Hacker News Reader

Comment by WastingMyTime89 | Hacker News Reader

I have no idea of what you are talking about.

Blackouts are a solution to consumption surges. We are not seeing surges right now so there is no reason to restrict anyone. We can’t store electricity after all. In case of a surge, the commercial sector is the first being hit, long before houses. Plus the issue is mostly heating, lights consume next to nothing.

France electricity is mostly clean by the way.

> Restaurants and bars can just heat the outside terrace air. etc...

That’s been illegal for more than a year.

View on HN

> the commercial sector is the first being it

That's not what they announced, the day before an area code will be revealed, and all electricity will be cut (including schools, public utility and telephone towers)

> That’s been illegal for more than a year

There is an exception if terrace area is "covered". Guess what everyone installed in the past year?

What they announced is in addition to what’s always done. The commercial sector has always been the first to be cut. Some companies actually have special contracts which mean they can be cut with barely any notice.

If they do large scale blackouts it’s that they can’t manage the load without cutting normal customers so obviously it’s going to hit everyone.

France's energy production is not as clean as one may think. There is considerable damage to the environment in countries in Africa, where Uranium is mined/extracted. Probably still better than lots of CO2 output, but not actually clean.

No energy production is clean. Actually, I'd be curious to compare the damage to the environment caused by uranium extraction vs producing batteries and solar panels.

Indeed, there is no clean energy, it's all relative. I'd like more people to realize this.

Nuclear and solar panels are about the same. Better than wind and hydro. But all of these are very similar, and are miles better than fossil fuels. It’s difficult to have accurate projections for batteries because the technology that can be used at these scales is not clear (though he vast majority of them need cobalt, which is a huge issue on several levels).

> There is considerable damage to the environment in countries in Africa, where Uranium is mined/extracted.

That's equally of not more true of renewables like solar and batteries that require large amounts of rare metals.

Doesn't change the fact, that it is not actually clean, does it?

Most uranium comes from Kazakhstan. Australia and Canada are also major producers. Namibia produces some, but far from the majority. This isn't exactly a "western countries dumping environmental problems in Africa" story.

So is the Uranium extraction story better in those countries? I think that would then be the next question.

I don't think it's particularly bad per GWh of energy produced. You just don't need that much uranium. Compare coal (still being actively mined and burned for energy!), natural gas, exotics for batteries/solar.

In Australia at least most of it comes from a copper mine that happens to intersect a uranium vein, so as long as the demand for copper exists its extraction is essentially environmentally free

Olympic Dan is the fourth largest copper deposit and the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world.

The uranium used in France comes in part from Niger. The mines in Niger are operated by Orano, a mining company whose main shareholder is also France. There have been controversies about France using foreign aid to pressure the Niger government for more favorable mining contracts.

Any source at all?

(Good luck finding one that supports your position).

FWIW: yes, mining is bad. But uranium is unbelievably energy-dense and the amounts are ridiculously small compared to any other source of energy. All things considered, nuclear causes fewer emissions per MWh than most solar panels (which are not radioactive but still need heaps of metals and semiconductors). Also, there is no contest with coal, oil, and gas, which is the thing that is actually used when you don’t have nuclear energy available.

Mining can be done poorly, it isn’t bad, everything rigid we have comes from mining of some form.

https://invidio.xamh.de/watch?v=ioRtzOWm07A

Here you go. But really, if you had done a simple search of something like "france uranium africa" you would likely have found this yourself. If you only ever search for things supporting your position, but not the opposite position, you are prone to being in a bubble, never seeing contradicting information.

Greenpeace documentary

Reply on news.ycombinator.com