The opening of the European Pressurized Reactor in Flamanville comes 12 years late on the initial schedule.

Summary

France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.

The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.

President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.

Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”

  • oce 🐆@jlai.luEnglish
    172·
    4 days ago

    What a misleading cherry picking, this was an exceptional event due to:

    1. Maintenance schedules being delayed because of COVID
    2. A new maintenance issue discovered and triggering a general inspection that created further delay
    3. Energy crisis related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine which dramatically reduced gas imports in Europe and skyrocketed the price of gas, and as a consequence the price of electricity, as gas is currently required to balance electricity consumption in winter.

    As mentioned by the other comment, it has been the other way around for the previous 4 years and will very likely be the case too for this year and for the next years. Not only to Germany, but all inter-connected countries too, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium are benefiting from this stable source. This is not a competition, it’s a good thing Europe can work together with each other strength to make the grid more sustainable. The sudden shift of Germany against nuclear, which increased its electricity dependency on gas, coal and Russia, was not a good for Europe, and not only for energitical reasons. I hope Germany will be able to reduce this dependency as fast as possible and I am happy that French nuclear will contribute to it.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      73·
      4 days ago

      Which exposed a systemic risk of a nuclear focused energy production. Also the energy crisis would have indicated Germany to need more imports. On the contrary the French Nuclear industry failure was so bad, that despite all of it, Germany had to export energy to France.