Those crazy French people: Nuclear power in France From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Electricity production in France has been dominated by Nuclear power ever since the early 80s with a large portion of that power exported today In France, as of 2002, EDF â the country's main electricity generation and distribution company â manages the country's 59 nuclear power plants, which produce 79% of its power, making it the world's leader in production of nuclear power by percentage. (In 2004, 425.8 TWh out of the country's total production of 540.6 TWh was from nuclear power.) France is the world's largest net exporter of energy, exporting 18% of total production (about 100 TWh) to Italy, Britain, and Germany, and its electricity cost is among the lowest in Europe. At the time of the 1973 oil crisis, most of France's electricity came from foreign oil. France was strong in heavy engineering capabilities, but had few indigenous energy resources, so the French government decided to invest heavily in nuclear power, and France installed 56 reactors over the next 15 years.President of Electricite de France Laurent Striker said, "France chose nuclear because we have no oil, gas or coal resources, and recent events have only reinforced the wisdom of our choice". Areva NC claims that, due to their reliance on nuclear power, France's carbon emissions per kWh are less than 1/10 that of Germany and the UK, and 1/13 that of Denmark, which has no nuclear plants. Its emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide have been reduced by 70% over 20 years, even though the total power output has tripled in that time.
=========================== Re/repeat ; Subject ''Never settle for an ordinary vehicle'' Exactly,MV; & while I am certainly interested in trends[with a nickname like t turtle], counter trends are trends also. Probably also should mention ,many have well thought faith ; to a certain degree , including sunrise -sunset precision, other alternative energy. A catchy ad on the back [not front] of DEC 2007 Futures mag[stocks options, futures]. Ad head line has Thomas Peterffy, founder of Interactive Brokers LLC, on the side of the street lined with taxicabs, sitting in a business suit/neck tie; riding a brown horse. Give a whole new meaning,''never settle for an ordinary vehicle''; & make hay while the sun shines. murray t turtle
Much as the Peak Oil theorists continue to pound away at their doom & gloom, it only works if one discounts the future. As the person pointed out, they used to worry about the end of whale oil. It was recently announced that Thorium could be a replacement for uranium as a nuclear fuel. But the big breakthrough may very well be using certain types of algae - numerous institutions are working on this problem. It is estimated that algae could produce 10 to 500 times as much biodiesel/oil/ethanol as corn per acre. At the same time, it could be used to dispose of much of the CO2 and some of the pollutants from current power plants. Their output could be used to meet most of the energy needs for fuel, power, and industry. One example: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/solix_and_color.html#more As they said, all of the USA's energy needs could potentially be met from just 0.5% of its land.