Closure of Fessenheim: everyone loses!

This is the epilogue of a long story: the State will pay 377 million euros to compensate EDF for the closure of the two reactors at the Fessenheim nuclear power plant.

The National Assembly will examine this Tuesday an amending budget in which indeed appears a line of credit intended to compensate EDF for the forced closure of Fessenheim.

Almost 400 million euros all the same.

We touch very concretely the absurdity of a situation where everyone loses.

Since September, France has relighted four coal-fired power stations that emit a lot of CO2 to partially compensate for the shutdown at Fessenheim and the lack of wind for the wind turbines.

Also since September, because of the Fessenheim shutdown, EDF has had to import gas and coal-fired electricity into Germany at a very high cost.

Does everyone lose?

EDF loses because the compensation paid to it is low if we consider that the Fessenheim reactors could still have been running until 2041 and that it was amortized equipment and in perfect working order.

The state budget, and therefore the taxpayer, obviously loses at a time, in the midst of the crisis, when we would do better to use this money elsewhere.

Our foreign trade is losing because we import coal and gas that we could have avoided burning in our power stations.

And the planet is losing because we emit more CO2.

All this for purely political, ideological reasons.

And this absurd situation is not about to end since the multiannual energy law provides for the closure of 14 other nuclear reactors in the coming years, 14 reactors depreciated, in working order.

Additional absurdity: these reactors would have been even more useful in the future due to the rise of renewable energies because the more renewable there is, the more we need a regular production of electricity which does not depend on the conditions weather, wind or sun.

It is the dilemma of Germany which decided to exit nuclear power and develop renewable energy.

They will stop nuclear power in 2022. But renewable energy cannot replace it.

Suddenly, in May they opened a huge coal-fired power station in Datteln, in the northwest: 1,100 megawatts.

The Fessenheim reactors were 900 megawatts each to give you an idea.

This German plant will replace the nuclear power station.

You should know that a power plant of this power used half a year emits five million tonnes of CO2, more than all French domestic air transport in one year.

The same people who attack the plane say amen to coal!

Clearly, the world of politics is not always rational.