France's 2024 Power Grid Was 95% Fossil Free as Nuclear, Renewables Jumped (bloomberg.com) 34
France's low-carbon electricity output surged to more than 95% of annual power production for the first time in 2024, as rising nuclear and hydro generation squeezed the use of fossil fuels. From a report: Rebounding atomic production together with record output from renewables boosted France's electricity production to a five-year high of 536.5 terawatt hours, transmission network operator Reseau de Transport d'Electricite said in a statement on Monday.
Net exports almost doubled to record of 89 terawatt hours as domestic demand remain subdued due to sluggish economic growth. Electricite de France SA's nuclear fleet -- the backbone of western Europe's power system -- has largely recovered from maintenance issues that worsened the continent's energy crisis in 2022. That's helping keep a lid on electricity prices, even as the cost of natural gas has risen since Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Net exports almost doubled to record of 89 terawatt hours as domestic demand remain subdued due to sluggish economic growth. Electricite de France SA's nuclear fleet -- the backbone of western Europe's power system -- has largely recovered from maintenance issues that worsened the continent's energy crisis in 2022. That's helping keep a lid on electricity prices, even as the cost of natural gas has risen since Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Hurray for France. (Score:3)
Well done.
Thoughts on Trump and Musk on wind farms (Score:1)
(I think Trump knows it too, but cannot admit it for political reasons. )
Trump promised his base the drill thing and leaving Paris, so is obliged to commit to that, but I cannot understand why he would prevent the building of wind farms ?
I thought he would just forget that bit, but it's in the list of executive orders I've seen.
Can Musk really be so two-faced as to support this?
Re:Thoughts on Trump and Musk on wind farms (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think Musk cares what is good for "us"? Like the rest of the billionaires leading this administration, their interest is what is good for themselves.
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But I think he still thinks he is doing good.
And I think he still bases the big stuff on the facts ( while falling for way too much fake news stories <cough> Pelosi <cough> ).
So I think he realises global warming is real and must be prevented.
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Trump promised his base the drill thing and leaving Paris, so is obliged to commit to that, but I cannot understand why he would prevent the building of wind farms ?
I'm confused too but there's not much Trump, or any POTUS, can do to stop windmills on private or state land. Trump can stop windmills on federal property such as offshore windmills, and I'm fine with that since offshore wind is so expensive that we'd be better off looking for something cheaper. Cheaper options like nuclear fission. President Trump appears to be supportive of nuclear fission and so may be taking lessons from France on energy independence and lowered CO2 emissions.
Can Musk really be so two-faced as to support this?
Does Musk support this?
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Trump promised his base the drill thing and leaving Paris, so is obliged to commit to that
Trump has never shown that he has the slightest problem going back on his campaign promises. In this particular case, he may intend to follow through; however, convincing the oil companies to hurry up and start drilling may not be as easy as he seems to think it should be. [politifact.com]
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Trump is not obliged to do anything. He’s already given up on grocery prices. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Pol... [go.com]
What happened to Haitians eating pets? That sure fizzled out quickly.
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CO2 is great for us. It's making farming way more efficient, and planet far more suitable for humans who are tropical animals. There's a reason why we have to wear clothing outside them just to survive, and why we're adding 2-3% of ag output every year globally.
The problem is the speed of change, not the change itself. We fear it may outpace adaptation rates of some species and some of them may be important for us. That is the problem with global warming. Not the "we're all going to die", "global boiling" a
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Good work.
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No problem. After all we know that Maldives have been gone under water for five years now, polar bears have been long extinct, Arctic is ice free, and there's a mass global starvation even that already killed billions due to mass desertification.
All of these come straight from IPCC's propaganda arm releases over last three decades. I'm sure that they are completely correct, and our eyes tell us nothing about reality, and in fact everything we see around us is a conspiracy theory.
Nuclear rocks! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why can't the US recycle its nuclear waste, as France does?
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Since Carter is dead, can we let go of his bad ideas yet, like appointing Volcker Fed chair instead of using COLAs to make nominal inflation irrelevant?
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It's a very dirty process, and expensive. Cheaper to just buy new fuel.
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Wikipedia: ãSIn 2019, France exported a total of 57 TWh of electricity with its neighbouring countries. Since 1990, each year, France roughly exports 10% of its annual production. Its annual exchange sold has always remained positive.[7]ã
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This is heavily misleading. France exports when it's not windy and sunny in Germany, and has to import (due to EU regulation on priority dispatch rights for specific generator types and centralized grids) when it's windy and sunny. If priority dispatch was to be scrapped, France would export far more energy, as wind and solar would not be allowed to sell all their production before anyone else is allowed to sell any on spot markets.
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Here is the exhaustive list of months where France was a net importer of electricity, 2015-2024:
Dec. 2016 (very close to zero), Sept. 2020, Nov 2021, Dec 2021
Negative nearly all year 2022 (Feb and May positive)
End of the list.
Source: RTE https://analysesetdonnees.rte-... [rte-france.com]
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To quote myself from another post:
This is heavily misleading. France exports when it's not windy and sunny in Germany, and has to import (due to EU regulation on priority dispatch rights for specific generator types and centralized grids) when it's windy and sunny. If priority dispatch was to be scrapped, France would export far more energy, as wind and solar would not be allowed to sell all their production before anyone else is allowed to sell any on spot markets.
Essentially this is "EU leads the world in
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Taxpayer money may have helped build the initial nuclear fleet, but for many years, electricity was cheaper than in many neighboring countries, and dividents (or benefits, before EDF was privatized) were that much money in the state's budget that did not need to come from the taxpayer.
And with the ARENH mechanism, the nuclear industry is actually forced to subsidize purely finance-based companies which produce nothing. The sums of money that were injected in the industry in the last years by the state are l
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Also January and November, 2017.
Expect in .. (Score:2)
"In the summertime, when the weather is fine" ;)
Then they buy electricity
Peak in Winter, not Summer (Score:3)
Also European power loads are typically larger in the winter than summer because air conditioning is still much less common than in the US and, even when there is air conditioning, it is typically small wall/window units
What could’ve been (Score:3)
Although now renewables with batteries are much cheaper than nuclear, France is a clear example of what could’ve been possible if we had continued pursuing nuclear plant expansion half a century ago. Yes there are difficulties and costs associated with maintaining or securing or shutting down nuclear plants, but the reality is in the *here and now* France is leading the developed world in not producing CO2 emissions. We could’ve transitioned from zero carbon nuclear to zero carbon renewables and saved the earth from a huge portion of inevitable warming.
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Also forgot to add, renewables still aren’t sufficient for winter months. Perhaps we could use solar and wind energy to produce biofuels and burn those in the winter, but it’s still speculative.
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Why didn't the US recycle nuclear waste as France does?
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Jimmy Carter. The president, not the submarine.