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Nuclear power plant in Cattenom on the Moselle in Lorraine
Photo: REUTERS
France is stable green - at least on the "Electricity Map", which constantly tracks how CO2-intensive the current electricity production in the countries of Europe is.
According to the app developed by the Danish startup Tomorrow, the French only emitted 75 grams of greenhouse gases (CO2 equivalents) per kilowatt hour of electricity last Wednesday morning.
At the same time in Denmark it was 211 and in Great Britain 319, in Germany 447 and in Poland 683 grams.
The simple explanation: France generates over 70 percent of its electricity in nuclear power plants. In addition, there is more than 15 percent from renewable sources (hydropower, wind, solar), the CO2-free electricity share is already around 90 percent. Germany is far from this, although the share of renewables here makes up more than a third. And the Germans see themselves as international pioneers.
Everyone in their own way - that has been the basic principle of European electricity generation up to now. However, under the enormous pressure of climate policy, the current energy bottlenecks and the beginning of the presidential election campaign in France, a sharp conflict is breaking out.
Thierry Breton
(66), the EU's Internal Market Commissioner from France, recently put it tough: "There will be no Green Deal without nuclear energy. Anyone who thinks otherwise, thinks wrong."
President
Emmanuel Macron
(43) presented his industrial policy strategy "France 2030" at the beginning of the week and made a clear commitment to investing billions in nuclear technology.
His economics and finance minister
Bruno LeMaire
(52) had gone public the day before with a new pro-atom alliance.
In a call that appeared in parallel in several European newspapers, LeMaire and other ministers from Romania, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary demanded a clear commitment from the EU: "Nuclear energy must be like all other low-carbon energy sources be treated."
Where does the investor's capital go?
The demand of the group of ten is aimed primarily at the so-called taxonomy, the new classification system with which the EU wants to give guidance to private investors: Which investments are really sustainable?
So where should capital go - and where should it not go?
"If large investors, such as insurance companies, orient themselves towards taxonomy in the future, this will have massive consequences," says Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, Director of the Energy Center (JDEC) at the European think tank Jaques Delors Institute.
For the area of climate, the classifications have actually been completed.
The green seal of approval will be given to all technologies that enable a strong reduction in greenhouse gases.
And which at the same time do not cause any significant new environmental damage: "Do No Significant Harm" (short: DNSH) is the requirement.
There is still heated debate about whether nuclear power meets the DNSH criterion. The hard core of the anti-nuclear camp consists of Germany, Austria and Luxembourg, plus Belgium and Spain, which still operate nuclear power plants but whose governments are planning to phase out. Federal Environment Minister
Svenja Schulze
(53, SPD) wrote a fire letter to the EU Commission in the summer in which she warns of "fraudulent labeling" in taxonomy. NGOs and the industry forum "Sustainable Investment" (FNG) are also fighting resolutely against nuclear power in green portfolios.
A few days ago, the German federal states' conference of energy ministers unanimously decided that nuclear power, as a "high-risk technology", should by no means be included in the taxonomy.
This decision was initiated by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate - which is governed by the only red-green-yellow traffic light coalition to date.
The scientific service of the EU judges in favor of nuclear energy
The EU Commission first passed the DNSH question on to its scientific service, the Joint Research Center.
Its report was in favor of nuclear energy in July.
France also sees its course confirmed by the current gas crisis.
According to Bruno LeMaire, none of this was built up "in order to now be dependent on the goodwill of Vladimir Putin."
For the French, nuclear competence has been a question of national independence and identity for decades. After the war, the "Force de Frappe" nuclear weapons guaranteed defense capability. With the development of the large nuclear power plant park, it was possible in a short time to reduce the dependence on oil imports: From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, France halved its electricity generation from fossil fuels. At the same time, electricity production more than doubled.
François Hollande, Macron's socialist predecessor, vaguely promised a gentle exit: the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix should drop from 70 to 50 percent by greatly expanding renewables and decommissioning existing reactors due to age.
However, this strategy was never pushed forward in any serious way.
Before the presidential election in April 2022, almost all parties support nuclear energy, especially the political right is calling for it to be expanded.
The only clear opponents of nuclear power, France's Greens, only play an outsider role.
France has a cost problem with its nuclear power plants
It is undisputed that there is a massive cost problem with the new buildings.
The "European Pressurized Water Reactor" (EPR), France's "third generation" reactor model, which is also being sold in other countries, is being delayed further and further.
The pioneering project in Flamanville has been under construction since 2007, and the costs are already three times the originally estimated six billion euros.
Macron therefore promises to intensify research into new small reactors, "Small Modular Reactors" (SMR), which are being worked on worldwide and which should be safer and more cost-effective than the previous reactors.
However, the billion-dollar funding announced by the president will hardly be enough.
A green seal of approval from the EU would make it much easier to mobilize private capital for such projects.
Central and Eastern Europeans also want to keep the nuclear option.
Poland, for example, currently generates around 60 percent of its electricity with coal.
Nuclear energy is indispensable for the phase-out, says the government in Warsaw.
However, the financial requirements for this path of decarbonisation of Europe would be huge.
"The really big question is how you can mobilize two- to three-digit billions for the construction of new nuclear power plants," says
Thomas Pellerin-Carlin
from the Delors Institute.
"Nuclear energy is extremely capital-intensive. So the cost of capital plays a key role."
Macron can hardly afford a defeat in Brussels
The new group of ten around France is calling on the EU Commission to decide the delayed taxonomy issue before the end of the year.
Macron can hardly afford a defeat in Brussels.
When France takes over the EU presidency in the first half of 2022, Paris will be able to set further accents.
With the Czechs, who will hold the Council Presidency in the second half of the year, there is complete agreement on the expansion of nuclear power.
The EU compromise, which the French and Czechs are clearly striving for, would be difficult to swallow for consistent Greens: Nuclear power receives the EU climate seal - but natural gas, on which the Germans in particular are dependent, is also accepted as a "bridging technology" .
For CO2 purists, it sounds absurd when a fossil fuel such as gas is classified as a sustainable climate investment.
At this point, the energy ministers of the federal states are also unanimously advocating flexibility: As part of the taxonomy, according to their latest resolution, a way must be found to invest in new gas-fired power plants that can later be operated with hydrogen (" H2-ready ").
Such investments are a "necessary condition" for the integration of renewables into the German electricity system, "especially against the background of the coal phase-out and the simultaneous phase-out of nuclear energy."
