France Adds First New Nuclear Reactor to Its Grid Since 1999 (yahoo.com) 19
Saturday France connected a new nuclear reactor to its grid "for the first time in a quarter century..." reports Bloomberg, "adding low-carbon electricity supply at a time when a sputtering economy has made demand sluggish."
The Flamanville-3 reactor — the first such addition since Civaux 2 was connected in 1999 — will join EDF's fleet of 56 reactors in France, which generate more than two-thirds of the country's electricity and are the backbone of western Europe's power system. When fully ramped up, the new unit will provide a stable source of supply, which can be particularly useful during peak hours in the winter. Increased nuclear output will also curb the use of gas-fired power stations.
France is set for record power exports in 2024 as local demand remains subdued and it keeps adding renewable capacity. Better generation from EDF's nuclear fleet is also helping keep a lid on wholesale prices, partly reversing bill increases caused by Europe's energy crisis. The Flamanville-3 reactor in the country's northwest adds 1.6 gigawatts of output, raising France overall atomic capacity to about 63 gigawatts...
Since construction started in 2007, its budget — excluding finance costs — has quadrupled to an estimated €13.2 billion ($13.9 billion). The yearslong saga has created lasting doubts about the French nuclear industry's ability to build reactors on time and on schedule — a crucial issue as it prepares to build at least six large plants in the country. EDF's ongoing work on two similar reactors in the UK has also suffered repeated delays and cost overruns, complicating the British government's effort to raise funds for the construction of another pair of EPRs.
France is set for record power exports in 2024 as local demand remains subdued and it keeps adding renewable capacity. Better generation from EDF's nuclear fleet is also helping keep a lid on wholesale prices, partly reversing bill increases caused by Europe's energy crisis. The Flamanville-3 reactor in the country's northwest adds 1.6 gigawatts of output, raising France overall atomic capacity to about 63 gigawatts...
Since construction started in 2007, its budget — excluding finance costs — has quadrupled to an estimated €13.2 billion ($13.9 billion). The yearslong saga has created lasting doubts about the French nuclear industry's ability to build reactors on time and on schedule — a crucial issue as it prepares to build at least six large plants in the country. EDF's ongoing work on two similar reactors in the UK has also suffered repeated delays and cost overruns, complicating the British government's effort to raise funds for the construction of another pair of EPRs.
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1. There isn't enough manufacturing capacity for that.
2. A single solar panel per roof might meet the standard, but be relatively useless and inefficient
3. Not all areas and roofs are suited for solar.
4. That much solar added that quickly would seriously mess up the grid. We'd need storage to go along with it.
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Nuclear is great but the environmentalists have ass-fucked it with mountains of regulation, so why not just do solar?
I'd say because we've been trying to replace nuclear fission with solar for nearly 50 years and it's not been going well for anyone. How about we put an end to the anti-"nukular" lawfare and get some new nuclear power plants built on time and under budget?
The government should make it a fucking vaccine/obamacare level mandate. I'm serious. If you don't have a solar panel on your home, after a 6 month warning .. you should have to do felony-level jail-time at Supermax ADX until you agree to get solar installed.
There was that study out of Japan showing rooftop solar with batteries would cost more than building nuclear power plants. Japan isn't exactly known for being friendly to nuclear power so they've had their own lawfare driving up nuclear power costs. Eve
Re:Solar power your home (Score:5, Informative)
environmentalists have ass-fucked it with mountains of regulation
That's not true in France. The bureaucracy is pro-nuclear, and frivolous lawsuits are much less common than in America.
Flammville-3 was budgeted for $3.3B, spent over four times that amount, and was completed a decade behind schedule.
It was a financial debacle, but excessive regulation wasn't the cause.
a solar panel on your home
Residential solar panels on preexisting housing are twice the cost of grid-scale installations. Although politically popular, they are not a good solution.
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It was a financial debacle, but excessive regulation wasn't the cause. ... except in this case: they are written in French :P
Considering that the regulations are everywhere the same
Re:Solar power your home (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, France 24 cites technical problems as the cause of the 12 year delay and massive cost overruns.
Keep in mind this is a new reactor at an existing nuclear site, i.e. the cheapest option as the infrastructure isn there and the site is already well surveyed etc.
Also France's nuclear fleet manages a capacity factor of about 70%, with unexpected shutdowns a regular problem, so "stable" is not the right word.
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Also France's nuclear fleet manages a capacity factor of about 70%,
77%.
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Although politically popular, they are not a good solution.
Tell that to Australia where 36% of homes now have solar panels.
The reality is they are a very good solution if you put the correct incentive structure in place. And that means putting them on a variable energy tariff to encourage load shedding and self use of energy. Combine it with a battery (or a bi-directional EV) and residential solar means building homes which don't put any daily variable strain on the grid. For long term grid predictions traditional base load plants can pick up the load (pun intended
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I'm starting to think that the "solar panels only!!!" PR has been pushed by the fossil lobby. Realizing that they have lost the battle pretending that climate change isn't real, the next step was to lure the hippies into supporting a plan that is guaranteed to fail, so they can blame the environmental movement once the grid collapses. This is especially apparent now as we have just passed the winter solstice when solar generation is minimal. Germany is already suffering from this, they just had multiple wee
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cause not everybody gets sunshine 24/7 all year around, in fact, solar production for central/north europe is really minimal for half of the year
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This has nothing to do with environmentalists or regulation. The industry is not geared up to build nuclear power plants anymore. There's a lack of experts, there's a lack of construction workers, there's a lack of virtually everything required to build projects like that. Even raw materials are in short supply.
This will also continue unless many countries go all in on nuclear at the same time. An industry doesn't get built because one country builds one reactor.
on time and on schedule (Score:2)
"...about the French nuclear industry's ability to build reactors on time and on schedule."
I guess they wanted to say "on time and in budget".
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No one to fire.
It was planned like that.
And if you cancel a project which you need in the middle of construction: who is fulfilling your needs, and how - ever?
Expensive but Necessary (Score:1)
I have serious doubts about the reliability of wind and solar alone along with batteries. You can get to 60-80% of capacity with renewables but that last 20% is way more expensive. We'll still need at least some nuclear for baseload, especially in the winter.
Synonymous with nuclear construction (Score:4, Insightful)
Since construction started in ____, its budget — excluding finance costs — has quadrupled to an estimated €__.__ billion
There's also little talk of additional costs of running a nuclear power station, you know, like fomenting civil unrest & conflict in countries that supply uranium ore in sub-Saharan Africa (the Sahel) in order to get lower prices, storage & processing of nuclear waste for the foreseeable future, & the cost of decommissioning nuclear power stations once the radiation has made them unsafe to operate any more.
Yeah, "cheap" electricity.
Lightly higer price (Score:1)
Estimated to €19.1 billion (build on 17 years).
(from article 9 may 2024 in newspaper https://www.lemonde.fr/les-dec... [lemonde.fr])
"Doubts in the nuclear industry" (Score:2)
That's a cute way of saying that this project caused AREVA to go bankrupt and get absorbed into a state owned energy utility as part of a government bailout.