30 Jan (NucNet): Nuclear energy plays an important role in France’s energy strategy and plans to permanently shut down four to six reactor units by 2028 do not indicate that the government has a nuclear exit strategy, ecology minister François de Rugy said.
Last week France’s government unveiled its energy strategy for the next 10 years, which includes four to six reactor closures by 2028.
In November president Emmanuel Macron said France will shut down 14 commercial nuclear reactors by 2035 out of 58, all operated by state-controlled utility EDF, now in commercial operation.
“It is not, I want to say it very clearly, a nuclear exit strategy but a rebalancing in which nuclear has its place,” Mr de Rugy said.
“We consider that in the production of electricity in France, and probably in Europe and in the world, nuclear power can play a role since it presents a completely carbon-free production.”
Mr de Rugy said the government is waiting for EDF’s proposals, due in 2021, before deciding on the construction of new EPR reactors in France.
He said the decision would be based on cost, funding assessments and technical feasibility. The government wants to wait for the start of the Flamanville-3 EPR, the only one under construction in France.
Faulty weldings discovered last year forced EDF to delay the start-up date for the 1,600-MW Generation III plant to the second quarter of 2020 and announce an increase in the cost of the project to €10.5bn and then to €10.9bn. An estimate of the cost in July 2011 was €8bn.
Earlier this week the French nuclear industry signed a contract with the government and unions, covering the period 2019-2022, which proposes an action plan for the nuclear industry.
Under the contract, Framatome will develop a new version of the EPR and will work with EDF and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA, to develop a small modular reactor based on French technology.
