France President Macron announces France to start building new nuclear power plants, wants to increase self-sufficiency in energy production

French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that the country will resume construction of new nuclear power plants. The aim is to meet the challenges and environmental problems of increasing energy consumption.

“To ensure France’s independence in energy production and to achieve our goal, especially carbon neutrality by 2050, we are starting to build new reactors in our country for the first time in decades,” Macron said in a speech on Tuesday.

France is the world’s most nuclear-intensive country. About 70 percent of its electricity generation is generated in the 56 reactors in operation. The country’s previously stated goal was to reduce this share to 50 percent by 2035.

In his speech, Macron did not say how many new reactors would be built or on what schedule. Earlier in the spring, the French state-owned energy company EDF commissioned a study on the feasibility of building six new reactors.

“If we want to pay reasonable prices for our electricity and don’t want to be dependent on foreign countries, we need to both continue to save energy and invest in carbon-free energy production on our own soil,” Macron said.

Wholly new reactors have not been connected to the grid in France for decades. All of the existing units began generating electricity in the 1980s and 1990s, he says World Nuclear Association -organization.

Only one reactor is currently under construction. In 2007, France began construction of a third-generation EPR-type reactor at the Flamanville nuclear power plant, which has exceeded its original budget many times over and has been behind schedule for years.

The reactor is expected to connect to the grid in 2023, and it would start full production in 2024.

The same type of new generation reactor has also been delayed many times in Finland and exceeded its budget by Olkiluoto 3, whose electricity production is scheduled to begin next year.