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Comment by skybrian | Hacker News Reader

France has a lot of nuclear power. Why didn't it happen there?

Edit: looks like something different is happening:

French Power Slumps as Surging Renewables Push Out Atomic Plants https://tildes.net/~enviro/1h6r/french_power_slumps_as_surgi...

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Seems like it is happening? I'm guessing the maintenance might be the downside here, but they now have all the experience to build newer, better ones.

> France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.

> France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over €3 billion per year from this.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

I was wondering why electricity isn't cheaper in France.

I guess one reason is taxes? Here's an article from January: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20240122-french-electricity-pri...

Because their grid isn't standalone, it is linked to the rest of Europe, which is a very power hungry region.

Lots of anti nuclear movements, managed to reduce investment into the nuclear power, and increase cost. We have not opened a plant in 25 years. Research plants have been closed down by anti nuclear activists.

Some of this movement is funded by Germany Governement.

> Some of this movement is funded by Germany Governement.

At first I thought you were joking, but of course you were absolutely right: https://www.howsolargotcheap.com/germany

Our Economic Warfare School (EGE, École de Guerre Économique) recently made a report on the subject: https://www.ege.fr/sites/ege.fr/files/media_files/German_Int...

It's not exactly what you're looking for but one of the big three contenders in the AI space (after OpenAI and Anthropic) is Mistral, based in France.

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