https://fsr.eui.eu/regulated-access-to-incumbent-nuclear-ele...

Ouch!

Maybe, but I think the corollary goal is to have nuclear power be a bigger part of the remaining non-renewables. So if (exaggerating grossly) it's 90% renewable, 9% nuclear, and 1% other, that's arguably still better than the current state.

The only cheap renewable infrastructure comes from an enemy country and PV solar panels start degrading the moment you install them.

If you think "energy independence" means "be completely and utterly dependent on Chinese manufacturing" then sure, solar and wind offer a quick path to that.

But that's not what the term means, it means "don't need to depend on any other country to keep the lights on". And for Western countries nuclear is really the only option there, whether you like it or not.

If you think nuclear is too expensive, just wait until you see the bill for the the continual refusal to develop indigenous electric capability the minute things start going sideways.

I guess I’m surprised it isn’t more of an option for California - the U.K. uses Snowdonia as a giant battery, and afaik there’s been one failure of a dam that wiped half of trefriw off the map a century ago - which wasn’t hard as it’s a speck of a place. Since then the lakes have pretty reliably and safely provided somewhere to stick excess energy, and now are largely pumped by the offshore wind arrays nearby.

California has big mountains, but I’m not sure if the geology or terrain is right for PHES.

The major factor was reducing the use of gas which lowers gas prices. As a result the main beneficiaries weren't electricity users but gas users paying lower prices and saving 133 Billion.

We also have periods in the winter (so solar of little to no use), where we can have a week or two of no wind.

As the gas generators are not run constantly, they're more expensive than if they were. There are various (at least 3) UK "gridwatch" sites available, offering real time and historical generation mix. Maybe have a look.

From memory, so probably flawed, we still tend to depend upon nuclear and gas for around 40 - 50 % of our generation (nuke being low - say between 5 and 10).

As such they are essentially massive switching-mode PSUs, and there is no possibility of having a synchronised connection, as the AC has to be synthesised, following the local spinning iron.

So even to build the one Flamanville 3 reactor, they had to shut down two older reactors in Fessenheim in order to not have an illegal increase in capacity.

Now that the law has been rescinded, they are planning 6 simplified EPR2 reactors, taking lessons from the fairly catastrophic EPR project FV3.

(Of course, even that catastrophic reactor will be more profitable than any intermittent renewable projects in, for example, Germany, but hey, the standards for what counts as "success" and what as "failure" are different for nuclear and for renewables).

France also currently does not need to urgently expand their nuclear fleet, so the schedule for the EPR2s matches those needs and the need to fully account for the problems with FV3. Instead, they are increasing the production of their existing fleet, both by operational upgrades and also by increasing use of intermittent renewables to cover variations in demand, allowing the nuclear fleet to run closer to fully rated capacity instead of having to load-follow.

For a number of fairly well-understood reasons:

1. It's a FOAK design.

2. France stopped building reactors, so expertise was sparse

3. The EPR is too complex, partly because it was designed for German safety standards, which in turn were specifically designed to make nuclear reactors economically unviable (they did not succeed with this). Those regulations are also prescriptive instead of requirements-based, so they don't allow simpler+safer passive cooling like the AP-1000s. It's silliness layered on top of silliness.

4. It was built as a single unit, instead of a series of overlapping builds of the same reactor design. This was because until March 2023, expanding French nuclear capacity was forbidden by law. So they couldn't legally build in a way that is efficient and effective.

The EPR2 project addresses this in a number of ways:

1. The EPR2 is dramatically simplified relative to the EPR.

2. The law was rescinded in March 2023, so they will be building six of them initially, in batches of 2, with overlap between all the units. 8 more are planned for later.

3. They are making much more realistic assumptions at the start

I am not sure how you can claim that the EPR2 program is "a shambles" when they haven't begun building in earnest yet and are explicitly addressing most if not all the issues with FV3. Seems a tad premature.

Of course nuclear is one of the things that is financing the French state and industry, with EDF returning massive profits to its owner (the state) and the ARENH program subsidizing industry.

Of course nuclear is much more complex as a whole, because it comes with at least two, sometimes three different business sections attached by default: Production and sale of rare isotopes, on-site laboratories and research and recycling of spent fuel.

It's hard to beat gas. The small double digit MW plant in my town literally has only one on-site full-time employee. My guess the only reason the FTE hits even 60 (didn't check) is because there are so many small installations.

Coal has a lot of fuel processing on-site just for its own demand, the mostly very sensible environmental regulations add a lot of complexity to processing the flue gasses and this adds A LOT of moving parts.

Nuclear can be built simple enough that people are literally thinking about dropping it down a mile deep hole, barely the width of a US-standard human. On the "hands off" scale it can't beat gas, barely anything but solar, geothermal and nuclear thermal electric can, but it could beat coal and hydro and possibly even wind via scale. Just how often should one have to send a report to some oversight body on the number of functional overhead lights and whether the change in microclimate didn't displace any rare insect species before one can say: "You didn't read the last 20, you're not getting another one."

Does it really matter? There’s always a first country to do anything.

It makes no sense actual exposure to radiation is increasing because of the lack of nuclear plants…

France pre 21st century, China, Korea, Poland.

It was always a public/nationalized company. It started 100% owned by the government. In the 2000s, around 15% were sold to pension funds, so way over 80% in the hands of the state, which by EU rules (and common sense) makes it a state company.

The floating shares were bought back in order to facilitate the nuclear expansion plans.

The losses in 2022 were largely due to the energy crisis because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which interacted rather nastily with the French ARENH program that requires EDF to sell 25% of its power output for 4 cents/kWh, no matter what the market rates. And no matter if it needs that power itself.

When the energy crunch hit in 2022, wholesale electricity rates rose up to €1 / kWh. So EDF had to sell its electricity for 4 cents, then buy it back at 25x markup for €1.

Oh, and the government actually increased the ARENH quotas to more than 25%, because it used EDF to subsidize consumer/industry energy prices, something that was done by the states directly in other countries.

The problems with a part of the fleet, largely due to deferred maintenance during COVID, also didn't help.