How to finance the six nuclear reactors promised by the government? What if the government turned to the Bitcoin industry?
French savings for nuclear power?
Typing in Livret A is a possibility mentioned by The echoes. The newspaper estimates that there are not 36 solutions to raise the necessary 50 billion.
Raising the price of electricity further is an obvious solution. Except that the rates have already soared by 15% on February 1. The government therefore plans to mobilize part of the 375 billion euros in the Livret A.
As a reminder, Emmanuel Macron publicly abjured the policy of ransacking our nuclear industry a year ago already. We owe this monumental strategic error to François Hollande who had laid down in front of the greens steeped in ideology on both sides of the Rhine.
The high point was reached with the closure of the Fessenheim power plant. A sabotage of which Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne was very proud in 2020… Fortunately, the objective of reducing the share of nuclear power to 50% of the electricity mix (75% currently) finally seems to have been abandoned.
But the damage is done. The bill is so salty that the government is eyeing the preferred placement of the French. The Livret A being supposed to serve the general interest, its investment in the construction of reactors seems logical.
That said, let’s not forget that this is a very long-term investment. Penalty-free withdrawals may soon be a thing of the past, which is disguised confiscation of savings.
Your servant will prefer to save in Bitcoin…
Bitcoin miners to participate in the national effort?
More and more energy companies are embracing Bitcoin to make ends meet. This is the case of the American Talen Energy, which has partnered with the bitcoin miner TeraWulf.
It did not escape TeraWulf CEO Nazar Khan that the “Growth of (subsidized) renewables takes away market share from nuclear power plants”. “Bitcoin miners are an asset to a nuclear power plant rarely used to manage consumption peaks”.
Same story from the side of the Japanese energy company Tepco, which mines Bitcoin in strategic places to better manage its surplus renewable energy. That is to say where it is often difficult to transport surplus renewable energy due to congestion in the electricity network.
Even Exxon has been working for more than a year to extinguish methane flares and thus reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 63%. There are indeed enough flares in the world to offset 17 times the current emissions of the Bitcoin network.
Yes, the Bitcoin industry, which is already the greenest industry in the world (60% green), will within a few years be carbon neutral. Quite a turnaround…
More interestingly for our purposes, this industry is a significant source of income for energy companies. According to the University of Cambridge, the Bitcoin network would consume 112 TWh per year. Which gives us, at 5 cents per Kwh, a check for 5.6 billion euros for energy companies.
If EDF needs the money, we bet that the French miner Big Block Green Services would be happy to contribute its expertise and its money.
In Texas, the equivalent of the RTE network offers contracts obliging miners to step aside during peak consumption. And why not in France, in the “Blockchain nation”?…
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