In Dunkirk, Nuclear, We know. For more than 40 years, the largest power plant in Western Europe, the Grave Lines, has been supplying electricity to the country. Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron
Announced two new EPR nuclear reactors It will be built there by 2035. The promise of a campaign candidate is more than a government decision
Multi-year energy planUnder the leadership of the Ministry of Environmental Change, it still provides for the closure of 14 nuclear reactors (including two in the Gravelines) by 2035.
Nevertheless, the announcement renewed the debate over the future of nuclear power in France. For Patrick Vergrit, Dunkirk’s Urban Community Leader (DVG), it was a “great success” for the region and a “new era of economic expansion similar to Dunkirk’s thousands of stable jobs.”
Modification of the industrial-port base
“The energy mix that President Macron promoted in his Belfort speech has, in fact, been the focus of our strategic choices in recent years, welcoming Patrice Vergriete. We have begun this transformation.
On the part of environmental activists, enthusiasm is low. “The renaissance of nuclear power is a proclamation from the last century to bury the future,” laments Palo-Serge Lobes, president of the Viraj Energy Association.
“This announcement is completely contrary to the investigation of the Electricity Transport Network (RTE), which is responsible for the distribution of electricity,” he told a member of the local information team at the Gravelines nuclear power plant. Its report, released in October, considers 100% electricity mixing from the potential renewable energies on this horizon to achieve carbon neutrality. ⁇
The reliability of the EPR?
Another argument put forward by Palo-Serge Lopez is the unreliability of the EPR. “This reactor has not yet been approved and verified by the Nuclear Safety Authority and is only authorized to do so,” he explains. His plan-based feedback was a huge failure, with the Auditor’s Court noting that the site at the Flymanville (Manche) site had been delayed by at least 10 years and the cost multiplied by 6. ⁇
The activist calls for a national debate on the issue. “Investing in the energy sector is a significant decision that has had implications for decades,” he notes.
Waste storage problem
Nuclear power in particular is subject to two important points. If nuclear power plants do not emit CO2, the latter is “however released during uranium extraction or removal of a power plant, for example”, The magazine underlines Terraico.
And the problem of storing nuclear waste remains unresolved. “The Waste The hack is overflowing, warns Normandy’s European Ecology-LessWords (EELV) division. According to informed sources, the plant does not have the storage capacity for fuel spent beyond 2025 or 2030. ⁇