President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Tuesday postponed a long-held target to reduce the share of nuclear energy in France’s electricity generation, reports Reuters.
Environment minister Nicolas Hulot said it was not realistic to cut nuclear energy’s share in the power mix to 50 percent by 2025 from 75 percent now and said doing so in a hurry would increase France’s CO2 emissions, endanger the security of power supply and put jobs at risk.
He did not set a new deadline, but said that over the next year the government would draw up a “pluri-annual energy program” to reach the 50 percent target “as soon as possible”.
“It will be difficult to maintain the target of reducing the share of nuclear to 50 percent by 2025,” Hulot told reporters following a cabinet meeting.
Hulot said that while the timing is delayed for now, in a year’s time the government would have a clear program based on rational criteria to decide which reactors to close and when.
In 2015, the previous government of socialist François Hollande had voted an energy transition law which set a target of reducing the share of nuclear in the power mix to 50 percent by 2025 from the current 75 percent. But Hollande had taken no concrete steps towards closing any reactors.
Centrist Macron, elected in May, had promised to respect this target and Hulot, France’s best-known environmentalist, said in July France might have to close up to 17 of its 58 reactors by 2025 to achieve the target.
Widely seen as the guardian of the Macron government’s green credentials, the popular Hulot - a former television documentary maker turned environmentalist - had in recent months repeatedly said France needed to close several nuclear plants.
But he received little public support from Macron, a strong supporter of nuclear, or prime minister Édouard Philippe, a former employee of state-owned reactor builder Areva.
Two weeks before the government was formed in mid-May, a source close to Macron told Reuters he was considering delaying the target for reducing France’s reliance on nuclear.