PARIS — Plumes of steam recently towered over two reactors at the Chinon nuclear power plant in the heart of France’s verdant Loire Valley. But the sky over a third reactor there was unusually clear — operations had frozen over after the worrying discovery of cracks in the cooling system.
The partial shutdown isn’t unique: About half of France’s nuclear fleet, Europe’s largest, has been taken offline as a storm of unexpected problems swirls around the country’s state-backed nuclear power plant, Électricité de France, or EDF.
As the European Union struggles to cut ties with Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war against Ukraine, France is betting on its nuclear power plants to weather an looming energy crisis. Nuclear power supplies about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a larger share than any other country in the world.
But the industry is in an unprecedented power crisis as EDF faces problems ranging from the mysterious rise of stress corrosion cracking in nuclear power plants to a warmer climate that makes it more difficult to cool its aging reactors.
The power outages at EDF, Europe’s largest electricity exporter, have plunged French nuclear power production to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, pushing French electricity bills to record highs, just as the war in Ukraine is fueling wider inflation. Rather than pump massive amounts of electricity to Britain, Italy and other European countries that run on Russian oil, France faces the troubling prospect of causing rolling blackouts this winter and having to import power.
EDF, which already has 43 billion euros (about $45 billion) in debt, has also been exposed to a recent deal with the Russian state-backed nuclear power plant, Rosatom, which could cause the French company new financial pain. The problems have grown so rapidly that President Emmanuel Macron’s government has hinted that EDF may need to be nationalized.
“We cannot rule it out,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the energy transition minister, said on Tuesday. “We will need huge investments in EDF.”
The crisis could not have struck at a worse time. Oil prices hit record highs after the European Union agreed to cut off Russian oil, exacerbating economic pain in Europe and exacerbating a cost of living crisis that France and other countries are trying to address. The price of natural gas, which France uses to absorb fluctuations in nuclear energy, has also risen.
As Russian aggression redefines Europe’s energy considerations, nuclear proponents say it could help bridge Europe’s fuel shortfall, complementing a shift already underway to source wind, solar and other renewable energy. to achieve ambitious climate change targets.
But solving the crisis at EDF will not be easy.
With 56 reactors, the French nuclear fleet is the largest after that of the United States. A quarter of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear power in a dozen countries, with France producing more than half of the total.
But France’s nuclear industry, built largely in the 1980s, has been plagued for decades by a lack of new investment. Experts say it has lost valuable technical expertise as people retired or moved, impacting EDF’s ability to maintain or build existing power plants to replace them.
“EDF’s strategy, endorsed by the government, has been to delay reinvestment and transformation of the system,” said Yves Marignac, nuclear energy specialist at négaWatt, a think tank in Paris. “The more EDF delays, the more skills are lost, technical issues pile up and there is a snowball effect.”
Macron recently announced a €51.7 billion blueprint to rebuild France’s nuclear program. EDF is set to build the first of up to 14 next-generation giant pressurized water reactors, as well as smaller nuclear power plants, by 2035 – the cornerstone of a wider effort to bolster France’s energy independence and meet climate goals.
But the few new nuclear reactors EDF has built are plagued by massive cost overruns and delays. An EDF-made pressurized water reactor at Hinkley Point, in southwest England, won’t be operational until 2027 — four years behind schedule and too late to aid Britain’s rapid turnaround of Russian oil and gas. Finland’s newest EDF nuclear power plant, which came into operation last month, is set to be completed in 2009.
EDF’s recent problems started piling up just before Russia invaded Ukraine. The company warned last winter that it could no longer produce a steady supply of nuclear power as it struggled to make up for a two-year backlog in required maintenance for dozens of aging reactors that was delayed during the coronavirus lockdown.
Inspections revealed alarming safety issues, most notably corrosion and failed weld seals on critical systems used to cool a reactor’s radioactive core. Such was the situation at the Chinon nuclear power plant, one of the oldest in France, which produces 6 percent of EDF’s nuclear energy.
EDF is now scanning all its nuclear facilities for such problems. A dozen reactors remain disconnected for corrosion inspections or repairs that could take months or years. Another 16 will remain offline for reviews and upgrades.
Others have had to shut down electricity production over climate change concerns: Rivers in the south of France, including the Rhone and Gironde, warm earlier each year, often reaching temperatures too high to cool reactors in spring and summer.
Today, French nuclear production is at its lowest level since 1993, generating less than half of the 61.4 gigawatts the fleet can produce. (EDF also generates electricity using renewable technologies, gas and coal.) Even if some reactors resume in the summer, France’s nuclear output will be 25 percent lower than normal this winter – with alarming consequences.
The war between Russia and Ukraine and the world economy
A far-reaching conflict. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a ripple effect around the world, adding to the stock market woes. The conflict has caused staggering spikes in gas prices and product shortages, prompting Europe to reconsider its reliance on Russian energy resources.
“If you have power plants that are well below capacity, we will either have to go to blackouts or revert to carbon-emitting energy, which is coal or natural gas,” said Thierry Bros, an energy expert and professor at the Institute. from Paris. of Political Studies.
The government, which owns 84 percent of EDF, has intensified the struggle. As electricity market prices approached €500 per megawatt-hour last winter, Mr Macron instructed EDF to increase the power it sells to third-party suppliers at a maximum price of just €46 per megawatt-hour, fulfilling his political pledge to protect households against inflation.
But to replenish its power supply while dozens of nuclear power plants are offline, EDF has been forced to buy electricity at the high prices of the open market, at an estimated cost of more than €10 billion this year. The move infuriated the combative director of the EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy, so much that he made a formal appeal to the government.
As unrest mounted, in February the French government threw EDF a €2 billion lifeline. But that is hardly enough to solve his misery.
The debt-laden company is also at risk with a government-backed deal linked to Rosatom, a longtime customer of EDF components and the largest purchaser of high-performance French-made Arabelle steam turbines, which can be found in both Rosatom and EDF nuclear power plants.
Despite the war, France has, as usual, conducted nuclear business with Russia, which has remained exempt from European Union sanctions. Macron backed a deal in February for EDF to acquire the €1.1 billion Arabelle turbine business from General Electric, returning the manufacturing company to French ownership after GE bought it from Alstom in 2015.
EDF is now pushing to downgrade the deal, fearing Rosatom’s operations will fail after Finland canceled Rosatom contracts for new nuclear power plants last month. Should Rosatom face additional cancellations or construction delays in other countries, EDF could face a slump in turbine orders and new losses.
In order for France’s nuclear industry to recover, the country’s best bet is to stick with its plan to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants, JPMorgan Chase said in a recent analysis.
“The current crisis makes this project, and the ambition to reregulate or nationalize EDF’s nuclear fleet, at least more legitimate than ever – for France and its European partners,” the bank said.
Adele Cordonnier reporting contributed.
