Too bad this also slows down their renewable energy projects, which would make it cheaper. But Nuclear Reactors + renewables is a bad combination. Nuclear Reactors can’t be adjusted to renewable energy, because you can’t just shut them down when the renewables producing lots of cheap energy. Nuclear Plants always have to keep running, which is also expensive.
France is already doing just that
As I said, Nuclear Plants are slowing down their expansion of renewables. No idea why people downvote me.
Well maybe because of your assertion that renewables and nuclear are a bad combination. Renewables are notoriously unstable sources of energy and you need grid stability or you will have power outages.
This has traditionally been achieved by coal, gas and oil plants. Nuclear power plants are a non GHG emitting way to replace this stability. Countries that have a larger share of renewables but much less nuclear than France still have to fire up their coal and gas powered plants on quiet winter nights after an overcast day. Which means more GHG emissions.
What I meant by “France is already doing just that” is that they are running their NPPs in load following mode, which means they have the ability to adjust their energy output capacity based on the share of renewable energy available.
So while I don’t know exactly why you are being downvoted (not by me in any case), it could be because you’re attacking an ally of the fight against GHG emissions. The goal is not simply to have as many solar panels or wind farms, but to reduce GHG emissions. And that’s what we have to keep in mind. So while, yes France moved to more nuclear there are more ways to look at the same news item: they are still going for 60% electrification of the nation by 2030, up from 30% right now and still going for massive expansion of renewables.
But the nuclear plants will always push the renewables away and keep the price up. It is a bad combination. You need something like gas (later hydrogen) which you can just turn on and off again. It’s just physics. Nuclear Plants will always push the price up.
That’s not necessarily true. There is less need for them if NPPs are there, sure, but the price tag is always king. If renewables are simply much cheaper they will proliferate.
And we will always have to fill in the gaps for when renewables aren’t available. Betting it all on battery tech mostly coming from China is a dangerous game in this geopolitical era.
I don’t understand why people are so anti nuclear. It doesn’t have any emissions. The US, Canada and especially Australia have massive uranium reserves. It provides grid stability. Except for being expensive there is almost nothing going against it. And life cycle costs are likely coming down substantially in the near future with emerging technologies.
Renewables + Battery is the most cheapest way. If you don’t want to import Batteries from China then you need to starz to build your own factories. Nuclear Reactors make you also depend on other countries.
I’m not directly Anti-Nuclar. I’m anti bad financial decissions. Spending so much money on Nuclear just to produce expensive electricity is just stupid. All the money needs to go to Renewables + Batteries, now.
Yes, but factories are expensive and cost a lot of time to build. So I’m not that sure about the financial picture of that either. Not to mention finding the space to put them + battery parks.
And then you still haven’t solved what to do on quiet winter nights after an overcast day.
It only makes Europe dependent on Canada or Australia. The US has their own.
Batteries require a lot more resources as well. Whereas uranium is only a few tonnes per year, lithium or sodium-battery technology requires reserves in the millions of tonnes. That’s the difference in energy density.
Betting it all on one horse it what’s stupid. Yes we need to make batteries, but we also need to diversify and reduce dependency.