nuclear-news

Completely impractical to replace coal power with nuclear

Le Temps 3rd March 2019 [Machine Translation] Replace the fossil with fissile, is it really so easy? A small calculation will allow to quickly give the answer. This is
the rule of 3 x 10: 10 years of work before the commissioning of a nuclear
reactor, $ 10 billion per unit of production of 1000 MWe, 10% of
electricity production is nuclear in the world. 10 years of work: the
construction and authorization file, the preparation of the site, the civil
works, the installation itself, the tests. 10 billion, without the costs of
decommissioning (estimated at half of this amount) and waste management.
10% of the world’s electricity, which itself represents 20% of the global
energy mix, so it’s … 2%. The fossil represents about 75% of this mix,
the balance being biomass (wood …). These 2% are insured today by some
450 reactors.

To even double this share, from 2% to about 5% (assuming a
stabilization of consumption, which is unfortunately far from being
achieved), it would take 10 years, spend 4500 billion … for an effect
condemned to remain very limited.

Unless … as some pronuclearaires do not
hesitate to claim it, we accelerate the pace. Thus, the German newspaper
Die Welt, published on February 27th, stated that 115 reactors a year
should be built in the world!

The strategy of developing decentralized
renewable energies, geothermal, wind, solar, hydraulic, biomass combined
with a real desire to achieve an economical use of energy is infinitely
more realistic. It is clearly better in terms of efficiency in terms of
output, commitment of resources and resilience of the energy system,
including in terms of diversified and local jobs.

https://blogs.letemps.ch/rene-longet/2019/03/03/squattant-le-debat-climatique-lhydre-nucleaire-releve-la-tete/

March 5, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics