Countries that are clinging on to nuclear power22 Oct 2021 14:33
But Mycle Schneider thinks nuclear energy is inefficient in the fight against the climate emergency — "too expensive, too slow," he says. He's the editor of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), which assesses the status and trends of the global nuclear power industry.
"The discussion around SMRs is orchestrated hot air and has become a huge hype,"
"Last year, more than 250 GW of renewable energy capacity has been added to the grid and only 0.4 GW of net nuclear capacity — Nuclear power has become irrelevant," he pledged.
Schneider says nuclear power plants only appear to be more reliable than renewables: "France's nuclear reactors had on average to be switched off during one-third of the time in 2020, mostly due to maintenance, also as they now have been running for a long time, on average more than 30 years."
He added that renewables had to be seen as a bouquet of different energies. Through demand response management, one type of energy could offset the temporary unavailability of the other.
„Plus, it takes ages to build new nuclear power plants — EDF and Siemens started to develop their new third-generation reactor EPR after the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986 and 35 years on, there's still no EPR in Europe up and running," he underlined.
EDF is building a 1.6 GW EPR in Flamanville in northern France. But constructing the plant will cost more than €11 billion instead of the initially planned €3.3 billion, and the EPR is only scheduled to be completed next year — 10 years later than first promised. Nevertheless, President Macron could soon announce plans to build six additional EPRs in France.
https://www.dw.com/en/are-frances-plans-for-small-nuclear-reactors-a-hidden-agenda/a-59585614
Sign In
Follow the stocks
