So indeed consumption isn't stagnating, but increasing slightly. This is the second time you mention that elites have knowingly built overcapacity because they were afraid they wouldn't get the chance to build new capacity in the future. I don't know of any other country that knowingly overbuilds nuclear capacity, besides France, but does so for quite unclear reasons. Maybe somebody else knows.
I think I saw somewhere that between 1970 and 1980 the average growth in electricity in Sweden was around 7%. Is it possible they just extrapolated? 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
And of course power demand grew immediatly when those units were completed, one can't not use the power when the reactors are built, can one? So lots of power was "wasted" in the late 80's and 90's (on inefficient direct electrical heating for example) until "real" demand recently caught up with the "overbuilt" demand. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Or cheap power overcapacity in general. Not that cheap power is not a good thing, but let me give you an example.
Norway. Cheapest power in the world, extensive power intensive industry, all hydro, everyone has electrical heating. So far so good. Cheap and clean and comfortable.
The problem is that power demand in Norway is growing and hydro expansion is no longer possible. So they will build natural gas power plants. The reasonable alternative would have been to change electrical heating to electrical heat pumps to accomodate increasing power demand. Or Hell, just insulate those drafty houses. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
I don't think it is possible to at the same time develop nuclear energy (that is brag about non-polluting-too-cheap-too-meter-our-new program-will-also-be-called-'ploughshares' electricity) and tell people that they have to spend X euros insulating theirs houses, buying special light bulbs, etc.
To me the discourses go in opposite directions. 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
What is needed is closing fossil power plants and replacing them with something else, and that something is very often nuclear.
I see no inherent problem in promoting both nuclear power and improved efficiency.
It can be framed like this: "our power use shall be efficient and our power generation clean and competitive". Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
