France’s first nuclear plant for a quarter century - 12 years late and six times over budget
It will be the most powerful reactor on the planet, to be joined eventually by two sister reactors at Hinkley Point, and another at Sizewell C if anybody can find the money.
To fans, Flamanville is an ultra-safe feat of advanced engineering
To critics, it is a ruinous misadventure, the ultimate over-refinement of obsolete fission technology that can never compete on a commercial basis.
To those of us in the middle – friendly to nuclear, if cheap enough – it is striking that Korea seems able to roll out workhorse reactors relatively quickly at half the cost.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power’s modified APR1000 reactor was certified in Europe last year.
Mr Macron now wants to build 14 modified EPR2 reactors – supposedly cheaper – in a repeat of France’s “dash for nuclear” under premier Pierre Messmer in 1974.
Valerie Faudon, head of the French Association of Nuclear Energy, said Flamanville went wrong because France had lost its industrial skills from long neglect.
The demand did not exist. France ended up selling excess electricity to Germany at give away prices.
“They knew we couldn’t sell it anywhere else: they got cheap power and we got the safety risk and the radioactive waste. We never recouped our investment costs,” he said.
What happens if commercial nuclear fusion comes good over the next decade, as most fusion insiders now think probable.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 29 May 2024
Regeringen kommer inte att klara att få två kärnkraftsreaktorer på plats till 2035
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/04/regeringen-kommer-inte-att-klara-att-fa.html
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