> making a profit by selling valuable nuclear energy
EDF adjusted economic debt at the beginning of 2026: €81.7 billion
After decades of massive help (nationalisations building it, monopoly, gift-loans, debt cancellation...
> the profitability of solar operators will sink to the ground due to the overcapacity causing negative price
Wait for storage (V2G...) and hydrogen to kick in.
> France
> Germany
France's transition to nuclear power began in 1963 and is now complete.
In other countries (Germany...), transitions to renewables began with the advent of their industrial versions, around 2005. The current context makes these transitions more challenging, and they are still underway.
Therefore, any comparison of their results, for example, greenhouse gas emissions, must be based not on snapshots (which currently favor France since its transition is complete), but on their progress: speed, costs, impacts, etc.
> decades of massive help (nationalisations building it, monopoly, gift-loans, debt cancellation...
I start seriously question your intellectual honesty here.
- For the last 2 decades, EDF was privatised and give back to the state an average of 2bn€ per year in dividende [1]. That is currently EDF giving to the state, not the opposite.
- The monopoly situation in France was ended in 2007. The loi NOME in 2010 even offred to the competitor of EDF an access to nuclear energy at fixed low price [2].
Worth to note that when the Energy crisis spiked in 2022, the same 'competitors' sent back their customers to EDF because they massively increased their price and did not want to follow the TRV.
> hydrogen to kick in.
Nobody sane of mind and reasonable take hydrogen and Power2Gas seriously in the energy sector: The law of physics simply play against it.
The general efficient is low (practically around 50%), the electrolizers strongly hate the spike style usage pattern necessary for a coupling with intermittent energy, and no installations of the required scale has even been tried.
The only reason this is still on the table is because it gives the gaz industry a reason to drain public subsidies and some hope to stay relevant.
> France's transition to nuclear power began in 1963 and is now complete.
Thats also wrong.
The Messner plan started in 1974 and France was other 55% of electricity production provided by Nuclear in 1985. It finishes with over 50 reactors in 15 years to cover up more than 70% of the electricity generated [3]
The cost of the plan Messmer was estimated at 100bn€ in 2012 money.
Germany started their energiewende in 2005 and 20 years later and 400Bn€ burned, they still do have a CO2/kwh intensity 4x higher than France in the 80s.
The results are so bad that Germany started to subsidies its own industry to protect them against electricity price increase [4]
The return on state capital endowments, ranging from 3% to 6%, represents a low real return, significantly lower than the theoretical rates of 8% or 9% (excluding inflation) projected at the time by the General Planning Commission for public enterprises (page 33). Handouts!
The payment of meager dividends is sometimes cancelled or postponed (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019: https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/edf-l-etat-va-renon... ), or partially made in the form of EDF shares ("in securities", for example between 2016 and 2022) therefore in monkey money because it does not replenish the public coffers at the time or later: EDF is very indebted and the bulk of its assets (nuclear power plants) are unsellable.
> loi NOME in 2010 even offred to the competitor of EDF an access to nuclear energy at fixed low price
'Low'? Nope. It happened in 2012 and this price was set at €42/MWh
The total production cost of a MWh in 2010 was €22 (see the French Court of Auditors' report "The Costs of the Nuclear Power Sector," page 81). Since the existing generation fleet is considered fully depreciated, the €20 difference covers the extension of its operating life (Grand Carénage) and the renewal/expansion of the new nuclear power plants (EPR series).
Nope: hydrogen vehicles are easy to criticize because the mass and size of the tank are prohibitive, and compression significantly increases the cost.
This leads some to condemn all forms of hydrogen use. However, in the case of backup power, not having to store it in a small mobile tank or even transport it, and therefore being able to store it in a stationary industrial tank (where mass and volume are relatively unimportant), is not only possible but already being achieved (record: Air Liquide, and the competition is intensifying) and, incidentally, improves efficiency.
Efficiency:
- Electrolysis (PEM or alkaline): 0.75
- Storage: 0.95
- Conventional combined cycle turbine (gas + steam) with efficiency similar to that achieved with natural gas: 0.6
Overall: approximately 0.4 (just like a very recent nuclear reactor, and without any waste-producing fuel...)
> electrolizers strongly hate the spike style usage pattern necessary for a coupling with intermittent energy
See PEM.
> no installations of the required scale has even been tried
Indeed, however all components are ready.
> France's transition to nuclear power began in 1963 and is now complete.
> The cost of the plan Messmer was estimated at 100bn€ in 2012 money.
This is the sole building cost. R&D is estimated at 55 billions (1945-2010) and the Court wrote that it is very difficult to assess, (page 35, footnote) "the scope of analysis does not cover research expenditures in the military field, nor those related to basic research.".
EDF adjusted economic debt at the beginning of 2026: €81.7 billion After decades of massive help (nationalisations building it, monopoly, gift-loans, debt cancellation...
> the profitability of solar operators will sink to the ground due to the overcapacity causing negative price
Wait for storage (V2G...) and hydrogen to kick in.
> France > Germany
France's transition to nuclear power began in 1963 and is now complete.
In other countries (Germany...), transitions to renewables began with the advent of their industrial versions, around 2005. The current context makes these transitions more challenging, and they are still underway.
Therefore, any comparison of their results, for example, greenhouse gas emissions, must be based not on snapshots (which currently favor France since its transition is complete), but on their progress: speed, costs, impacts, etc.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-generation-fr...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-carbon-...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...