France's Nuclear Renaissance Strategy in the Compound Climate-Energy Crisis Context:Pathways,Impacts and Challenges
Energy security has become a priority in the European Union's energy policy in the wake of the frequent extreme weather e-vents coupled with the supply-demand imbalance after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.Emmanuel Macron,the president of France and the European leader in civil nuclear energy,is restarting construction on nuclear power plants within the framework of his"nuclear renaissance"strategy to strengthen autonomous power supply capacity and enhance energy security,while contributing to the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.Through institutional reforms,policy adjustments,legislative guarantees,financial investments and technological innovations,France is promoting the orderly implementation of the nuclear energy renaissance programme,demonstrating its firm determination to be a"front-runner"in the revival of nuclear energy.This has compounding effects on energy geopolitics,for instance,the weakened prospect of a high proportion of renewable energy due to France's nuclear policy,the hampered pace of EU en-ergy integration owing to Franco-German disagreements around nuclear energy,France's aspiration to play a leading regional role in the EU's strategy for hydrogen production from nuclear energy and to accelerate nuclear energy diplomacy for the purpose of building region-al nuclear alliances and global nuclear energy partnerships.However,the strategy still faces multiple challenges in its implementation,including the problems of ageing,corrosion and inefficient routine inspections of current nuclear reactors,policy uncertainty caused by domestic divisions that are not conducive to the long-term development of nuclear talents,the need to improve the capacity for climate-resilient safety governance of nuclear facilities in the face of the climate crisis,and the risks to the supply chain posed by the external dependence on critical minerals for French nuclear energy.
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