From the GWPF: French Socialists Follow Germany, Shift Away From Nuclear To Renewables
Via Agency France-Press: France on Wednesday unveiled a much-anticipated bill to reduce the country’s dependency on nuclear energy and fossil fuels, after months of intense debate over one of the Socialist government’s pet projects. Experts estimate it will cost the country between 15 and 30 billion euros in investments every year until the so-called “energy transition” is completed.
The planned law, presented to the cabinet by energy and environment minister Segolene Royal, seeks to make France a greener country and reduce the nation’s energy bill.
The bill is a chance “to develop new technologies, clean transport, energy efficiency and therefore to improve companies’ competitiveness,” Royal told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
It aims to cut the country’s final energy consumption in half by 2050 and reduce the use of fossil fuels by 30 percent by 2030, in comparison with 2012 when Francois Hollande was elected president.
It also looks to reduce France’s huge dependency on nuclear energy for electricity from 75 percent to 50 percent — one of Hollande’s campaign promises — and to increase the use of renewables.
The bill lays out scores of measures including an obligation to make buildings and houses more energy efficient during renovations and installing seven million charging stations for electric cars over the next 15 years.
The bill, which still has to go through a long parliamentary process, was the subject of an intense nine-month debate as companies, NGOs, lawmakers and unions each fought their corners.
Experts estimate it will cost the country between 15 and 30 billion euros in investments every year until the so-called “energy transition” is completed.
get the Full story
Was Malthus French? Eugenics at work here? Everybody read Climatism by Steve Goreham. Its back to the stone age by these religious fanatics.
C’est tres cuckoo, no?
Just remember, the “wise” French Military built the Maginot line with all the guns pointed only towards the Germans. The Germans drove around the end of it and the French couldn’t even shoot at the rear of the German tanks as they headed towards Paris.
C’est magnifique.
Cheers, Kevin.
@John
Then again John France did produce Fourier, and Laplace, and I remember thinking in university that I wish they were never born !
But seriously, some of the world greatest inventions came from france, it’s just a pitty that they are currently swirling down that socialist toilet.
Experts estimate it will cost the country between 15 and 30 billion euros in investments every year until the so-called “energy transition” is completed.
The planned law,
Seems to me that this law seeks to drag the whole thing out. They’ll need 15 to 30 billion per year…for decades. The first year up, they’ll find some excuse to put things off for that year. After all, spreading that 30 billion over the next 30 years is only an extra billion per year after the first year. Of course they’ll then find some excuse to skip the second year too, and spread that amount over the next 29 years… and so on and so forth until they are out of time and the remaining amount to be spent is all of it over a very short period of time. They’ll decide at that point that they can’t afford it and will repeal the law.
This is nothing more than a publicity stunt to placate the greens and paint France as progressive on the world stage. I seriously doubt that they’ll ever actually implement this. The one thing that you can bet on in a democracy is that a tanked economy results in a change in government. Like many other governments in the world, my belief is that they are making grand gestures that they will quietly back away from over the long term.
@Betapug
Since when does anyone listen to Gore, he incessantly cheats by not taking into account capacity factor which for solar and wind is about 15 %, so that 37% nameplate capacity is in fact 5% real capacity which is about right. You can do miracles if you read nameplate capacities, but those miracles don’t power homes. Perhaps it’s prudent that in Gores neighbourhood we take the nameplate capacity of renewables and deduct it from baseload, and turn off that much coal generation. Appologies to those living next door to good ole Al who will suffer the blackouts along with him.
Or perhaps our mate Al, would like a smart meter installed so that when renwable generation is less than nameplate his mansion is the first load shedded from the grid. How nice it would be to have power effectively 0% of the time.
This is utterly crazy, but not a surprise in the idiotic EU zone. I am not sure the French will put up with this for too long. I recall that small hikes in fuel costs had truck drivers blocking major arterial highways with their trucks after deflating their tyres.
/sarc on
To those dissing the French, remember if it wasn’t for the French, America would probably still be a British colony.
/sarc off
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
June 18, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Steve: let’s be reasonable here.
——————————————————
Alan. I’m taking your advice and trying to be reasonable. I started by actually reading the full story. The French hope to reduce energy use by 50% by 2050 and thereby reduce energy costs by spending 30-50 million Euros per year. I’m already becoming unhinged. Such investments cannot hope to reduce energy use so much unless there is a massive change in society, such as moving away from single family housing, giving up the auto, etc. The French tout the efficiency of their nuclear energy program on one hand, but the current government intends on saving massive amounts of money by reducing it from 75% to 50% on the other hand. This suggests the French now think their version of nuclear energy is massively inefficient.
This reminds me of the program initiated by the Ontario Provincial government. The promise was greener energy and more green jobs. The strategy was to increase energy prices (doubled in 10-12 years) to pay for it. The result? Higher energy prices.
When criticized over the result of the green energy initiative, many of the defenders argued that much of the investment was actually needed in the upgrading of aging infrastructure. Ok, so why are our electricity rates permanently higher now that the infrastructure has been upgraded? According to the French, our energy costs should be lower after this “investment”.
I suspect the same in France. Use the popularity of green energy and green jobs to (effectively) raise taxes within public utilities. By the time people realize it didn’t work, the originators are no longer in power and the new government has no plans to reduce energy costs.
I think I’m heading for Level 8. In the meantime, it couldn’t happen to a nicer country. They are so proud of their world-leading nuclear energy program, they plan to begin dismantling it to save money. If they mess up Bordeaux or Cotes to Rhone I’m going straight to Level 10.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
June 18, 2014 at 4:56 pm
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Donald, you don’t reduce energy use by 50% by switching to more efficient incandescent light bulbs. Take your own home and try and reduce your energy use by 50% as a thought experiment. For me, living in a cold climate, and in the country where I need a vehicle, it just isn’t possible. I would have to eat the 100% increase in energy costs (which I have done because my own government did this 10 years ago).
I switched to fluorescent lights (which are basically useless in the cold), I upgraded my windows, bought a new high efficiency furnace and stopped commuting to work. And my energy costs only doubled. Gas used to be $0.70 per litre and now its $1.32. So even though I use my vehicle less frequently my total cost for gas has increased. Propane used to be $0.65 per litre. This winter it went over $1.13 during one of the coldest winters I’ve seen in decades. So more for propane. Electricity rates have gone from $0.08 to $0.16 per kWh (once you add delivery fees, debt reduction payments and taxes). So I pay more for electricity even though it is “more efficient” than ever before. I even have a smart meter (that doesn’t work so the guy has to drive within 10 m of my house to read it).
This French thing is a tax grab. Take advantage of naive green-leaners, raise the price for electricity and then try and stay in power long enough for full pension. If you need help changing those light bulbs, don’t call me. I’m going geothermal with candle lighting and wood-stove backup.
forget france – closer to home u can save the planet from CAGW by building affordable housing:
16 June: Reuters Point Carbon: California okays use of carbon market funds to boost mass transit
SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 (Reuters) – The California state legislature has approved a plan that will build affordable housing near transportation hubs like bus and railroad stations using revenue raised from its carbon market.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.5579517?&ref=searchlist
or u can save the planet from CAGW in China by letting “a hundred flowers bloom”!
18 June: Reuters: RPT-PREVIEW-China to launch final CO2 exchange, national scheme uncertain
By David Stanway and Kathy Chen
China launches its seventh and final pilot carbon market in the sprawling city of Chongqing on Thursday, but plans to set up a national trading scheme within three years remain shrouded in uncertainty in the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases…
The ultimate aim of the seven pilot projects, experts had said, was to “let a hundred flowers bloom” in order to find the trading system that suits China the most, which would then form the basis of a national scheme…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/18/china-carbon-idUKL4N0OZ1UF20140618
These idiots are ensuring another revolution is coming sooner than later…
@bobl The inconvenient truth about Al Gore is that lots of people still swallow his stuff, especially the “click and take action” (forget the thinking) demographic of Rolling Stone.
The Americans should not be so down on the French. The French have supported them, implicitly, since the beginning of their fight, with a certain British king.
I enjoy visiting Paris. It’s one of the most beautiful cities in the world with incredible architecture, fantastic restaurants and the Louvre is one of the finest museums in the world….
It’s just too bad, so many French live there…
During the French Revolution, the French had the opportunity to follow America’s lead and establish a new political system where individual rights were paramount and the sole purpose of the Constitutionally constrained government was to protect and defend the natural rights of the individual. France, unfortunately, decided to establish a different system where individual rights are sacrificed to the State for the of the collective and are at the mercy of unlimited government command and control…
Amazingly, the French political elites were able to figure out cheap, clean, unlimited, efficient, sustainable, reliable, high-energy density, and safe nuclear energy was a good idea, and miraculously built their electrical grid on this bloody obvious fact…
Leave it to the French government to screw up the ONE thing they got right in 200 years….
Why any government would chose to copy policies which have failed so miserably everywhere else is beyond me.
There are countries which will prosper in the future and countries which will decline. This is no different than what has happened in the past.
Put France, Spain, the UK, Greece, Germany on your list of declining empires/countries because their governments are making dumb decisions.
good luck!
18 June: Businessweek: AP: Hope Yen: Big coal company sues over carbon emissions rules
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Murray Energy, based in St. Clairsville, Ohio.
Murray Energy says it’s the nation’s largest privately owned coal company. It employs 7,200 people in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Utah. It calls the EPA regulations illegal and argues they’ll destroy jobs…
An EPA spokeswoman won’t comment on the lawsuit. But she says the EPA “writes solid rules and they stand up in court.”
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-06-18/murray-energy-sues-over-carbon-emissions-rules
-The bill is a chance “to develop new technologies…-
Yeah, right. A (socialist) government is going to invent new power sources that power company engineers hadn’t thought of. That could happen. This will be like the US, where “green energy” is a great way to reward cronies with taxpayer and electricity user money at zero risk to the cronies.
It’s all about appearances … however, in my opinion, it will do damage to France.
ABC, WaPo, then Bloomberg, now WSJ & NBC – all declaring cash-strapped americans thrilled to pay up to defeat CAGW, tho not happy about almost everything else in the WSJ/NBC poll! & if u believee any of these polls, u must be a slave to the MSM:
sample size equivalent of 71 australians:
18 June: WSJ: Amy Harder: Obama Carbon Rule Backed by Most Americans — WSJ/NBC Poll
More than two-thirds of Americans support President Barack Obama’s new climate rule and more than half say the U.S. should address global warming even if it means higher electricity bills, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Widespread support for the carbon rule, unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, is a rare bright spot for Mr. Obama, who otherwise received mostly low marks by poll respondents on topics ranging from his overall competence to his administration’s decision to trade five imprisoned Taliban officials in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
The poll finds that 67% of respondents either strongly or somewhat support EPA’s new rule, while only 29% oppose it. Americans are also increasingly willing to stomach higher electricity costs in order to cut carbon emissions. More than half of poll respondents—57%—said they would support a proposal requiring companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming even if it means higher utility bills. That figure is up 9 percentage points since October 2009…
The poll, conducted June 11 through 15, surveyed 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/18/obama-carbon-rule-backed-by-most-americans-wsjnbc-poll/
just 5 months ago! sample size of 57 australians:
28 Jan: Climate Depot: New WSJ/NBC Poll: ‘Addressing climate change’ is the dead-last, lowest priority issue for Americans
The 800 respondents to the survey rank job-creation and deficit-reduction as high priorities, while assigning the lowest priority among 13 foreign and domestic issues to “addressing climate change.” …
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/28/new-wsjnbc-poll-addressing-climate-change-is-the-dead-last-lowest-priority-issue-for-americans/
it looks like u have to be a SUBSCRIBER to get the questions & full details of the poll!
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-wall-street-journalnbc-news-poll-1378786510?tesla=y
And Putin laughs.
Well this whole renewables donnybrook, is a key element, in my insistence ( for ME personally) that KT’s so-called “Earth ENERGY budget ” , is in fact an Earth POWER budget; except his numbers are quite wrong.
My computer; this one, is connected to a 2.5 MW/m^2 POWER supply.
Free clean green renewable energy, from the sun, is available at inhabitable earth locations, (when the sun is actually shining) at the princely rate of roughly 1.0 KW/m^2.
Well for those of you, who prefer to soak up your renewable solar ENERGY over a full 24 hour day, seven days a week; 365 days per year, there is a totally Ginormous amount of ENERGY available to you from the sun. You can google up info on the US Army’s solar farms. One of them in New Mexico, is the largest of its type in the world. Wow it kicks out an astounding 4.1 MW of peak power capability, nearly double my home computer source.
But for those of you who are happy with : watt = joule, or henry = lumen, or farad = coulomb, or any other random unit equivalence; I actually don’t care a whit about what YOU personally can live with.
But the real problem with free clean green renewable ENERGY is not how much is available; that’s an enormous number.
The problem is the available maximum power is pitiful; maybe nearly as bad as collecting figs, up in the trees, like we used to do.
Well there are the space fans, who would like to put huge mirrors, or solar-microwave stations up into space, with the aim of increasing the available power density on the surface.
Just what we need is a way to toast our cities with a mirror run amok.
Well the French actually seemed to be going places with their nuclear energy. Perhaps they will yet.
it’s a full-out assault now…
19 June: Australian: AFP: Republican ex-EPA chiefs voice support for new carbon rules
Four former heads of the US Environmental Protection Agency who served under Republican presidents have urged politicians to stop bickering over whether climate change is real, and start finding solutions…
The four former EPA administrators who testified at the hearing served under presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush.
As a group, the quartet penned an op-ed in The New York Times last year that said there was no longer any credible debate over whether humans were causing climate change…
“The two parties were able to rally around a common purpose in the early days of environmental policy making,” said Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor who served as EPA chief under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003.
“It is urgent that they do so again.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/republican-ex-epa-chiefs-voice-support-for-new-carbon-rules/story-e6frg90f-1226959699024
Ross Garnaut tells a single truth ***
19 June: Australian Financial Review: Nassim Khadem: Labor ‘not strong’ on climate change
Professor Ross Garnaut, a prominent economist whose climate change policy for the former Labor government led to the carbon tax, does not expect Labor to have a strong policy for the 2016 election, despite a promise by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten Labor was bound to an emissions trading scheme…
***“It would help the (current Coalition) Treasurer [Joe Hockey] meet his budget objectives. It would keep us in good standing with the President of the United States. It would send signals to our business that we’ve wasted tens of billions on old economic investments since China changed its model of economic growth.”…
He said the Coalition in opposition agreed to targets to cut emissions and had abandoned that. “The government hopes we forget about it. Maybe the Australian people will forget about it, but President Obama won’t, [UK] Prime Minister [David] Cameron won’t, [German] Chancellor [Angela] Merkel won’t,” he said…
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_not_strong_on_climate_change_05W2EFcAKwMjsEiauQjXrJ
John says: June 18, 2014 at 4:12
************
I took the long suffering Mrs. Jewett to Paris some years ago. We had a great time. We found a bar that my parents had been to in 1948 and we were treated like long lost kin. Also, some of the Paris waiters were every bit as rude as those in New York. Besides, if it weren’t for the Ancien Regime there wouldn’t be the United States. Ok, they did it because they hated the British, still the money they spent on us helped bankrupt them and helped lead to the revolution.
By the way, on your list of their achievements you left out the invention of the bidet. Two lifetimes ago, I was married to a woman who came from a culture that used the bidet.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Time to eliminate NATO and bring the troops home.
The war has been won.
“Looks like the decline of France has started …”
When it started is a matter of some debate (I start with Descartes, myself), but it was a full-on bust by the 1800s.
“The Americans should not be so down on the French. The French have supported them, implicitly, since the beginning of their fight, with a certain British king.”
I have a love / hate relationship with the French. (Their love of opulent beauty? Check. Their belief that they should be running everything? Pahahaha …..) And I enjoy a good round of Frog Bashing as much as any red blooded American (Describe the French Battle Flag? Sure, it’s a white cross, on a white field.) But one should remember they once blew up a GreenPeace boat because it was going to interfere with a nuke test in the South Pacific.
Nations do not have friends, they have interests. France supported The American Revolution because it was in their interest to weaken England (I fart in your general direction!) George Washington’s “foreign entanglements” advice was actually about telling Americans not to assume that France would always be our friend, and England our enemy. In fact, we are lock, stock and barrel a part of the Anglosphere, and the differences between us and France are quite vast and can be summed up perfectly by a comparison of our two revolutions, or more simply, by the realization that the two most corrupt political jurisdictions in North America, Quebec and Louisiana, are both French derived. (Yes, I know, DC is giving them a run for their money …)
@T-Bird
Bingo! Excellent statement.