What future for nuclear power in France? This is the question posed to the French by the National Commission for Public Debate. A debate that opened Thursday for four months on the country’s energy future when Emmanuel Macron and EDF have already announced their intentions: to build six new EPRs, “new generation” reactors, to get out of fossil fuels and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. So what is this debate going to do?
Do we need a new nuclear program? Will EPR reactors be useful? How much will it cost ? Here are some of the ten questions that the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) will address until February 2023.
” We have a platform that is open for all interventions, questions, answers, through the debate website. Everyone can participate », explains Michel Badré, chairman of the commission responsible for organizing the debate, reached by telephone by Baptiste Coulon of the RFI France service. ” And all this converging towards a public session open to everyone in which we deal with these questions “, he continues.
What is this debate for?
But Emmanuel Macron’s intentions are already known, the President of the Republic wants to build six new EPR reactors. He announced it in November 2021 during a televised address. The first two would emerge in Penly, in Seine-Maritime. Therefore, a question: what is the point of this debate?
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To lay the foundations for a dialogue before the vote on a new energy-climate programming law in 2023, continues Michel Badré. “ It is Parliament that must vote, the government and the President of the Republic do not have the possibility of authorizing a new nuclear installation because the current multi-annual energy program which dates from spring 2020 does not allow it ». Which makes Chantal Jouanno, president of the CNDP, say that ” the decision on France’s energy choices has not yet been taken “.
These debates come at a time when Parliament must vote on France’s energy roadmap no later than 2024, when 70% of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power and more than one in two reactors are currently on hold.
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(And with AFP)