<story><title>France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors</title><url>https://www.politico.eu/article/france-to-build-6-new-nuclear-reactors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>visarga</author><text>Once a few years, we get a few weeks without much wind and solar. What do we do then? Solar and wind can&amp;#x27;t store enough energy to last for weeks.</text></item><item><author>epistasis</author><text>They will be serious if they actually build it, unlike Flamanville.&lt;p&gt;While you call non-nuclear options &amp;quot;virtue signaling,&amp;quot; the attempts at building it in France and the US have been virtue signaling. We don&amp;#x27;t have the industrial capacity to build nuclear.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, we are deploying GW of solar, wind, and storage on time, on budget, ar ever decreasing costs.&lt;p&gt;Locking in the high costs of nuclear, for the 60 year lifetime of a nuclear reactor, after a 15 year delay for building, is not a serious solution for climate change.</text></item><item><author>ike0790</author><text>Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending &amp;quot;climate emergency&amp;quot;. Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>epistasis</author><text>However we do it, it looks like nuclear won&amp;#x27;t be it, because we can&amp;#x27;t build nuclear. Some of the more likely routes, with clearer cheaper cost curves than advanced nuclear or SMRs:&lt;p&gt;1) advanced geothermal (using drilling tech developed within the last decade, not the older ones)&lt;p&gt;2) flow batteries&lt;p&gt;3) chemical storage of electricity, whether as ammonia, hydrogen, methanol, or whatever tech path becomes cheapest.&lt;p&gt;4) for cold climates: district&amp;#x2F;neighborhood heating with massive seasonal storage&lt;p&gt;All of these are being developed, and experiencing falling prices on the tech. In contrast, building the same nuclear reactor design gets more expensive successive time it is built.  This is true even of France&amp;#x27;s builds in 70s.&lt;p&gt;If we are betting on future tech, nuclear is not in the cards. It would have been great it nuclear had put coal out of business in the 1980s, rather than having a ton of build delays in the 1970s that jacked up nuclear&amp;#x27;s price. But it&amp;#x27;s ship has sailed, until nuclear can build.&lt;p&gt;If France completes a single reactor by their planned 2035 date, I will be seriously impressed. However, 1GW in 13 years is not a climate solution.</text></comment>
<story><title>France to Build Six New Nuclear Reactors</title><url>https://www.politico.eu/article/france-to-build-6-new-nuclear-reactors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>visarga</author><text>Once a few years, we get a few weeks without much wind and solar. What do we do then? Solar and wind can&amp;#x27;t store enough energy to last for weeks.</text></item><item><author>epistasis</author><text>They will be serious if they actually build it, unlike Flamanville.&lt;p&gt;While you call non-nuclear options &amp;quot;virtue signaling,&amp;quot; the attempts at building it in France and the US have been virtue signaling. We don&amp;#x27;t have the industrial capacity to build nuclear.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, we are deploying GW of solar, wind, and storage on time, on budget, ar ever decreasing costs.&lt;p&gt;Locking in the high costs of nuclear, for the 60 year lifetime of a nuclear reactor, after a 15 year delay for building, is not a serious solution for climate change.</text></item><item><author>ike0790</author><text>Looks like a G20 country is serious about the impending &amp;quot;climate emergency&amp;quot;. Regardless of the motives and timing behind this, I think its great to see a country is actually being serious and practical. Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BurningPenguin</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d say it&amp;#x27;s very unlikely that there will be no wind or sun all over Europe. There is constant exchange of excess energy between the countries anyway. Regardless of that, there are other options too. Like water or geothermal depending on the country. Sometimes there even will be too much energy. I can imagine this being used to make some hydrogen for later use.</text></comment>