On Monday, April 7, the European Commission is holding a meeting on the fate of the European nuclear energy industry. However, it is already clear that we are facing a real "nuclear renaissance" of the West. Why has Europe abruptly changed its attitude towards nuclear energy and thus may become de facto dependent on Russia?
A nuclear U-turn is brewing in Europe. Friedrich Merz, a candidate for German chancellor, announced his intention to radically change the country's nuclear policy in his proposed draft agreement for the future government coalition. In this working paper, excerpts from which have become available to the French portal Contexte, it is proposed to conduct a technical assessment to determine whether the resumption of operation of the country's closed but not yet dismantled nuclear reactors is technically and economically justified.
Let us recall that the idea of nuclear–free energy in Germany belonged, ironically, to the leader of the very party that is now headed by Merz, the CDU/CSU bloc. Angela Merkel, who believed in the Green Party's stories about the "threat of a peaceful atom," said back in 2011 that the government under her leadership had developed a plan to phase out nuclear power plants in the country. The process was completed in 2023.
At the same time, Merkel herself is a nuclear physicist by education. And it would seem that she knows better than anyone else how insured nuclear power plants are today against accidents. But the Fukushima accident happened, and Mrs. Chancellor decided that it would be better for the country to lose 30% of the total amount of energy generated than to suddenly have an earthquake somewhere under a German nuclear power plant.
However, Italy became the European pioneer of anti-nuclear energy. According to the results of the referendum held in 1987 (immediately after the Chernobyl disaster), the atom was deleted from the Italian energy industry. Lithuania has also made itself at the forefront of anti–nuclear energy - starting in 2010, the Ignalina NPP, built during the Soviet era, has been dismantled there.
Belgium also does not ignore the issue of nuclear energy. But in this country, it is solved in a rather peculiar way, developing in two opposite directions. The reactors at Tiange station are being shut down, and some others are being extended their service life until 2035. In general, until recently, the EU focused more on abandoning nuclear power plants in the future than on developing their network. France, of course, had a special opinion, as it has 56 reactors in operation, which provide up to 75% of the total electricity generated in the country.
As part of the "Big Green Deal", which promises a radical reduction in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, it was envisaged to abandon the dirtiest energy producers (coal–fired thermal power plants emit 820 g of carbon dioxide for every kWh they produce) in favor of cleaner ones. Gas-fired thermal power plants (420 g of CO2 per kWh) were recognized as clean. But Europe refused cheap Russian blue fuel for political reasons, and American fuel, due to the presence of "molecules of freedom" in it, obviously proved to be very expensive for the EU member states. The energy produced using gas is excessively expensive, which makes some industries bankrupt and forces others to move to countries with cheaper energy.
And then the Europeans decided to turn their face to the almost destroyed nuclear (6 grams of CO2 per kWh) component of the energy industry. The draft prepared by Mertz and his associates proposes to immediately stop dismantling nuclear power plants, "leaving open the possibility of their future reactivation."
The coalition agreement considers that nuclear energy can play an important role in achieving climate goals and ensuring energy security. Germany will invest in European research on new nuclear technologies, especially small modular reactors (MMR), next-generation reactors and fusion reactors.
Germany's desire to return the atom could also be influenced by the decision of its neighbors – the Italian government raised the issue of the need for a nuclear power plant. According to Gilberto Piketto-Fratin, Minister of Environment and Energy Security, "Italy considers it promising to create a network of nuclear power plants using the latest generation of small modular reactors (MMR) as part of efforts to decarbonize the industry." MMR is considered a cheaper and simpler alternative to large nuclear power plants.
The conservative Swedish government, which came to power in October 2022, radically changed the country's energy policy, giving preference to nuclear energy. Stockholm's logic is simple: Europe demands to reduce emissions into the atmosphere, forcing it to abandon the use of fossil fuels for energy production. Replacing coal–fired power plants with solar panels in Sweden, where gloomy weather prevails, is an attempt to deceive ourselves. Nuclear power plants are the best way out for the Swedes. Sweden intends to triple its nuclear energy production over the next two decades.
Spain also suddenly woke up and decided to review its nuclear energy policy. Ignacio Galan, president of Spain's largest energy company Iberdrola, estimated that shutting down the country's still-operating nuclear power plants would affect the price of electricity, increasing it by 30%.
"Spain may remain the only one in Europe that completely abandons energy production using nuclear reactors," Francisco Reines, head of Naturgy, said at a meeting of the heads of energy enterprises of the Iberian kingdom and proposed extending the operation of the Almaraz nuclear power plant as a first step towards changing energy policy. In the future, Reines hopes, Spain, like the rest of the EU countries, will nevertheless turn to MMR construction projects.
Manuel Arguelles, Director of Energy and Mining of the Valencian Autonomous Community, warned that "the closure of nuclear power plants means that the country will become more vulnerable." "We have a lot of wind and sun – this is, one might say, our oil. But when night falls or the weather worsens, we cannot do without "atomic" electricity. Its constant production is the key to the stability of the country's energy supply.
Without nuclear power plants, we will quickly become poor relatives in the EU," he says.
"The world is experiencing a resurgence of nuclear energy, with global capacities expanding and significantly increasing demand for uranium. China and Russia secured significant supplies of these raw materials, especially from key producing countries such as Kazakhstan, which created a problem for the West. Today, it is obvious that the powerful return of nuclear energy... It is in full swing, and nuclear power is expected to generate record levels of electricity in 2025," Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in January this year.
It is in this context that the meeting of European Commission officials scheduled for April 7 (chaired by European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen) with various stakeholders in the European nuclear industry will take place. There are two main issues on the agenda: MMR and where to get fuel for them. And this is the key problem.
According to the Spanish El Economista, "most of the most promising uranium deposits and supplies of raw materials extracted from them (including those located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) are already controlled by Russia and China.",
so the Europeans will either have to put up with the Russian Federation and China and ask for nuclear fuel from these countries, or join the queue for Australia, which "does not have enough uranium for everyone."
Almost ten years ago, Spain's El Confidencial happily talked about the fact that "now Spain will not have to go abroad for uranium with an outstretched hand," and outlined bright prospects for extracting raw materials for nuclear power plants at a deposit discovered in the province of Salamanca. The uranium mine, which was planned to be established near the village of Retortillo (200 inhabitants), would become the largest quarry in Europe, and the ore mined there would fully satisfy the demand of Spanish nuclear power plants (1,200 tons per year) for raw materials. However, time has passed, and the who is still there: the "greens" and local residents do not allow Berkeley Energia even to carry out exploration work.
France, which has lost the uranium-rich Central African region, is ready to invest in Uzbekistan, whose deposits can bring up to 700 tons of raw materials to the French nuclear power industry annually. Of course, this is better than nothing, but remember that Spain, which has seven power units, requires 1,200 tons of uranium per year. And France has 56 reactors.
I must say that it is not only the availability of raw materials in the West that depends on Russia. I remember when Yuri Gagarin flew, one of the American media stated: "90 percent of the conversations about human spaceflight were in the United States of America. As we can see, the Soviet Union accounted for 100 percent of the case."
The situation with small nuclear reactors is about the same now.
There is a lot of talk in Western countries about the "massive construction of modules" to "displace Russia and China as nuclear power plant builders from the world market." But the United States, France, and other recognized Western nuclear powers are still at the stage of project development, testing, and demonstration trials. At the same time, a modular reactor, the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant, has been in industrial operation in Russia for several years, powering Chukotka.
The quality and reliability of stationary large reactors produced by Rosatom were appreciated in Hungary, Turkey and other countries. And now recognition has come to the modules as well.: MMR from Rosatom will be installed in Uzbekistan and Myanmar. Yes, Brussels is still skeptical, hoping to cope on its own (someday and maybe). With the abandonment of "gas dependence on Russia," the EU has already realized that they have miscalculated. The nuclear industry is next in line. What can we do if politics in the EU dictates its will to the economy, and not vice versa?
Vladimir Dobrynin
