On a different subject, I would like to ask you a question about nuclear energy in France and the consequences it has on security issues and international politics, as well as consumption regulation policy.
If i understood the little i read about energy, nuclear power, because its production cannot be adjusted to meet demand quickly enough, cannot represent too big a share of the electricity production of a single country. It can only be producing the base consumption, around 50% of the total electricity consumed. Knowing, this, what are the consequences of france producing 78% of its electricity by nuclear plants?
I think that this excess capacity originates in wrong estimation of future needs: experts held true that energy consumption and growth grew hand in hand and therefore projected that consumption would be far above what it is today. That, plus the fact that they blinded themselves from new technologies [combined cycles for gaz-powered plants] made them overlook prospects for cheaper production and build far too many nuclear plants. Is this true?
Energy consumption is what energy production depends on. The myth of an electricity so cheap that really is free prevents the development of public policies against energy waste and illogic usage [electricity for heating for exemple]. Electricity production is the result of a political choice: the same money could be invested in reducing usage with only good consequences. As it has been often put, the less polluting energy is the one that has not been consumed. Can that approach, reducing consumption and european energy intensity be used to wait for better technologies? Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine
If we have an accident there is no going back to coal for several decades, during which the population will calm down and start supporting nuclear power again.
This is what Olof Palme and the other Swedish politicians of the 70's thought, kind of "Field of dreams": build them and they can't go away.
And it worked! Despite TMI, Chernobyl and our anti-nuclear referendum more than 80 % of all Swedes yet again support nuclear power. :D Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
It was partly an environmental decision, to improve air quality and save the remaining rivers from exploitation, partly an answer to the oil shocks and partly a way to guarantee cheap power to Swedish industry, which is probably the most electricity intensive in the world (steel and especially pulp require vast amounts of power).
The Swedish nuclear power program coexisted with the Swedish nuclear weapons program (of which Palme had been a strong supporter) but it was separated during the 60's when the Americans told us to stop playing with nuclear arms and guaranteed us enriched uranium (which is needed for light water reactors).
Earlier our program was based on heavy water reactors and domestic uranium but it was never much of a success. We built a really small combined heat and power reactor in a Stockholm suburb (which was probably meant to be used for manufacture of military plutonium) and then we fucked up a 400 MW heavy water reactor project. Just as the reactor was supposed to go online (after delays, cost over-runs etc) the engineers understood the reactor wasn't safe enough. Oops. Just a few years before the oil crisis, it was ironically converted to an oil plant, making the whole project even more of a farce.
Private industry woke the state from it's natural uranium dreams (called "The Swedish line") by ordering a light water reactor in front of the state's nose, and since then it's been light water reactors all the way.
We ordered three Westinghouse PWR's and nine domestic ASEA BWR's which will serve us into the mid 2040's.
Two of the smallest BWR's where recently closed due to pressure from the evil Greens but no more shutdowns are seen as even remotely realistic. Instead the nuclear industry is uprating the remaining ten reactors so forcefully (with the silent approval of the government (and the Greens)) that the new generation-capacity is greater than the capacity of the two closed reactors.
The closing of the two BWR's has cost the Swedish people more than €2 billion. Every time I see a Green I remind her of how many wind mills, trains and trams you can get for €2 billion. ;) Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
On the other hand, France has a giant electricity export market in Italy and also some hydroelectric plants in the Alps that help manage demand. That is, they are used as peak load while the nuclear plants do all the base load (and also more than that).
I don't agree the French blinded themselves by avoiding gas plants. Gas plants carry heavy environmental and geopolitical costs (and lately also financial cost) which nuclear power avoids.
The argument about efficiency is interesting. Obviously conservation is a good thing. But in the end even the power used in a situation with great conservation has to come from somewhere, and then you are back at having to choose among the different kinds of plant.
So, conservation yes!
But first some mighty big reactors. :) Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
