Nuclear: will we run out of electricity in the coming months?

Maud Descamps, edited by Laura Laplaud 11:45 a.m., January 20, 2022

Will we run out of electricity in the coming months?

The question seems more and more inevitable.

The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the policeman for the safety of our power stations, believes that our electrical system suffers from great fragility.

While EDF must review all of its nuclear fleet to ensure that there is no corrosion problem - as has been detected on the four largest reactors in the fleet - the ASN underlines that it will always give priority to security over the supply of electricity.

Could this defect concern other reactors?

EDF still has a few weeks to submit to ASN its battle plan to appraise all of its nuclear reactors.

A work that could take many months because the equipment available to carry out this analysis is limited, according to information from Europe 1. The shutdown of certain reactors could therefore be further extended. 

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If some reactors currently in operation were at risk, ASN would not hesitate to order their shutdowns whatever the consequences for the electricity supply, insists its President Bernard Doroszczuk.

"The mission of ASN was created for this, to make a decision independent of the government and the operator, when serious problems arise for safety," he says.

A solution: produce more electricity

"If it turned out, in light of investigations that are ongoing, there are serious and imminent problems for reactor safety, it would be our responsibility to say and ask the shutdown of these reactors", he confirms.

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The nuclear safety authority therefore warns of the need to produce more electricity in order to avoid any supply problems in the event of an unforeseen event.

"We need a Marshall plan to build new reactors", we estimate at the nuclear policeman.