The Future of the French Nuclear Industry

Abstract

France is one of the largest nuclear energy producers and electricity exporters in the world alongside with the United States, but the nation is facing problems related to the 53 out of 57 reactors that have passed or about to pass their originally intended 40-year life cycle with a probable loss in energy production capacity which would be a tremendous setback for a nation, that produces approximately 70% of their energy in the 18 nuclear power plants in Metropolitan France. The nuclear energy power plants, including their construction, design and operation is handled by the state-owner EDF, which has been accumulating debt on the company level and facing several issues both domestically and internationally with their generation III+ nuclear reactor design EPR as all EPR projects in France, China, Finland and the United Kingdom have faced similar issues that have led to massive delays and budget overruns. The purpose of the thesis is to answer what are the options and prospects of the French nuclear program between 2025 and 2050, based on the economic, financial and political considerations. The government of France under President Macron has rather decisively chosen to continue with nuclear energy in line with the low-carbon future goals set in the Paris Agreement and as France has very few domestically available resources, nuclear energy has long been the cornerstone if not the only viable option to produce electricity on a level that is required for trading and the national grid. However, to close an energy gap that would form as a result of decommissioning all reactors which exceed a 60-year lifecycle, France will need to expand their nuclear fleet by 27 reactors with a capacity of at least 1630 MWe by 2050 on top of the planned six EPR2 reactors or begin to strategically build more SMR reactors with an excess of 91 that would support more localised energy clusters such as businesses in addition to eight reactors with a net capacity of 1630 MWe. EDF would remain financially capable of constructing a project of this scale unless the most extreme scenarios are taken into account where the annual costs would balloon up to 62 billion under proposition one and 42 billion under proposition two.