PARIS – On the windswept coast of Flamanville, an industrial city in northwestern France facing the stormy waters of the English Channel, a towering concrete dome houses one of the world’s most powerful nuclear reactors.
But when this huge giant will start powering France’s electricity grid can be guessed.
Construction is a decade behind, and 12 billion euros, or $ 13 billion, exceeds the budget. Plans to launch this year have been postponed again until 2024. And the problems in Flamanville are not unique. Finland’s newest nuclear power plant, which started operating last month, was due to be completed in 2009.
As President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine pushes Europe to break its dependence on Russian natural gas and oil, the nuclear energy profile is rising, promising domestic energy as well as reliable electricity.
Nuclear energy could help solve Europe’s looming energy crisis, defenders say, complementing a major pre-war turn to adopt solar, wind and other renewable technologies to achieve ambitious change goals. of the climate.
“Putin’s invasion is redefining our energy security considerations in Europe,” said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency. He added: “I would expect nuclear energy to take a step back in Europe and elsewhere as a result of energy insecurity.
But turning nuclear resuscitation into reality is fraught with problems.
The quest to find ready-made alternatives to Russian fuel has widened the political divide in Europe over nuclear energy, as a pro-nuclear bloc led by France, Europe’s largest producer of nuclear energy, insists on accumulation, while Germany and other countries with the same mindset oppose it, citing the dangers of radioactive waste. The European Commission’s recent plan to reduce its dependence on Russia has clearly left nuclear energy on the list of energy sources to consider.
The British Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited this month, is at least four years old. Credit … Photo of the pool by Finnbarr Webster
The long delays and cost overruns that plague the huge Flamanville-3 project, a state-of-the-art pressurized water reactor designed to produce 1,600 gigawatts of energy, are emblematic of the wider technical, logistical and cost challenges facing expansion.
A quarter of all electricity in the European Union comes from nuclear power, produced in a dozen countries by an aging fleet that was built mainly in the 1980s. France, with 56 reactors, produces more than half of the total.
A fleet of up to 13 next-generation nuclear reactors planned in France using a different design from the one in Flamanville will not be ready until at least 2035 – too late to change the current energy crisis.
On the other side of the channel, Britain recently announced ambitions for eight new nuclear power plants, but the reality is more sobering. Five of Britain’s six existing reactors are expected to be decommissioned within a decade due to age, while only one long-delayed new nuclear power plant, led by a £ 20 billion French giant at Hinckley Point in the South West of England, is under construction. Its first part is expected to go online in 2026.
Others being considered in Eastern Europe are not expected to enter online before 2030.
“Nuclear energy will take so long because the projects require at least 10 years to complete,” said Jonathan Stern, a senior fellow at the independent Oxford Institute for Energy Research.
“The big problem is getting off Russian gas, and that’s the problem now – not a decade later, when we may have built another generation of nuclear reactors,” he added.
Proponents say nuclear energy can be a solution if there is political will.
The Belgian government, in agreement with the country’s Green Party, overturned a decision to phase out nuclear energy by 2025 and extended the life of two reactors for another decade as Russia stepped up its attack on Ukraine last month. Energy will help Belgium avoid relying on Russian gas as it builds renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar fields, to meet Europe’s 2035 climate targets.
Solar energy system in Spain. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe turned to solar and other renewable energy. Credit … Gianfranco Tripodo for The New York Times
“The invasion of Ukraine has changed lives,” Belgian Energy Minister Tine Van der Straten said last week, explaining the government’s turn. “We wanted to reduce our imports from Russia.
But in Germany, which is more dependent on any other European country for Russian gas and coal, the idea of using nuclear energy to tackle the energy crisis seems to be pointing nowhere.
Germany is expected to close its last three nuclear power plants by the end of the year, the latest in a program approved by lawmakers to phase out the country’s 17-reactor fleet since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
Two of Germany’s largest energy companies have said they are ready to postpone the shutdown to help ease the nation’s dependence on Russia. But the Green Party, part of Berlin’s ruling coalition, ruled out the possibility of continuing to exploit them – not to mention the reopening of three nuclear power plants that closed in December.
“We have decided, for reasons I consider very good and right, that we want to eliminate them gradually,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament this month, adding that the idea of postponing Germany’s exit from nuclear energy was “not a good plan”.
The coal-fired Scholven power plant, which provides energy for Germany. Credit … Martin Meissner / Associated Press
Even in countries that see nuclear energy as a valuable option, there are many obstacles. “This is not going to happen overnight,” said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research organization.
President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for a nuclear renaissance in France envision a wave of large and small next-generation nuclear reactors at an estimated starting price of 50 billion euros ($ 57 billion) – a staggering price that other European countries cannot or will not win. t take. Accumulation will not be quick, he acknowledged, in part because the industry also needs to train a new generation of nuclear engineers.
“Most governments insist and insist, and even if they start building, it takes a long time,” said Stern of the Oxford Institute for Energy Research. “All these other technologies are evolving fast and all of them are getting cheaper, while nuclear ones are advancing and becoming more and more expensive.”
Meanwhile, many of France’s aging reactors, built to build energy independence since the 1970s oil crisis, have been put on hold for safety inspections, making it difficult for French nuclear power to help overcome Russia’s energy crisis, he said. Anne-Sophie Corbo of the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
“Nuclear production will decline in France this year unless you find a magic solution, but there is no magic solution,” she said.
Yet Moscow’s aggression could help reverse what was a rainbow of gradual industry decline.
There have been a series of optimistic statements recently. In addition to Britain’s announcement this month to expand its nuclear capacity, the Netherlands plans to build two more with a reactor to complement solar, wind and geothermal energy.
And in Eastern Europe, a number of countries in Russia’s shadow have been plotting to build fleets of nuclear reactors, a move that defenders say seems far-sighted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
NuScale Power, an Oregon-based company selling a new reactor design that it says will be cheaper and faster to build as key components will be assembled in factories, has signed preliminary deals in Romania and Poland.
Russia’s invasion has strengthened “customers’ desire to see nuclear power as part of the overall energy mix for their portfolios,” said Tom Mundy, the company’s chief commercial officer.
Nuclearelectrica, a Romanian energy company, is building both a NuScale plant and two Canadian reactors to accompany a pair of nuclear facilities that generate about 20 per cent of the country’s electricity, said Cosmin Gita, chief executive.
“The crisis in Ukraine has definitely shown us the need to strengthen energy security,” Mr Gita said. “We are gaining more traction for our projects.”
Meike Becker, a utility analyst at Bernstein, a research firm, said that in the long run, Russia’s war is likely to “help the European idea” of being more energy independent.
“This is something that nuclear energy can provide,” she added.
Liz Alderman reports from Paris and Stanley Reed from London.
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