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natmaka | 1 month ago
> relatively on time and on budget
Nope. 7 years late (plan: 2017, last reactor diverged in 2024).
Total cost not known, at least 24.5 billion USD and maybe up to 32 according to Bloomberg (plan: 20). Koreans are even fighting: KHNP (a subsidiary of KEPCO, the company building the plant) officially seeks for about 1.2 billion USD in compensation ( https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=... ) and it may worsen up.
Such a resounding success... as usual: https://www.fastcompany.com/90844859/why-massive-wind-and-so...
Moldoteck|1 month ago
Yes. It is a success.
Korea also announced they plan to build two additional reactors domestically by 2038
I've seen what a success Energiewende was. Really top notch execution to spend more than the entire french fleet and after 25y to have much worse emissions, while planning to have 80GW gas firming per Fraunhofer ISE to cover under generation periods
natmaka|1 month ago
Yes, a failure is better than a disaster. As we say in France, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
> Korea also announced their plan.
For 25 years, numerous announcements of this kind have been made by many nations, without any real intention of following through, and for various reasons (electoral considerations, will to create competition for renewable energy suppliers, etc.).
Only projects that are actually starting (on the ground) provide a good indication.
> Energiewende > spends more than the entire French fleet
The actual cost of this fleet is considerably higher than official estimates. Details and sources in French: https://sites.google.com/view/electricitedefrance/accueil#h....
> after 25 years to have much worse emissions
This comparison is invalid, for many reasons.
On the one hand, France's transition to nuclear power began with the first industrial nuclear power reactor (dubbed "EDF1") in 1957. In 1959, the project for the power plant that would be completed in Chooz in 1967 began, and as early as 1964, nuclear power was presented to the public as the energy source that would take over in 1975 (correctly predicting that in Europe it would produce 25% of electricity 20 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Xfu8u3Yqw).
As early as 1972, two years before the launch of the Messmer Plan, nuclear power in France produced 15 TWh, or about 11% of its electricity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-primary-energy-fos...
Then the Messmer Plan, considerably accelerating this nuclearization, started in 1974 and was completed in 1999 (Civaux-2 reactor): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Chrono-parc-nucleaire-...
This nuclearization lasted approximately 40 years.
Furthermore, nuclear power did not replace a huge set of existing electricity-producing sector, such as coal in Germany, because in 1970 France produced about four times less electricity than at the end of its nuclear power deployment: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by...
Moreover, this was a very prosperous period, as France fully benefited from the "Thirty Glorious Years": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses
Other major differences exist.
In short: comparing France's nuclearization with the Energiewende is extremely difficult, and a direct comparison absurd.
> planning to have 80GW of gas-fired power plants
In early 2026, Germany announced it would deploy new gas-fired power plants. The impact depends on the corresponding emissions. If they are only all active for a few hours a year to get through critical periods and (as planned) replace coal or primarily burn green hydrogen, for example, then it will be progress (reducing emissions). The best-case scenario is a full renewable fleet but Rome wasn't built...