France will have to build more than six EPR reactors, announces Agnès Pannier-Runacher

2024-01-07 21:39:38

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published 11 hours ago, Updated 10 minutes ago

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The government is carrying out a program for six new EPR reactors and eight optional ones.

France will have to gobeyond the first six EPR» in order to revive the civil nuclear industry, indicated in an interview with the Tribune Sunday the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, a few weeks before the presentation of the bill relating to energy sovereignty. Since the Belfort speech of February 2022, in which Emmanuel Macron announced the relaunch of nuclear power, the government has implemented a program for six new EPR reactors and eight as an option. This statement from the minister comes almost a month after the exit of the head of state who had already opened the door to these eight additional reactors “in the coming months».

These eight reactors will be included in the bill relating to energy sovereignty that Agnès Pannier-Runacher will present within a few weeks to the Council of Ministers. The writing of the text “remains technologically neutral“, assured the minister, according to whom, to increase the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix in France from more than 60% to 40% in 2035, “this involves undertaking, after 2026, additional construction representing 13 gigawatts“. A power that correspondsto the power of eight EPRs, without setting this or that technology in stone», affirmed the minister. The text, however, “breaks with the previous programming law, which reduced the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix to 50% by 2025“, indicated the minister who did not close the door to going even further, describing it as “good subject for discussion with parliamentarians» an objective beyond these 14 EPR.

Among the other measures included in this bill, the minister mentions two sections devoted to “price regulation» and “consumer protection“, which notably provide for the obligation for suppliers to “send a monthly schedule and an annual estimate for each contract change”, as well as faster sanctions for “rogue suppliers“. Furthermore, the minister indicated that the question of nuclear fuel recycling infrastructure would be on the menu of the next Nuclear Policy Council (CPN), scheduled for January, not excluding “build new capabilities».

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