Cheers to France if pending legislation passes as currently written. It effectively scraps most hard commitments and turns more towards nuclear power. 
Preliminary Bill relating to Energy Sovereignty
Please consider a Google translation of a Preliminary Bill relating to Energy Sovereignty
Four Key Things
- The wording of this preliminary bill relating to energy sovereignty is of course not final. It can still evolve between now and its presentation to the Council of Ministers and, then, during its discussion in Parliament. However, it already demonstrates a significant change in the executive’s conception of national energy policy.
- This draft bill weakens France’s climate objectives, starting with the objective of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. The objective would no longer be to “reduce” but to tend towards a reduction in “our greenhouse gas emissions.
- This preliminary draft proposes to translate into law the executive’s choice to maintain a preponderant share of nuclear energy in electricity production. A choice which breaks with that of reducing this share of nuclear power and which was included in law no. 2015-992 of August 17, 2015 relating to the energy transition for green growth.
- This preliminary bill also reflects concern, on the eve of the European elections in June 2024; to abandon the legal category of renewable energies” in favor of a new category, that of “carbon-free energies”.
Removals
- The removal of quantified objectives for production and consumption of renewable energies in mainland France.
- The removal of the objective of encouraging the production of hydraulic energy.
- The removal of the quantified objective for the development of offshore wind power.
- The removal of the objective of encouraging the production of agrivoltaic electricity.
- The removal of the contribution objective to achieving air pollution reduction objectives.
- The removal of the building’s energy performance objective.
- The removal of the multiplication objective ofthe quantity of renewable and recovery heat and cold.
- Removal of the condition for shutting down the operation of a nuclear reactor
New Objectives
- The affirmation of the “sustainable choice of using nuclear energy”
- The new objective of using nuclear energy in the multi-annual energy program
Wow!
How often does France lead the way in common sense?
This has not passed yet, but it represents a clear change in direction if any of it passes, and that seems highly likely.
I wonder if President Emmanuel Macron is starting to look at French polls. Then again, the next French presidential election is not until 2027.
In the US, Biden doubles down on the only tactic he knows, running on Bidenomics while claiming Trump will be a dictator if he wins.
Both are losing tactics.
Why Biden’s Approval Rating Is Miserable
Income is rising and so are wages. Even real income is up. But real wages are another matter.
I explain Why Biden’s Approval Rating Is Miserable in One Economic Chart
Also note the third and largest round of fiscal stimulus was in March of 2021. That’s when Biden’s popularity peaked at 55.1 percent.
For discussion, please see The Free Money Has Run Out and it Shows in the Polls
Regardless of why, it appears Macron is on the verge of doing something right. If so, cheers to France.
Any move to increase world energy supply is good. We can’t grow population, the economy, or standards of living without more energy.
Over 80% of that total energy comes from fossil fuels. Yes, we need more nuclear, and more renewables. And we are building more nuclear and renewables every year. But after 20 years and $5 trillion spent on renewables, we have only managed to reduce fossil fuel use by 1%.
Perhaps in the next 10-20 years we will be able to reduce our use of fossil fuels by an additional 2 or 3%.
“Removal of the building’s energy performance objective.”
That’s bad. Removing specific objectives for specific types of energy is not necessarily a bad thing, since it may be best not to write those things in hard numbers into a bill. Leave those decisions to the energy engineers rather than the lawyers.
But removing objectives for building’s energy performance is fairly suicidal. Gas is more expensive since the Russian sanctions, and world gas production is flat, so it could well be peaking right now and go only downhill from now on, which means it will just get more and more expensive. In those circumstances, you want buildings to be as energy efficient as possible so they use as little gas (or electricity) for heating as possible.
Hilarious… when not just one, but 3 UNSC members now dissassociate themselves from the climate cult, how will the US and UK continue to push along this economic suicide pact? The US has a chance, but the UK faces yet more socialist calamity.
Jeff Immelt GE wanted to own French nukes, but he got Alstom instead, Macron fooled Jeff. For F** ing GE Macron became French president instead World Bankster Strauss/Kahn who had sex with hotel maid and Le Pen.
Virtue signalling is fun, but reality bites.
Biden canceled the XL pipeline, then spent a large portion of the Strategic Reserve in an attempt to hold oil prices down. U.S. auto companies are reeling from the governmental demand to produce EVs that auto buyers are not particularly interested in at this time.
California government can virtue signal on green energy mandates, but can’t afford to decommission the last nuclear power plant and buys dirty energy from out of state, particularly during heat waves.
France is feeling the reality bite.
Selling a big chunk of the Strategic Reserve close to the top was a winning trade. Got to hand him that.
This is pretty easy takedown of nuclear power. Nuclear costs 5 to 13 times as much as renewable energy per kw-hr. This is more about the power of the nuclear beaurocracy than it is about pragmatism.
‘Nuclear power is one of the most expensive energies, and it makes France dependent on Russia’
Cost, environment, nuclear risk: Corinne Lepage, France’s former environment minister, says there are several ‘false truths’ about nuclear power in France that should be cleared up.
link to lemonde.fr
One can be a supporter of nuclear power, because of the absolute priority given to the fight against climate change, while arguing that renewable energies will never provide a sufficient amount of electricity. This is becoming less and less true, but it is a proposal that can be accepted. On the other hand, on account of hearing false truths, the French are now convinced of what is nonsense:
“Nuclear power is the cheapest.” This is not true. While France did indeed enjoy cheap energy for many years, thanks to nuclear power paid for by the French, nuclear power is now one of the most expensive types of energy. Energy policy expert Amory Lovins, in an interview given to Le Monde on October 31, said: “Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance say a new nuclear kilowatt-hour costs five to 13 times more than a new solar or wind kilowatt-hour.”
Why haven’t electricity rates gone down or held flat for any utility, public or private that has increased use of “cheap” renewables? Why does Germany have the most expensive electricity in the world even before the interruption of Russian natural gas? Why does California have the highest electricity costs in the US? Why don’t renewables have the cost of building backup generation/storage or waste disposal included in their costs? Why do renewable continue to need subsidies? Why hasn’t any industrialized nation been able to generate more that 50-60% of its electricity from wind or solar unless they have large hydroelectric or geothermal resources available?
12.19¢AVERAGE RESIDENTIAL PRICE PER KWH IN THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
82.7% RE
List of U.S. states by electricity production from renewable sources
If you were to add nuclear power to their grid, it would raise the rates.
“12.19¢AVERAGE RESIDENTIAL PRICE PER KWH IN THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA”
You mean all four residents of the windtunnel-atop-a-shale-field named South Dakota, managed to have have cheap energy bills?
And hence: Everyone in NYC should put a wind turbine in their appartmenInt. And a solar panel. That way, they can have cheap power too!!!
It’s not for nothing that low-hanging-fruit-picked-first, and hence diminishing returns, are possible THE two fundamental properties of economics.
Nothing wrong with renewables per se. Where and when they make sense, they do. But a few athletic 7 footers making bank playing basketball, doesn’t mean everyone else would also be better off financially quiting their current job to do so.
That is installed NAMEPLATE CAPACITY. When you look at actual production, renewables are about 50% and that includes 17% from hydroelectric. So wind (SD doesn’t have significant solar) is 33%.
Without electricity storage, it is impossible to go much higher than 50% from wind and solar even if their low capacity factors were perfectly complementary.
link to eia.gov
Some country had to take the lead on re-assessing green energy initiatives. And who knows, maybe another country really wants the change without the political blowback from Greens? So float the idea in France to see how voters respond.
Macron can’t be elected again because of term limits so his aim is probably to be President of the European Commission and with much more powers than the current president has but that’s for another day.
Maron’s and Europe’s “Fetterman moment” as to nuclear came last year. The collapse of the Greens greased the slide towards rationality in energy policy so the swing to much more investment in nuclear is solidly in march.
Macron is in his first 6 year term and is running again
Sorry Mish but Marcon is in his second term. French presidents are elected for five years and he was just re-elected last year. They used to have seven-year terms but they shortened it in 2000. In 2008 they amended the constitution to limit a president to two terms. In 2027 Macron will be looking for a new job and has his sights to be president of the EU.
Macron has only gone halfway. He has not returned from the destruction of the French breeder reactors program. From wikipedia: “Superphénix (English: Superphoenix, SPX) was a nuclear power station prototype on the Rhone river at Creys-Malville in France, close to the border with Switzerland. Superphénix was a 1,242 MWe fast breeder reactor with the twin goals of reprocessing nuclear fuel from France’s line of conventional nuclear reactors, while also being an economical generator of power on its own. As of 2022, Superphénix remains the largest breeder reactor ever built.
In June 1997, the newly appointed Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced that Superphénix would be closed permanently; this was made official by ministerial decree in December 1998. ”
In the same time this technology has been has been developed elsewhere (Russia, China, India, US).
More sensible but won’t help.
link to thehonestsorcerer.substack.com
France is in a recession. Germany and the EU might join them. France nukes might be on hold. US shale reduced rig count, suck DUCs. After feasting on Foie gras for 2 years we might get 2 years of quacks.
Hey Mish, On a side note. Aren’t you an enemy of the state in France. I remember you got in trouble a few years back for writing something that the frogs didn’t like.
Yes, I still have a 8,000 euro fine on me. I think with penalties now much higher.
link to mishtalk.com
You got off easy. I have a couple of friends whose fines were much worse. One had a fine in the millions because for what was essentially a late fax on a dividend capture arbitrage using the futures market. Let’s say the French state didn’t like a trade that even if legal, deprived the French state of tax revenue.
Thanks for the link. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US starts doing equally stupid stuff. The kleptocrats must protect their dignity
Agreed. France was so dumb to given into the greenies and abandon their nuclear energy program. It gave them a huge competitive edge and they threw that all away. I suspect that it will be relatively easy to reverse course and re-commission all the nuclear power plants they took off line.
France has had their investment in nuclear for decades; these measures just seem like a re-affirmation and recognition of that superb investment.
A friend who just went to France said there were rats everywhere. She said everyone sees them, knows it’s a problem (along with illegal immigration and crime) but nobody will do anything about it.
France has had roughly 70% nuclear for decades. So what happened? Why didn’t it work out? Because nobody in socialism wants to pay for anything just like they don’t want to do anything. The power was heavily subsidized.
Who says nuclear didn’t work out for France? Seems to me it worked out well actually.
Read Toutatis’s take. It failed because it should have been self sufficient, even turning a decent profit. Nope. They turned to socialism and wrecked it.
The problem is that EU forced France to sell a great part of its nuclear electricity at a ridiculous price to so-called “competitors” that did not produce anything and whose only work was to resell it at a more higher price. This deprived EDF (the French state company that manages the power plants) of a large part of its resources
Paris has a rat problem but France does not.
Nuclear power in France is not subsidized but the profits from nuclear go to subsidize renewable energy. On top of it by the ARENH mechanism, around 20% of the nuclear’s electricity has to be sold to competitors at a loss to please the EU’s anticompetition clause. It is probably one of the most asinine economic measures that France has agreed to ever.
Thanks to forward-thinking energy policies, a huge investment in nuclear, a reasonable use of renewables, smaller vehicles and a higher reliance on excellent public transportation, France already has one of the lowest rates of CO2 emissions per capita in the industrialized world (a third that of the USA on a per-capita basis for example). As such, there wasn’t really much France could reasonably reduce on an absolute level as far as emissions were concerned in the first place. It is good though that they are indicating that they are committed to continuing their reliance on nuclear energy.
I agree with the commitment to Nuclear, and they had approved 6 new plants, but are now saying they will require 14+ more Nuclear plants.
France made a bunch of energy commitments to be accomplished by 2015, but still have not gotten there yet. Nuclear was a huge portion of that decision, but as they are now altering their energy placement initiatives and strategy, to match up with availability and control for it’s Citizens, Nuclear is a clear choice for them, and the entire EU for that matter.
Nice to see that they are paying attention, unlike a lot of other countries…
Say it ain’t so! The EU, or France for now anyway, are finally figuring out their energy issues. Maybe they will finally get back in control, but time will ultimately say…
Nuclear = France in Control
Wind = Nature in Control NOT France
Solar = Nature in Control NOT France
NG = Others in Control NOT France
Oil = Others in Control NOT France
Wow! They just might be getting there, or is it because LaPen is BACK? Hmm…
I suspect France imports its Uranium fuel. Thus, they are not in control according to your logic. That’s the thing of it. Unless you’re a large country with a large land mass, you are dependent on others. Thus the importance of diplomacy and getting along with others.
They have a five-year supply squirreled away plus if necessary can mine some from deposits in Metroplitan France. It’s a much more comfortable position than just about any other country.
Not to mention plenty of suppliers of Uranium out there so it’s not like being dependent on say China for rare earths.
Uranium is not a problem , the rods are ! Russia is the world’s n°1 producer….
It’s not LePen but Putin who convinced the Europeans to review how their electricity should be made.
Nothing says current basketcase Europe, like subsidizing Chinese consumption of Russian energy. In order to ensure European industry become even more cost disadvasntaged vs their Chinese competition, than they already were.
While simultaneously removing any financial incentive that a 5000+-nukes country may have had, to NOT send a few of them Europe’s way…. The poor souls who came up with the Common Market, specifically in order to ensure naturally powerful Germany had as many crosscutting trade alliances with the rest of Europe as possible, must be pulling their hairs out by now; seeing the utter idiotification, of absulutely everything, that financialization and debasement theft has wrought.
I was thinking Macron is getting nervous with her rising poll numbers. Maybe a good will gesture of sorts.
You’re right however, I agree it’s Putin and also the way things have shaped up in terms of energy, or lack thereof.