France and the end of Atomic power

[Svartalf]

It's started, the oldest of France's active Nuclear power plants, Fessenheim, will stop producing tonight at midnight. It's the first of the plants built in the 70s and 80s to be closed down. I foresee major problems for France's electric self sufficiency, as the old power plants get closed one after the other, as they reach their 45 year longevity limit, and the limits of the so called 'green' power generation equipments that are currently fashionable show their limits, without something reliable to back them up.

Our governments for the last 20 years and atomic energy consortium ought to be tried and executed for high treason for allowing this to happen. We are supposed to be building "new generation" EPR generators to replace those that are too old, but everybody knows the fiasco that is the EPR project... an d those areva morons can't even go back to building old style generators because they have let the know how get forgotten, as the engineers and workers that built the previous batch 30+ years ago went into retirement.

[NineBerry]

It's a good thing. All those atomic accidents to happen are the most annoying thing about being the country next to France. Use Wind. You have a lot of area where you build wind turbines on land. You have a lot of coast line where you can build off-shore wind turbines. It shouldn't be a problem really.

[Svartalf]

wind, like sun, is not reliable, since it's difficult to get the equipments to generate precisely when there's demand, and power storage is still something out of science fiction, plus their power generation ability is out of proportion with what you can achieve with nuclear power, and I'm not about to swear that those sources are really more economical or less polluting than nuclear power.

And I'm not agreeing with you, well designed, maintained and watched over nuclear plants are not likely to play chernobyl.

[Cunt]

Purchase oil. It works much better than every other terrible solution we've tried.

I mean, or face the fact that nuclear is the best terrible option.

[NineBerry]

With global warming looming around the corner, nuclear is a very unreliable option. Nuclear requires constant cooling with water. That's why you have to build them close to water, either at a large river or near the coast.

River -> dry summers in central Europe -> Dry rivers -> nuclear cannot operate.
Coast -> Rising sea levels -> -> Storm floods -> High risk of Fukushima II.

[NineBerry]

And I'm not agreeing with you, well designed, maintained and watched over nuclear plants are not likely to play chernobyl.

The problem is that no matter how unlikely a big accident is, IF it happens, then we are really fucked.

[rainbow]

wind, like sun, is not reliable, since it's difficult to get the equipments to generate precisely when there's demand, and power storage is still something out of science fiction, plus their power generation ability is out of proportion with what you can achieve with nuclear power, and I'm not about to swear that those sources are really more economical or less polluting than nuclear power.

And I'm not agreeing with you, well designed, maintained and watched over nuclear plants are not likely to play chernobyl.

Batteries?
Redox flow cells?
Pumped storage?
Hydrogen production by electrolysis?
Liquid Air storage?
Molten salts?

All are established current technologies. They actually work, and EDF know about them.
With the required spending on R&D, we would have an economic, safe and environmentally-friendly solution in a year, or two.
... much less time than it takes to make a Nuke.

[Svartalf]

you know what I mean, the kind of large scale storage that would allow full use of irregular power sources even when there is no corresponding demand, and later providing of power even when demand is above immediate production.

and isn't molten salts a variant kind of nuclear reactor?

[NineBerry]

and isn't molten salts a variant kind of nuclear reactor?

No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_e ... technology

[Svartalf]

well, I'll be less ign'ant tonight.

[pErvinalia]

There's a mega battery storage operating in South Australia and it works quite well, apparently. Battery power frequency modulation is also far more stable than traditional power stations, as they take time to 'turn on' when demand spikes whereas a battery can 'turn on' instantly.

Two years after Tesla Inc. installed it, the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery is helping to avert blackouts and lower costs as Australian grids struggle to handle surging renewable power generation.

The Neoen SA-owned Hornsdale Power Reserve has responded to three major system outages, helping to restore stability to the network and lower the costs of running the grid, engineering consultant Aurecon Group said Friday. The battery started in 2017 after Elon Musk famously won a bet that he could get a 100-megawatt system up and running in 100 days to help solve a power crisis in South Australia.

Hornsdale and other grid-scale batteries offer a way to tackle the variability of wind and solar power, and South Australia is seen as a global testbed in the transition away from fossil fuels, with the state getting more than half its power from renewable sources last year. Confidence in the global energy storage market faltered in 2019, mainly as a result of fires in South Korean installations, with global growth shrinking for the first time ever, BloombergNEF said Thursday in a report.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... srnd=green

[Brian Peacock]

I thought Molten Salts was a blues singer from the 40s.

[L'Emmerdeur]

[rainbow]

I thought Molten Salts was a blues singer from the 40s.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/dodaro2/

[rainbow]

There's a mega battery storage operating in South Australia and it works quite well, apparently. Battery power frequency modulation is also far more stable than traditional power stations, as they take time to 'turn on' when demand spikes whereas a battery can 'turn on' instantly.

Ironically one of the most efficient storage systems is Uranium Redox Flow Batteries.
https://journals.jps.jp/doi/pdf/10.1143/JPSJS.75S.137

It uses the chemical properties of uranium so depleted uranium is used. This a mildly radioactive and there is a feckton of it lying about as a byproduct of uranium enrichment. Better to use it for this than projectile heads in conventional warfare. Big lumps of it are lying in the desert from the Iraq wars.