French Nuclear Power Struggles in a Cold Snap

Typical French-style analysis: Blame the equipment, not the lazy Frenchies. STRIKE! STRIKE!

Mr. Henri Proglio with yields in current markets, the image which EDF has as the prime French nuclear power producing, which extended to Europe by taking over the British electric utility. Look beyond Europe towards the Middle East region where President Sarkozy helped Areva orders with the UAE, and other GCC member countries for Civilian Nuclear Power. The average power rates in countries as Pakistan with 180 million population, yet struggling without any serious reach from EDF, which has the potential for majority ownership of the domestic utilities with huge demand and backlog from thermal power plants. China has worked and succeeded with the regulatory authority. Karachi the largest coastal city, with largest population of Pakistan, industry, will be the best market for EDF for equity participation. This will be the best decision of 2009 iniative when this matures in 2010. eMail: haroon@supertec.com

Sounds like more of a social problem than a technical problem to me.

Now let's see how long it takes for the French-bashing comments to commence.

What did well paid social secure French worker say to the other well paid social secure French worker?

For the love of God, Strike! I can't survive another year with just 37 paid days off and this 32 hour work week is killing me.

Jfarmer9

Nuclear power is one of the cleanest and most affordable power sources that is able to produce a serious quantity of energy on a consistant schedule. Yes, we need to conserve and we need to develop renewable energy. Nukes are a serious solution to a serious problem. Start building more nuke power plants!

Comme tu disais. EDF needs solar bad....

So much for the global warming theory...I wonder if the Europeans, like most Americans, have realized what a scam the climate change agenda is...

And, I see that the EU ban on incandescent lights hasn't helped reduced demand...

It was very predictable, that France should suffer an electricity shortage in a cold winter. The governmenst spent many billions to promote electrical heating, which they will now regret very much. Electricty demand will double at least with a cold winter. So then France needs not 58 nuclear power plants [NPP], but at least 75, to meet winter demand. But the rest of the year these NPP will be idle. Nuclear energy is only cheap when the reactors produce all year round. But with 80% of all electricity being nuclear, the NPP's have to be closed many months each year, to follow demand. Demand variates much each day, each weekend and from summer to winter. Nuclear is only competitive as base load power, that is no more than 40-50% of all electricty.
Therefor France always exported nuclear electricity at dump prices to other countries/ But now most neighbouring countries have overcapacity of power production plants.
As shown by Germany, Denmark, Spain and the UK, modern windfarms are able to produce up to 20% of all power at the moment and up to 50% by 2025-2030. In such a situation nuclear will out competed by renewable energy sources, like wind, sun, geothermal and gas fired plus hydro power plants to balance supply and demand.
France will become a nuclear fossil within 10-15 years. Most of their NPP are old and need more and often repair and maintenance, as was clear in 2009, in 2010 too and in future even more often.
France needs to construct large windfarms too, on shore and offshore, like the UK. The UK will have 35 GW wind energy on line by 2020.
The French electricity shortage can better be solved by better home and building insulation, in stead of more nuclear. A new nuclear reactor needs at least 10 years of planning, licensing and construction. Too late to solve the current problem.
The kind of new NPP EDF is constructing now in France, the EPR at Flamanville, has serious problems. In Finland the same kind of NPP is being built. Its costs have doubled, construction time too. Moreover the safety measures have strongly been critized by Finnish, Englisg and French safety authorities.
It looks like nuclear energy is in serious trouble. There is an energy revolution taking place, in which there is no place for nuclear anymore.
By the way, worldwide nuclear energy only provides 3% of world energy consumption. We can do without.

Oui oui! Me, I surrender! Mon strike! STRIKE!! Vacation!

It looks like the French have been a tad lax on infrastructure funding over the years. Those 58 were probably fine when they were first built; you would have extra capacity to cover unexpected outage and maintenance. The population is certainly some several million larger since their construction. With all of that increase in demand, there has to be an increase in supply simply because your maintenance cushion has shrunk.

A previous poster seems to think that the so-called renewables will overtake nuclear. Well, you can't command the sun to shine or the wind to blow. Hydro is FINITE - there's only so much running water. Geothermal can only be used in certain geological-friendly places. And gas-fired? Since when is gas a renewable? Are we harvesting methane from cows?!?

Nuclear, like gas, oil and coal, provides lots of continuous energy from a very small footprint. It may have its problems, but there are no carbon emissions AND the waste is easily collected in discrete containers. Fuel rods can be reprocessed and reused. Is it dangerous? Well, traffic accidents kill many more, despite efforts to limit them. Nuclear power, like any other engineering discipline, has a learning curve. Every year we learn more about it, through research and trial and error.