The Fukushima disaster did not get the better of nuclear power, which still represents around 10% of electricity production worldwide.

Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.

Ten years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, some countries have decided to phase out nuclear power.

But globally, the atom remains a major source of energy.

Ten years after Fukushima, it's as if the disaster hadn't changed anything.

Nuclear power still represents around 10% of electricity production worldwide, and that has not changed.

The installed capacity is at the same level as at the time.

There was of course a halt in certain countries, notably in Japan and in Germany, which had decided to phase out nuclear power before the Fukushima disaster.

In France, this undoubtedly contributed to forcing the decision to shut down the Fessenheim reactors, which could very well have continued to operate for at least ten more years.

But elsewhere in the world, nuclear power has continued to develop, particularly in China, which today has 50 reactors in operation, almost as many as in France, where we have 56.

In fact, it is less the Fukushima disaster than the evolution of technology that is upsetting the outlook for the future of nuclear power.

It was thought that the catastrophe would discredit the atom.

In reality, it is technical progress that changes the game.

What has really changed everything over the past decade is the collapse in the cost of renewables.

Wind power and solar power have fallen by 70% and 90% in ten years, while the cost of nuclear power has increased by 33%, in particular because of stricter safety standards.

The real change since Fukushima is that renewables have become much more profitable: no one expected such rapid progress in a few years.

Like what, we must never underestimate the dynamics of progress and human genius.

The boom in renewables is even strengthening the interest in nuclear power.

Exactly!

The more renewable develops, the more we need a stable source of energy to compensate for the intermittent nature of wind and solar.

However, there are no other sources that do not emit CO2 other than nuclear power.

The only way to develop renewable energy on a large scale, if we want to aim for zero CO2 emissions, is to combine it with nuclear power.

Moreover, the most progressive environmentalists, very rare in France but numerous elsewhere and in particular in Northern Europe, recognize it: the Finnish Green Party, for example, has just said that it was for there to be nuclear power. in the country's "energy mix" precisely in order to fill the gaps in renewable energy.

Ten years after Fukushima, nuclear power thus finds a new vocation in the service of the environment.