PARIS — On the windswept shoreline of Flamanville, an industrial city in northwestern France facing the churning waters of the English Channel, a towering concrete dome houses one of the world’s most powerful nuclear reactors.
But when this enormous behemoth will begin supplying power to France’s power grid is anyone’s guess.
Construction is a full decade late and €12 billion, or $13 billion, over budget. Plans to start operations this year have been pushed back once again, to 2024. And the problems at Flamanville aren’t unique. Finland’s newest nuclear power plant, which started operating last monthit was supposed to be completed in 2009.
As President Vladimir V. Putin’s war in Ukraine pushes Europe to end its dependence on Russian natural gas and oil, the profile of nuclear power is rising, promising local power and reliable electricity.
Nuclear power could help solve Europe’s looming energy crisis, advocates say, complementing a major shift already underway before the war to adopt solar, wind and other renewable technologies to meet ambitious targets. of climate change.
“Putin’s invasion redefined our energy security considerations in Europe,” said Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency. He added: “I hope nuclear power can take a step back in Europe and elsewhere as a result of energy insecurity.”
But making a nuclear renaissance a reality is fraught with problems.
The race to find ready alternatives to Russian fuel has magnified a political divide in Europe over nuclear power, as a pro-nuclear bloc of countries led by France, Europe’s leader largest atomic producer, pushes for a buildup while Germany and other like-minded countries oppose it, citing the dangers of radioactive waste. A recent European Commission plan to reduce dependence on Russia left nuclear energy off a list of energy sources to consider.
The lengthy delays and cost overruns that have plagued the massive Flamanville-3 project, a state-of-the-art pressurized water reactor designed to produce 1,600 gigawatts of power, are emblematic of the broader technical, logistical and cost challenges facing an expansion .
AN quarter of all electricity in the European Union it comes from nuclear power produced in a dozen countries from 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 new-generation nuclear reactors planned in France, with a different design than Flamanville, would not be ready until at least 2035, too late to make a difference in the current energy crisis.
Across the channel, Britain recently announced ambitions for up to eight new nuclear plants, but the reality is more sobering. Five of the six existing British reactors are expected to be retired within a decade due to their age, while only one new nuclear station is being built, a French-led behemoth long overdue and costing £20bn to build. Hinkley Point, in the South West of England. Its first part is expected to be online in 2026.
Others being considered in Eastern Europe are not expected to come online before 2030.
“Nuclear power is going to take so long” because projects take at least 10 years to complete, said Jonathan Stern, a senior fellow at the independent Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
“The big problem is getting off Russian gas, and that problem is now, not a decade from now, when we may have built another generation of nuclear reactors,” he added.
Advocates say nuclear power can be a solution if there is political will.
The Belgian government, in agreement with the country’s Green Party, reversed a decision phase out nuclear power by 2025 and extend the life of two reactors for another decade as Russia stepped up its assault on Ukraine last month. The energy will help Belgium avoid relying on Russian gas as it builds renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar fields, to meet European climate targets for 2035.
“The invasion of Ukraine was a life changer,” Belgium’s energy minister, Tinne Van der Straeten, said last week, explaining the government’s U-turn. “We wanted to reduce our imports from Russia.”
But in Germany, which depends more than any other European country on Russian gas and coal, the idea of using nuclear power to overcome an energy crisis seems to be going nowhere.
Germany is scheduled to close its last three nuclear plants by the end of the year, the final chapter in a program lawmakers approved to phase out the country’s fleet of 17 reactors after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.
Two of Germany’s biggest energy companies said they were willing to postpone the shutdown to help ease the country’s dependence on Russia. But the Green Party, part of Berlin’s ruling coalition, has ruled out continuing to operate them, let alone reopening three nuclear power plants that closed in December.
“We decided, for reasons that I think are very good and correct, that we want to phase them out,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament this month, adding that the idea of delaying Germany’s exit from nuclear power “was not a good idea.” plan”.
Even in countries that see nuclear power as a valuable option, there are a number of obstacles in the way. “It’s 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 power renaissance in France envision a wave of new-generation atomic reactors large and small at an estimated starting price of €50 billion ($57 billion), a staggering cost that other European countries cannot or do not want to. assume The buildup won’t be quick, he acknowledged, in part because the industry also needs to train a new generation of nuclear power engineers.
“Most governments push and push, and even if they start building, it takes a long time,” said Stern, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “All of these other technologies are advancing rapidly and getting cheaper, while nuclear is not advancing and is getting more expensive.”
Meanwhile, many of France’s old reactors, built to forge energy independence after the 1970s oil crisis, have been stopped for safety inspections, making it difficult for French nuclear power to help save the Russian energy pressure, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau of Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy.
“Nuclear production will decrease in France this year unless you find a magic solution, but there is no magic solution,” he said.
Still, Moscow’s aggression may help reverse what had been an arc of the industry’s gradual decline.
Recently there have been a number of optimistic statements. In addition to Britain’s announcement this month to expand its nuclear capacity, the Netherlands, with one reactor, plans build two more to complement solar, wind and geothermal energy.
And in Eastern Europe, several countries in Russia’s shadow had been making plans to build fleets of nuclear reactors, a move that proponents say seems prophetic in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
NuScale Power, an Oregon company selling a new reactor design that it says will be cheaper and faster to build because key components will be assembled in factories, has signed preliminary deals in Romania and Poland.
The Russian invasion has reinforced “customers’ desire to consider nuclear power as part of the overall energy mix for their portfolios,” said Tom Mundy, the company’s chief commercial officer.
Nuclearelectrica, the Romanian power company, is moving forward with a NuScale plant and two Canadian reactors, to go along with a pair of nuclear facilities that generate about 20 percent of the country’s electricity, said Cosmin Ghita, chief executive.
“The Ukraine crisis has definitely shown us the need to strengthen energy security,” said Mr. Ghita. “We are gaining more traction for our projects.”
Meike Becker, a utilities analyst at Bernstein, a research firm, said that, in the long term, Russia’s war is likely to “help the European idea” of becoming more energy independent.
“That’s something that nuclear power can offer,” he added.
Liz Councilor reported from Paris, and stanley cane From london
Reference-www.nytimes.com