It doesn't get any better than the stache brothers. Great interview

This has become something of a scandal here in France. There has been an official enquiry by the French Senate and they have over 150 hours of testimony from various figures - various nuclear engineers who tried to sound the alarm (but were ignored) as to why we in France are losing our energy sovereignty. Politicians are also being asked to testify and some are pretending "not to recall" having made decisions several years ago to slowly take our nuclear plants offline by just letting them crumble into a state of disrepair. Almost half the fleet was shut down to make long-overdue repairs and updates. I've tried listening to the testimony but it's often heart-breaking from a French point of view - and it's very clear from the kinds of questions some French senators ask that they clearly have little understanding as to what is at stake and that an awful lot has been driven not by engineering demands but by so-called "green" ideology. Some are waking up to this sad state of affairs but it may be too late; I just don't know. The awfulness is that I'm learning more about my own country's sad nuclear state of affairs from this channel than from the French media!

That was a damning overview of the French situation with very few highlights. Why France? Why? :( Also, I feel like I barely know anything about this subject after listening to this. Could we get a lot more French updates? I’m really interested in the future. Is France going to build to 14 new reactors domestically? Are they going to commit to those six reactors in Poland? What is the future going to look like for EDF? Questions questions.

Very informative episode which addresses many fundamental questions about the unfortunate situation of the french nuclear fleet. It is a testament to the knowledge, communication skills and charisma of Chris and Mark that one wants to listen to the episode for a second time immediately after the first time, despite the fact that most of the presented facts are very discouraging (how can we possibly fix this?), saddening (it could have been so much better..) or straight away infuriating (why in hell were they allowed to do that?). Still, there is indeed hope, although significantly more pain will be needed to create enough incentive to start converting the hope into reality.

Same thing has actually happened to Diablo Canyon in California. It couldve probably gone on for another 20 years (possibly more), but the state became anti-nuclear, so shutdown was the only option on the table. I suppose in some cases the reactor cores suffer enough wear n tear that the plant has to shutdown. However, even then usually the power generation infrastructure at the site can be reused with a plant build nearby (so long as the terrain is supportive). The other thing is that the math of climate action doesnt work if its not a global effort. If its a state by state response then what it actually achieves is less pollution. Thats about it. The benefits of might not matter if it creates energy shortages and crises; in which case it just become a giant job killing exercise.

Very informative! Its very interesting to learn about the strategic vision of EDF and how internal company culture has had an impact on the nuclear generating fleets. Thanks again for providing incredible content!

It would be really interesting if you could do a similar talk about the Swedish nuclear sector, it's always interesting to have an outside perspective.

Love people with noble goals who act in good faith. Hope it catches on more and more. Only hope we have.

How many times has Queen's Park ordered a report on the Electricity Sector in Ontario... Which always says that responsibility for electricity Policy decisions should be taken OUT of the hands of politicians... Only to have the report ignored? Strikes me that France could use a report or 2 like that!

Excellent episode ! The story seems to be quite similar everywhere: A) Build an excellent (Sweden, France) or good (Finland) electricity system, B) Let politicians loose to destroy it, nowadays mostly in the name of green ideology...

nice 'staches .

I think blaming the 50% cap legislation is a bit of a cop out argument for Frances nuclear program failures. EDF has been fucking up new build nuclear inside and outside France for decades, not just in the last four or five years. If French nuclear reactors were an affordable form of new power in comparison to renewables then they’d be building them, even if it was just to maintain a 50% level. Wasn’t there documented, real world problems found in the reinforcing of the reactor concrete enclosures causing the maintenance scheduling this summer?

I think the smartest russians are equally split between Roscosmos and Rosatom. Which should speak highly about whoever works with those companies. In my line of duty I have worked with a few russian programmers/IT-specialist and they were really top notch, if those were the spillovers I'm actually a little scared of those guys at Rosatom/Roscosmos.

Looks like another example of the French Maginot Line Syndrome.

You guys seriously must be long lost brothers. Also love these talks from Mark.

Who is this person? New guest? Thanks for the new video!

The way IS the Coal. RWE

26:15 I may think that is due to EuroLaw, and that is a helpful thing from one side, but can be very wrong in another. Idk exactly tbh

Rx...Chicken broth and time to recover from the rot. but...EDF is being bled to death to support renewables.

Now that France has, presumable, recovered from the maintenance issues that kept a number of their reactors off line, I how many billions they have made by selling surplus electricity to Germany?

What is going on in France with the reactor fleet and government dysfunction can only be described as criminal and grotesque.😬

It comes to mind that there is a "quartier" in Paris called la Defense.

Mark is so intense

39:39 High wholesale prices in Australia are stimulating investment in wind and utility scale Solar’s and heaps i of battery storage for firming. Even by French corporations like Engie. Wind lasts 35 years today and with repowering at end of design life more like 35+50 ( estimate) = 85 years. Sink coats for line Tx and footings still useable.

Why do you we use U 235? Because that's how they refine it for bombs. There is an alternative and the element waste can't be used for bomb nuclear production.

France exports (nuclear) power to Germany in summer too doesn’t it? It’s imports and export s are done on a price basis, same goes for German coal to France.

Excellent discussion revealing the likely corruption in the renewables paridym shift for profits. Billion dollar contracts for building out renewables must have some influence over policy plans. To not follow the renewable money contracts is irresponsible if you really want to find a solution to the edf problem. Who is getting greased to broker these huge renewable deals.

I didn't understand everything - and English is my first language, so it's not a language problem - but it's a shame they couldn't invite a French nuclear energy specialist to answer their criticism. Why for example does he criticise French nuclear engineers for wanting to refurb the French plants because they're aging? He asks why French nuclear plants are aging "because they're not in the rest of the world." What? A nuclear plant is not eternal. It ages. The lifespan of a nuclear power plant is between 20 and 40 years. Surely even American plants age? You have to refurbish them, I imagine?

Great discussion with plenty of hard truth, and hints for getting French nuclear - and therefore the European clean energy future - back on track.

Wouldn't it be great if the French got hold of the all the Germans who were working in nuclear? I mean I know it's wishful thinking but still

Interesting talk, Thank You. I will spoil the current 69likes status and press the button now:) I would love to hear about comment on the EPR power plants and why it is such a difficult building experience in so many places. Is it caused by similar management problems exported abroad? To complex design? Is it problem with local safety regulators like STUK in Finland? Also how much of the problems mentioned in this current episode is the "cancer of delusion" spreading from Germany and it influence in EU?

Wow a new Enron.

Chernobyl and Fukushima. Two mind blowingly expensive examples of what happens when the impossible happens. Massive clean up ops lasting maybe a century, maybe longer. I think I'd prefer wind and solar. Something goes wrong: your turbine falls over. Tut tut. Something worse happens; a whole farm falls over. Oh bum. Not much comparison is there? Plus, look at Flammanville, Hinkley Point. If they actually ever get round to making electricity it'll be the most expensive electricity of the age. And that's without mentioning the other major issue with nuclear.

Very good French neighbour! (I'm from Montréal lol)

"France"? Where is that?

Chris, you need to work on your understanding of the electricity sector pre & post deregulation where it happened. In simple terms, deregulation broke up the monopolies, or in Canada, the Crown Corps, and gave the monopolies the choice, pick 2 of the 3, but not all 3... generation, transmission & distribution. Most went G&T, but not all (in the US). Ontario wnet further and did all three, T -> Hydro 1, D all the little "hydros" and G went OPG --> Pickering, Darlington, plus all hydro assets, AND Bruce became its own private "Partnership" with TC Energy & various other entities (unions & pension funds). From a nuclear fleet perspective, Bruce & OPG became competitors... exactly what you proposed for the French fleet.... that as Mark states was needed in some way to stem the apathy & low-interest to improve performance of the fleet... chronic endemic malaise. It is mindboggling that the darling that is the French nuclear fleet is one of the poorest preforming fleets there is in the world. Historically, they have never been above 80% CF! That's some 100-150 TWh/yr they could have been selling into the EU markets, and nothing, not Brussels has stopped them from selling generation greater than domestic demand, other than their own failure to shine and operate at >90% CF. Thank you Mark for spelling out a pretty accurate assessment of the French fleet, excluding a few snipes over parasites, etc. Chris keeps throwing out these sour grapes about deregulation and dreaming of re-regulation & a return to a Crown Corp aka state operated monopoly in Ontario. You act like there were not interests on the right side of the political/ideological center who wanted deregulation in Ontario. There was NO demand growth in Ontario through the 80s & 90s, especially after Darlington came online. Breaking up the Crown Corp, while restricting imports into Ontario in mass... opened up export markets for Ontario, especially for Bruce once privatized, which was never part of the plan like in Quebec, Manitoba or BC. The flip side of deregulation never happening in Ontario is... Ontario's nuclear fleet could have gone exactly as did France's, which let's be honest... the fleet has never pushed US capacity factors, but has at least performed better than France's NPP fleet, historically. Less focus on far off places and pointing fingers at systems you do not have the background understanding to be opining upon and being some "expert" about, more focus on Ontario's fleet refurbishments. BTW, what did you personally have to do with Byron & Dresden NPPs? Again, something you do not have the institutional or historical knowledge of to be making claims about. Far more NPPs in the US have been saved by democrat-lead states than were closed. And here again, we have a D federal government saving NPPs that red states were content with allowing to close if their owner so decided, and it is this same administration that is 150% behind a industry, that frankly doesn't deserve it when it comes to building large or small reactors.

The French nuclear fleet is now old (average 38 years) and many of the existing reactors have severe neutron embrittlement problems and will cost huge sums to decommission.

The EU determines all countries competition rules. Add to that green energy rules the roost and the politics. Not fixable until Brussels looses control.

42:00 French nuclear at 36% off mix would be fine if renewables, storage and imports of GermanRE made up the other64% to clean the entire supply. Demand will undoubtably go up when France adopts EV legislation and decarbonised what’s left of their transport, built environment and industrial sectors.

What an awful story about the tree 🌳.

A couple of thoughts,,,add a drought on a river, and you,ve lost your cooling water,,, except for France,(early adopters) the total energy is the same as if you burnt the diesel in the first place,(remember Uranium IS a finite resource,it can never replace all the energy,(currently produced

what is the chance that this is a sabotage?

Hard to follow. Lots of words in excess.

33:32 you failed to define the corporate status of EDF. I’m not pretending it isn’t or can’t be a monopoly/oligarchy due to its size but it’s been variously publicly funded, gifted to the private sector to profit from ( because as we are told all the time by the renter class “ the private sector does everything better”) then EDF went bankrupt building nuclear power plants both in France and elsewhere, got bailed out by the public purse again, this happened a few times and most recently the state has renationalised it. At least be clear with your listeners what the history is before you jump into polemics. I’m also critical of markets for nautical power grids. But you need to be clear in presenting the history of EDF as a State Owned Entity/Government Trading Enterprise and as a privatised monopolistic corporation (there’s no comparable energy trading entity in France).

It would be better to look at the basic structure of our societies before building even more generating capacity. Nuclear fission or even fusion will never make "sufficient" power. The energy sector of our country will never accept any definition of "sufficient" because their job is, really, to make money, not power. The fact is that we do not need more power. If we turn our attention instead to "conservation" we could quickly and easily solve the "power problem." Transforming our societies into sustainable ones could be done much more quickly, with less money, while, at the same time, reducing our waste, and reducing most of the negative impacts we are currently dumping onto the entire planet. We need to be smart and we need to see ourselves as part of a world community of life forms that can provide for all of us without doing nearly as much harm to our planet. And, we can transform our societies while providing all of us with more tolerant, productive, and enjoyable communities that we actually want to live in. Our air and water will be cleaner, our towns and cities will be more beautiful, and we will be healthier and smarter than we are now. Nuclear is not a solution. We don't need more power. We need more compassion, humility, and respect for all life forms. Just a thought.

The grid expansion costs are the biggest problem. And nobody sees it. Most national grids cost more than the nations entire GDP. Fun fact. And built over decades and decades. My concern is that non nuclear countries will start to go nuclear, and then the grid capacity problem will be seen. Australia has a $ 2 billion pumped hydro expansion project, which is now a $ 12 billion project with new grid construction. They are not going to stop work, too much invested. Australian nuclear promoters are well connected and being misleading. For Australia 1million km × 1million $km = 1TRILLION $ GDP 1.5TRILLION $ No CO2 emissions means going from 15% to 7 times more grid electricity, 100% electric. Rubbish. Spend 7TRILLION $$$$$$ So I speak up. Keep nuclear running if you have nuclear, just don't think about the generation only. Grid capacity to millions and millions and millions of customers is critical.

49:25 Super interesting how the massive overblown subsidies are always left out, when talks comes to nuclear now and then. But subsidies for renewables are bad, even if the get less and less or even abondoned. Doesn't fit the narrativ, right? Other question, isn't there anything else behind all this ideological chitchat? (dont mind, it is a rhetorical question) 53:00 Very good question and no answer again! The answer is: nuclear can't deliver any new power plants in the next 10 years. No matter what. Nuclear will not help at all in this energy constraint. 54:05 Oh yes, more stereotypes, we all love them, we are all delighted now. Despite there was no relavant content again. "Fessenheim was shut down for no reason at all." Heck, what of a malign nuclear fanboy religion you have to follow to claim this or do you have just no idea what Fessenheim was about? Where are "extremely shortages in electricity"? In France? The US or Japan? Where is the context? Fessenheim had exactly the problems, why most of France's fleet is reworked. Exactly the old ones have hydrogen bubbles in steel where there should none. Exactly the old ones like Fessenheim are build in earthquake and flooding zones. But yeah "no problems at all". No again, all currently operating reactors are based on the westinghouse design. Do you "expert" really know what you are talking about? Or is playing demagoge too nice, so you can't stop liying? All this aimless framing, what about the facts? 58:35 Are you thinking people are stupid? People cannot distinguish between a NPP and a plane? Are you actually confused? It really sounds like this. So much superficial blablabla, buzzwords everywhere. Gosh. Everytime i heard, "I met ...." "I talked to ...." i think, he didn't had much talk to the guys he claims he had talked to. Note: i couldn't stand hearing all this bs. You could condense the "interview" to 10 minutes if you want.

This is ridiculous France bashing. They aren't discussing why the reactors are operated differently. He doesn't know what he is 🦜 ng about

The "crippeling" of french nuclear by the EU, is just in regards to financing new plants AND it was moderated in the final rule? There is no rule or system in the EU that would disadvantage french nuclear over german coal? As far as I know, this is just fantasy.

Imagining how cool this podcast would be without the random paranoid slander about 'sketchy... China' and fairy tales about Russia supposedly forcing countries to buy gas.

One big problem with nuclear is that it needs lpts of workers. A 1GW gas fired power station needs only 40 men to run it 24/7. Thsts not 40 men there at any one time but 40 men who work shifts so at any one time there is only about 10 people there By comparison a 1GW reactor needs closer to 700 people there. Maybe need is the wrong word. But simply put they have far far more staff than a gas fired power station and staff are not cheap 40 staff at $80,000 = $3.2 million per year 700 staff at $100,000 a year = $70 million a year $70 milion vs $3.2 million is a big difference This is before you even consder that a nuke needs a lot of contractors to come in once every 18 months to refurb and refuel while the gas fired power station meeds no such significant costly downtome every 18 months Another huge factor is a gas fired station can be built in less than 3 ywars while its going to Realistically take 13 years for the nuke. Thats 13 years of interst payments withiut a dime back And perhaps finally. The worlds more powerful contires probably wouldn't be too keen on allowing every nation to have its hands on high lvl waste. Its not going to be bimb material but it doesnt have to be a few tons exploded in a city centre would be economic charnage as millions flee and their productove outpit is reduced towards zero Fortunately europe has the north Sea and 60% capaicty factor offshore turbines will help produce vast vast quantities of affordable electricity

So nuclear boosters are always saying France has cheaper power than Germany (doesn’t but that’s the argument) and now we’re hearing that EDFi s taking on debt (in addition to public bail outs) to to artificially keep the wholesale price down and pay adjustment “taxes” for their monopoly position. I don’t know what their tax obligations or price adjustments are, but you can’t argue the price is so cheap because nuclear and then argue nuclear power isn’t getting paid enough to pay their bills plus build new plants to maintain a stock of generation. You throw the word fraud around but it’s really dishonest to try and occupy both these portions, pick one.

Why so many words? Why quote Amory Lovins? Dp you not know who/what Amory is? And, what he is not? We're over 6 minutes in and yet no mention that the French problem has to do with welds and corrosion. You both should be at their plants' gates kissing the ground in thanks for the benefit French nuclear has provided all the world. Very disappointing interview. Dr. A. Cannara