France does not struggle in summer. They don’t need much energy production then. They however struggle in winter, and need imports for the few coldest weeks… mostly from Germany that is.
Nuclear power is incredible bad as base load. The amount of capacities they need for energy-demanding winter times are total overkill most of the year. And as costs of nuclear are basically all construction (and later rebuilding) plants but operation is cheap as fuck, they don’t save money when they throttle them down in summer. And so France is a big exporter… all over the year but not actually in winter.
It’s funny that in both countries a complete lie is nowday common knowledge. Regarding France we hear fairy tales of how they struggle in summer (they don’t) but are oh so self-sufficient (they aren’t), while in Germany it’s 24/7 right-wing propaganda of how they have stuipidly shut down they reactors to be dependent on French ones (they aren’t… contrary to France Germany is in fact fully self-sufficient but with a lot of it based on coal which they turn down at times when France needs to get rid of overproduction cheaply).
No, it’s the other way around.
France does not struggle in summer. They don’t need much energy production then. They however struggle in winter, and need imports for the few coldest weeks… mostly from Germany that is.
Nuclear power is incredible bad as base load. The amount of capacities they need for energy-demanding winter times are total overkill most of the year. And as costs of nuclear are basically all construction (and later rebuilding) plants but operation is cheap as fuck, they don’t save money when they throttle them down in summer. And so France is a big exporter… all over the year but not actually in winter.
It’s funny that in both countries a complete lie is nowday common knowledge. Regarding France we hear fairy tales of how they struggle in summer (they don’t) but are oh so self-sufficient (they aren’t), while in Germany it’s 24/7 right-wing propaganda of how they have stuipidly shut down they reactors to be dependent on French ones (they aren’t… contrary to France Germany is in fact fully self-sufficient but with a lot of it based on coal which they turn down at times when France needs to get rid of overproduction cheaply).