Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Heart of darkness

Lighting in Paris has been reduced to save electricity.

France has long had plenty of electricity, thanks to extensive investment in nuclear power, but in recent yearsn, its nuke plants—which provide 80/ of the nation’s electricity—have been shut down for maintenance that has not been forthcoming, such that over half of the plants are offline at the moment. I suspect environmentalists have had something to do with this neglect. Anyway, that, plus the Ukraine war, and the Covid hysteria, have backed the country’s grid into a corner. There’s even talk of rolling blackouts during the winter, although that risk seems to be receding. Many have commented that this makes France sound like a Third-World basket case that can’t even ensure electrical power twenty-four hours a day. It surprises me that things were allowed to slide for so long.

Anyway, the Eiffel Tower is going dark earlier than normal at night, the Christmas lights on the Champs are not kept on as late as usual, and merchants are being asked to turn their lights off completely at night.

Hopefully someone will get on the ball and bring all the nuke plants back online soon.