[Delacon]

I've often asked "why don't we go nuke" when it comes to energy policy and energy independence. Hey, if France can do it, certainly we can. This article threw a big ole wet blanket on that idea for me.

[SierraWasp]

This article is BOGUS as far as I'm concerned! The low value night time nuclear power production can also be used to either desalinate sea water, create hydrogen, produce aluminum and a host of other electricity gobling industrial uses. (to say nothing of charging up jillions of electric cars and light trucks)

Hydroelectric is the best peak time source, but this author, who's work on denegrating manGore caused Globull Warming is quite good!!!

[ElkGroveDan]

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power.

That's a really lame argument. If we were willing to go full out nuclear, one could envision pricing power at extreme low rates during the low use hours causing industry to crank up their demand at those times. If there is still excess power then it could be consumed by desalinization plants or some other costly, power hungry process.

[Enchante]

The fact that France pursued nuclear power with an overly state-driven and inefficient model does not mean that there are not more efficient and cost-effective ways to utilize nuclear power in meeting the energy needs of the USA.

If 80% nuclear power generation is too much for a country’s electricity grid to absorb 24/7 that does not mean that some lesser % such as 30, 40, 50, or 60 might not be very beneficial.

Also, if/when electric cars and hybrids are becoming cost-effective and widely used, there could well be other uses for that nighttime power (charging batteries, making hydrogen, etc.).

This article is interesting but rather one-sided and backward-looking at a flawed example that is 30 years old (admittedly it is the one used by McCain but that does not mean we must slavishly follow the French model on nuclear power).

[Fiddlstix]

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power. This is what France does. It sells its nuclear surplus to its European Union neighbours, a market of 700 million people....

I have a question. Isn't France and their "neighbors" in 'more or less' the same time zones?
That said, wouldn't most of their 'customers' being 'buying' the abundance of 'surplus power' at off peak hours also?
What the heck would those 'customers' be doing with all that 'off peak surplus' which they wouldn't be needing in the first place?
Just askin'

[cicero2k]

Check out EDF.PA on Yahoo Finance.

If this is a financial disaster, then someone is going to have to explain what success means.

Sure, it was subsidized, but so are many US businesses in some way.

Plus, it would be a huge task just to get to 40% electric/nuke. Still would not have to worry about daily cycle excess.

C2K

[CitizenUSA]

There are many, many techniques for storing excess energy during non-peak hours. Nuclear may not be the best solution in all cases, but the fact it has to run “full out” doesn’t necessarily preclude its greater use. That’s why energy decisions should be made by experts in the energy industry as well as the free market and not by political hacks or media pundits.

[marron]

I’m going to agree with the others. The writer is talking beyond his competency.

His main point is that, since nuclear plants don’t lend themselves to being peakers, that they are not the answer. This is his sleight of hand. We’re not looking for “the” answer, we’re looking for answers, of which nuclear power can be a key part of the answer.

This is a sleight of hand that is used to undercut any and every action we try to take; since its not “the” ultimate and definitive answer, we ought not do it. Is ANWR going to solve all of our energy needs? No? Then we’re kidding ourselves to drill there at all. Is drilling off California going to solve all our needs? No? Then best not drill at all. Is a new wind farm going to solve all our needs? No?

You can see how the game is played. The end result is always paralysis.

If nukes don’t make great peakers, that should stop us from building about a hundred of them to take up the base load. That will take a while, and the question of “surplus” nuclear energy isn’t going to be an issue for quite a few years.

And when we get to the day that surplus nuclear power is a “problem”, isn’t that what we want? How else are we supposed to power those electric cars we’re supposed to want? And when would they be charging? At night?

At night. Exactly. Build enough nukes to cover daytime requirements, and at night while we all sleep, we’ll all charge our cars. Nat gas plants will be our peakers, just as they are now. Its not a problem.

My answer to questions like this, nuke versus wind versus bio versus natgas versus coal is let a thousand blossoms bloom. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. But nuke is another basket we have hardly begun to use.

[daku]

build enough nuke plants to operate all peak hour needs,

as demand decreases, power water de-salianation plants
AND WATER THE WILD FIRE AREAS

this creats a ton of jobs and a ton of solutions

[Don Corleone]

If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?

Can't get a building permit...that's why!

[BuffaloJack]

Build more nuke plants.
There will be plenty of electric vehicles plugged in overnight charging their batteries to sap the excess capacity by the time the nukes come on line.

[PreciousLiberty]

This article is nonsense. First of all, solar is the perfect solution to pick up the peak demand times, since they are during the day. Also, nuclear plants certainly can be ‘turned down’ by increasing moderation to reduce neutron flux. That will reduce heat output, and conserve the fissionable material.

Nuclear is enough cheaper (absent ridiculous regulation) that in a free market it should do fine. Even if we ‘only’ got to 50% energy generated by nuclear, that would be a VAST improvement over our current sad situation.

Remember, nuclear + plug in hybrids = FFO (Free From OPEC)

[jrawk]

Much of what is said here is patently false the rest could speciously be applied to any form of energy generation. What was flawed was not the source, it was the business model... this is no cogent argument for deciding U.S. Nuke Power policy.

Modern plant designs don’t change fueling for demand, It isn’t like you turn the fission up or down, but certainly can change power output to match demand.

The thing is they are so damned efficient that you don’t have to concern yourself with that waste. Further the energy in the fuel is so concetrated waste is not really an issue anyhow.

The amount of Uranium required and expended to provide a family of four their energy needs for a year fits in a Coke Can! For coal, it measures tons and fits in train cars.

There is enough known Uranium deposits in New Mexico alone to run the country for 200 years. Uranium mining has a bad rap as it has never truly taken place under modern circumstances outside the environment of the Cold War in the 50’s and 60’s. But if restarted would not be a malaise of “tailings” as yellow creeks.

There has never in the history of the US been a death attributable to Nuke Power Generation, including 3 Mile Island where modern studies even actually put the cancer rates as not just lower than prophesized but lower than much of the nation. The meltdown itself is as much a creation of comic books as it is of the Russian Politburo as Chernobyl did not even have a Containment Vessel and had no buisiness running as a facility!

There have already been deaths this year in the hydrocarbon energy production game and every year prior, not to mention the estimated 40,000 a year that die from the fallout of Coal Pollution. When I say fallout I mean fallout, not just the dust, acid and cinders (I don’t care about CO2) as there is of course Atomic Radiation related to Coal Power production as well. Like anything pulled from the ground there are many isotopes that find there way into coal stocks naturally. Yes you can find a Coal Power Plant with the right Geiger counter.

Modern Nuke like France uses, or soon to complete engineering like the pebble bed systems from South Africa are scalable and safe, repeatable and designed to run on 100 year cycles.

This article is the one that is cynical pessimistic bunk! 13 years from now we in Texas will prove it to you when our next Nuke Plant opens furthering still our clean energy independence from the rest of the US Grid.

— lates
— jrawk

[AndyJackson]

At great expense, French homes were converted to inefficient electric home heating.

First, if you have nuclear and don't have gas, then nuclear it is whatever the efficiency. Second, with heat pumps electricity is not that inefficient any more.

[Plutarch]

By 1974, three mammoth nuclear plants were begun and by 1977, another five.

1974 was 24 years ago. Technology advances, but Solomon's article does not mention, nor does he appear interested in finding out, whether modern nuclear reactors might have solved some of the problems associated with the mammoth plants from the disco era.

[willgolfforfood]

Crap article. We could TRADE Mexico for electricity for oil. We'll always need oil, even if the internal combustion engine is superseded. Same with Canada.

Plus, even on a crash basis, with environmentalists shot on sight, it would take a couple of decades, maybe 3 even, to get the US to 40-50% generating capacity supplied by nuclear. Doesn't this guy think we may have more electrical load connected to the grid by then?

When we mothball our older plants, regardless of what they burned (coal, gas, oil, taking down hyrdro generating dams, etc.) many of those could be replaced with nuclear. Does this guy think we won't de-commission any generating plants in the next 30 years?

Finally, the heat from the nuclear pile heats water to steam, and the steam turns a turbine. To "turn down" the reactor from 100%, you just vent off some steam prior to feeding it to the turbine.

Crap article.

[hinckley buzzard]

I wouldn't base a decision on this kind of narrow analysis. The author can quibble about the 80% number but the fact remains that there is major room for 24/7 power generation to be taken over by nuclear. The concept of vigorously adding to nuclear generation is sound. In addition, there are operating plants reaching the end of their life cycle and needing to be replaced-- if not by new, more efficient and safer nuclear plants, then by something else.

[SuziQ]

Is the French power company government owned? If so, it's a victim of socialist central planning, and we all know how well THAT works. Private or publicly owned power companies would probably do a much better job, since their income will be determined by the decisions they make on the front end.

As far as planning for daytime peak usage and having extra at night is concerned, that would be extremely useful for those who have electric cars or plug-in hybrids who want to take advantage of 'off peak' rates to juice up!

[alloysteel]

Easy solution for this “excess power” problem - Since the electricity is going to be produced ANYWAY, then divert the available energy to the task that the “green” people think will be the solution to our problems, the economical production of hydrogen. By simple electrolysis of water, oxygen and hydrogen are both liberated from the bonds that form water molecules. The oxygen is simply released to the atmosphere, where the products of photosynthesis are augmented. The hydrogen is captured and cooled and liquified for storage, for use later on as power generation augmentation or as a motor vehicle fuel.

We don’t need hydrogen mines. With adequate electrical energy available, we can manufacture an endless supply. The recombinant water vapor formed by fuel cells is about as chemically pure water as you can get, even better than distillation. And the more of this relatively cheap fuel (hydrogen produced with the aid of nuclear power generation) we produce, the less we shall require importation of ever more precious petroleum.

Then we can run these nuclear power plants flat out, 24/7, pulsing out energy day and night, phasing in the power to produce the hydrogen as the daily peak demand slacks off.

Other than popular superstition causing the peasants to rise up with pitchforks and torches, I do not see a downside.

[reg45]

If we have excess nuclear capacity at night, we could use it to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could be used as a non-carbon based fuel for vehicles.

[Delacon]

Maybe it comes down to not doing it like the French(like I've never heard that before)...

French power myths

Posted: May 21, 2008, 7:44 PM by NP Editor

France may export massive amounts of nuclear power, but that success doesn’t come without its difficulties 

                                                By Mycle Schneider
In his rebuttal to Lawrence Solomon’s May 13 column on France’s nuclear power system, French ambassador Daniel Jouanneau made a number of highly misleading claims (letter, May 16). These assertions are especially relevant in light of France’s recent entry into Ontario’s potential multi-billion market, in which Franco-German Areva NP, the world’s largest nuclear vendor, is competing against Japanese-owned Westinghouse  Electric Co. and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
Working in France on nuclear issues for 25 years, four of them as a direct advisor to the Environment Minister’s Office, I am familiar with the French nuclear establishment. The Ontario government should thoroughly scrutinize both the French nuclear program in general and, in particular, the ongoing difficulties of Areva NP in meeting quality-control standards, deadlines and budget terms at its current building sites in Finland and France.
The ambassador’s general claims conveniently confuse electricity and energy. While nuclear energy provides 78% of France’s electricity, this corresponds to only 18% of the total energy that consumers use. In other words, France’s nuclear program does not come close to “ensuring its energy independence.” Oil meets almost half, and fossil fuels over 70%, of France’s final energy needs, as is the case in many other countries. Moreover, all of France’s uranium is imported.
“Since 1970, 50% of France’s CO2 emissions have been avoided thanks to nuclear energy.” That statement by the French ambassador is flatly wrong. France’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2006 were some 13% lower than in 1970, but even higher than by the middle of the 1980s.
“Efficiently meeting the power needs of its population”? Let’s rather say, the government-owned electricity utility — Electricité de France (EDF) — deploys massive efforts to encourage ever more electricity use, in particular in the form of highly inefficient space heat. Picture this: To generate electricity, you heat water and lose between half (a modern gas plant) and two-thirds (a nuclear plant) of the energy in the transformation process, plus an additional 7% to 10% in the grid before the electricity heats air in the home. A modern natural gas or oil-based central heating system loses less than 10% of the energy in the form of waste heat.
“Environmentally responsible”? The Hague plutonium factories emit thousands of times the amount of radioactivity of a French nuclear power plant and cause a collective dose to the world population comparable with those that resulted from the major accidents in 1957 at Kyshtym in Russia or Windscale in the U.K.
France’s nuclear energy policy is anything but “innovative.” The best example is the nuclear establishment’s total inability to adapt to the failure of the plutonium-fuelled fast-breeder program. Having squandered tens of billions of dollars on the plutonium economy, it now sits on two giant plutonium factories at The Hague, despite having lost nearly all of its foreign commercial reprocessing clients. Yet Areva continues to boast that one gram of plutonium is “equivalent” to one ton of oil. It is amazing that such an apparently valuable resource gets a zero value in the accounts of EDF, owner of a stunning 50-ton plutonium stockpile  — at US$100 per barrel of oil, the plutonium should be worth more than US$30-billion! Even more amazing, the Dutch pay EDF to rid them of their plutonium separated at The Hague. Usually, one sells a valuable resource.
“France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation”? France in 2007 exported 83 terawatt-hours and imported 27.5 TWh, indeed a large net export. What the ambassador does not say is that France cheaply exports baseload power and imports very expensive, essentially fossil fuel peak-load power to use in madly wasteful heating systems in the winter. Net power imports from nuclear phase-out country Germany alone averaged about 8 TWh over the last few years. The CO2 emissions linked to these imports are, of course, attributed to the exporting country and not to France.
Finally, the ambassador states that “France is about to deploy new-generation reactors.” After 2.5 years of construction, the Franco-German European Pressurized Reactor project in Finland is two years behind schedule and US$2.3-billion, or 50%, over budget. The equivalent EPR project in France started on Dec. 3, 2007. The nuclear safety authorities carried out an inspection the same day and noted the company’s failure to meet basic technical specifications and procedures. Following inspections revealed more significant insufficiencies.
These difficulties stem from knowledge-management problems that can only get worse. Some 40% of EDF’s operators and maintenance staff will retire by 2015. Facing a formidable shortage of skilled workers, France has already started fishing in foreign waters for willing students. As the French Embassy points out on its Web site: “Indeed, the need for students in atomic energy is estimated at 1,200 graduated students a year for the next 10 years, although nowadays the number of graduated students is of 300 per year. … Among the most significant initiatives stands the creation of an international master in 2009, which contents will be taught in English in order to be open to French but also to foreign students.”
France’s nuclear program produces not only a bag of kilowatt-hours but also numerous problems, many of them hidden as negative system effects. Countries wishing to import French nukes should look behind the curtain first.

                                                            Financial Post
Mycle Schneider is a principal in Paris-based Mycle Schneider Consulting and is the author of World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2007. mycle@orange.fr
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/22/french-power-myths.aspx