Really well, with the lowest carbon emission dependence index and the cleanest air in Europe? France has also never had a nuclear incident ever. As they are actually one of the rarest events of all the known forms of energy creation. Actually, a joke amongst wind turbine installers is that wind power has killed more people than nuclear power. Because of how frequent incidents with cranes and helicopters are.
“French electricity group EDF said Thursday that shutdowns of four nuclear reactors would be extended for several weeks because of corrosion problems, potenti…”
“France has pledged to reduce its reliance on nuclear power by shutting down 12 nuclear reactors by 2035”
“The country relies on nuclear energy for 70% of its electricity”
Doesn’t seem to be going so well, does it?
If it’s going so well, why are they shutting down reactors at all?
Because Greenpeace actively protested to prevent maintenance to some of them, lol. Use your brain, stop zealously repeating catch phrases and actually think critically.
Let me give you some examples, you said:
- “the country relies on nuclear energy for 70% of its electricity”
And all of that power is provided by 59 moderately sized buildings. 34 of them were built in the 70’s and have been refurbished and maintained to this day, because mad irrational regulation doesn’t let them just tear the damn things down and build newer ones that are more efficient and use recyclable fuel. You won’t find a single wind turbine or solar panel that lasts over 50 years, none.
- “French electricity group EDF said Thursday that shutdowns of four nuclear reactors would be extended for several weeks because of corrosion problems, potenti…”
Ok, that wasn’t this Thursday, that was some Thursday in 2021. Guess what? it was a design flaw only present on the N4 model. They closed those four, because there are only four of them. And they figured out how to fix them and now they fix them regularly and today all those four reactors are operational. They learned a lot and are now applying the same good practices to all the nuclear reactors to avoid corrosion issues in any of the plants.
- “France has pledged to reduce its reliance on nuclear power by shutting down 12 nuclear reactors by 2035”
Again, that was in 2014. A policy that originally aimed to reduce nuclear power reactors to 50% of the country’s energy generation by 2025 amid the push of fossil fuel funded anti-nuclear activism. This was delayed in 2019 to 2035. But this year it was completely reversed. They plan to build 6 more instead and potentially expand that to 8 later this year. Because it turns out, they’re really not that much more expensive than other sustainable sources and just as good at reducing fossil dependency now that Russia, the main oil exporter for EU, decided to blow their neighbor to smithereens.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-reduce-nuclear-power-output-as-french-river-temperatures-rise
So this reocurring thing due to global warming will totally never be a problem anymore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-france.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-europe-energy-crisis-updates-france-nuclear-outage/#xj4y7vzkg
You must be fuming to how this could happen when Nuclear is so awesome and has no problems and is cheap and safe and the most effective.
Except when it isnt.
Are you this dense and uninformed on purpose, or are you just trolling us? I’ll apologies for that remark, it does not contribute to the discussion, though your points are rather misinformed.
France has a lot of old plants who will be at their end of life after some 50 years of service.
The exact same thing you just said also counts for windmills. Contrary to popular belief, windmills do not last forever and will need to be rebuilt or deconstructed at the latest after some 30 years.
Does this mean that windmills do not work because they aren’t perpetual machines? No! There’s a myriad of problems with wind and solar, but them having a finite lifespan is very normal.
France has a lot of nuclear plants not producing electricity and is importing electricity like crazy.
It’s not 4 plants being shut down because they are old. Its plants shut down because they have corrosion. And the Water required for cooling isnt sufficient.
Windmills dont need to be completely replaced. they are not shut down forever after 30 years. they will just have their parts replaced. For a tiny fraction of the price of a new nuclear plant.
