> I keep hearing from people who think nuclear's a bad idea that "France is ramping down its reliance on nuclear power, so what does that tell you?"
A cynical person might even imagine French infiltrators behind the scenes supporting anti-nuclear sentiments in neighboring countries in order to eventually sell them electricity. Energy independence and energy costs have started wars before, so it would just be pocket change spent for a future "investment".
Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs.
The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder is now chairman of Russian energy company Rosneft, and was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project.
That would be ironic indeed, but of course that's pure trash history: Germany has consistently been getting around 40% of it's gas imports from Russia/USSR since 1985, so about 25 years before they started turning of nuclear.
> Or Russian infiltrators. Isn't it funny how after deciding to get rid of nuclear reactors Germany suddenly realized that it needs to build a gas pipeline to Russia to cover it's energy needs.
It's not funny, it's bluntly wrong.
The German nuclear phase-out was precedented by the EEG, the first green electricity feed-in tariff scheme in the world [0]. It was part of the Energiekonsensgespräche that went on in the 90s, and ultimately resulted in ratifying the nuclear phase-out in 2002 [1] where nuclear would be replaced with renewables subsidized trough the EEG.
It's particularly wrong in the context of Germany using most of its gas not for electricity production, but rather for industrial and chemical production, and household utilities, only 14% of German gas is used for electricity generation [2].
Nuclear fission reactors would do nothing for that, they don't help with high temperature smelting were gases need to be injected, as it's for exampled needed for metal alloys that go into all those cars Germany manufactures.
They only way nuclear fission could help there is by using nuclear energy to electrolyze hydrogen, and use that as natural gas replacement. But renewables can very much do the same, without creating very complicated waste, while also fixing what's currently holding renewables back the most; Storage [3]
Your citation #2 shows Household, Power Supply, and District Heating to total 52% of natural gas usage. Nuclear power can take over both for electric power supply and for home and district heat via electric heat pumps - which can be 250-350% efficient[0].
So, over 50% of German natural gas usage can be replaced by nuclear electrical power, based on the citations you provided :)
It's not as simple as that. The extra electricity load would require extra infrastructure on that end, you are very casually implying how a major chunk of German households should just completely retool themselves, as if that's something trivial to do.
Who is gonna pay for that? When are you gonna do that? During the 10+ years of building reactors? What if your new reactors don't finish on time?
That does not mean heating pumps are not a thing in Germany, they have been steadily gaining share particularly with newly constructed buildings [0] that have to abide by even harsher energy regulations.
But what you are suggesting would involve replacing tens of millions of "old stock" households, all to justify nuclear fission power generation while not fixing any issues as to why Germany is actually phasing nuclear fission out.
You still offer no solution to the waste, just like you don't seem to give a single thought about financing such a change or who would be willing to invest in new German nuclear reactors.
Because German nuclear companies most certainly won't, they are just as happy with this phase out as everybody else, particularly as it gave them several huge government pay outs, not just for the disposal of the waste [1], but also for the phase out [2], can't even tax the fuel rods to pay for their disposal [3].
Which makes German nuclear fission energy very likely some of the most profitable on the planet because, unlike EDF, these companies are not majority state owned.
France just had to turn off 3 of their rotting reactors[0] and they lowered their estimates for this year to 295-315 TWh[1]. They're desperate, it's election year and they failed to come up with a diversified energy plan for the future. Luckily the recent taxonomy decision may help to avoid sharp tax rises to finance this backward and hilariously expensive[2] strategy but those EU funds won't run forever. Expensive times coming up for the French taxpayers.
Why would you need conspiracies when the failure is so clear in front of you?
If France had more NREs it would still face the same issues without adding considerable storage capabilities (any big country that does 80% NRE thanks to storage?)
The word you're looking for is "paranoid", not cynical I think.
Reasonably, to drop CO2 emissions by 5% each year, ie. to have a change of keeping climate drift below 2°C avg, these reactors won't even be enough for French energy needs...
A cynical person might even imagine French infiltrators behind the scenes supporting anti-nuclear sentiments in neighboring countries in order to eventually sell them electricity. Energy independence and energy costs have started wars before, so it would just be pocket change spent for a future "investment".