An Energy Plan for France and the UK | Energy Matters

An Energy Plan for France and the UK

Environmental activist group Bellona report that President Hollande wishes to reduce France’s dependency on nuclear power:

France’s President François Hollande Friday renewed campaign promises that swept him to power in May to reduce his country’s reliance on nuclear energy to 50 percent by 2025 from its current level of more than 75 percent – the world’s highest atomic energy dependence rate. [from September 2012]

It suddenly struck me that France will have nuclear power stations that it no longer needs and the UK needs nuclear power stations that it cannot afford to build. The solution is absurdly simple. The UK can simply contract to buy 20 GW of nuclear power from France while France presses on to modernise its infrastructure by deploying more bio-energy, wind and solar power. This will also save France and EDF energy an enormous amount of money by deferring decommissioning costs. Its seems to be a win, win, win solution.

Introduction

Certain opinions were expressed in the comments to my last post that prompted me to have another look at the French electricity system. For example:

Cont.....