The form and substance. It is on both fronts that the main environmental protection organizations attacked the first version of the bill to speed up the construction of new nuclear reactors, which was submitted to them for consultation. Only a few hours after having presented in the Council of Ministers, Monday, September 26, a legislative text intended to go “twice as fast” in the deployment of renewable energies, the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, has indeed unveiled her nuclear “counterpart”, a bill this time aimed at facilitating the commissioning of future EPR 2 reactors.
One way for the government to insist on the fact that its strategy for producing much more low-carbon electricity is indeed based on two pillars, offshore wind power and photovoltaics on the one hand, and the atom the other. “I will introduce a bill which will make it possible to accelerate the construction of new reactors, on sites [de centrales nucléaires] already existing, to keep to the schedule », explained Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Tuesday. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced, during his speech in Belfort, in February, his desire to launch the construction of six new reactors, or even fourteen.
The first EPR 2 should see the light of day on the site of Penly (Seine-Maritime), which already has two units in operation, and the government hopes to be able to start the work before the end of the five-year period in 2027, for a commissioning planned for the better in 2035, or even in 2037. To achieve this, the draft law, made up of ten articles, provides for the simplification of administrative procedures relating, for example, to town planning law or the process of derogation from the principle of prohibition of destruction of protected species.
Deadlines too short
“These Sites”where new reactors will be installed, “we already know them from an environmental point of view, from a preventive archeology point of view, they are already artificialized, so we can go faster on the administrative investigation phases”, justified the minister. The text also proposes that any disputes concerning these projects be handled in the first and last resort by the Council of State. It also recommends simplifying the review procedure for reactors already in operation for more than 35 years.
On the form, it is the question of the time allowed for the consultation which arouses the anger of the NGOs, the National Council for Ecological Transition (CNTE) – which brings together associations but also unions of employees and employers, local authorities and parliamentarians – being called upon to decide on the text from 5 October. For the Climate Action Network, the government is taking action “in haste by reducing environmental dialogue to nothing”.
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