Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Yes but, Three Mile Island... (Original Post) NNadir Jun 2022 OP
Post removed Post removed Jun 2022 #1
france is having loads of fun with its nukes industry these days nt msongs Jun 2022 #2
And here's the info to your lede Finishline42 Jun 2022 #3
They are not burning coal, and unless our bean counters here have any fucking idea... NNadir Jun 2022 #4
Electricite de France John ONeill Jun 2022 #5
I wasn't aware of that. It's another way in which the so called... NNadir Jun 2022 #6
Nuclear troubles John ONeill Jun 2022 #7

Response to NNadir (Original post)

Finishline42

(1,091 posts)
3. And here's the info to your lede
Mon Jun 20, 2022, 11:24 PM
Jun 2022
PARIS — Plumes of steam towered above two reactors recently at the Chinon nuclear power plant in the heart of France’s verdant Loire Valley. But the skies above a third reactor there were unusually clear — its operations frozen after the worrisome discovery of cracks in the cooling system.

The partial shutdown isn’t unique: Around half of France’s atomic fleet, the largest in Europe, has been taken offline as a storm of unexpected problems swirls around the nation’s state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF.

As the European Union moves to cut ties to Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France has been betting on its nuclear plants to weather a looming energy crunch. Nuclear power provides about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a bigger share than any other country in the world.


But the industry has tumbled into an unprecedented power crisis as EDF confronts troubles ranging from the mysterious emergence of stress corrosion inside nuclear plants to a hotter climate that is making it harder to cool the aging reactors.

The outages at EDF, Europe’s biggest electricity exporter, have sent France’s nuclear power output tumbling to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, pushing French electric bills to record highs just as the war in Ukraine is stoking broader inflation. Instead of pumping vast amounts of electricity to Britain, Italy and other European countries pivoting from Russian oil, France faces the unsettling prospect of initiating rolling blackouts this winter and having to import power.

EDF, already 43 billion euros (about $45 billion) in debt, is also exposed to a recent deal involving the Russian state-backed nuclear power operator, Rosatom, that may heap fresh financial pain on the French company. The troubles have ballooned so quickly that President Emmanuel Macron’s government has hinted that EDF may need to be nationalized.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-power-russia.html

NNadir

(33,515 posts)
4. They are not burning coal, and unless our bean counters here have any fucking idea...
Tue Jun 21, 2022, 12:03 AM
Jun 2022

...about "cleaning up" the cost of climate change, they're still full of their usual selective attention morally vapid bullshit.

The New York Times has always been an anti-nuke paper, and like most anti-nukes, is very selective in its attention.

The glee in the era of climate change, for which selective attention is responsible, is appalling.

There is not one anti-nuke, not one, who cares a whit for the cost of climate change. Can climate change's damages be repaired with 43 billion dollars, 43 trillion dollars? Do mindless bean counters even care?

There is no amount of money that can clean the effects of anti-nuke shit for brains who routinely confuse journalists with engineers, and whine incessantly.

France built its reactors in the 1970's. It's fifty years later. The problem with nuclear reactors is that they last too long. These reactors were built before the explosion of modern metallurgy, about which I know something as my son, with whom I frequently converse, just obtained a Master's degree around welding, and is taking the knowledge to a nuclear engineering program.

In the last 50 years, while trillions of dollars were squandered - there is no other word but "squandered" on the dangerous fossil fuel dependent so called "renewable energy" industry - France produced electricity without dumping dangerous fossil fuels in the atmosphere.

The trillions of dollars so squandered on so called "renewable energy" - most of it in this century - did nothing but to lead to the acceleration of climate change.

Last week, the weekly data showed an increase over just ten years ago, of 24.93 ppm:

Week beginning on June 12, 2022: 421.03 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.00 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 396.07 ppm
Last updated: June 20, 2022

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

Of course, the hundreds of homeless people who died because trillions were spent on the useless solar and wind industry that was dependent on fossil fuels - they're burning coal in Germany right this fucking second - are the tip of the iceberg.

What's the odds that ethical shit for brains types will add the death toll of the failure of their trillion dollar idiot fantasies about the useless solar and wind industry to the loss of life resulting? I realize that the bourgeois anti-nuke types here don't give a shit about dead homeless people. but what happens when extreme heat kills their fellow head up the ass bean counters because there's no electricity because the wind isn't blowing? Will they give a shit when white people with Teslas in the driveway start dying from heat? Have they no interest in Pakistan, India, fucking Kansas?

I know what they won't do. They won't look in the mirror.

These are, after all, the same people who still whine 43 years later about Three Mile Island, are they not?

How many dead on the street people in Harrisburg PA over these last 43 years died from exposure to radiation.

The French will fix their reactors, and they will learn once again how to effectively and smoothly build new ones. Germany will not fix the atmosphere. Perhaps the French will get as good at building nuclear reactors as it as the Chinese are right now; they once led the world and clearly can do so again.

Fuck selective attention. Fuck bean counting. The fucking planet is dying, oh, and the wind turbines in Denmark don't last even 20 years on average.

The ethically void mentality of anti-nukes is disgusting. Fucking people are dying, and they want to call in accountants to cite in the NY Times.

John ONeill

(60 posts)
5. Electricite de France
Wed Jun 22, 2022, 03:17 AM
Jun 2022

The French have a tremendous asset in their nuclear fleet, which still gives them very low power emissions, but they've been squandering and abusing it. They don't even have an Energy Minister, they have a 'Minister of the Ecological Transition', to which important post they appoint Green-influenced hacks like Segolene Royale and Barbara Pompili, or television 'ecologists' like Nicholas Hulot. Electricite de France has to supply a third of its power to competitors like Total, the gas company, or renewables pedlars, at rock bottom rates. They are free to onsell it at a healthy profit, or return it for a refund if Covid craters demand. It's no wonder EdF are billions in the red. Meanwhile, wind and solar make about ten percent of the company's power, and 5% of its profits, but engineers doing 'energies renouvelables' are given preference over the ones doing nuclear and keeping the lights on.
tinyurl.com/yuwn85sv

NNadir

(33,515 posts)
6. I wasn't aware of that. It's another way in which the so called...
Wed Jun 22, 2022, 08:41 AM
Jun 2022

..."renewable energy" fantasy, besides sucking up money while doing zero to address climate change, is damaging hope for saving the world.

Thanks. I'd like to PM you to learn more.

John ONeill

(60 posts)
7. Nuclear troubles
Thu Jun 23, 2022, 04:05 AM
Jun 2022

Michael Shellenberger had a piece a few years ago about how, after he realised that nuclear was the best solution to CO2 emissions, he sent a bunch of young enthusiasts from the Breakthrough Foundation out to see how nuclear was doing in places where it formed a big part of the energy scene. In every case, on closer inspection, the industry's future looked bleak. Even South Korea, the only 'Western' (well, capitalist) country that could still build nukes on time and on budget, and export them, subsequently elected a president who thought closing all the reactors, and relying on wind and Russian gas, shipped through Kim's Country, was a better idea. You know what it's been like, same as on DU - a few realists crying in the wilderness, and a whole torrent of 'Solar will save us' from every media platform that even shows an interest. I just parroted everything I hear on Dr Chris Keefer's 'Decouple' podcast - the above was mostly from his frequently returning guest, Mark Nelson. Hopefully, a dose of reality coming up soon will help remove the blinkers.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»Yes but, Three Mile Islan...