nuclear-news

In France, drought, and multiple problems in nuclear power plants add energy crisis to the climate crisis.

In the midst of the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis is taking precedence
over the environmental crisis. On Thursday, the government called on the
French to reduce their consumption by 10% in 2 years. On Sunday, EDF, Total
and Engie even deemed it necessary to make efforts “immediately”. Their
fear: a real risk of cuts this winter. when the drought and the multiplication of problems in nuclear power plants add crisis to crisis.

Indeed, it is not only Russian oil and gas that will be missing from the
European energy mix in the future. Declining flow in rivers is a problem
for hydropower plants.

And even worse, the state of the French nuclear
fleet raises many concerns. Called to satisfy 40% of electricity
consumption in France, it has suffered from the health crisis to the point
that production fell by 8.7% in 2020 compared to 2019, falling to a level
that had not been observed since the late 1990s.

All this has delayed maintenance operations. And now we suddenly discover corrosion where we did
not expect it on 12 reactors, which were automatically shut down. It is
therefore half of the 56 French reactors which are out of service for a
certain time. A hard blow impossible to compensate for immediately with the
major projects intended in the long term to increase the share of renewable
energies in our energy mix.

La Depeche 27th June 2022

https://www.ladepeche.fr/2022/06/27/economies-denergie-les-signaux-alarmants-qui-ont-amene-edf-total-et-engie-a-sonner-la-mobilisation-generale-10400103.php

July 2, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY, France