PARIS — Plumes of steam recently billowed over two reactors at the Chinon nuclear power plant in the heart of France’s verdant Loire Valley. But the sky was unusually clear over a third reactor there — its operations frozen after the worrying discovery of cracks in the cooling system.
The partial shutdown is not unique: about half of France’s nuclear fleet, the largest in Europe, was taken offline as a storm of unexpected troubles swirled around the country’s state-backed nuclear power plant operator, Électricité de France, or EDF.
As the European Union seeks to cut ties to Russian oil and gas after Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France is relying on its nuclear power plants to weather a looming energy crisis. Nuclear energy supplies about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a larger share than in any other country in the world.
But the industry has plunged into an unprecedented energy crisis as EDF grapples with problems ranging from the mysterious build-up of stress corrosion at nuclear power plants to a hotter climate making it harder to cool the aging reactors.
Outages at EDF, Europe’s largest electricity exporter, have pushed France’s nuclear power output to its lowest level in almost 30 years, pushing French electricity bills to record highs while the war in Ukraine is fueling broader inflation. Instead of pumping huge amounts of electricity to the UK, Italy and other European countries fed by Russian oil, France faces the troubling prospect of rolling blackouts this winter and having to import electricity.
EDF, which already has 43 billion euros (about $45 billion) in debt, is also facing a recent deal involving Russian state-backed nuclear power plant operator Rosatom that could inflict fresh financial pain on the French company. Problems have escalated so quickly that President Emmanuel Macron’s administration has hinted that EDF may need to be nationalized.
“We cannot rule it out,” said Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, on Tuesday. “We will need massive investments in EDF.”
The crisis could not have come at a worse time. Oil prices hit record highs after the European Union agreed to cut off Russian oil, adding to Europe’s economic woes and contributing to a cost-of-living crisis that France and other countries are trying to manage. The price of natural gas, which France uses to compensate for fluctuations in nuclear energy, has also risen sharply.
As Russian aggression is redefining Europe’s energy considerations, pro-nuclear advocates say it can help bridge Europe’s fuel deficit and pledge a shift already underway to align wind, solar and other renewables with ambitious climate targets add to.
But resolving the crisis at EDF will not be easy.
With 56 reactors, France’s nuclear fleet is the largest after that of the United States. A quarter of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear power in about 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 by a lack of fresh investment for decades. Experts say valuable technical know-how has been lost as people retired or moved on, impacting EDF’s ability to maintain the existing power plants — or build new ones to replace them.
“EDF’s strategy, supported by the government, was to delay the reinvestment and redesign of the system,” said Yves Marignac, nuclear energy specialist at négaWatt, a think tank in Paris. “The more EDF delays occur, the more skills are lost, technical problems accumulate and there is a snowball effect.”
Mr Macron recently announced a €51.7 billion plan to rebuild France’s nuclear programme. EDF would build the first of up to 14 next-generation mammoth pressurized water reactors and smaller nuclear power plants by 2035 – the cornerstone of a broader effort to boost France’s energy independence and meet climate targets.
But the few new nuclear reactors that EDF has built have been dogged by huge cost overruns and delays. An EDF-manufactured pressurized water reactor at Hinkley Point in south-west England will not come online until 2027 – four years behind schedule and too late to help Britain move away from Russian oil and gas quickly. Finland’s newest nuclear power plant, EDF, which went online last month, was due for completion in 2009.
EDF’s recent troubles began piling up just before Russia invaded Ukraine. The company warned last winter that it could no longer produce a stable supply of nuclear power as it struggled to catch a two-year backlog of required maintenance for dozens of aging reactors that was postponed during the coronavirus lockdown.
Inspections uncovered alarming safety issues — particularly corrosion and faulty welds 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 scouring all of its nuclear facilities for such problems. A dozen reactors remain shut down for corrosion inspections or repairs that can take months or years. Another 16 remain offline for reviews and upgrades.
Others are having to curb power generation due to climate change concerns: Rivers in southern France, including the Rhône and Gironde, are warming earlier each year, often reaching temperatures too hot to cool reactors in spring and summer.
Today, French nuclear production is at its lowest since 1993, generating less than half the 61.4 gigawatts the fleet can produce. (EDF also generates electricity using renewable technologies, gas and coal.) Even if some reactors restart in the summer, French nuclear power will be 25 percent lower than usual this winter – with alarming consequences.
The Russia-Ukraine War and the World Economy
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A far-reaching conflict. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made waves around the world, adding to concerns in stock markets. The conflict has caused staggering gas price jumps and product shortages, prompting Europe to reconsider its dependence on Russian energy sources.
Russia’s economy is facing a slowdown. Though pro-Ukrainian countries continue to impose sanctions on the Kremlin in response to its aggression, the Russian economy has avoided a crippling collapse for the time being thanks to capital controls and interest rate hikes. However, Russia’s central bank governor warned that the country is likely to face a sharp economic downturn as its stocks of imported goods and parts run low.
Trade barriers go up. The invasion of Ukraine has also sparked a wave of protectionism as governments, desperate to secure goods for their citizens amid shortages and rising prices, erect new barriers to halt exports. But the restrictions make the products more expensive and even harder to get.
Essential metal prices are rising. The price of palladium, used in car exhaust systems and cellphones, has skyrocketed amid fears that Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another important Russian export, has also risen.
“If you have power plants that are operating far below their capacity, we either have to have blackouts or resort to CO2-emitting energy like coal or natural gas,” said Thierry Bros, an energy expert and professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
The government, which owns 84 percent of EDF, has fueled the dispute. As market electricity prices approached the €500 mark last winter, Mr Macron ordered EDF to increase the electricity it sells to third-parties at a capped price of just €46 per megawatt-hour, fulfilling a political promise a protection of French households against inflation.
But to replenish its power supply while dozens of nuclear power plants are out of action, EDF has been forced to buy electricity at high free market prices, at an estimated cost of over €10 billion this year. The move so enraged combative EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy that he made a formal appeal to the government.
Amid the mounting turmoil, the French government tossed EDF a €2 billion lifeline in February. But that’s hardly enough to solve his woes.
The debt-laden company is also at risk from a government-backed deal linked to Rosatom, a longtime EDF component customer and the largest buyer of high-performance French-made Arabelle steam turbines used in both Rosatom and EDF -Nuclear power plants can be found.
Despite the war, France has done business as usual with Russia in nuclear energy, which has remained exempt from European Union sanctions. Mr Macron backed a deal for EDF to acquire the Arabelle turbine business in February, valued at £1.1bn.
EDF is now targeting a lower rating on the deal amid fears Rosatom’s business could falter after Finland canceled Rosatom contracts for new nuclear power plants last month. Should Rosatom face further cancellations or construction delays in other countries, EDF could face a slump in turbine orders and new losses.
For the French nuclear industry to recover, the best thing to do is stick with the plan to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants, JPMorgan Chase said in a recent analysis.
“If anything, the current crisis makes this project and the ambition to reregulate or nationalize EDF’s nuclear fleet more legitimate than ever – for France and its European partners,” the bank said.
Adèle Cordonnier contributed to the coverage.