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Originally Posted by opendoor
But those are spot prices for a year from now. If it was just a temporary thing due to nuclear shutdowns, you wouldn't expect prices to be so much higher than Germany, who is presumably much more exposed to gas shortages/price spikes. Though it might have to do with the fact that France has had to temporarily shut down plants because the cooling water from the rivers is too warm, which might be a recurring problem during the summer months going forward, so perhaps they're anticipating this to be an annual occurrence.
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I'm sure the warm rivers aren't helping, but they already had 28 reactors (out of 56) down due to maintenance and corrosion issues before summer even hit. So who knows how "temporary" it's going to be....nuclear isn't exactly known for its speed!
Either way, it's been a longer term decline in output and investment that started way before this summer. French nuclear energy output peaked in 2005 when they produced 452 TWh. It was down to 361 Twh by 2021 (so before any Russia/Gas crisis), and this year estimates are around 295-315 Twh. And as I mentioned, since 2015 there's been a government mandate to go from 75% of electricity from nuclear to 50%...I guess shutting down half of your reactors due to divestment/incompetence is a pretty good way to meet those goals!
Just as a comparison, Germany produced 171 TWh at its peak in 2001. It was down to about 65 TWh last year, and with the original planned phase-out by 2022, the eventual plan is of course to go to zero. Nuclear power used to generate a quarter of Germany's electricity... I'm sure that would come in handy these days. Instead the worlds 4th largest economy is now firing up mothballed coal and oil power plants, while people stock up on wood and diesel generators.