Once upon a time, in Belgium, there was a strange fairy tale: a “nuclear fairy tale”. At least these are the words displayed on the banners displayed by environmental demonstrators, who tried to delay the holding of the summit dedicated to nuclear energy organized in Brussels, Thursday March 21.

Around thirty states, including China, the United States, Brazil and France, met there with a view to accelerating the development of civil nuclear power in a coordinated manner. For supporters of this energy, like French President Emmanuel Macron, nuclear power is good news for the planet. 

And this for a simple reason: nuclear power plants do not emit CO2 to produce electricity. Massively developing this energy would therefore make it possible to effectively fight against climate change.

“All over the world, nuclear power is making a comeback [due to the] need to fight climate change, for energy security after the invasion of Ukraine, to produce electricity without interruption,” summarized the director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol.

“We will have no chance of achieving our climate objectives on time without the support of nuclear power” alongside renewables, he insisted.

The climate, the new “alibi” of pro-nuclear people?

The climate is used by pro-nuclear governments and lobbies as an alibi to improve the image of this industry,” sighs Greenpeace activist Lorelei Limousin.

From 8 a.m., the young woman joined the demonstrators gathered to disrupt the summit, at the gates of the Atomium. “Faced with climate change, nuclear power is a problem, not a solution,” says the activist. 

A Greenpeace activist campaigning against the Nuclear Energy Summit of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at the Brussels Expo convention center, in Brussels on March 21, 2024. On his sign, in English: “conte nuclear fairy » AFP - KENZO TRIBOUILLARD

“Recent, this interference of the climate at the heart of pro-nuclear advocacy dates from the Paris agreements [of December 2015],” comments Cyrille Cormier, an engineer specializing in the energy transition.

“Nuclear in the name of the planet”: the argument of the Brussels summit comes in the wake of the COP-28 on the climate, in November 2023. Around twenty countries called for tripling nuclear capacities in the world by 2050.

Nuclear power lags behind the climate emergency

Today, nuclear energy programs only survive by invoking the climate argument, believes Cyrille Cormier. Because according to him, the reactors used to produce nuclear energy have, on a strictly economic level, an Achilles heel: they are expensive to deploy.

Thus, the construction of six new reactors, announced by Emmanuel Macron in February 2002, will cost some 51.7 billion euros. The work will be spread over 25 years, with a deadline of 2050.

Much too late, climatologists point out. The International Energy Agency has set 2035 as the date by which European countries should decarbonize their electricity sectors to align with the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target. 

“Nuclear infrastructures cannot be built within a satisfactory time frame,” summarizes Cyrille Cormier. 

An energy source weakened by climate change

?

Too slow to deploy, nuclear energy raises another type of environmental concern. Accidents like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima prove that nuclear energy is not "reasonable", say its detractors.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 put an end to the enthusiasm for nuclear power, conceded, on the set of France 24, Myrto Tripathi, president of the NGO Voix du Nucléaire.

Lessons from the past have been learned, in short, invoked by nuclear players such as EDF or the International Energy Agency. They emphasize that the new reactors are designed with higher safety standards.

Since these nuclear tragedies, however, the risk has also increased significantly, precisely because of climate change. In a country like France, nuclear installations are completely dependent on water to cool the reactors. “How can we not feel any apprehension in the face of the growing number of already dry rivers in France?”, Johny Da Silva, thermal engineer, previously asked.

According to the French geological and mining research office, the average annual flow of rivers in mainland France could drop by 10% to 40% by 2050. A more worrying prospect in summer, when the level of rivers would drop up to at 60%.

“Clean” energy tomorrow that encourages the “dirtier” ones today

An energy recognized as “green” by the European Parliament in November 2023, nuclear energy encourages the production of fossil fuels in the short term, explains Cyrille Cormier. As around fifteen years separate the decision to build nuclear infrastructures and their commissioning, nuclear power encourages the giants of "dirty" energy to continue to produce it "in the meantime", and arguing that the nuclear option will “later” provide a solution to climate concerns.

This is the path taken by many countries such as Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, adds Cyrille Cormier. 

Dating largely from the 1970s and 1980s, the French nuclear fleet is aging. “It is therefore likely that the investments made today will only serve to replace existing reactors,” predicts the engineer. In this hypothesis, they will therefore not make it possible to replace polluting energy sources.

“But the renewable energy industry is now expanding so quickly and at such low costs that it can replace the electricity produced by a nuclear power plant in just a year.” 

Renewable hopes 

On a European scale, renewable industries reached a historic milestone in 2002: wind and sun provided 23% of the European Union's total electricity production. 

Also readRenewable energies: the boom in the EU since the invasion of Ukraine, miracle or mirage?

A transition driven in particular by Germany. According to the German Ministry of the Economy, 12 gigawatts (GW) of solar installations will be added across the Rhine in 2023. "This roughly corresponds to the productive capacities of two nuclear reactors. By adopting the German pace, the economy French would therefore be able to replace two [of its 56] nuclear reactors per year", calculates the engineer. 

The argument of the nuclear artisans consists of betting on an energy which will be “supposedly formidable in the future”, summarizes Cyrille Cormier, before concluding: “Why not instead solve the climate problem with solutions – renewable – which work from today ?"

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