Going to be a rough winter for France - they used to derive about 75% of their power through nuclear energy but as the plants have aged, they have not built new ones. They used to export electricity and now have to import. The joys of moving to alt.energy. From Reuters:
France could face winter power cuts, hit by nuclear dependence
France could impose power cuts this winter due to an electricity shortage, an unprecedented step in the wealthy nation which would expose the vulnerabilities of its dependence on nuclear power.
The warning was issued on Tuesday by grid operator RTE, which said power supply had been hit by the closure of around a third of the country's ageing nuclear reactors for safety checks. The country's regulator has ordered a review of the strength of crucial steel components after the discovery of manufacturing irregularities.
France relies on nuclear for three-quarters of its power, more than any other country. RTE said the amount of nuclear power available was at a record low for this time of year, around 10,000 megawatts lower than a year ago - equivalent to more than twice the consumption of Paris and Marseille combined.
Bad news on the conservation front:
Power supplies are likely to be most stretched in the first three weeks of December, RTE said. With about a third of French homes heated by electricity, the country is highly sensitive to cold snaps.
Emphasis mine - they could have offered mini-split heat pumps through the utility and saved a lot of money there. Too late now though. The safety checks are actually a very good thing:
The discovery last year of weak spots in the steel of the EPR reactor state-backed utility EDF is building in Flamanville in northwest France led nuclear regulator ASN to take a closer look at manufacturing procedures of state-owned reactor builder Areva.
In May, the ASN said the anomalies found in Flamanville had also been discovered in reactors being operated by EDF and ordered safety tests on 18 out of EDF's 58 reactors.
Unlike other nuclear countries such as the United States and China, which have used different reactor models and suppliers, all French reactors are pressurised water reactors made by the same manufacturer, a forerunner of Areva.
This standardisation allowed France to build reactors relatively quickly and cheaply, but also created the risk that a generic design flaw or manufacturing problem would affect many reactors and incapacitate a large part of the fleet. Green activists have warned of this possible scenario for years.
The Green activists do not know what the fsck they are talking about. The French did something that the US Navy does and it is the best way to go. Each USA and Chinese nuke plant is different. Sure, incorporating new technology is a good thing but when you have a proven design, it makes a lot of sense to duplicate that design. Henry Ford did this with the mass production of automobiles and made it so the common family could afford to buy a car. The economy of scale. With reactors, this is even better because if there is a problem at one plant with a certain pump's bearings, you isolate the problem, reproduce it, fix it and then go through and retrofit every other reactor with the same pump bearing upgrade. End of problem.
This so-called "generic design flaw" is a feature and not a bug.
