Skip to main content

Double-Checking The Nuclear Numbers in France

By Eric McErlain
They had a presidential debate in France last night, and the moderator asked the two candidates how much of France's electricity was generated by nuclear power:
Both candidates stumbled on the question of nuclear power. [Nicolas] Sarkozy, 52, said nuclear plants produce 50 percent of the country's electricity. [Segolene] Royal put the number at 17 percent. Last year, 78 percent of French power production was nuclear, according to the industry ministry. Nuclear accounts for about 17 percent of total energy consumption.
For more on the French nuclear program, click here.
Labels:

Comments

Joffan said…
I had a hard time believing that 78% nuclear electricity translates to 17% total energy...

This site indicates a figure I can more easily believe (graph 9), of 41% nuclear proportion of total energy.
May 4, 2007 at 11:37 AM
NNadir said…
Incroyable!

I really can't believe it. A basic question about one of the most important industries in France and neither Presidential candidate knows what is happening?

I hope which ever of them becomes President will be surrounded with people who can educate them.
May 4, 2007 at 12:23 PM
NNadir said…
Joffran: I'm going to steal this link. It's great!
May 4, 2007 at 2:54 PM
Anonymous said…
78% of French total generation (549.4 TWH's) comes from nuclear (426 TWH's). But, 76 nuclear TWH's are exported (net exports are 68 TWH's, but that includes a subtraction of 8 TWH's by imports), so 350 nuclear TWH's are consumed by the French, comprising 72.5% of French electrical consumption (482 TWH's).

Further, the average capacity factor for French nuclear is about 77%, with exports. Without exports that factor would be about 63%. Without imports it would be even lower, in order to handle the daytime peak, perhaps around 60%.

French nuclear power becomes much more economical if it's part of a larger system, which can help match it's output to demand. In that way nuclear is quite similar to wind power.
May 7, 2007 at 4:22 PM
brian wang said…
I was wanting to send a contact to Nadir and the contributors/editors of NEU nuclear notes abut could not find contact info.

I wanted to get your feedback on the article that I had written here
about linking energy policy with transportation policy

http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/05/better-economy-and-government-budgets.html

My apologies for using the comments as means of contact

Thanks

Brian wang
blwang at gmail dot com
May 7, 2007 at 7:39 PM
Anonymous said…
I don't think nuclear (even French nuclear) is similar to wind, for one very important reason. Matching demand or not, there's no way aroiund the fact that wind capacity factor is really quite low compared with nuclear. Last I checked, wind was running about 25-30% CF. That doesn't match up well with the 77% CF for the French units, or the 90+% for the US fleet.
May 7, 2007 at 8:59 PM
Anonymous said…
" there's no way aroiund the fact that wind capacity factor is really quite low compared with nuclear."

Nuclear is designed to have a capacity factor of roughly 90%, so 77% causes a proportionate excess cost per KWH. On-shore wind is designed to have a capacity factor in the range of 30%, so if you get 30% that's not a problem.
May 9, 2007 at 2:53 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more