Apparently not. All arguments pro nuclear are lies at this time and yours are no exception.
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Water backup is only effective in certain places, if you claim otherwise you are lying.
Other types of power storage are still too expensive for widespread use.
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every wind power-plant comes with a natural gas power-plant as backup (serious problems with Russia right now)
No it does no.
Hint: look up the amount of wind power versus gas power, e.g. in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands.
Of course: a tricky look up, as all those countries are in a continent spanning super grid ... ...
So: look up how much power the whole continent produces by wind and how much by gas
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(Another lie. It would just be so excessively expensive that it would give even the nil-wit nuclear cheerleaders pause.)
Something is a lie, if the person saying it: "knows better". So, if you think it is "wrong" (that is a huge difference to a lie), then tell us which insurance company would insure a nuclear reactor against a meltdown like in Fukushima.
We are waiting ...
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Tell us which insurance company would insure a nuclear reactor
against a meltdown like in Fukushima.
Easy: any insurance agency would insure
a nuke plant for, say, 50 billion a year.
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And why are they not doing it ... ?
Lol ... idiot.
More delays in Flamanville? (Score:2)
I'll stick to Farmville.