"French Senate Approves Accelerated Construction of Nuclear Facilities: A New Era of Nuclear Power on the Horizon?"

The French Senate (Image: senat.fr)

The French Senate has given its stamp of approval to a draft bill that seeks to expedite the construction of new nuclear facilities near existing sites and the operation of existing ones. The bill, which passed with a resounding 239 votes in favor and only 16 against, was adopted during its first reading in the Senate. The deliberation of the bill began on January 17th and concluded with a vote on January 24th.

The bill includes several key provisions, including the removal of the goal to reduce nuclear's share of France's electricity production to 50% by 2035. Instead, nuclear's share will now be maintained at "more than 50%" of electricity production by 2050. Additionally, the bill includes the inclusion of small modular reactors (SMRs) as potential reactor types to be constructed. The bill also establishes "a specific procedure for compatibility of urban planning documents" with a view to the construction of new reactors, and exempts them from certain planning permissions. Furthermore, the bill grants nuclear operators the possibility of using an immediate possession procedure to obtain land on which to build new reactors.

The text of the bill will now be sent to the lower house, the National Assembly, for consideration, with a vote expected in March. Nuclear currently accounts for nearly 75% of France's power production, but the government had announced in 2014 that nuclear capacity would be capped at the current level of 63.2 GWe and limited to 50% of France's total output by 2025. However, under a draft energy and climate bill presented in May 2019, France will now delay its planned reduction in the share of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 50% from the current 2025 target to 2035.

France's multi-year energy plan, the Programmation Pluriannuelle de l'Energie (PPE), is a roadmap for the periods 2019-2023 and 2024-2028, outlining the country's main energy priorities and guiding public and private investment. The PPE is aligned with the country's low-carbon strategy, and with these guidelines, the country aims to meet the targets set by the Paris Climate Agreement and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. While the PPE was published by the government in late-2018, discussions are still ongoing. Once finalized, the PPE will determine how many reactors should be shut down and how many new ones should be constructed.

In February of last year, President Macron announced that the time was right for a nuclear renaissance in France, stating that the operation of all existing reactors should be extended without compromising safety and unveiling a proposed program for six new EPR2 reactors, with an option for a further eight EPR2 reactors to follow

Source:worldnuclearnews

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