France's most powerful nuclear reactor connected to grid after 17-year build - eviltoast

Summary

France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.

The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.

President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.

Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    You should still not pick mushrooms in parts of germany because it isn’t.

    My gullible cabbage-eating friend, mushrooms are mostly safe to eat even around the Chernobyl station itself.

    I mean, not now probably, there are landmines and rotting corpses and what not. But before 2022 they were.

    And if you’d read something on the subject, you’d know it. Don’t be like flat-earthers and homeopathy proponents. Also “half-life” is not just a video game.

    Nuclear can only work because it is heavily subsidized. If it had to compete on a level playing field, not a single plant would ever have been built in history, as they are uninsurable on the free market and no investor would touch them with a stick without huge government guarantees.

    That’s not how it happened historically. Nuclear energy became more and more expensive due to regulations explicitly intended to press it out entirely. Just slowly.

    People feared nuclear bombs and transferred that fear onto nuclear energy. It’s irrational.