France to install charging stations every 40 km (25 miles)

I've seen a large number of scooters and small bikes in france, but most are 4 strokes. Its asian countries where I see the two strokes. Its all about taxes and regulation ;-) If you tax by displacement you get lots of 2 strokes, if you regulate emissions you get 4 strokes even if you don't require a cat. 2-strokes can get much cleaner with di and electronic control, but most other than for racing are bought for low costs.

I'm sure paris suffers more from diesel than 2-stroke cycles though. The problem is particulate emissions. New euro 6 diesels would do a lot as they require particulate filters, but if you still are promoting diesels many will keep their old polluting ones.
Does Paris have worse air pollution than Beijing? | Environment | The Guardian

 

What Are The World's Top 5 (+) EV Countries: Inaugural 2014 Edition

So arguably, at the turn of the 21st Century, France was the world’s #1 EV nation. More recently, in 2012 Renault produced and sold three completely different BEVs, each in the thousands, including the world’s only mass-produced swappable-battery EV (or so we thought at the time, before Musk unveiled his surprise…). A fourth model, the Zoe – Renault’s sassy and better-looking answer to its cousin the Leaf – was just coming out. There’s no question that in 2012 France was among the World Top 3.

Fast-forward 2 years, and France is still a hotbed of EV activity. The Zoe is doing great in France and a couple other key EV markets, and already announcing an upgrade that will bring its range to ~100 miles. Renault’s larger local-delivery trucks are faring well in pilot runs. There’s also Bollore and its Blue Car, which just crossed 1,000 sales for the year. But France’s other major automaker, Peugeot-Citroen, is sitting on its hands (except for re-badging the MiEV with catchy French names). And domestic sales are largely stagnant. Still larger than Germany’s – 13,952 through November, good for a market share of some 0.7-0.9% – but only a hair above 2013′s numbers (13,480). So for old times’ sake, France is still in the Top 5, but barring major breakthroughs this spot is on borrowed time given the rapid advances elsewhere.​

 

lol an article just to chant USA USA I see.

You have a population in the hundreds of millions, yet are proud to pip Norway to the #1 spot?

Maybe it should have been based on EVs per population?

USA 107k sales out of 319 million people
Norway 18k sales out of 5 million


Back to your comments though, France has supported BEVs for a few years now, though they were mainly quadricycles which have limited range and speed but are very popular in many Euro countries. Think of hundreds of variations on a Smart car. They sold them here for a while and I've been stuck behind one or two a few times. They're now really cheap to buy with working models for sale from about £1,000.

 

what about the spent fuel rods, that remain hot .... half life of thousands of years. storage; AFAIK, no one has that dialed in yet. That element of 'cleaner' gets left off the equation.
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I thought the French were reprocessing their spent rods to harvest plutonium for new rods.

Bob Wilson

 

Oh I agree. I despise nuclear more than coal. My own electric company don't use nuclear, or coal.

I prefer renewables, though appreciate the issue of the wind not always blowing or the sun shining brightly. But the enormous amounts of money pumped into nuclear could be used on furthering renewable technology.

But the French do like their nuclear power - just like the Japanese did.

 

I think we need to look and understand why France is so pro nuclear, and how much better they have done it than russia, Japan, or even the US
Why The French Like Nuclear Energy | Nuclear Reaction | FRONTLINE | PBS
France: A study of French nuclear policy after Fukushima | K1 Project

It isn't easy properly regulating coal in the US, imagine how much more difficult cutting nuclear in France is going to be. Nuclear doesn't cycle well with renewables, so to shut it down you A) raise electric rates, B) reduce exports of electricity, C) produce more ghg, and D) import fuel probably from russia. The french model is not good for the US, although it might not be a bad thing if the US decided to build 30 safer nukes 10 years from now and worked with the french and the Chinese for the best design, then built them all the same. At the same time shutting down the worst nukes (most likely to have a catastrophic leak) in the US like diablo canyon and indian point.

No I can't be mad at the french for electriicty policy, it seems better than most countries. I don't think it is green, but it seems to work, and nuclear problems are probably out 1000 years, coal problems in Japan, the UK, the US are happening now.

 

The geography of the US is a bit different than that of the isles. Bigger, more varied in temperatures and altitudes.

My longest road trip in a day exceeded 1,850km with stops only for refueling. I stopped only because I didn't want to get there before my passenger was ready and drove 1,200km back the next day with a sleeping son and 10 Xerox boxes of university stuff. A slightly different set of needs for something like that. So we buy different cars.

 

This is France we are talking about. Some basics are overlooked.

1) When the French stop to eat, it is for hours. The last thing they want is quick recharging. What they do want is an EV charger good for parking half a day.

2) Tolls in France are pretty steep. Expect the charging costs to be steep.

3) EVs are needed to reduce the noise, not the diesel exhaust. All those mimes can now be heard.

 

Along with the mercury, sulfur, and other emissions, a coal plant exposes the population and environment to a higher radiation dose than a nuclear one. Renewables are best, but I prefer nuclear over coal.

Spent fuel rods seem to be only a real problem in the US, because it is policy to not allow recycling and reprocessing them. Try imagining if it was illegal to recycle aluminum or steel; absurd right? With reprocessing, it may be possible to turn away from uranium to thorium for fuel in the future.

 

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Poor siteing and poor maintenance seem to be a US problem also. Indian point and Diablo Canyon would have been shut down by now by french regulators. This privatises the rewards and exposes the public to undue risk. Cost is also a huge problem in the US. Nuclear costs more than natural gas and wind, which means the only way to build a new nuke in the US is with a government subsidy. The ones currently being built have cheap insurance and financiang from the federal government. If things go wrong the tax payer is on the hook.

Reprocessing fuel rods costs 3 times more than new few rods. With new nuclear already costing more than new wind and new natural gas ccgt for new plants, there is little interest in making the fuel even more expensive. The regulatory costs could drop a great deal as they did in france by standardizing on 1 reactor design, and building many of the same design, with clear maintenance and siting rules. SCE and PG&E obviously ignored even marginial practeses in siteing their nuclear plants. The Rate payers are paying for san onofre, and will probably soon be for diablo canyon. That is I hope it is only higher rates and not a environmental disaster from running the plant with poor maintenances procedures.

 

Does the new fuel rod cost include the cost of storing them once spent? What to do with old fuel is a big issue for nuclear power. reprocessing can reduce the issue.
For a current experimental thorium reactor, the rods require 10% plutonium for a neutron donor. The rest is natural thorium; material that isn't refined into a more active isotope. Long term test of Thorium-Plutonium fuel started | PriusChat

Micro reactors would seem to be the solution for the US. They are made at a central factory; giving the benefits of France's single design policy, and eliminating most of the issues with US nuclear plant design. Once their fuel is spent in 30 or so years, you just seal them off. Not ideal, but better than what we do now. They could be the low CO2 base load to renewables with support from NG peaker plants.

 

Particularly those of us who are 2 car families. I have a tendency to look at an EV with a radius in mind, not a long drive. And if anything it becomes more of an area triangle if you have a few places/people to visit. I'd more likely say many of my trips are more time constrained than range constrained. There aren't too many places I visit normally that most EVs can't handle. For those outside that radius, I still have my PiP. I have other criteria for judging EVs based on my needs.