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Just as Grist is asking if Germany did the right move on nuclear – here is as a reminder my opinion piece on Cleantechies – several bad news for the industry of this energy source got my attention this week.
First and foremost, the reactor number 2 of Fukushima ” had probably experienced “spontaneous” fission “ according to an official quoted by the Agence France Presse.
Furthermore, it has been estimated that fully decommissioning Fukushima could take no less than 30 years. All this could have terrible consequences for the whole industry. Continue »
First, the good ones : To Reuters : ” Significant progress has been made in efforts to contain and stabilise the situation at Fukushima, the head of the United Nations atomic agency said on Friday.”
And some bad : To the Wall Street Journal ” EDF announced that its EPR project in Flamanville, France (…) will be delayed until 2016, due to “both structural and economic reasons,” which will bring the project’s total cost to EUR6 billion.”
The reactor was due to start in 2014 and to cost much less… Meanwhile, China announced a nuclear power breakthrough by switching on its first fast breeder reactor.
There is something I totally overlooked while writing earlier this week my article on how Europe goes forward on energy. Indeed, last month Italy announced its intention to build nuclear reactors this decade.
Italian electricity is both heavily reliant on foreign fossil sources (70 percent) and on imports (ten percent comes from France’s own reactors). Building four nuclear reactors will decrease both.
A total of ten reactors might be built by the next 20 years to enable the country to get 25 percent of its electricity from this low carbon source. Continue »
The French national utility Electricité de France – EDF - just bought half of nuclear activities of US based utility Constellation for 4.5 billion US Dollars (3.3 billion euros).
This occurs only a few months after the acquisition of British Energy by EDF, which is willing to become a major global player in nuclear energy, one of the lowest carbon emitting solutions.
EDF will manage on US soil five reactors which accounts for nearly 4,000MW of generation capacity. This adds up to the 58 reactors already managed in France. Continue »
The French national utility Electricité de France – known as EDF – is beginning to take over the UK company British Energy for an estimated cost of 15.7 billion Euros (or $23 billion).
According to the Financial Times quoted below, this is the largest international expansion plan for EDF. The company plans to build at least four nuclear plants on British soil in the next years.
This occurs as John Hutton, UK Business Secretary, says his country needs rapidly new nuclear plants to keep on answering to the increasing demand. Continue »
The car maker Toyota and the French company EDF will soon propose a network of plug-in points and sockets to fill up hybrid cars with electricity.
French electricity is mostly carbon dioxide free (78 percent of nuclear and 10 percent hydro), so electric cars would prove to be a good thing to mitigate climate change.
This plan will concern all Europe and will begin this fall with cars of EDF’s fleet that will test drive these hybrid cars under every-day conditions.
