The Nuclear Question Europe Keeps Avoiding
France has built its energy security on nuclear power. The rest of Europe has spent a decade trying to decide whether to follow.
France operates 56 nuclear reactors and generates roughly 70% of its electricity from them. Its electricity prices are structurally lower than its neighbours. Its carbon intensity is among the lowest in Europe. Its energy security does not depend on LNG tanker schedules or Central Asian pipeline politics. This is not a coincidence; it is a choice made in the 1970s and maintained through successive governments of both left and right.
The German choice was different. The Energiewende — the energy transition — was premised on the idea that renewables could provide both the climate solution and the energy security solution simultaneously. The gas crisis of 2022 exposed the limits of that premise. Germany's industrial sector is still paying the price.