2024-03-22 18:55:00
Despite the abysmal debt of 54 billion euros that the group carries on its shoulders, the CEO of EDF announced that he wanted to deploy “two reactors per year” starting next year. The idea is simple: revive French nuclear power thanks to EPR reactors.
Let’s say it, we are far from the current level of “one or two (reactors) per decade”. But the CEO wants to be reassuring: “We have already done four per year”, in the 1970s and 80s, “that’s because it’s possible”.
Today, only two power plants equipped with EDF EPRs are operating in the world, in Finland and China. Soon, the Normandy Flamanville EPR should see the light of day, 12 years late.
Launched in 1992 as the pinnacle of nuclear technology, based on an initial Franco-German collaboration, the European pressurized reactor (EPR) was designed to relaunch the atom in Europe, after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, by promising safety and increased power. But the flagship has continued to accumulate difficulties, against a backdrop of loss of skills in the sector, while construction of the last reactor commissioned in France began in 1991.
Today, although there are many projects on the table, particularly with the French government, EDF is struggling to keep its schedule… and its costs. This is also a criticism that Bruno Le Maire made to the group.
Despite everything, EDF says it is fully mobilized to achieve an optimized and standardized EPR2 model, taking into account the pitfalls of the past. “We must simplify construction (…) standardize the number and type of equipment,” explained Joël Barre, interministerial delegate for new nuclear power. For EDF, the objective is to achieve a “series effect”, therefore building reactors industrially to be more competitive.
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