PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday said France would go ahead with a controversial project to build a 60th next-generation nuclear reactor in Penly, in northwest France.
While the Fukushima catastrophe in March has fuelled speculation France would give up its plans to build the reactor, the government has repeatedly denied the project had been ditched.
Sarkozy first announced the project in 2009 but many energy experts have said the reactor was unnecessary as France, which already operates 58 reactors, needs electricity plants which can be turned on and off easily to respond to peak demand.
A 59th reactor is currently under construction in Flamanville in northwestern France in a project hit by delays and cost overruns.
"We maintain the project to build a reactor in Penly," Sarkozy said during a news conference in Pierrelatte, near the Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France.
"Launching new projects in France is an essential condition to sell our know-how abroad," he said.
"Someone will have to explain to me how we will tell the Indians and Chinese to buy French reactors after having shut 24 reactors."
With a presidential election looming in April 2012 and legislative elections shortly afterwards, the Socialist Party and the Greens struck a deal last week on positions covering a range of policies, including nuclear energy.
This includes shutting the country's 24 oldest reactors by 2025 and not building new reactors, which marks a U-turn in socialist ideology.
Socialist president Francois Mitterrand deployed the French nuclear energy programme in the 1980s and early 1990s to boost France's energy independence.
State-owned utility EDF delayed by a few months public consultations necessary to give the go-ahead for construction of Penly due to safety tests carried out after the Fukushima disaster.
Penly, which would be France’s second new-generation reactor after the one being built in Flamanville, was originally due for construction from 2012 and set to start production from 2017?
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.