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Everything is impossible until someone has done it?

Meaning the French nuclear buildout also was impossible given your reasoning.



The selective impossibility arguments of the nuclear bros are hilarious.

No one has ever powered a society with nuclear energy either, yet they have no problem suggesting that with a straight face.


France, where this blogger is from, produces a little under 80% of its power from nuclear. It doesn't just power France, but also exports to the UK and Germany among others.

A 100% nuclear society is of course also theoretical, so don't even start with that. We're talking about the optimal mix of sources given currently (and medium-term foreseeable) technology. By most serious analyses, this will include improved energy storage, renewables, and nuclear in the form of SMRs.

Serious analysis means people 'at the coal face' who have to deal with the reality of actually powering a country, not posturing bloggers. Most countries don't have a desert to pave over with solar panels, and wind (especially offshore wind) has proven surprisingly expensive.

Both the current and previous UK governments, left and right respectively, have committed to increasing nuclear as part of the energy mix.

Germany is deeply regretting shutting down its nuclear power stations and the consequences that has had, not only in terms of emissions (twice the per-capita CO2 emissions of France and the UK), but also its energy independence.

France is sitting pretty, precisely because they dealt with the reality in front of them and didn't fall for Greenpeace-esque utopian fantasies that you're now projecting onto others.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/01/25/french-g...


Germany is not regretting shutting down its nuclear plants at all. Scholz called it a dead horse last year and said the decision was made a long time ago, and it's time to move on. They gave the world a blueprint with the Energiewende, and the world is jumping on that train. I think it's a very exciting time.

There is no energy independence with nuclear. Most of the uranium comes in the world comes from Kasachstan. The only two countries with relevant production that are democratic are Canada and Australia. The rest is Usbekistan, Niger, Russia. There was a coup in Niger last year and the first thing the military regime announced was they stop selling uranium to France. At a time when the western world has shut its ties to Russia, France is still heavily dependent on Russia to supply uranium. The sun shines and the wind blows everywhere.

France doesn't actually power itself because it doesn't have enough. Last winter was the first winter since there are data (since 2014) that it didn't depend on Germany for imports because their heating is mostly electric, but there's not enough capacity in the winter. I think overall they are in a world of pain, Macron announced I think 6 new plants, but it took them 20 years to finish the prototype in Flamanville. By the time the new ones are finished they will have dozens of old ones waiting to be decomissioned. And they announced enormous investments in the upcoming years so that the old ones even make it that far. So a lot of money to kick the bucket down the road.


> kick the bucket down the road

This delightfully mixed metaphor has some bite.


France gets less than half their energy from nuclear. Don't confuse the grid with the society as a whole, with all ways energy is used.

And of course no one energizes all activities in their society with nuclear, not even France.

I will add that providing the world's approximately 20 TW of primary energy use via today's reactors would expend the estimated resource of uranium at current prices in less than 10 years. So anyone proposing a nuclear powered world is also assuming advances in either breeder reactors or uranium extraction. So the hypocrisy of ruling out renewables because they have not been proved in practice is palpable.




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