France's Oldest Nuclear Plant To Close This Year (phys.org)

mdsolar writes: France is to close down its oldest nuclear power plant, at the center of a row with neighboring Germany and Switzerland, by the end of this year, a green minister said Sunday. "The timeline is one the president has repeated to me several times, it's 2016," said Emmanuelle Cosse, who was named to President Francois Hollande's cabinet last month, referring to the Fessenheim plant. Cosse was speaking to French media after a row sparked Friday when Germany demanded that France close down Fessenheim following reports that a 2014 incident there was worse than earlier portrayed. France's Nuclear Safety Agency said that safety at the plant was "overall satisfactory" but that the government's energy policy "could lead to different choices" regarding the facility, which is near the German and Swiss borders. It said there was "no need" to shut the plant from a nuclear safety point of view. France has promised to cut reliance on nuclear energy from more than 75 percent to 50 percent by shutting 24 reactors by 2025, while stepping up reliance on renewable energy.

Comments

Re:So....

[AmiMoJo]

The French have big problems with nuclear power at the moment. The biggest company running their nuclear fleet, EDF, is in serious trouble. It has plants being built in other European countries that are way, way over budget, and is now looking likely to back out of building the two new reactors at Hinkley Point in the UK.

The basic problem is cost. EDF has a number of old reactors that need decommissioning and replacing. The new reactors are turning out to be extremely expensive. The pair in the UK are projected to cost £18bn ($26bn) but the identical ones they already started on are approximately 3x over budget and massively delayed.

So EDF is faced with massive costs from old reactors and a need to borrow massive amounts of money to build the new ones. Even the guarantee from the UK government to pay way, way over the odds for the electricity generated isn't enough any more. The French government was trying to reduce it's stake in EDF, but has recently had to switch to buying up shares again just to keep the lights on.

On top of all that, their neighbours are building a lot of renewable energy that really pushes prices down. Peak pricing used to be a massive earner for EDF, but now Germany is exporting extremely cheap energy during those times. EDF doesn't want to adapt, can't really adapt because all its cash is tied up in failing nuclear projects.

They should have fixed the roof while the sun was shining, and installed some solar panels at the same time.