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.
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How many windmills would it take to power one French high-speed TGV train a return-trip Paris-Marseille? A continual maximum windmill output assumption will do at this stage.
perhaps Hollande is a closet climate sceptic and his aim in reducing French nuclear is to increase the French output of co2 so as to help the continued global increase of co2.
/sarc
There are hundreds of thousands of French émigrés in London now.
A couple of years ago I attended a presentation by an international investment management firm. The presentation discussed the impact of the use of fracking on the US economy. Of course, the impact has been wildly beneficial and the manager was talking about how to make money from the cheap energy source.
During the presentation, he mentioned that they had some French clients. When they made the presentation to the French clients, they mentioned that France has enough shale oil and natural gas to satisfy all EU demand for decades. The French clients, of course, said we will never allow fracking in France. It just won’t happen.
Imagine France having a thriving oil and natural gas industry. They could tell the US and Russell to buzz off and pay off the national debt. But, hey, according to the French, fracking is bad.
What’s wrong with top-down, centralized planning? More than I could write about in a year, much less in a simple reply.
Are you aware of the tremendous energy efficiency improvements that the USA has made without government mandates? It seems these improvements are invisible except when mandated from the top.
The problem with these mandates, specifically, is nobody can legislate or regulate scientific or engineering breakthroughs into existence. Consumers already want cleaner energy and less energy consumption (within reasonable cost limits). You don’t have to mandate LEDs into use. People will buy them when they calculate a new cost-benefit for their use.
I’m actually thankful for France. Other countries often do stupid things and can provide great examples of what to do. Unfortunately, our ruling class can’t differentiate between ideological solutions and solutions that work. We’re just as likely to jump on the bandwagon and follow the crowd rather than to look at the successes (if you can find any) and failures of other countries in implementing these policies.
RE: Malco
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/03/16/radioactive-fukushima-waters-arrive-at-west-coast-of-america/ (Italics mine)
I think the Greens in Germany have jumped the shark, the French plan should do the same for the French Greens.
“Allan M.R. MacRae says:
June 19, 2014 at 4:16 am
…My uncle survived the Dieppe raid in 1942 during WW2 – the only officer of his regiment still alive at noon that day …”
What a hideous mess that was. Worse than our invasion of Tarawa. I worked in a nursing home for a few summers in college. Among the residents was a retired architect who was Canadian. Found out a week before I went back to school he’d served in WWII. I asked him if he was at Dieppe. “Dieppe!?!” he piped up, getting very animated. “Dieppe!!?? I was up to my ears in it!” Pity his mind was mostly gone. I’d loved to have heard more. But he definitely remembered it.
“TomB says:
June 19, 2014 at 9:33 am
Amen John. If one got their impression of France from a brief visit to Paris, I could almost understand. Paris, like NYC, can be a great place. Centers of culture, cuisine, and entertainment – both cities are a delight if you’ve got tons of money.
Get at least 50km outside of Paris and France is a great country populated by pleasant and interesting people.”
Dead on, by my experience anyway. Paris can be awesome (The Louvre, The Sacré-Cœur, Napoleon’s Tomb, the Bridges, the hot German girls showering on either side of me that one morning at the Youth Hostel …oh, erm, sorry, is this a family friendly site? Got carried away there … good times though. That whole co-ed bathrooms thing *was* a terrible shock to the girls in our party. Moving on! Chopin’s apartment, yeah, that was cool. I thought Notre Dame was kind of puny, myself, esp compared to the Cathedral at Rheims.) But Paris is also dirty, expensive and not very hospitable (comely German lasses at youth hostels aside). I can’t believe I had to pay 7 francs (in 1993) to pee in a porta-potty, especially considering how difficult it was to do my business in there without actually touching anything.
But later on, I stayed with a family in Strasbourg, and “Southern Hospitality” had nothing on them. The father worked at the hydro electric power plant. The son wanted to be a naval aviator. The wife … ah, tout à fait charmant, et la juene fille a volé mon coeur.
“Another thing they have in common is that the local residents seem to have elevated being rude to an art form.”
Honestly, I think the rudeness is a matter of deep seated insecurity. They pride themselves on lucidity and I think they’re always worried you’re trying to put something over on them. (Seriously? You Americans eat in your cars? You’re mocking me, aren’t you?)
“Max Hugoson says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:22 am
… It does occur to me, however, as a student of history..that perhaps, considering Napoleon’s invasion of Russia (War of 1812), where he started with almost 500,000 men, and returned with under 50,000 men, perhaps the French are their own worst enemy….”
IIRC, only half of the 500,000 (I’ve heard estimates as high as 660,000) Grande Armee were French. By this time, Napoleon was almost a prisoner of the monster he’d created. “A Field Marshall’s baton in every rucksack” meant something a bit different than was originally intended by that time. It was now an army of adventurers and freebooters. To maintain his power over it, Napoleon had to use it. That is, he had to use them. He had to keep giving them something to do. (Just ask von Wallenstein about that kind of thing.) Attacking Russia was the only remaining outlet.
“I had great respect for FRANCE, obtaining 100% of their power from nuclear …”
Always thought that was pretty smart of them, too. Liberals are always wanting us to be like France. I wish we were on that one.
“I still love all music by Saint Seanes, (Camille) ..however, this period of French life seems more as Berlious
Sorry to nitpick, but …
Saint Seanes = Saint-Saëns, Berlious = Berlioz 😉
“… “Symphonie Fantastic”, as our beloved turns out to be the leader of the “witches Sabboth” …”
Nice metaphor! As well, mix in Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre and Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
@ur momisugly J Martin on June 19, 2014 at 12:43 pm
“@ur momisugly Roger Sowell. So you are no fan of French nuclear power. What do you suggest they do for power then ? mine the coal they don’t have ?”
The French can and should do what any nation does: assess the available options, give each a ranking from best to worst, and proceed accordingly. What they cannot produce domestically, they can import.
Or, find ways to reduce demand. Or, find creative ways to increase overall efficiency. Don’t laugh.
One of the most-overlooked ways to reduce primary fuel requirements is to better utilize the waste heat from a power plant. Even the best coal-fired plant sends 50 percent of the total heat produced from burning the coal into the cooling water where the exhaust steam is condensed. This occurs at all plant rates including peaking periods – which is either the heat of summer for air conditioning, or the dead of winter for running furnaces.
In summer, the exhaust steam can be used to produce chilled water instead of being wasted against cooling water. This is not a new idea, so no patents can issue for it, as it is described in old engineering manuals. The power plant load decreases as fewer air conditioners are running. The chilled water is piped through insulated lines to the homes and businesses that require cooling.
In winter, the exhaust steam is used to produce hot water that is also piped to the homes and businesses for space heating.
Finally, every nation has substantial renewable energy sources – even if they do not know it yet. A recent US patent shows how to make methane from sewage sludge, in the steam hydrogasification reaction. Dr. Chan Park of University of California at Riverside holds the patent. For more information, see
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/bad-news-for-nuclear-natural-gas-from.html
Every nation also has solid waste (trash) from its cities and towns. Municipal solid waste can be economically converted to electricity in another patented system. The PHREG system, with U.S. utility patent, 7,452,392, was issued in 2008 to Peter A. Nick and his team of Southern California chemical engineers. The system produces a medium-Btu gas from municipal waste, and produces power by burning the gas in a power plant.
More natural gas is available from cattle raising operations, and from existing landfills.
Yet another renewable fuel, ethanol, is available from fast-growing trees on marginal land not suitable for crops. Researchers genetically modified the lignin in poplar trees so that more of the cellulose converts to ethanol compared to unmodified trees. The increased yield varied, but some trees showed a 160 percent increase in yield. That is somewhat reduced by the reduction in mass of the trees. Poplar trees grow at 4 to 8 feet per year.
see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/improved-ethanol-yield-by-cellulosic.html
Yet another renewable resource for electricity generation is Pressure Retarded Osmosis, PRO, wherein river water at the mouth of the river is used in an osmosis system to produce power as the fresh water is combined with the sea water.
Wind and solar are not the only renewables that must be considered.
Plus, it is rumored that France sits atop a huge shale formation that contains massive amounts of shale gas that is available by hydraulic fracturing.
If France cannot meet its energy needs in some combination of the above processes, then they may want to consider importing coal from their neighbor, Poland.
Roger Sowell:
At June 19, 2014 at 7:18 pm you conclude your mostly daft suggestions for how France could pointlessly close its nuclear power stations by saying
There has been much debate about who first said of the French poor
But we now know it was most recently said by Roger Sowell.
Richard
Not strictly accurate to say Ségolène is mother of Hollande’s three kids. More accurate to say she is mother of three of his kids. Direct requests for clarification to Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris.
@ur momisugly Richard S Courtney, re eating cake.
Nice try, Richard. Go sit in the corner and keep grinning. You might study up on thermodynamics while you are sitting in the corner. It is definitely your weak area. Start with an entry level book, and read slowly due to the big words.
Just step aside and let the engineers show the way.
Roger Sowell:
re your post addressed to me at June 20, 2014 at 7:05 am.
I have much knowledge of thermodynanics but fail to understand its relevance to eating cake.
Please explain the relevance because at present your post makes as much sense as your earlier post which I commented.
Richard
Max Hugoson,
Moliere’s play “Tartuffe” is not only a hilarious contribution to the world’s cultures but also a great sardonic parody of pompous, hypocritical, self-righteous moralism. If one substitutes the Green Religion for Tartuffe’s brand of Christianity, the mentality of activist Greens is illustrated nicely.
Thus, you should not dare to despise “all things French” before reading or seeing this play. In fact, I think that Al Gore may be our contemporary Tartuffe:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartuffe
How you can call moving away from an energy source (Nuclear) that:
1. Requires fuel from a known unstable FSU nation — namely Kazakhstan that produces 1/3 of the worlds Uranium.
and
2. Has a worldwide fuel production infrastructure that cannot meet current demand per their own industry website – http://www.world-nuclear.org/ — search U3O8 production vs need
surrendering energy security, begs the question — what do you consider energy security?
If you consider being dependent upon foreign sources of fuel for 80% of your electricity requirements — with said foreign sources known to be geopolitically and economically unstable — or even to be dependent upon ANY foreign source for the fuel to provide 80% of your electricity then I respectfully argue your idea of energy security is quite skewed
“Skiphil says:
June 20, 2014 at 8:27 am
Max Hugoson,
Moliere’s play “Tartuffe” is not only a hilarious contribution to the world’s cultures …”
Another nice metaphor, although The Misanthrope is my favorite of his.
Karl Heuer:
I see that at June 20, 2014 at 11:13 am you are trying to pretend the nonsense that windpower can replace nuclear power and should be done as an act of energy security.
You assert that impossible fantasy writing
Windpower has not replaced any thermal power station anywhere, and it cannot because intermittent wind requires continuous backup.
Windpower propagandists are promoting the fantasy that ‘windpower assists energy security’ because they know the public are discovering windpower’s high costs and lack of advantages.
Richard
All those hard limitations on CO2 have a big consequence of ending any chance of industry moving away from China into Europe. If for some reason the industry wanted to move away from China – like a governement getting too harsh or whatever – they just won’t be able to move to Europe, because the artificial limits of emissions (or artifical limits of available power) will have been exhausted. Basically “We want to move in to EU” – “You can’t, there’s no available CO2 limit” scenario.
Richard S Courtney states, erroneously, that
“Windpower has not replaced any thermal power station anywhere, and it cannot because intermittent wind requires continuous backup.”
In Texas, the electrical grid’s regulating body is ERCOT. Their considered assessment of wind energy plants in Texas is that almost 10 percent of installed wind capacity can be included as dispatchable, what they refer to as ELCC, effective load-carrying capability. This (8.7 percent) is presently (May, 2013) at 920 MW out of an installed base of 12,000 MW wind energy. That 920 MW is non-trivial, roughly equivalent to three gas-fired power plants. See
http://www.ercot.com/content/news/presentations/2013/CapacityDemandandReserveReport-May2013.pdf
It truly is amusing to read such blatantly false statements from Richard S Courtney, time after time after time…
Roger Sowell:
I wrote the true and accurate statement
At June 22, 2014 at 5:58 am you say that factual statement is made “erroneously”.
You follow that falsehood with irrelevant twaddle.
And you add an untrue personal insult.
But you do not cite any example of windpower having replaced a thermal power station anywhere.
Roger Sowell, you really need to stand back and allow competent apologists for windfarms to do their job: your contributions only serve to advertise the faults of the expensive, polluting and environmentally damaging subsidy farms.
Richard
Among the often cited “renewable” or “free clean green” non-fossil energy sources. we repetitively see “Wind farms” , solar PV, and solar “furnace” systems touted as go to options.
I see Richard S. Courtney, and Roger Sowell having some turbulence about that one.
Despite its apparent adoption in numerous places, I can’t say that is has demonstrated any great success record, enough to overcome its subsidized stigma.
Solar PV, although also over subsidized, has seemed more acceptable, that those bird grinders.
It recently occurred to me, that there might be a fundamental reason, why solar PV seems to enjoy a better reputation than wind farms.
Now I’m sure of it, so I’m more a supporter of Richard’s point of view than Roger’s.
There’s that old tale about the cowboy going into the feed store to buy some hay for his horse.
The feed store proprietor tells him that the hay is $25 per bale; which somewhat takes aback, the cowpoke. “Why that’s outrageous he roars.”
“Well” says the proprietor, “that’s what it goes for these days, unless you want the cheaper grade stuff”.
“Well what’s this cheaper grade hay” ? asks the cowboy.
“Well son, that’s hay that has already been once through the horse !”
And that it seems is the problem with “renewable” wind energy from the sun, as compared to photo-voltaic solar cells.
Wind energy, is solar energy that has already been “once through the horse.”
PV electricity, is virgin solar radiant energy captured and converted at about 20% efficiency into electricity.
Wind turbines require the virgin solar energy to be run through the horse which converts it to horse-s*** ; AKA …..HEAT…..
Heat is the crappiest form of energy that exists; it literally is horse-s***.
Obtained by totally wasting some higher form of energy, and turning it into the chaotic, randomly oriented, disorganized melee of molecules dashing in every direction, completely undisciplined.
The laws of physics, simply don’t allow us to marshall all that mechanical kinetic energy, and get it all headed in the same direction, to achieve some concerted effect.. We can’t put the tooth paste back into the tube.
The Carnot efficiency now comes into play, as we endeavor to convert that waste heat into some other useful form of energy.
Think of a wind turbine, as being a “heat” engine, where the sun supplies the radiant energy, to raise the temperature of the air and the ocean.
“Heat” is the only form of energy that can change the Temperature, and a wind turbine, operates with a pitiful differential Temperature, between source and sink, so the Carnot efficiency is very low.
Which is why wind farms require such vast areas of real estate, for the input duct, and the exhaust duct behind the turbine, to get up some kinetic energy in the working fluid (air) to rotate the turbine.
Now solar furnaces are themselves rather low in power density.
The trouble is, that each of those large mirrors, in those arrays, can shadow its neighbors, as the sun moves about its track in the sky, so the mirror spacings have to be quite large.
I believe that you could take the total land area of one of those solar furnaces, and instead, set up a large array of stationary (bi)cycles, and sit down an army of cyclists, and have them pedal their hearts, out driving small alternators to generate electricity.
I think, they would generate more power density, than the mirror array and solar boiler does.
Yes, if you want RENEWABLE energy from the sun; running it once (or more) through the horse, is not a productive way to go about collecting it.
The first item discussed is of course wind turbines.
Richard
Like myself you live close to the ocean. Like myself you will have seen these giant solar farms proliferate on our beautiful devon and cornish landscapes and have noted that at our latitude the amount of power they provide is minuscule and in winter the energy generated is laughable.
Personally, I think it a great shame that we have wasted so much time and effort on dead end technologies such as wind and solar ( in uk conditions) when the ocean can satisfy much of our energy needs and is never more than seventy miles away from any part of the uk.
Tonyb
@ur momisugly Richard
Electricity generation in Denmark in 2006-2012 (TWh) 3
Year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Total generation 42.9 37.0 36.6 36.4 38.8 35.2 30.4
Thermal generation 33.6 29.8 24.6 29.6 31.1 25.4 20.1
Wind generation 6.1 7.2 6.9 6.7 7.8 9.8 10.3
Net exports (imports) 6.9 0.96 (1.5) (0.3) 1.1 (1.3) (5.2)
Thermal generation has dropped by 13.5 TWh over 7 years
Wind Generation has increased by 4.2 TWh over 7 years
Exports and imports are not germane to the issue of Danish electricity generation and the change from thermal to wind.
The metrics are TWh — NOT PERCENTAGE — It therefore follows that wind generation has replaced thermal power generation in Denmark to at least some degree — over the last 7 years
Karl Heuer:
Sincere thanks for providing data in your post at June 25, 2014 at 10:29 am .
You say
I could dispute the relevance of “Exports and imports” but there is no need because your assertion of “replaced” is either mistaken or deliberately disingenuous.
There is no dispute that windpower can displace thermal power from the grid. Indeed, it is mandated to do that in many places. The result is the thermal power stations operate either
(a) at reduced output so reduced efficiency with resulting increase to fuel usage, fuel costs, and emissions
or
(b) spinning standby with no reduction to fuel usage, fuel costs, and emissions.
They operate like that until the wind changes (so the windfarms stop supplying to the grid) when they revert to operating properly.
Importantly, windfarms only displace power stations off the grid when the wind is strong enough but not too strong. Windpower has not replaced any thermal power station anywhere, and it cannot because intermittent wind requires continuous backup. Windfarms only exist to farm subsidies and a grid supply system only obtains problems from their use.
Richard