> nuclear generation is a money pit - French government had to bail out EDF at the start of this year - taking on 65B euro of debt.
Power generation is a money pit period. California has to constantly bail out PG&E here too because of all the lawsuits about fires & I see this happen frequently all over the world. Pretending like large scale power generation isn't a substantial government problem and the free market can solve it by itself AFAICT is a complete pipe dream. Hell in California there's a massive fight now because California is having to alter the rules to support grid solar installations by making roof top solar less attractive & this is a common problem facing all grid operators. And honestly, 65B euro is a pittance to have such a major reduction in fossil fuels for the year. Think about it this way - would you add a $300B line item to the US budget to bail out nuclear if it meant that only 10% of grid energy would be generated by fossil fuels? Like that seems like a laughably small number. France has 56 nuclear reactors and the US has 96 spread across 60 plants despite being 5x the size. In France, fossil fuels have seen 0 growth in terms of TWh produced since the 80s & in fact a small dip. Nowhere else in the world is that true including Germany which invested in renewables early & by a lot.
There's been a recovery this year but that recovery has faltered last month with about a 15% unexpected fall in output.
Whenever France is hit by a heatwave, nuclear output drops significantly - the water of the rivers used for cooling/condensing becomes too warm to operate plants at full capacity safely.
And even with effective monopoly advantage, nuclear generation is a money pit - French government had to bail out EDF at the start of this year - taking on 65B euro of debt.