France should establish a new line of nuclear reactors to replace the old plants; Energy Minister Segolene Royal announced here recently, as reported by Sputnik.
French Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Minister Royal was echoing the ministry’s consent for nuclear energy adaptation in the country after a long gap.
She acknowledged that nuclear energy is crucial for the future energy growth of the country.
“In the building of a carbon-free economy, nuclear is clearly an asset” and its role in the mix of various energy production methods needs to be evaluated in an “intelligent manner”, said Royal.
Previously, the minister was not in favor of country embracing nuclear portfolio.
Bruno Comby, head of the Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy organization welcomed the new decision to go nuclear.
According to Comby, this may be considered as a positive step, as nuclear energy is useful and can produce much electricity with no much air pollution and global warming.
The environmentalist emphasized that nuclear power has become much safer in recent years compared to previous years.
At present, France Senate is going through the transition bill, which seeks to decrease the percentage of the country’s electricity generated from nuclear power plants from 75 to 50.
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The bill will cap production of electricity from nuclear reactors at 63.2 gigawatts and the construction of any new power plant will require putting an old plant into retirement.
State-owned EDF, which operates all of France’s nuclear reactors, is planning a 55 billion euro upgrade of its existing plants by 2025.
France, which is the number two country globally in terms of nuclear energy production, has 19 nuclear power plants and 59 nuclear reactors.
Sabeena Wahid