The European Commission has just classified nuclear power as a source of electricity promoting ecological transition. An asset for France, which has already made the atom the heart of its strategy for electric cars. However, the word “transition” is important.
The European Commission is currently setting up an “energy taxonomy” as part of its Green Deal aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This classification should encourage investments in industries and technologies that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. tight. Three categories of activities have been defined: low carbon, transitional and enabling. It should be noted that so-called enabling activities do not participate directly in reducing greenhouse gas emissions but contribute to the operation of other industries or technologies which do.
In recent weeks, intense debates have focused on the possible integration of nuclear power and natural gas in this taxonomy and on the category(ies) in which they should be positioned. The European Commission finally came out in favor of this inclusion, defining nuclear and gas as transition energies, or the intermediate category. France has an advantage in the race to electrify the automobile.
Towards a French “atomic era”?
France has 56 nuclear reactors spread across 18 power plants. They provide the country with approximately 70% of its electricity and at the same time ensure a certain energy independence. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced last fall a project to build several new SMR-type reactors (smaller than current power plants) by 2030. It is therefore no surprise that France has campaigned with the European Commission in favor of nuclear power, with all the more weight since she is presiding over the European Council for the current year. In this period of presidential campaign, obtaining this “green” label can also become an asset for the Head of State, who should soon formalize his candidacy for re-election.
Electricity of nuclear origin must in particular supply electric cars, which are bound to multiply since the European Commission wishes to prohibit the sale of new thermal vehicles in 2035. France nevertheless advocates maintaining hybrids until 2040 in order to protect its industry. It is still necessary that an infrastructure network worthy of the name makes it possible to distribute the electricity thus produced! However, the Government’s “100,000 terminals plan” has fallen far behind… Thanks to the investments favored by this taxonomy, France could however ultimately prove to be better equipped than its neighbors to support an electrified automobile fleet and industry with low emissions. indoor CO2 (excluding extraction and transport of materials for batteries, etc.).
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Between greenhouse effect and pollution, nuclear power is debated
Several environmental organisations, as well as some EU Member States, are protesting against the classification of the atom as an environmentally useful source of energy. Nuclear power generation emits very little CO2 (as much or even less than renewable sources according to several groups of experts quoted by the Commission) and therefore does not contribute directly to global warming, but it generates a large quantity of waste with different levels of radioactivity. Dangerous for health and the environment, neither recyclable nor reusable according to French law, this waste is buried.
The European text requires that low-level radioactive waste processing facilities are already operational and that a high-level radioactive waste processing program be planned by 2050 for a nuclear power plant to benefit from the taxonomy. But post-burial or alternative treatments are still the subject of research, and this deadline may seem distant. The ban on exporting nuclear waste abroad is also listed. And if the Commission insists that all construction must meet the strictest safety requirements, the risk of an accident, of which the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters have shown the dramatic consequences, is also highlighted by critics of nuclear power. .
Behind this European approval which, let us remember, does not classify nuclear electricity in the “low carbon” category of the taxonomy, there is the idea that renewable sources (hydraulic, wind, solar, etc.) cannot be developed quickly enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the deadlines set by the Commission, which nevertheless wants them to become the majority by 2050. But, for the opponents of nuclear power, certain investments directed towards the atom by this taxonomy will be so much less funding for renewables, which will further delay the advent of the latter.
Gas, a European compromise
While France can rely on its nuclear power plants as a domestic source of electricity, other states such as Germany and several Eastern European countries remain dependent on their coal-fired power plants, which emit a lot of CO.2. Electricity produced from natural gas, which remains a fossil energy source, rejects less. This is what motivated the inclusion of gas in the taxonomy under certain conditions. Any new gas-fired power plant must therefore replace coal-fired installations and display CO emissions.2 less than 100 g/kWh or 270 g/kWh if renewable sources cannot be used in sufficient proportions to cover the same area in addition. The Commission expects this transition from gas to renewables to be completed by 2050. Opponents of this energy source point to its carbonaceous nature, as well as the dependence of the countries that use it on foreign powers, and in particular Russia, which is a major exporter.
The European Parliament and Council now have four months (which can be extended to six) to study this taxonomy project and possibly oppose it, which would require a majority of 50% of MEPs in the first case or twenty States in the second . Austria, very opposed to nuclear power, is planning legal action against the adoption of this text. It has already contested this publicly with Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, which will take over the presidency of the Council next year. If the project is not refused according to the conditions indicated above, it will come into force on 1er January 2023.
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