Cost, waste management and security: eight questions posed by the announced return of nuclear in France
What place should France give nuclear power within the framework of its energy transition?By announcing, without going into detail on Tuesday, November 9, his desire to relaunch the French nuclear program, President Emmanuel Macron has taken a stand and contributed to imposing the debate five months from the next presidential election.
With its 56 reactors and its 70 % of nuclear electricity, France enjoys one of the most decarbon electrical systems in Europe.But its park, built between the 1970s and 1990s, the second largest in the world behind the United States, is aging: 36 years of average age.For reasons of obsolescence, it will have to largely be stopped by the half of the century.
The country will therefore be required to replace this significant low carbon electricity production capacity.In parallel, to hold its climatic objectives and reduce its still majority consumption of fossil fuels, it will above all have to produce 35 % more electricity terawatt hours than today by 2050, according to the central network scenarioelectricity transport (RTE), the national manager of the electricity transport network.
Lire aussiArticle réservé à nos abonnésElectricité : entre le nucléaire et les énergies renouvelables, six scénarios pour 2050In this context, France must launch a program in order to build in series other new generation reactors, the EPR (acronym English for "European pressurized reactor")?Or would it better bet everything on renewable energies such as wind or solar, and gradually get out of nuclear?On this subject, opinion, experts and politicians remain divided.
For his supporters, do without the atom at the time of climate emergency would be an aberration.Nuclear is, with wind power, the source of energy which emits the least greenhouse gas during its life cycle, that is to the extraction of the ore to the dismantling of the installations. D’après l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA), le nucléaire a permis d’éviter dans le monde au moins l’équivalent de 60 gigatonnes de CO2 depuis 1970, soit cinq années d’émissions mondiales du secteur électrique.Reactors also have the advantage of producing electricity on demand and continuously, unlike wind turbines and solar panels, whose production varies with the weather or the day/night cycle.They are, for their defenders, an essential complement to the development of renewables.
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