After years of wrangling, France has set out a new energy law that slashes its wind and solar power targets and drops a mandate for state-run energy provider EDF to shut down nuclear plants.

After years of wrangling, France has set out a new energy law that slashes its wind and solar power targets and drops a mandate for state-run energy provider EDF to shut down nuclear plants.

  • turdas@suppo.fiEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    At times of peak production yes, but it’s an apples to oranges comparison because solar and wind do not produce 24/7. They therefore either need grid-scale storage, which isn’t accounted into their costs because it doesn’t currently even exist at the necessary scale, or supplementary load-following base generation. Nuclear is the cleanest option by far for the latter.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Nuclear is a terrible option for load-following base generation. You have to run a nuclear plant at full utilization as much as possible to get the cost anywhere close to renewables + gas peaker plants, since as soon as you start to throttle your nuclear plant, the cost explodes. And with the development of renewables + storage those peaker plants won’t be needed for very long.