When you have a debate about electricity and where we’re going to get the raw material for electricity when the oil and gas run out, one of the key examples cited is France which generates something like 70-80% of her power from nuclear.
However, things are not perfect there. Today I read in Le Monde that in fact, they have some issues. Brittany is at high risk of black out and two other departments have had requests from RTE, the organisation responsible for the movement of electricity around the grid in France, to reduce power consumption where possible betweeen 5 and 8pm, which are the high usage hours in France. A key cause of this is a cold snap.
As a result, France will be importing electricity this week;
La France va ainsi devoir importer 4 400 mégawatts (MW) ce lundi à 19 heures, et 5 100 MW (l’équivalent de la production de cinq réacteurs nucléaires) mardi 15, à la même heure.
Interesting. It’s interesting because during some of the arguments over Spirit of Ireland (who still haven’t released any in depth documentation but continue to announce it’s coming soon), many voices have suggested that we just build an interconnector to France and buy some of their nuclear generated power. Also, that we should co-fund some of their new generating plants. This is not going to be an option if during the winter months, France hasn’t enough for her own needs.
Brittany is an interesting case. Currently it generates about 8% of its own electricity and they are having issues in getting a new powerplant built (see the article). There were plans for a powerplant which I am pretty sure would have been carbon fuelled, but they fell over probably owing to poor political manoeuvring. Brittany is the nearest bit of France to Ireland so I assume – without the benefit of much knowledge on the engineering side of things – that this is a logical place for an Ireland-France interconnector to turn up on the French side.
Given that Brittany is at risk of black out and France is importing electricity today and tomorrow this may need to be reassessed as a cure all for the “we don’t need our own….” argument.
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