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Comment by moooo99 | Hacker News Reader

> Also, France gets 70% of its energy from nuclear, not 40%.

No, it gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear.

Yeah, France could invest a lot more into nuclear-heat usage directly (e.g. for district heating or providing process heat to factories) without needing to convert it into Electricity first.

France did invest into a new nuclear powerplant, and the result isn't enticing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

That wasn‘t what was mentioned, it was specifically mentioned they should use more nuclear to heat, I.e. use exceeds heat for district heating for example.

This is fairly common for coal and gas power plants, but as far as I know, not really used with nuclear power plants.

As far as I know, the French nuclear power plants aren’t exactly in close proximity to any major city, making district heating most likely not economically viable

It implies an adequate design, adapting (retrofit) an existing nuclear plant to such co-generation is very difficult.

That happens when you only build a SINGLE reactor unit after decades of building nothing. Keep improving the design (EPR2) and keep building and the costs and build times will come down.

> only build a SINGLE reactor unit after decades of building nothing

Nope.

The most recent nuclear reactor (Civaux-2) was delivered in France in 1999.

The project aiming at building an EPR in France (Flamanville) started in 2004, and it was a work-in-progress on the field in 2007. Where are those "decades"?

Moreover an EPR was sold to Finland before, and work started in 2005.

Then a pair was sold to China.

Then another pair to the U.-K.

All 6 are very late and have huge overcosts.

If those 6 are in your opinion a "SINGLE reactor" let's swap my single dollar for your six bucks.

Not to count attempts to stem other projects (even in France, at Penly) by offering it to India, Slovenia, USA through UniStar Nuclear, Czech Republic, United Arab Emirates... The prospect weren't thrilled by patent problems at then ongoing projects.

There was a tangible will. As usual this isn't sufficient to succeed.

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