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France’s ageing nuclear fleet paints bleak picture for now and future

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France’s ageing nuclear fleet paints bleak picture for now and future

As French President Emmanuel Macron places nuclear vitality on the coronary heart of his nation’s drive in direction of carbon neutrality, others are more and more questioning this concept, given the state of the nation’s nuclear energy crops.

France has the largest variety of nuclear reactors in Europe, 56 in complete, priding itself on being kind of autonomous on the subject of electrical energy manufacturing, with round 70-75% coming from nuclear and all run by state-owned EDF.

However this 12 months, almost half of the nation’s ageing nuclear fleet needed to be shut down on account of corrosion, summer season warmth waves or postponed upkeep, dramatically decreasing electrical output.

In a matter of months, France went from being Europe’s largest electrical energy exporter, to importing greater than it was sending out.

Chatting with Euronews, EDF director Jean-Marie Boursier, defended the necessity to import, in addition to export.

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“There are occasions through the day after we export electrical energy after which there are occasions through the day after we are importing it since you realize that electrical energy can’t be saved,” Boursier mentioned.

“And there should at all times be a steadiness between manufacturing and consumption and subsequently relying on the time of day. Often, we’re exporters of electrical energy to Germany and different nations and infrequently we’re importers. So, it’s a must to steadiness.”

He added that his firm was working as exhausting as potential to restart all its reactors.

“We’re certainly doing our greatest to revive the total energy of our reactors,” the EDF director mentioned. “All my colleagues on the opposite websites are working exhausting day by day, in order that these reactors can return to manufacturing. 

“We’ve shutdowns for upkeep which are scheduled all year long and we needed to face, like the entire planet, the pandemic. 

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“This meant that we needed to postpone a sure variety of [maintenance] stops through the COVID interval, which meant that we took off stops for upkeep. After which we even have just a few reactors which have been shut down for corrosion insurance policies.”

Winter is coming

For France and Europe, the shutdowns couldn’t have come at a worse time.

With winter quick approaching and the vitality markets nonetheless reeling from the warfare in Ukraine, the opportunity of blackouts should not a distant actuality.

France’s vitality minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher mentioned earlier this 12 months that EDF was working wholeheartedly to reopen all its nuclear reactors this winter to be able to keep away from such a state of affairs.

The vitality large EDF, which was nationalised by Macron’s authorities earlier this 12 months, additionally plans to assemble six new reactors on three present websites, with the primary purported to be prepared by round 2035.

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It’s all a part of the French president’s drive to place nuclear vitality on the centre of the nation’s bid to attain carbon neutrality by 2050, one of many European Fee’s flagship commitments of its mandate.

However native activists within the Paluel space in Normandy, the place one energy plant is situated, say the estimated €50 billion to be spent on the brand new reactors could be higher spent on extra sustainable sources of electrical energy.

“The reactors won’t ever be prepared in 2035 or 2037, as introduced – it is a certainty and it is costing us a fortune,” Jean-Paul Desjardins, an area activist in Paluel instructed Euronews. 

“EDF is in deficit and bankrupt. It’s subsequently the State that pays, that’s to say, us, in fact. And with this cash, we may do a lot, rather more when it comes to renewable energies, like photo voltaic, wind energy, and greener transport.”

For Pauline Boyer of Greenpeace, nuclear vitality can also be not the best way ahead.

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“President Macron stubbornly promotes the phantasm of nuclear energy as a local weather resolution, regardless of admitting that no new nuclear energy plant will produce electrical energy earlier than 2040,” Boyer mentioned earlier this 12 months. 

“Polluting, failing, costly and sluggish, nuclear vitality is neither ‘inexperienced’ nor ‘transitional’.”

Combine it up

Many specialists argue that you will need to have a mixture of completely different vitality sources to each meet Europe’s wants and its local weather objectives, one thing Boursier agrees with.

“We’ve to take a look at the issue of worldwide warming, which implies that we’ll progressively transfer from fossil fuels to electrical energies and, in fact, to supply this electrical vitality, it’s crucial to make use of applied sciences that emit little carbon,” the EDF director instructed Euronews.

“And so it’s a must to use low-carbon applied sciences. In these low-carbon applied sciences you have got renewables, photo voltaic, wind, hydraulics, that are of curiosity, after which you have got nuclear, which emits comparatively little carbon since research have proven that over the entire life cycle of a nuclear energy plant, there are six grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour. 

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“And so the answer to battle international warming is to modify to electrical energies and completely no carbon within the environment.”

However with so many reactors presently beneath upkeep and the nation’s new nuclear fleet not due for a few years, most will likely be extra involved with the right here and now, relatively than what’s to come back sooner or later.

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Video: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Claims Victory in U.K. Election

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Video: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Claims Victory in U.K. Election

new video loaded: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Claims Victory in U.K. Election

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Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Claims Victory in U.K. Election

Set to be the next prime minister of the U.K., Keir Starmer swore that his party would work to “restore Britain to the service of working people.”

Four and a half years of work changing the party. This is what it is for, a changed Labour Party, ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people. And across our country, people will be waking up to the news relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation. Together, the values of this changed Labour Party are the guiding principle for a new government. Country first, party second. Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country. Thank you. Thank you.

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Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro indicted by Federal Police in undeclared diamonds case: AP

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Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro indicted by Federal Police in undeclared diamonds case: AP

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was indicted by the country’s Federal Police for alleged money laundering and criminal association in connection with diamonds he allegedly received from Saudi Arabia while he was in office, a source with knowledge of the accusations told The Associated Press.

Reports of the indictment were confirmed by two officials who spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity. However, the crimes of which the Federal Police are accusing the former president have not been disclosed.

BRAZILIAN POLICE INVESTIGATE FORMER PRESIDENT BOLSONARO’S ALLIES OVER ALLEGED ELECTION INTERFERENCE

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly been indicted over his undisclosed receipt of diamonds from Saudi Arabia. (Andressa Anholete/Getty Images)

The Brazilian Supreme Court has yet to receive the police report containing the indictment. Once it does, the document will be reviewed by Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, an appointee of incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – a leftist firebrand and chief political rival to Bolsonaro.

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CONSERVATIVE BRAZILIANS LAUD ELON MUSK AT RALLY IN SUPPORT OF BOLSONARO

Lula da Silva narrowly defeated the right-wing leader in his 2022 re-election bid.

Gonet will then decide whether the allegations against the former president merit criminal charges and a trial.

 

This is the second formal accusation of criminal wrongdoing against the former president, who in March was charged with forging his COVID-19 vaccine records.

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Authorities are also probing his alleged involvement in the incitement of a 2023 uprising in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, which sought to oust the newly-elected Lula from office.

Bolsonaro has denied all wrongdoing. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Iranians return to polls to pick new president amid voter turnout concerns

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Iranians return to polls to pick new president amid voter turnout concerns

Run-off pits centrist Masoud Pezeshkian against hardliner Saeed Jalili in race to succeed Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.

Iranians have returned to the polls for a presidential run-off which pits centrist Masoud Pezeshkian against hardliner Saeed Jalili in the race to succeed Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.

The second round on Friday comes as neither contender secured an outright majority on June 28, with Pezeshkian receiving about 42.5 percent of votes and Jalili some 38.7 percent.

The election is being held against the backdrop of heightened regional tensions over Israel’s war on Gaza, Iran’s dispute with the West over its nuclear programme, growing discontent over the state of an economy crippled by sanctions, and disillusionment following deadly protests in 2022-2023.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, cast his ballot when polling stations opened at 8am (04:30 GMT), state TV showed.

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“It’s a good day to participate in the electoral process,” he said in an address encouraging people to come out and vote.

“Hopefully we will choose the right candidate. At this stage, people should make an extra effort to elect a president by tomorrow.”

Only 40 percent of Iran’s 61 million eligible voters cast their ballot in June, the lowest turnout in any presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said that one of the polls released shortly before the second round of voting showed Pezeshkian likely winning the race, but both sides have predicted victory in the end.

“But some say that surveys leading to last week’s election failed, so today there could be another surprise. Here the major concern really is the turnout.”

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Low turnout

Khamenei said participation was “not as expected” in the first round but that it was not an act “against the system”.

Last week’s vote saw the conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf come in third place with 13.8 percent, while Muslim leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi garnered less than 1 percent.

The election was originally scheduled for 2025 but was brought forward following the death of Raisi.

The rival candidates in the run-off have held two debates where they discussed Iran’s economic woes, international relations, the low voter turnout and internet restrictions.

On Tuesday, Pezeshkian, 69, said people were “fed up with their living conditions … and dissatisfied with the government’s management of affairs”. He has called for “constructive relations” with the United States and European countries in order to “get Iran out of its isolation”.

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Jalili, 58, rallied a substantial base of hardline supporters and received backing from Ghalibaf and two other conservative candidates who dropped out of the race before the first round.

He has insisted that Iran does not need the abandoned nuclear deal with the US and other world powers to make progress.

The 2015 agreement – which Jalili said violated all Iran’s “red lines” by allowing inspections of nuclear sites – had imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief. The accord has been hanging by a thread since 2018 when then-US President Donald Trump withdrew.

Jalili has held several senior positions, including in Khamenei’s office in the early 2000s. He is currently one of Khamenei’s representatives in the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s highest security body.

Regardless of the result, Iran’s next president will be in charge of applying state policy outlined by the supreme leader, who wields ultimate authority in the country.

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Follow live updates on the election here.

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