French environment minister resigns https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/08/29/french-environment-minister-resigns/Update: A newly leaked report examines the possibility of France building six new EPR reactors starting in 2025, after a prolonged period of inactivity in the industry. The report was ironically commissioned by Hulot and economy minister, Bruno Lemaire, and concludes that France “cannot stop building” reactors in order to maintain industrial know how and provide jobs, according to the newspaper, Les Echos, which broke the story. The report’s finding may have contributed to Hulot’s decision to resign. However, the notion that France would build six more EPRs was met with derision by nuclear critics who pointed out that the French nuclear industry has been unable to complete even one EPR in either France of Finland, where both projects are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Is the departure of Nicolas Hulot significant?, By Linda Pentz Gunter, 30 Aug 18
Opinion in France is decidedly mixed about the sudden resignation of French environment minister, Nicolas Hulot. He made his announcement on a radio show, taking the government of centrist, Emmanuel Macron, by surprise.
Certainly, the ecological crown had sat uneasily on Hulot’s head throughout his tenure in government. He arrived there ostensibly from the activist ranks — he was also a journalist — and was thought to be strongly anti-nuclear. But when French gendarmes raided and destroyed an opposition encampment at the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository site in Bure last February, Hulot failed to come to the defense of the anti-nuclear activists, some of whom were arrested. Even when challenged in the French parliament for his silence, he bobbed and weaved, relying on evasive rhetoric.
Yet when he resigned on Tuesday, he claimed it was to stop “having to lie to myself” and told the radio program on which he made the announcement that nuclear power is “a useless folly.”
All smoke and mirrors, says long-time anti-nuclear activist and watchdog, Stéphane Lhomme of L’Observatoire du Nucléaire. “Nicolas Hulot has never taken any concrete action against the nuclear lobbies he pretends to fight,” Lhomme wrote on his blog.” He points out, as did Beyond Nuclear International in an earlier article, that Hulot’s foundation — Nature and Man — is funded by corporations, including EdF, the national nuclear utility.
Indeed, it could be EdF who will be doing the celebrating now that Hulot is gone, according to a Reuters article. The company’s share price rose by two percent on the announced resignation, and former EdF board member, Gerard Magnin, told Reuters that “Hulot was the last remaining obstacle to a strategy with nuclear as the sole option for security of supply and carbon-free energy.”
Macron and his “neither Left nor Right” party, known as Republic on the Move, has proven to be as malleable as his predecessor, the Socialist party’s Francois Hollande, at first announcing he would reduce France’s reliance on nuclear energy to 50 percent by 2025, down from the current 75 percent, as Hollande had vowed. But Macron quickly capitulated to the power of the nuclear lobby, and pushed the timeline back a decade at least. A new timeline will be announced next year.
The French anti-nuclear network, Sortir du nucléaire, took a surprisingly conciliatory tone toward Hulot’s decision, saying in a press release that they “applaud the honesty and the political courage implicit in this decision.” The network praised Hulot for “denouncing the crushing weight of the nuclear lobby,” and stated that in a democracy it should be the people, not lobbies or a single, powerful leader who should set the direction of the country and its future.
Lhomme is not so sure that lobbyists are breathing a sigh of relief with Hulot’s departure. He asserts they never had anything to fear from Hulot — even as they declared him “enemy number one” — because he is “someone who talks a lot and takes no action.”
At the end of the day, the fallout from Hulot’s resignation may change nothing, or it may further shake confidence in the Macron government. Jean-Luc Mélanchon, leader of the Leftist “Unbowed” party, who was a Macron opponent during the presidential elections, proclaimed in a tweet that the Hulot resignation marked the beginning of the “decomposition” of Macronism.
Whether Hulot was a champion of environmental causes stifled by a corporate-leaning government, or whether the ire of environmentalists finally reached his conscience, will play out in the coming months when we see what he does next.
August 31, 2018
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Popular French environment minister quits in blow to Macron, Laurence Frost, Geert De Clercq, PARIS (Reuters) 28 Aug 18 – French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot resigned on Tuesday in frustration over sluggish progress on climate goals and nuclear energy policy, dealing a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron’s already tarnished green credentials.
Hulot, a former TV presenter and green activist who consistently scored high in opinion polls, quit during a live radio interview following what he called an “accumulation of disappointments”.
“I don’t want to lie to myself any more, or create the illusion that we’re facing up to these challenges,” Hulot said on France Inter. “I have therefore decided to leave the government.”
Hulot was among Macron’s first ministerial appointments following his May 2017 election victory. His inclusion helped to sustain a green image France had earned 18 months earlier by brokering the Paris Agreement to combat global greenhouse emissions.
But the centrist president has watered down a series of campaign pledges on the environment, including a commitment to cut the share of nuclear power in French electricity to 50 percent by 2025 and boost renewable energy.
Those policy shifts have been a repeated source of frustration for Hulot. Since a post-election honeymoon period, they have been accompanied by a sharp slide in Macron’s ratings, which touched new lows after his bodyguard was filmed assaulting demonstrators last month.
……. Greenpeace France director Jean-Francois Julliard said that while Macron had “made some fine speeches” and stood up to U.S. President Donald Trump on climate change, he had “never turned these words to concrete action” at home……..https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-politics/popular-french-environment-minister-quits-in-blow-to-macron-idUSKCN1LD0K0
August 29, 2018
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France, politics |
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Climate change is melting the French Alps, say mountaineers
Permafrost ‘cement’ is evaporating, making rocks unstable and prone to collapse with many trails now deemed too dangerous to use, Guardian, Simon Birch, 24 Aug 18, For the tourists thronging the streets and pavement cafes of Chamonix, the neck-craning view of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, is as dazzling as ever.
But the mountaineers who climb among the snowy peaks know that it is far from business as usual – due to a warming climate, the familiar landscape is rapidly changing.
“Global climate change has serious and directly observable consequences in high mountains,” says Vincent Neirinck from Mountain Wilderness, a campaign group that works to preserve mountain environments around the world.
One of the consequences of climate change is the ongoing retreat of glaciers. “In the Alps, the glacier surfaces have shrunk by half between 1900 and 2012 with a strong acceleration of the melting processes since the 1980s,” says Jacques Mourey, a climber and scientist who is researching the impact of climate change on the mountains above Chamonix.
The most dramatic demonstration of glacial retreat is shown by the Mer de Glace, the biggest glacier in France and one of Chamonix’s biggest tourist hotspots which would now be unrecognisable to the Edwardian tourists who first flocked there.
“The Mer de Glace is now melting at the rate of around 40 metres a year and has lost 80m in depth over the last 20 years alone,” says glaciologist Luc Moreau.
A stark consequence of the melting Mer de Glace is that 100m of ladders have now been bolted onto the newly exposed vertical rock walls for mountaineers to climb down onto the glacier.
Another key impact of climate change in the mountains is that it is leading to an increase in the number of rockfalls; more than 550 occurred in the Mont Blanc massif alone between 2007 and 2015.
Another key impact of climate change in the mountains is that it is leading to an increase in the number of rockfalls; more than 550 occurred in the Mont Blanc massif alone between 2007 and 2015……..https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/24/climate-change-is-melting-the-french-alps-say-mountaineers
August 25, 2018
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S&P Global 20th Aug 2018 , Delayed reactor returns slash French nuclear availability nearly 9 GW. Available nuclear
power generating capacity in France fell sharply by almost 9 GW after EDF delayed the return of multiple nuclear plants, while high temperatures continued to restrict production at its Saint Alban power station, the operator said. This amounted to a total nuclear output loss of around 2.37 TWh, according to S&P Global Platts calculations.
In updates over the weekend and on Monday, EDF announced plans to delay the return of its 1.31-GW Nogent-1 reactor by more than five weeks to September 19, after initially expecting a two-day outage that started on late Thursday night. Also restarting on September 19 is EDF’s 890-MW Dampierre nuclear unit-1, where production stopped on Saturday. The return of Dampierre-3, with the
same generating capacity on the other hand, was delayed by two days after it was taken off the grid on August 6. The 1.31-GW Golfech-2 reactor, which was taken off the grid for planned outage in May, is now expected to restart on Friday, extending the outage by four days. The restart of both 915-MW Cruas-4 and 1.495-GW Civaux-1, which was scheduled for Tuesday, was set to return on Friday and Saturday, respectively, EDF said.
August 24, 2018
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French nuclear power supply cuts extended as hot weather lingers https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/080318-french-nuclear-power-supply-cuts-extended-as-hot-weather-lingers, AuthorAnuradha Ramanathan, EditorJeremy Lovell
HIGHLIGHTS
1,335 MW St Alban-1, 910 MW Bugey-2 offline until next Saturday
Reduced available capacity at St Alban-2, Bugey-3, Fessenheim-2
Prompt power price rally continues due to supply pressures
London — With France bracing for more hot to very hot weather in the coming week, nuclear power plant operator EDF said Friday it plans to halt production completely at two of its reactors near the river Rhone, water from which is used for cool them, and reduce available capacity at other units next week.
In its latest update on Friday, EDF said production capacity at the 1,335 MW St Alban-1 and 910 MW Bugey-2 reactors would drop to zero until Saturday next week, reducing capacity from Friday afternoon. The 910 MW Bugey-3 will also remain unavailable for power generation from late Friday but with an expected restart on Wednesday.
Out of the 1,335 MW St Alban-2 installed capacity, 950 MW will remain available to the market over the weekend, EDF said, while 600 MW will be available from its 880 MW Fessenheim-2 nuclear reactor over the weekend and until Monday midnight.
EDF, however, warned that the planning and duration of the unavailability due to environmental issues will be reassessed according to the weather forecast. These supply restriction warnings due to hot weather began late July at the onset of the heatwave which is currently covering Europe.
Furthermore, forecasters predict temperatures in France, Germany, Italy and Spain to stay above seasonal averages next week, with forecaster MeteoFrance expecting Portugal temperatures to hit 48 degrees Celsius over this weekend.
The hot weather and the resulting nuclear supply restrictions sent the prompt power prices in the wholesale market to winter levels as countries are ramping up the more expensive fossil fuel power plants, analysis shows.
French day-ahead baseload for Monday delivery was last heard trading at Eur66.50/MWh on the over-the-counter market, reaching a new summer high and the highest in more than five months, data showed.
–Anuradha Ramanathan, anuradha.ramanathan@spglobal.com Jeremy Lovell, jeremy.lovell@spglobal.com
August 4, 2018
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S&P 24th July 2018 , France’s EDF expects nuclear-fired power production at its Bugey and
Saint-Alban power stations to be curtailed “due to extreme temperature forecast,” the utility said Tuesday. On grid operator RTE’s website, EDF said environmental issues are limiting “some” nuclear production availability in the country, starting Saturday. EDF did not give details on the exact impact of the output restrictions. The two nuclear power stations have a combined capacity of over 6 GW. Environmental issues have already resulted in weekend outages at EDF’s Bugey-3 reactor on the river Rhone.
Hot weather conditions previously have led to cooling water restrictions due to raised river temperatures. According to forecaster MeteoFrance, temperatures should remain above seasonal average, or around 2 degrees Celsius above norms over the weekend.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/072418-high-temperatures-to-cut-french-nuclear-production-edf
July 27, 2018
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Stop Penly 24th July 2018 , Creusot, the scandal continues and concerns a growing number of components.
On July 17, 2018, EDF published a note on the information provided to the safety authority concerning the nuclear equipment manufacturing files carried out at the Creusot plant, now under the control of the state energy
operator.
The verification of all the manufacturing files of these components reveals 1,775 anomalies and 449 non-compliances on the equipment of 46 of its operating nuclear reactors. With 94 anomalies and 19 nonconformities for 34 parts manufactured at Le Creusot, reactor 3 Bugey (Ain) seems to be the most affected.
http://stopeprpenly.org/?p=1161
July 27, 2018
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FT 25th July 2018 , French power utility EDF has said there will be further delays and cost overruns at its flagship Flamanville nuclear site. In April, the company said that problems with the weldings at its Flamanville site might have an
impact on the costs and the schedule for starting the long-delayed nuclear reactor.
On Wednesday, the company said that out of the 148 inspected welds, 33 had quality deficiencies and would be repaired. As a result it had “adjusted the Flamanville EPR schedule and construction costs . . . The loading of nuclear fuel is now scheduled for the fourth quarter in 2019 and the target construction costs have been revised from €10.5bn to €10.9bn.”
The plant was already seven years late and €7bn over budget. The Flamanville plant in France is one of three being
built in Europe using the next-generation European Pressurized Reactor technology. The other two projects are the Olkiluoto project in Finland, which is more than a decade late, and the UK’s Hinkley Point, which is mired in controversy over the high cost of the project.
http://www.ft.com/content/1b2473c8-8fdd-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421
July 27, 2018
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New Economy 25th July 2018 The cost of EDF’s new Flamanville nuclear reactor has swelled to more
than three times the French state-owned utility’s original budget after
further issues were revealed in the construction process. EDF said target
construction costs had risen by €400m ($468m) to €10.9bn ($12.7bn).
Already seven years behind schedule, the project will now be delayed by
another year, with the loading of nuclear fuel not expected until the
fourth quarter of 2019. In April, EDF revealed that problems with the
weldings at its flagship nuclear site could impact the project’s costs
and timetable following an assessment by the French Nuclear Safety
Authority.
On July 25, EDF said 33 of 148 inspected welds were found to
have “quality deficiencies” and would be repaired: “EDF teams and
their industrial partners are fully mobilised and are continuing all other
assembly and testing activities at the Flamanville [European Pressurised
Reactor (EPR)], including the system performance tests.” France’s
Flamanville project is one of three EPRs currently being built across
Europe.
The third-generation technology has taken decades to develop and
aims to improve safety, as well as reduce costs. EDF is also building the
Olkiluoto 3 project in Finland and Hinkley Point C in the UK, both of which
are also behind schedule.
https://www.theneweconomy.com/energy/edf-reveals-further-cost-overruns-and-delays-to-its-flamanville-nuclear-reactor
July 27, 2018
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High temperatures to cut French nuclear production: EDF https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/072418-high-temperatures-to-cut-french-nuclear-production-edf , Author Anuradha Ramanathan , Editor Maurice Geller London — France’s EDF expects nuclear-fired power production at its Bugey and Saint-Alban power stations to be curtailed “due to extreme temperature forecast,” the utility said Tuesday.
- Output fall likely at Bugey, Saint-Alban plants
- Production limitations to start from Saturday
- No details on capacity impact provided
On grid operator RTE’s website, EDF said environmental issues are limiting “some” nuclear production availability in the country, starting Saturday.
EDF did not give details on the exact impact of the output restrictions. The two nuclear power stations have a combined capacity of over 6 GW.
Environmental issues have already resulted in weekend outages at EDF’s Bugey-3 reactor on the river Rhone. Hot weather conditions previously have led to cooling water restrictions due to raised river temperatures.
According to forecaster MeteoFrance, temperatures should remain above seasonal average, or around 2 degrees Celsius above norms over the weekend.
–Anuradha Ramanathan, anuradha.ramanathan@spglobal.com
–Edited by Maurice Geller, maurice.geller@spglobal.com
July 25, 2018
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Liberation 17th July 2018 , Flamanville: NGOs lodge a complaint against EDF for “breaches” of security.
Sortir du nucléaire and Greenpeaceare to take legal action this Wednesday morning in the case of defective welds detected on the pipes of the future EPR reactor. The soap opera of the shipyard of the EPR reactor, built by EDF on the Flamanville power station (Manche), takes a legal turn.
According to our information, Sortir du nucléaire and Greenpeace France will file this Wednesday morning with the prosecutor of the High Court of Cherbourg a complaint against EDF and its industrial subsidiary Framatome
(ex-Areva NP) “for ten violations of the code of the environment and the regulation of basic nuclear installations “.
http://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/07/17/flamanville-des-ong-portent-plainte-contre-edf-pour-infractions-a-la-surete_1667181
July 20, 2018
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Romandie 18th July 2018 Framatome (formerly Areva NP) has completed the analysis of the anomalies
detected on the manufacturing files of components manufactured on its site
of Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) for the French reactors of EDF, and the
factory is now “fully operational,” said Wednesday a company executive. The
audit launched in 2015 after detecting the existence of anomalies involved
three phases: an inspection step, or a review of “nearly 4,000 files”, then
a technical analysis phase of any discrepancies raised. which is “totally
finished for all the parts of the French park”, said David Emond, director
of the division Components of Framatome, during a press point in Le
Creusot. “We still have to finish a number of foreign customers, and it
will be done at the end of the year,” he added. The Nuclear Safety
Authority (ASN) must now complete the study, reactor by reactor as
scheduled maintenance stops by EDF, the results transmitted by Framatome.
https://www.romandie.com/news/937602.rom
July 20, 2018
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https://www.thelocal.fr/20180706/french-mps-warn-of-nuclear-power-safety-failings news.france@thelocal.com
@thelocalfrance
A French parliamentary inquiry has flagged up “failings” in the defences of the country’s nuclear power plants, days after activists crashed a drone into a facility to underscore safety concerns.
“When you look for failings you find them, and some are more concerning than others,” said Barbara Pompili, a lawmaker from the governing Republic on the Move party.
France is the world’s most nuclear-dependent country, with 58 reactors providing 75 percent of its electricity.
Environmentalist group Greenpeace has carried out a string of break-ins at nuclear facilities in recent years to prove its claim that they are vulnerable to accidents and terror attacks.
In the latest stunt Tuesday, it flew a drone mocked up as Superman into an ageing plant in Bugey, about 25 kilometres (16 miles) outside the southeastern city of Lyon.
The drone crashed into a building housing a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel, one of the most radioactive areas at the site.
The cross-party commission tasked with looking into nuclear safety spent five months interviewing experts and visiting facilities, including in Japan where they reviewed measures taken after the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The lawmakers said the number of safety incidents in France “has risen steadily”.
They cited in particular last year’s temporary shutdown of the four reactors at a plant in Tricastin in the southeast, seen as prone to flooding in the event of an earthquake, and a blast at a facility at Flamanville in the north.
The report recommended 33 steps to improve nuclear safety, including boosting police numbers at atomic plants and reducing the number of subcontractors in the industry.
We cannot verify’
President Emmanuel Macron has been noncommittal about a pledge by his Socialist predecessor Francois Hollande to drastically reduce the share of nuclear power in France’s energy mix.
Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said in November that meeting Hollande’s targets would be “difficult” and that a rushed move to bolster the share of renewables could jeopardise power supplies.
Anti-nuclear campaigners argue that older plants, like the 39-year-old Bugey facility, were not built to withstand an attack from the likes of the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda.
Greenpeace has said the pools for storing spent fuel are particularly vulnerable.
The parliamentary report demanded that the government provide a timetable for dismantling older plants.
It also questioned the safety of a plan to store nuclear waste deep underground in the northeastern village of Bure and called for the number of subcontractors in the nuclear industry to be kept to a minimum, “to improve control over the operation of the sites”.
State energy utility EDF said the report contained “a number of errors” and said it would respond by mid-July.
The MPs for their part complained that many of the questions they put to the state and EDF went unanswered, with both invoking national security concerns.
“We have the feeling that a lot of work is being done to protect the plants but we cannot verify it,” Pompili said.
July 7, 2018
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FT 6th July 2018 , A French government commission has called for improvements in the safety of
the country’s nuclear power plants, including their ability to withstand
terrorist attack, putting further pressure on state-backed power utility
EDF.
The parliamentary commission set up to look at the safety and security
of nuclear installations in France said, in a report published on Thursday,
that the fleet remain vulnerable to accident and attack. The report comes
at a time of heightened political pressure for heavily indebted EDF, which
operates France’s nuclear fleet and faces a multi-billion euro bill to
extend the life of ageing plants.
Although an EPR is now coming online in
China, EDF is waiting for its Flamanville plant in France, which is seven
years late and €7bn over budget, to start up. A recently discovered
problem with weldings has increased uncertainty. EDF’s EPR projects in
Finland and at Hinkley Point, south-west England, are also running late and
over budget.
According to the parliamentary report, the NGO Greenpeace has,
over the last 30 years, “conducted 14 intrusion attempts in order to
demonstrate the vulnerability” of the French nuclear sites. The commission
put forward 33 suggestions to improve the situation – including reducing
reliance on subcontractors, putting more police on the ground at nuclear
sites, reconsidering waste disposal methods, being clearer on the timeline
for shutting down plants and strengthening the powers of the French nuclear
regulator, the ASN.
https://www.ft.com/content/347980d2-8067-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d
July 7, 2018
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Les Echos 4th July 2018 , EDF anticipates “a few months” of delay on the site of the nuclear reactor
Norman, because of the problems of welding announced in April. The weld
problems of the Flamanville EPR announced in April will have an “impact” on
the date of commissioning of the nuclear reactor under construction, said
Wednesday EDF. Until then, the electrician only mentioned a possible
“additional” delay.
“What we do know is that there will be an impact on the
project schedule. On the other hand, it is much too early to characterize
it, “said Bertrand Michoud, the site’s development director, reviewing
welding problems at a local information committee gathering industrialists,
the safety authority. (ASN), local elected representatives, unions and
associations, next to Flamanville (Manche). “The order of magnitude is a
few months,”
Since 2015, EDF has posted a start-up schedule at the end of
2018 for commercial commissioning in 2019, seven years late. “A few months”
of additional delay, “yes, it seems credible,” said the head of the EPR
pole at ASN Normandy, Eric Zelnio, interviewed by AFP after the meeting.
According to the ASN, the delivery of the fuel, which was to take place
this summer, is postponed, but could occur before the end of the year.
https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/0301925564230-epr-de-flamanville-edf-reconnait-un-retard-supplementaire-2189804.php
July 7, 2018
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