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France’s new Ecology Minister quietly not too keen on nuclear power

Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..

France aims to rebalance its energy mix, FT.com By Peggy Hollinger, 10 July 11“…….The ecology minister, Ms Kosciusko-Morizet  ,one of a young generation of bright ambitious politicians brought into government by President Nicolas Sarkozy, is too aware of the highly sensitive nature of nuclear politics in France to say outright that she is against the construction of new reactors.

But she seems less than enthusiastic about the project to build a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) – which has been on hold since the Fukushima disaster – or the proposal to showcase new French technology by approving plans for a smaller prototype reactor, known as the Atmea.

“We are in a phase in which there are projects, and there are questions on existing reactors and on the development of renewable energy,” she says. “If we wanted to do only nuclear power, we would not have launched these offshore projects.”

Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..

Ms Kosciusko-Morizet admits that France lags China and Germany in the race to build a solar power industry. But the government has now restructured incentives that might in the end favour French technology.

“We are reinvesting again in solar, but in very high quality,” she says, and France is now five years ahead on its 2020 objectives to have 5,400MW installed by 2020….

July 10, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics