France is known as a hotbed of culture, gastronomy and style. The country is also somewhat of a world leader in another field: nuclear power.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, France has 56 operational nuclear reactors, second only to the US, which has 94.
Together, these French installations have a combined capacity of 61,370 megawatts (MW). And when it comes to the share of nuclear energy in French electricity production, the IAEA says it was 70.6% in 2019, the highest share in the world.
Below, CNBC’s “Renewable Energy” takes a look at the role nuclear power could play in the energy future of both France and the rest of the world.
A major player
Peter Osbaldstone, a research director at Wood Mackenzie research group, told CNBC via email that France was “by far the largest generator of nuclear energy in Europe.”
“The emission intensity of French energy is lower than that of its main neighbors, and the market has a relatively small share of the total supply covered by fossil fuels,” he explained.
“With low marginal cost nuclear power so prominent in the mix, French wholesale electricity prices are also lower than in neighboring markets,” he added. Relatively low.
Andrew Lever, a director at the Carbon Trust, a consultancy, told CNBC that France was “little dependent on fossil power generation.”
“Therefore, from a carbon reduction standpoint, it starts from a lower basis point compared to other economies that rely more on fossil fuel generation,” he added.
Macron’s Mission
Last December, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that nuclear power would continue to play an important role in the country’s energy mix.
According to a translation of his comments published by Reuters, Macron said France’s nuclear industry would remain “the cornerstone of our strategic autonomy.”
Macron’s comments suggest that France will continue its relationship with nuclear power well into the future, but change is underway nonetheless. Indeed, by 2035 the government wants to reduce the share of nuclear energy in its electricity mix to 50%. So a mixed picture.
For his part, Wood Mackenzie’s Osbaldstone said the 50% target did not mean the technology had completely fallen out of favor, noting that in 2019 the French government had “instructed EDF to explore the possibility of building six new reactors on three locations. ” The utility, he added, “should respond by mid-2021.”
The Challenges of Decarbonization
The International Energy Agency states that “nuclear energy has traditionally been one of the largest contributors to decarbonised electricity worldwide” and adds that it also “has significant potential to contribute to decarbonising the energy sector”.
However, it should be noted that although the IEA says it produces carbon-free electricity, many consider nuclear power a non-renewable resource. This is because they claim that uranium, the metal critical to nuclear power generation, will eventually run out.
The Lever of the Carbon Trust told CNBC that for any economy, the level of investment required to decarbonise energy supplies was “huge.”
And while the cost of renewable technologies such as solar photovoltaics and onshore and offshore wind had been “significantly reduced”, the same could not be said of “new nuclear” where “there was a lack of consistent cost reduction”.
“From a new build perspective, there are risks of construction delays and cost containment, which in turn pose risks to transition costs and ultimately energy costs to consumers,” said Lever.
“In addition, potentially high costs for decommissioning and disposal mean that a major risk in the future is that nuclear energy will become a relatively expensive and unsustainable technology compared to renewable energy alternatives.”
France seems to maintain a close relationship with nuclear energy in the future, but neighboring Germany is taking a different path.
In response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster, when a powerful earthquake and tsunami resulted in a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government developed plans to shut down the country’s nuclear power plants by the end of 2022.
Just last week, Reuters reported that Germany had agreed to pay four companies – Vattenfall, RWE, E.ON and EnBW – a total compensation of nearly EUR 2.6 billion (approximately $ 3.09 billion) for the early closure of their nuclear power plants.
Criticisms and concerns
While Macron appears to be backing nuclear, it goes without saying that the technology is not favored by everyone.
Critics include Greenpeace. “Nuclear power is touted as a solution to our energy problems, but in reality it is complex and hugely expensive to build,” says the environmental organization’s website.
“It also creates massive amounts of hazardous waste,” he adds. “Renewable energy is cheaper and can be installed quickly. Together with battery storage, it can generate the power we need and reduce our emissions.”
The global picture
As governments around the world seek to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewables, the debate over the role of nuclear energy in the planet’s energy mix will continue.
Last month, Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder and billionaire told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that nuclear power would be “absolutely” politically acceptable again. Gates is also the founder and chairman of TerraPower, a company dedicated to nuclear innovation.
Is the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources possible without nuclear energy?
“Any low-emission source, such as nuclear power, can of course play a role in the energy transition,” said Wood Mackenzie in Osbaldstone, before going on to outline some of the challenges ahead.
“While the cost of nuclear new construction is high, the technology requires strong political support and regulatory frameworks in the host countries,” he added, explaining that generators “were typically large and relatively inflexible in use – these features reduce the number of potential applications. for nuclear. “
New technology, including small modular reactors, or SMRs, “could address these shortcomings to some extent, potentially creating a greater role for the resource. But SMRs remain very much on the drawing board at this point.”