Nuclear Energy Not Affected by French Election

We’ve followed the French election here a bit because we were interested to see whether challenger Francois Hollande would hold to his stand to close 30 nuclear plants – a promise he made to the Green party when it appeared he might need its help against incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy. He’d already broken away from his pledge, but let’s see how things are going.

In the round one voting, Sarkozy (conservative) won about 25% of the vote, Hollande (liberal) about 28% and Marine Le Pen (reactionary) about 20%. Le Pen and the other minor party candidates now drop out and it’s Sarkozy vs. Hollande on May 6.

Anyway, Hollande has backed away from his earlier negative view of nuclear energy (but see below – he’s basically returned to his original view):

He wants to reduce the share of nuclear energy in the power supply to 50% from 75% by 2025, and promises to close the ageing Fessenheim nuclear plant but complete work on the advanced Flamanville European pressurized reactor power station.

But by increasing renewable energy sources, not a wholesale reduction of the nuclear fleet.

And Sarkozy? From the same rundown:

Backs nuclear power but says renewable energy will make up 23% of power supply by 2020.

Guess we’ll have to wait a few years to see where the percentages land. Increasing energy diversity would be an advisable move – if France goes forward with renewable energy sources, as seems likely, it’s all good. For baseload energy, after all, it’s covered. All clear, all clean.

If you want a broader view of French politics and nuclear energy, check out this article from last year – dated but very good.

While François Hollande sees nuclear power as an important part of the future of France’s energy landscape, Martine Aubry has declared that “France’s energy change should be characterized by phasing out nuclear in 20 or 30 years’ time”. France’s future energy supply would mainly come from renewable energy sources and the respective domestic industry would be subsidized through eco-taxes.

This is from before the Socialist party primary, obviously, and Hollande and Aubry mark out different views that remain consistent with the socialist ideology. We may say that the primary answered the question of the article: “Will the nuclear debate determine the French presidential election?” The answer: Non.

Fessenheim.

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

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Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin

NEI Nuclear Notes

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