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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Actually, the nuclear power industry did / does indeed run astroturfing campaigns

    Which nuclear power industry? Given the sheer scale of a nuclear power plant project, most research and reactor projects are public projects, with only SMRs seeing any recent interest in the USA. So you think it’s the States that are conducting astroturfing campaigns? The same states that have been sabotaging nuclear power everywhere since Chernobyl? Is there any evidence of this?

    For example the “pro-nuclear civil society” in Japan.

    The only thing I have found about this is a study which I have to pay 43€ to read.

    If you read up on nuclear power online you will find an abundance of websites and groups which offer very one-sided information

    You can find that kind of content for about any other subject you can think of. That doesn’t make it proof of astroturfing.

    and are tied to the nuclear power industry.

    Same question, what is exactly the “nuclear power industry” you’re talking about?

    Astroturfing campaigns promoting solar and wind power can be directly linked to the oil industry, as when Jay Anthony Precourt, head of oil and energy start-ups and a major investor in gas, swung a total of $80 million over three years at Stanford University to finance the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, which later published a glowing report on a 100% renewable future. (If you don’t see the link between fossil fuels and renewables, take a look at Germany: when there’s no wind, they burn coal and gas. Fossils are very compatible with renewables.)

    Can you find the same with nuclear?

    Nuclear fission power had huge investments and substitutions but turned out to not be economically feasible in most cases. There is a lot of money to be lost and made in this industry.

    This is factually incorrect. What’s expensive is investing to build a cutting-edge industry, then dismantling it before it becomes profitable under the pressure of public opinion.

    The French Court of Auditors has estimated the total cost of French nuclear power at around 130 billion euros between 1960 and 2010, including research, construction and maintenance. At its peak, a 1000MW unit of French nuclear power cost 1.5 billion euros, and the French nuclear industry produced two 900 to 1300MW reactors a year for two decades.

    Everything came to an abrupt halt in the 90s, not because it wasn’t profitable, not because it didn’t work, but because the Russians made a mess of their power plant, which didn’t even have the same design as the others, killed a few hundred/thousand people, and traumatized hundreds of millions.

    Between scientists there is also no consensus whether nuclear power (in its current application) is a good thing.

    There is no definition of “a good thing”.

    On the other hand, we know that nuclear power is the least polluting, least resource/space-consuming and safest form of controllable energy.

    The increase in nuclear power is an essential of the 4 scenarios of the IPCC reports, and the European Union, based on these reports and other studies, has recognized nuclear power as an energy with a positive impact on the environment. and they incorporated it into the green taxonomy.


  • Waryle@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldGood neighborship
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    1 year ago

    very persistent astroturfing

    To suggest that the nuclear industry is capable of any kind of lobbying activity is utterly laughable, given its history. We’re talking about a sector which, for over 40 years, has been unable to prevent the cancellation of almost all its research projects or new reactor construction projects, and which still sees very strong opposition all over the world, as well as in the European Parliament.

    The only reason why nuclear power’s reputation has been partially restored in recent months is that electricity prices in Europe have soared as a result of the common market, and countries that have opted for renewable energies have become dependent on Russian fossil fuels.



  • Waryle@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldGood neighborship
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    1 year ago
    • France has been a net exporter for 40 years straight before that, as well as being the top exporter most of that time in Europe.
    • Also they’re back to Top 1 right now.
    • Last year’s gap in electricity production was not due to heat (only a few reactors were slowed down for a few hours, and we’re talking about less than 0.5% loss due to these shutdowns over the year).

    Besides, it’s not a technical limitation on nuclear power, it’s an ecological measure.

    The hole in production was due to a corrosion problem detected in several reactors, which occurred at the same time as maintenance work in other reactors that were behind schedule because of COVID. This would have had no impact if nuclear power had not been left virtually abandoned for 30 years because of the anti-nuclear movement.

    It’s the classic story: anti-nukes shoot nuclear power in the foot, then claim that nuclear power doesn’t work, despite reality.




  • Except those reactors are off 30-50% of the time due to shoddy construction

    For French nuclear power, the lowest load factor ever recorded is 54% in 2022. The cause is the number of maintenance operations postponed because of COVID, plus a corrosion problem detected on several reactors of the same generation, which have since been repaired.

    • This is an extremely unlikely combination of circumstances, on the one hand
    • On the other hand, it wouldn’t have had any consequences if we’d had more redundancy, and hadn’t suddenly stopped building reactors for 25 years.
    • Despite this, nuclear power still has a load factor 2x higher than French wind or solar power.

    The rest of the time, the load factor of French nuclear power hovers around 70-75%, and that’s not due to bad design, it’s a strategy. I’ll let you read this link to learn more.

    €1.5/W in 2023 money is pure fiction

    Of course it does. But the fact is that french nuclear power has paid for itself dozens of times over. It’s factual, it’s historical.

    and overnight costs with free capital aren’t real costs once you adjust for inflation and stop cherry picking the first reactors before negative learning rates kicked in.

    Go argue with the Cour des Comptes, not me


  • Chernobyl and Fukushima. These two events, which between them account for a few thousand deaths at most (compared with the tens of thousands of deaths caused by coal in Europe alone, for example), triggered a panic fear of nuclear power.

    For decades, the nuclear industry has been abandoned and sabotaged, with projects such as Phénix, Superphénix and Astrid in France, and virtually all new reactor projects, cancelled due to anti-nuclear opposition.

    Competent nuclear engineers and technicians have retired without being able to pass on their know-how, and cutting-edge nuclear-related industries have disappeared or been converted.

    We can also thank the Germans for sabotaging the EPR. We started the project together, they forced us to add a lot of totally unjustified redundancies and safety features that made the prototype very complex and therefore costly to build, and then they slammed the door on us.


  • France was able to output 2 reactors per year at 1,5 billion of euros per 1000MW for more than 2 decades during the 70’s to 90’s. The whole French nuclear industry has cost around 130-150 billions between 1960 and 2010, including researches, build and maintenance of France’s whole nuclear fleet.

    A 1000MW reactor, at current French electricity price and for a 80% capacity factor, generates 1,4 billion of euros worth of electricity per year, for a minimum of 60 years.

    Nuclear is not costly, and can absolutely compete by itself, if you don’t sabotage it and plan it right.