Renewables will continue to be a force and work around the edges. Too much on the line to shut down nuclear for France. It will get subsidized and it provides energy independence. Potentially but not certain future where other people are also purchasing nuclear assets which pushes down maintenance / manufacturing costs. Risk is that China deploys globally and is the operator. France isn't known for high quality - reasonably costed items - fast time line products.
As well - unspoken part of renewable is in case of a security incident in Europe (see Russia) - nuclear is much more stable work load then solar (could easily scatter bomb solar assets). I know that sounds unintuitive given peoples concern about Nuclear - but there is a such a common good to protect nuclear assets due to fallout where solar assets are localized.
Germany de-carbonization path (shutting down their nuclear plants) was a massive mistake and have seriously hindered their economic long run competitiveness. Its been a black eye for them.
If the goal is energy independence, renewables will provide that more cheaply. If the goals are the other side effects of nuclear power: isotopes, national pride (Curie!), workforce augmentation for nuclear submarines and nuclear weapons, then these goals also require far fewer reactors than enough to power the entire country.
I do not doubt that there may be some level of nuclear power in the future. But I would take a long bet that in 2050, France is closer to 0% nuclear power than it is to the current level. (That phrasing is confusing, but I think the fraction of nuclear power will be less than half its current amount)
Maybe, but I think the corollary goal is to have nuclear power be a bigger part of the remaining non-renewables. So if (exaggerating grossly) it's 90% renewable, 9% nuclear, and 1% other, that's arguably still better than the current state.
The only cheap renewable infrastructure comes from an enemy country and PV solar panels start degrading the moment you install them.
If you think "energy independence" means "be completely and utterly dependent on Chinese manufacturing" then sure, solar and wind offer a quick path to that.
But that's not what the term means, it means "don't need to depend on any other country to keep the lights on". And for Western countries nuclear is really the only option there, whether you like it or not.
If you think nuclear is too expensive, just wait until you see the bill for the the continual refusal to develop indigenous electric capability the minute things start going sideways.
This is false on both counts. The US is (was?) making panels that were only about $0.18/W more expensive than the cheapest panels. India is also standing up quite a bit of manufacturing. France could also make their own panels, Germany had some experience with that too...
Also, panels last 30 years, there's no continuous fueling like there is with fossil fuels and nuclear.
> If you think "energy independence" means "be completely and utterly dependent on Chinese manufacturing" then sure, solar and wind offer a quick path to that.
The idea that using solar somehow makes us in any way dependent on China is so ludicrous that I'm amazed you type it out! Please try to justify that in any way. More nuclear in the US would make us more dependent on Russia than a 100% solar electricity system could ever make us dependent on China.
> If you think nuclear is too expensive, just wait until you see the bill for the the continual refusal to develop indigenous electric capability the minute things start going sideways.
First, actually look at the numbers. Nuclear is more expensive. Second, look at where the US is getting its nuclear fuel as late as 2024, Russia, accounting for a large part of our trade with a country that we're not supposed to be trading with at all:
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64444
And Russia is far more hostile to the US on all fronts that China is.
We have solar panel manufacturing capacity in the US, we can build it on our own for cheap enough to replace all our dependence on global fossil fuel markets and their volatility, and yet people are for some reason fabricating complete fantasies to say that solar and wind are somehow not the most independent of all power generation forms.
The EPR2 costs just keeps spiraling. They haven't even started building yet or been able to agree on how to finance the subsidies.
This is the same France that less than a month ago had another government collapse due to being underwater in debt with a spending problem and being unable to agree on how to fix it.
A massive handout to the nuclear industry sounds like just the right plan!
It is also funny that you mention Russia. You do know that the EU despite 19 sanction packages haven't been able to agree on sanctions for the Russian nuclear industry. We still are too reliant on it.
Germany was able to quickly phase out Russian fossil gas, while france keeps being EUs no. 1 importer of Russian LNG.
But I do love blaming everything on Germany. So much easier.
My own country never wanted nukes and they discovered large deposits of natural gas so that was it. After all nuclear energy was never as cheap as they envisioned in the 1950s.