Your sources seem to be saying the opposite of what you're claiming. For instance the second one, through google translate, says:
> France's Energy Minister Eric Besson criticized Germany's exit from nuclear power. He is convinced that this will lead to Germany importing more electricity from France in the near future. As a result, the Grande Nation has to face the problem of a possible power shortage.
This is actually saying German imports from France will potentially cause an energy shortage, exacerbated by Germany's exit from nuclear generation. I'm not sure how this helps the point you're trying to make.
For all the talk of France's failures, it's carbon intensity of electricity is far smaller than Germany's [1]. This is the actual measuring stick of success: how much carbon is released for each watt-hour of electricity? France is way below Germany on this.
> And every time uranium fuel is shipped, you have massive protests from civilians, incurring a lot of side effects - acts of sabotage, blockades, expenses for police and judiciary system.
So if people protest solar and wind we should just cancel those projects, too? This seems like a non-sensical objection.
And lastly, it's strange to call nuclear a "dead" energy source when it's still generating more than wind and solar combined [2].
> This is actually saying German imports from France will potentially cause an energy shortage, exacerbated by Germany's exit from nuclear generation
Actually, both countries import and export energy from each other, we're importing from France outside the winter when we have shortfalls with renewables because our grid can't shift enough energy from North to South. The difference is that unlike France we don't go and pat ourselves on our shoulder for being oh so carbon friendly. That French claim to grandeur can only be made because everyone ignores that it depends on Germans and Brits.
> This is the actual measuring stick of success: how much carbon is released for each watt-hour of electricity? France is way below Germany on this.
Yeah, because we have a lot of old coal stinkers that drive up our g/kWh emission average - and because the followup emissions of nuclear plants (from construction and teardown of the plant as well as the operation of the nuclear waste storage and the mining, refining and transport of the fuel) have been underestimated [1]. The old figure used to be ~66 g/kWh whereas the actual upper bound is 180 g/kWh which is even more than natural gas (~117 kWh).
The elephant in the room is followup costs though - nuclear power has a lot of these, from insurance in the disaster case to the teardown and storage of the waste. If these costs that are currently effectively offloaded to the taxpayer would be accounted for, nuclear power would be at 90 ct/kWh, and that's the optimistic case.
> And lastly, it's strange to call nuclear a "dead" energy source when it's still generating more than wind and solar combined.
It's a technological dead end for short-term woes. The most modern EPR reactor design takes a decade to build apiece, and every other design no matter which base technology has been vaporware to date. Even if we were to commence construction for a dozen plants now, they would only become available in the 2030s!
We need solar and wind now, and actually smart grids where big consumers like heating systems and providers like electric cars can be coordinated centrally.
Thanks for putting time to write these comments, but I think your arguments and the source [1] you linked above are straw men.
Nobody claims that nuclear is a carbon free source of electricity generation. The IPCC[2] itself is calculating a carbon equivalent cost of 10 gC-eq/kWh, which is similar to renewables. This includes the complete chain from uranium mining to waste disposal. Eventually these will be electrified and CO2-free like everything else, which is not an argument for or against nuclear.
Furthermore, you are right in criticizing France for letting its nuclear infrastructure fall into disrepair due to recklessness and mismanagement. This should be fixed but is not inherent in the technology. Nuclear is expensive if done right.
You make a good point in that it takes a long time to build and certify new nuclear power plants. This is one more reason why we need to start building them now rather when we realize that we are still burning too much coal, gas and oil in 2030.
This is arguably a price we must pay for getting low-carbon base load electricity generation.
> This includes the complete chain from uranium mining to waste disposal.
Yes, but that's just the CO2 emissions and completely ignores the financial cost of tearing down the plants and maintain the waste site. The teardown for a nuclear site can easily reach dozens of billions of dollars, and the forever costs (literal translation of the German word Ewigkeitskosten) even more. Many countries have some sort of trust fund, but these are nowhere near enough to cover the costs (which is conveniently ignored by politicians because if they would do something about it, nuclear power would not be cost-efficient any more).
> You make a good point in that it takes a long time to build and certify new nuclear power plants. This is one more reason why we need to start building them now rather when we realize that we are still burning too much coal, gas and oil in 2030.
Why build nuclear plants at all and load our children with the debt of having to take care of even more nuclear waste than we already have? I mean, in the US you have enough deserts to bury that stuff until the sun explodes, and if some accident happens it will stay contained... but Europe is too geologically unstable and most importantly way too densely settled and Russia isn't a destination either, geopolitical tensions aside the permafrost is thawing and just dumping stuff into the Arctic Ocean should be out of the question.
Also, nuclear plants need nuclear fuel, which is difficult to mine, creates a lot of toxic waste and most importantly nearly three quarters of the world's production originate from one or another kind of dictatorship, kingdoms and other barely functioning governments [1]. What use is it to discontinue oil and gas from Russia and OPEC if all it does is tying us to the next bunch of dictators?
The base night load can be handled by geothermal, wind and water (dams, tidal energy) - the most important thing is to create solid trans-European power lines that can handle shifting energy all around the continent. For the daily peak load, add solar to the mix.
The reason why it still is a good idea to do this is climate change. The cost of not doing anything is much greater than the cost of building new nuclear plants. There are no technical problems with storing waste - it's entirely political. The technically most suitable storage sites in Germany were dismissed for state politics reasons. Instead they chose a technically unsuitable site - Gorleben - which then turned out to be surprisingly unsuitable.
> France's Energy Minister Eric Besson criticized Germany's exit from nuclear power. He is convinced that this will lead to Germany importing more electricity from France in the near future. As a result, the Grande Nation has to face the problem of a possible power shortage.
This is actually saying German imports from France will potentially cause an energy shortage, exacerbated by Germany's exit from nuclear generation. I'm not sure how this helps the point you're trying to make.
For all the talk of France's failures, it's carbon intensity of electricity is far smaller than Germany's [1]. This is the actual measuring stick of success: how much carbon is released for each watt-hour of electricity? France is way below Germany on this.
> And every time uranium fuel is shipped, you have massive protests from civilians, incurring a lot of side effects - acts of sabotage, blockades, expenses for police and judiciary system.
So if people protest solar and wind we should just cancel those projects, too? This seems like a non-sensical objection.
And lastly, it's strange to call nuclear a "dead" energy source when it's still generating more than wind and solar combined [2].
1. https://www.eea.europa.eu/ims/greenhouse-gas-emission-intens...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation#Methods...