The opening of the European Pressurized Reactor in Flamanville comes 12 years late on the initial schedule.

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.”

  • TheBlackLounge@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    1 day ago

    Ehh, concrete is very polluting, and nuclear plants need a lot of it. It’s not gonna get recycled either. I thought this was obvious. Dunno how you thought that was a dunk.

    But we can keep building them. It’ll always be expensive, but we don’t need much rare material.

    I was hoping I’d see cobalt etc in your link, but still not then… For solar cells we need that 5% to be mined over and over. 50 years is nothing if you’re talking about renewables. Might as well not care about sustainability at all if you’re not talking another 5000 years.

    • Enkrod@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      Cobalt is more abundant in the earths crust than thorium or uranium by an order of magnitude.

      • TheBlackLounge@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        And we need several orders of magnitude more of it per Wh. We’ll run out of sand to make cement to build reactors before we run out of uranium.