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The statement made in the title is not the point being made by the chart.
How about a chart showing the level of carbon emissions per MW generated in France compared to those in other countries in Europe and the OCDE instead of one showing the fraction of nuclear generation in a country’s total?!
Because I’m pretty sure there are countries in Europe with little or even NO nuclear generation at all which come better on a CO2 emissions chart than France and the CO2 average emissions in most of Europe are far closer to France’s than the big gap in “amount of nuclear generation as a fraction of total” that’s shown in that chart.
And this is before we even talk about pollutants in general rather than CO2 and nothing else: the French nuclear power plants are mostly the kind that produces highly radioactive waste which remains dnagerous for over 10,000 years and ends up buried.
In fact thinking about this is making me realize that France’s bet on nuclear is making it be slower than the rest in the transition to renewables which all in all are a less polluting power generation technology than nuclear (even if nuclear waste is a tiny fraction of pollution per MW than even gas power plants).
You’re looking for emission intensity. The emissions per unit of work, that can be KWh of electricity or GDP of a nation.
Apparently France has one of the lowest gr CO2 / kWh in the world. The Nordic countries seem to do better because of their massive hydro infrastructure (which also has major implications on water-based ecosystems, but that’s another discussion).
Countries with more solar and wind are faring much worse, because wind and solar are so unpredictable. So what do they do on quiet winter nights after an overcast day? Fire up the coal and gas powered plants…
France has less wind and solar than for example Germany, but the same can be said for the Nordic countries, who hardly have any. In fact France has a very ambitious plan to electrify the nation. That includes renewables, but also new NPPs.
Nuclear waste is also really no pollution. We can store it safely and it’s only dangerous to the immediate surroundings, something which can be nullified by proper shielding.
The statement made in the title is not the point being made by the chart.
How about a chart showing the level of carbon emissions per MW generated in France compared to those in other countries in Europe and the OCDE instead of one showing the fraction of nuclear generation in a country’s total?!
Because I’m pretty sure there are countries in Europe with little or even NO nuclear generation at all which come better on a CO2 emissions chart than France and the CO2 average emissions in most of Europe are far closer to France’s than the big gap in “amount of nuclear generation as a fraction of total” that’s shown in that chart.
And this is before we even talk about pollutants in general rather than CO2 and nothing else: the French nuclear power plants are mostly the kind that produces highly radioactive waste which remains dnagerous for over 10,000 years and ends up buried.
In fact thinking about this is making me realize that France’s bet on nuclear is making it be slower than the rest in the transition to renewables which all in all are a less polluting power generation technology than nuclear (even if nuclear waste is a tiny fraction of pollution per MW than even gas power plants).
You’re looking for emission intensity. The emissions per unit of work, that can be KWh of electricity or GDP of a nation.
Apparently France has one of the lowest gr CO2 / kWh in the world. The Nordic countries seem to do better because of their massive hydro infrastructure (which also has major implications on water-based ecosystems, but that’s another discussion).
Countries with more solar and wind are faring much worse, because wind and solar are so unpredictable. So what do they do on quiet winter nights after an overcast day? Fire up the coal and gas powered plants…
France has less wind and solar than for example Germany, but the same can be said for the Nordic countries, who hardly have any. In fact France has a very ambitious plan to electrify the nation. That includes renewables, but also new NPPs.
Nuclear waste is also really no pollution. We can store it safely and it’s only dangerous to the immediate surroundings, something which can be nullified by proper shielding.