French Minister for Energy Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher delivers a speech during a press conference on the energy situation in France and Europe, in Paris, France September 14, 2022. Bertrand GUAY/Pool via REUTERS
France has drafted legislation to streamline bureaucracy for administrative permits needed to build new nuclear power plants, as it aims to double down on its nuclear and renewable energy facilities amid a global energy crunch.
“This draft law responds to the urgency of the crisis,” government spokesman Olivier Veran said after a cabinet meeting that adopted the draft bill on Wednesday.
Veran said the bill, due to be submitted to the National Assembly in late December or early January, would not “in any way water down our requirements in terms of respect for the environment or of safety of nuclear infrastructures”
President Emmanuel Macron has put nuclear power at the heart of his country’s drive for carbon neutrality by 2050, with plans to build at least six new reactors.
An energy ministry official said in September the aim was to start construction of the first next generation EPR2 reactor at Penly in Normandy before the end of the presidential term, before May 2027, with commercial operations at that reactor startng from 2035-37 read more .
Ministry officials reiterated that timetable on Wednesday.
France’s nuclear fleet has come under scrutiny, with a wave of repairs at power stations forcing a record number of reactors offline and sending nuclear power production to a 30-year low, exacerbating Europe’s energy crisis.
“The goal is that administrative authorisations are delivered within delays that allow us to meet the construction timetable of the EPR (European Pressurized Reactors),” Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told Les Echos newspaper.
“It is a draft law to ease administrative authorisations on nuclear reactors that will be built near existing nuclear plants,” she said, adding this concerned administrative issues, not the decisions to build the plants.
When asked how much time could be saved thanks to the draft law, Veran said that one must think “in terms of years”.
Energy giant EDF (EDF.PA) plans to construct the reactors on three existing sites: two at Penly, in the Seine-Maritime administrative department, two at Gravelines, in northern France, and two in either Bugey, eastern France, or Tricastin, in southern France.
The government estimates the six new reactors will cost 51.7 billion euros ($51.2 billion).
Greenpeace said that the government was alrady committing to nuclear newbuild before any democratic debate was held about the issue and said that giving nuclear and renewables the same priority level was misleading and dangerous.
“Nuclear generates waste that will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years and the nuclear plans are vulnerable to climate as well as to geopolitical crisis, as is evident in Ukraine,” it said.
Source: Reuters