Call me cynical but I do think an outlet called oil price dot com may not be entirely impartial when they report on this. That is not to say what they wrote here is wrong; I wouldn’t know. It just has a touch of pot and kettle about it.
Since the power networks are linked and European countries import and export electricity, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that next to renewables power from gas stepped in to fill the nuclear gap. And the price for natural gas is often linked to a certain other commodity price.
And even with these reactors shut down, France still exported 5-10GW of power at the time.
So yeah let’s not propagate the anti-nuclear propaganda trying to paint the situation as “nuclear can’t handle global warming and will cause blackouts”, when in reality it’s just us having so much decarbonated electricity that we can afford to produce less as an ecological precaution.
That twists it to “protecting nature raises your electricity bill” where it’s just that that the plant, when built, did not take into account water levels could drop this low. As if they assumed climate change wouldn’t be this influential or something.
It’s not twisting anything, it’s verifiable fact. Water temperatures in rivers in the current heatwaves we’ve had in Europe that are more than 10 degrees celsius above mean average temperatures has meant that the temperatures in rivers and lakes are already reaching levels that are causing severe issues to the wildlife and plants within them. Dumping millions of litres of hot water from power stations into them just makes a critical situation worse.
It is not twisting it. It is exactly like that. The problem is not the water level. The nuclear power plant can work in these condition. The hot water discharge would raise the temperature too much on top of existing higher temperatures in the river for the flora and fauna to survive. We are doing this to protect nature. There is no twisting here.
To my knowledge, but I did not look this up, these constraints were known at design time. I don’t recall these changing. Hence the statement may be true, but pointing at the known constraint after the fact shifts the blame to nature conservation rather than infrastructure and climate change. This at a time where climate change focus is of utmost importance.
Hence, albeit factually correct, it is disingenuous to give it the focus.
If these constraints were added in the past 10 years then that could be considered different depending on the reasons for the change.
What has changed are the water levels and base temperatures. Our environment has changed and the infrastructure has not been adapted to it. Luckily we have other tools for generating electric power ready to be rolled out.
We are talking 1970. Scientists lacked the numerical models and the computing capacity to make these predictions. To accuse civilian engineers to not take into consideration recent hot topics of environmental science that lacked, at the time, rigorous models is disingenuous.
The design lifespan for those reactors was 40 years. We are extending those past lifetime because it is cheaper to do even if we need to shut them down more and more often.
The infrastructure have not adapted because it is cheaper to build a new power plant or to shutdown existing one occasionally then to adapt old existing design.
I believe there is something of the kind, that the price of electricity just matches the highest production price, since you cannot differentiate which electricity comes from where in a grid. Si even if you have cheap renewable/nuclear energy, costs may rise if you have to use ‘traditionnal’ power plants. Im not sure of the details, i just heard the mechanism being explained once or twice.
It is called marginal pricing the wholesale electricity market uses which determines the spot price of electricity. It is based on the most expensive form of generation, typically gas, needed to meet demand regardless of how little is required. So here in the UK if 99% is generated by low cost renewable and only 1% is generated by expensive gas it all gets priced at the rate for the gas. Absolute madness when you live in a nation like the UK where all electricity retailers are getting their power from one national network operator.
Call me cynical but I do think an outlet called oil price dot com may not be entirely impartial when they report on this. That is not to say what they wrote here is wrong; I wouldn’t know. It just has a touch of pot and kettle about it.
Since the power networks are linked and European countries import and export electricity, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that next to renewables power from gas stepped in to fill the nuclear gap. And the price for natural gas is often linked to a certain other commodity price.
Thermal power plants have the same restrictions when it comes to cooling. They are hit just as hard.
Several nuclear reactors had to shut down because there was not enough water for cooling.
In France, Hungary, Romania
Reactors in France are shut down not because of lack of water, but as an ecological precaution because the effects of warming up rivers even more is not well known (even if it seems to have not much more impact than the heat wave in itself )
And even with these reactors shut down, France still exported 5-10GW of power at the time.
So yeah let’s not propagate the anti-nuclear propaganda trying to paint the situation as “nuclear can’t handle global warming and will cause blackouts”, when in reality it’s just us having so much decarbonated electricity that we can afford to produce less as an ecological precaution.
In France, sure. In Hungary the water level actually dropped below the intake valves so they physically couldn’t pump enough water into the reactor.
From euronews:
That twists it to “protecting nature raises your electricity bill” where it’s just that that the plant, when built, did not take into account water levels could drop this low. As if they assumed climate change wouldn’t be this influential or something.
It’s not twisting anything, it’s verifiable fact. Water temperatures in rivers in the current heatwaves we’ve had in Europe that are more than 10 degrees celsius above mean average temperatures has meant that the temperatures in rivers and lakes are already reaching levels that are causing severe issues to the wildlife and plants within them. Dumping millions of litres of hot water from power stations into them just makes a critical situation worse.
It is not twisting it. It is exactly like that. The problem is not the water level. The nuclear power plant can work in these condition. The hot water discharge would raise the temperature too much on top of existing higher temperatures in the river for the flora and fauna to survive. We are doing this to protect nature. There is no twisting here.
To my knowledge, but I did not look this up, these constraints were known at design time. I don’t recall these changing. Hence the statement may be true, but pointing at the known constraint after the fact shifts the blame to nature conservation rather than infrastructure and climate change. This at a time where climate change focus is of utmost importance.
Hence, albeit factually correct, it is disingenuous to give it the focus.
If these constraints were added in the past 10 years then that could be considered different depending on the reasons for the change.
What has changed are the water levels and base temperatures. Our environment has changed and the infrastructure has not been adapted to it. Luckily we have other tools for generating electric power ready to be rolled out.
We are talking 1970. Scientists lacked the numerical models and the computing capacity to make these predictions. To accuse civilian engineers to not take into consideration recent hot topics of environmental science that lacked, at the time, rigorous models is disingenuous.
The design lifespan for those reactors was 40 years. We are extending those past lifetime because it is cheaper to do even if we need to shut them down more and more often.
The infrastructure have not adapted because it is cheaper to build a new power plant or to shutdown existing one occasionally then to adapt old existing design.
I do not understand what is your point here.
I believe there is something of the kind, that the price of electricity just matches the highest production price, since you cannot differentiate which electricity comes from where in a grid. Si even if you have cheap renewable/nuclear energy, costs may rise if you have to use ‘traditionnal’ power plants. Im not sure of the details, i just heard the mechanism being explained once or twice.
It is called marginal pricing the wholesale electricity market uses which determines the spot price of electricity. It is based on the most expensive form of generation, typically gas, needed to meet demand regardless of how little is required. So here in the UK if 99% is generated by low cost renewable and only 1% is generated by expensive gas it all gets priced at the rate for the gas. Absolute madness when you live in a nation like the UK where all electricity retailers are getting their power from one national network operator.