France in Focus

Possible blackouts, not only in France. Headlines in the German newspaper "Bildzeitung": Droht ein E-Auto-Fahrverbot auch in Deutschland? ( Is an e-car driving ban also looming in Germany?). Mixed feelings in the Alps and along the Rhine river.

Informal translation of the intro:

In order to save electricity, driving bans for e-cars are to be issued in parallel in case of emergency. Driving with e-cars will then only be permitted for compelling reasons.

These include: Journeys to work, doctor's appointments and visits to authorities, but also church services and other religious events.

Background: Switzerland imports a lot of electricity from France and Germany. In winter, the dependence on its neighbours is particularly high because the Swiss hydroelectric power plants then supply less electricity.

Unlike its EU neighbours, Switzerland also has no electricity agreement with the EU. This means that in an emergency, the Swiss will have their electricity cut off.

Yesterday, our Prime Minister, Borne, announced the scheduled power cuts, at the microphone of BFM TV, in front of... a garage for electric cars!!! She's not afraid of ridicule... For 43 years, thanks to nuclear power, France had never experienced a power cut and we even exported it...
If all cars were electric (as wanted by our government for 2035), where will we find the 50% more electricity? It's time to buy a horse, cart and candles!

@ Biloute, you're absolutely right, La France n’exporte presque plus d’électricité vers ses voisins.

If I remember well you have hands-on experience, working US style (Tektronix, your Tek 465?) and French style. There are I'm afraid differences in maintenance scheduling and reliability targets. Knowing what the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) figures are of the hardware (and software these days) in your production process you can program maintenance work and replacement of (still functioning) hardware. The US way of doing it. You can also wait until something goes wrong somewhere (SNCF, Brétigny).

Examples of both lines of thought can be found in all other countries of course.....Maintenance costs can be high, you need specialised personnel, not cheap, educational efforts also necessary. For politicians and some bosses not something sexy, no new frontiers to be won, no headlines in the newspapers, no televised interviews.

Biloute: "It's time to buy a horse, cart and candles!"

I posted that solution ages ago.

The problem in France is quite a number of nuclear power stations are closed at present. Indeed I read it may import power . . . from UK!

Switzerland has nuclear as well - not many - as well as hydro. But hydro needs water.

They also have heat and power plants burning waste - and they are digging up the roads here to bury the pipes for our plant - but I am not sure when it opens.

As for electric cars - I see UK Government wants to introduce taxes on them - and the running costs match a petrol now - and Sadiq Khan wants road tolls for all cars (not just ICE) - and where one government leads another follows - so it seems some have been suckered!

As for smartmeters and Linky - I understand they can be switched on and off remotely - so that should help reduce the loads.

Remember - there is no situation a politician cannot make worse.

Let's examine the situation calmly without being biased:
- thanks to De Gaulle, we believed in nuclear power
- we produced 80% of our electricity from nuclear
- we could export electricity
- the Germans believed in wind turbines and solar panels and stopped nuclear power
- they persuaded us to do the same and Hollande and Macron obeyed
- then they understood that because of the intermittency, they needed gas power plants to compensate, gas that they imported from Russia
- because of Ukraine war, the Americans convinced us that Putin had to be punished and Macron obeyed
- German gas power plants now run on American shale gas 5 times more expensive
- because Macron had decided to close 14 additional nuclear power plants to please German environmentalists, EDF no longer hired qualified technicians
- as a result, 24 of our power plants (out of 56) are shut down for maintenance and there is a lack of electricity
- and the electricity we import, very expensive, is produced by fossil fuels: good for the planet !
Brilliant !

You forgot:

The Germans stopped nuclear power because they were afraid a tsunami might hit and swamp them like in Fukushima

Tsunamis there? Fukushima was located near the very deep sea, so in a high seismic risk zone: nothing to do with Germany or France!

Now take the tongue out of your cheek @niemeyjt .

The Germans instituted (like many other countries) a series of FMEA* tests based on a double failure - which is what happened in Fukushima**.

*Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
** The earthquake cut the power supply to the plant (Yes strange that a power station needs an external power supply but they do - as also seen in Zaporizhzhia.) Then the Tsunami knocked out the back up auxiliary diesel generators. End effect no power to control the reactors.

The German tests found that no station passed the double failure test and one failed a single failure test!

Comparing La France (70.6 % in 2019) and Germany also in 2019 (Kernenergie). Where the nuclear dependency went down from 12.4 % in the first 6 months of 2021 to 6 % in the first six months of 2022 ( they shut down three of the six nuclear power plants).

Not without significance for France: < Au 11 août, selon EDF, vingt-six réacteurs sur les cinquante-six que compte le parc nucléaire français étaient à l’arrêt. >