Summary

France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.

The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.

President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.

Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”

  • tobogganablaze
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    4 months ago

    And yet their electricity is still cheaper than Germany’s …

    • einkorn@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      French nuclear energy is so heavily subsidised by the state that direct comparison seams hardly fair

            • Ice@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Yet the prior means that France is one of the least carbon intensive economies in the world. Each German unit of GDP has twice the CO2 emissions compared to France.

            • Saleh@feddit.org
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              4 months ago

              Germany has mostly old coal. Gas is relatively new. I totally agree that Germany needs to do more for its renewable production, like many other European countries need to do. However on a cost per energy level, renewables are beating all other production methods currently known.

        • einkorn@feddit.org
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          4 months ago

          Even worse then. Costs per kWH Solar have been sinking faster than some Russian battleships.

            • einkorn@feddit.org
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              4 months ago

              What’s your point? Solar getting cheaper and cheaper has nothing to do with Germany. Our booming solar industry got axed by conservatives years ago.

    • Forester@yiffit.net
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      4 months ago

      Don’t you understand line must go up, quarterly profits now consequences never .what the fuck is a long-term investment. Get that ideology out of my power plant this instant. /S