France - Nuclear Energy
Due to a long-standing policy that dates back to ex-president Charles de Gaulle, France derives about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, more than any other country. In February 2022, President Emmanuel Macron announced a plan to build six new reactors and to possibly build another eight by 2050. In addition, a next-generation European Pressurized Reactor, Flamanville Unit 3, has been under construction since 2007, and EDF expects it to start operations in 2024. The planned expansion of nuclear power in France is in sharp contrast to four of its neighbors—Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland—which plan to close all of their reactors by 2030 or sooner.
France is also the world's largest net exporter of nuclear energy, bringing in more than €3 billion per year. A reliance on diverse sources is a cornerstone of the energy security strategy of state-owned Électricité de France (EDF), designed to ensure it is able to withstand large shocks to the market – such as an unexpected export ban on Nigerien uranium. “France is not dependent on any one site, company or country to ensure the security of supply for its power plants,” an anonymous government official told Politico on 31 July 2023.
France has one of the largest nuclear power programs in the world. Nuclear power plants in France generated 361 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2021, accounting for 68% of the country’s annual electricity generation, the highest nuclear generation share in the world. France has 56 operable nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 61 gigawatts (GW), second only to the 95 GW nuclear fleet in the United States. Nuclear plants accounted for 19% of U.S. electricity generation in 2021.
Although France’s first commercial nuclear reactor came online in the 1960s, the country began the large-scale plan to build its nuclear power fleet in the mid-1970s, following the 1973 oil crisis. At the time of the oil crisis, oil-burning power plants generated a significant share of France’s electricity.
France has few fossil fuel resources—coal, oil, or natural gas—of its own. To increase domestic energy supply and reduce reliance on imports, which could result in price shocks like during the oil crisis, it turned to nuclear power. Between 1975 and 1990, 52 new nuclear reactors were built and connected to France’s power grid.
Expanding the country’s nuclear fleet shifted France from an electricity importer to an electricity exporter. France has typically been the largest net electricity exporter in Europe, sending electricity to countries across the continent. France’s nuclear generation and electricity exports have recently become even more important to Europe, as it adjusts to severely reduced natural gas imports from Russia.
The July 2023 coup in Niger prompted concerns the West African country could curtail uranium exports, possibly hamstringing nuclear power production in France and beyond. But source diversification and well-stocked inventories should be able to mitigate any disruptions in the short term.
The July 2023 military coup in Niger – and unconfirmed reports that the West African country intended to suspend uranium supplies to France – raised questions over what role the industry should play in France’s future. The reports led some opposition politicians in France to question the role of nuclear power in France’s energy portfolio, notably given French President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated calls for “energy independence”. “Niger supplies France with the uranium it needs for its nuclear power plants … Reminder: nuclear power does not make for energy independence,” said Sandrine Rousseau, a left-wing Green politician on X (formerly Twitter) July 29. Niger maintained a market share of between 4 and 6 percent of the global uranium trade for the past decade, according to the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). But despite its modest share of the market, Niger supplied France with around 18 percent of its uranium between 2005 and 2020. France’s largest suppliers, Kazakhstan and Australia, provided 20 and 19 percent, respectively, while Uzbekistan’s supplies have been on the increase in recent years.
The EU’s nuclear agency Euratom – which gets one-quarter of its uranium from Niger – said it was not worried about the coup affecting nuclear power production. "If imports from Niger are being cut, there are no immediate risks to the security of nuclear power production in the short term," Euratom told Reuters. The European Commission said the 27-nation bloc had "sufficient inventories of uranium to mitigate any short-term supply risks".
Another factor that will help mitigate any fluctuations are the relatively low fuel cycle costs (including for uranium, uranium enrichment, conversion and fuel fabrication) of generating nuclear power. The NEA estimates uranium to count for only about 6 percent of the cost of nuclear energy – a figure overshadowed by the 59 percent in investment costs and 25 percent in operation and maintenance costs.
The possible suspension of uranium supplies to France also raises questions about whether Niger could effectively replace French demand without seeing a sharp economic decline itself – 33 percent of Nigerien exports go to France, almost all of which are radioactive fuel. How much Niger – which despite vast uranium reserves remains radically underdeveloped – gets out of its relationship with France has been a point of contention since the country gained formal independence in 1960. Successive Nigerien presidents demanded more from Orano (formerly Areva), one of France's state-controlled nuclear fuel producers, in terms of safety assurances for Nigerien employees and higher prices for uranium. Today, almost all of Orano’s employees in Niger are recruited locally but the company still has a majority share in Niger’s state-owned uranium treatment company, Somaïr. Despite the volatile situation, Orano told FRANCE 24 it was continuing to operate in Niger and says it is monitoring the situation.
In the late 1950s, large deposits of uranium and gold were explored. In particular, the ore fields near the settlement of Azelik were of interest to the world's nuclear power industry, which was gaining momentum. Industrial uranium mining in this region began in 1971, although Niger had already formally gained independence by that time. For half a century, about two thousand tons of uranium-bearing ore have been rising from the desert depths every year, which puts Niger on the seventh line of the world ranking.
Two companies, SOMAÏR and COMINAK, are carrying out practical research on the spot, all of whose products are used for centrifuges of the Orano holding. Three fields worked hard for many years without days off or holidays. The first is the SOMAÏR open pit mine, where 63 percent of the assets are owned by France's Orano and 37 percent by Sopamin, which is run by the government of Niger. Mining here is carried out in an open way, using the heap leaching method, for which a three percent solution of sulfuric acid is used. On average, about two and a half tons of a fuel element are mined here annually, and in total about 70 thousand tons of uranium have already been mined.
The second is the COMINAK uranium mine, where Orano owns 59 percent of the shares (in 2021 it bought a 25 percent stake from the Japanese company OURD), 31 percent belongs to the local Sopamin, and the remaining ten percent belongs to the Spanish company Enusa. In 2019, active mining was stopped here, The Cominak mine closed in March 2021 after a 50-year life. At the moment, thanks to the development of technologies, the re-development and additional enrichment of ore from dumps is already underway.
And between the settlements of Arlit and Agadez is the Imouraren field, where the same Orano owned 66 percent of the shares. It is not being developed, since until today the French nuclear industry has had enough of the two previous mines. But here you need to understand a number of facts. Imouraren is only a quarry field with an area of more than two hundred square kilometers with proven uranium reserves in the amount of 174 thousand tons of concentrate and a life of at least 35 years of continuous mining cycle.
Beyond the three Areva mines, by 2017 several other uranium deposits were under exploration. In February 2016, the GON issued a mining permit to Canadian firm Goviex to begin operations at the Madouela I deposit in the Arlit region of the Air Massif. Production was expected to begin in 2017 or 2018, and is expected to yield 975 metric tons of uranium per year over a period of 18 years. A second Canadian firm, Global Atomics Fuel, was reported to be developing four separate uranium deposits, the largest of which is at Dasa, located halfway between Arlit and Agadez and about 30 kilometers southeast of Imouraren. The company expects to apply for a mining license in 2018.
Global Atomic Corporation (GAC), through its wholly owned subsidiary company, Global Atomic Fuels Corporation (GAFC), owns an 80% interest in Société Minière Dasa SA (SOMIDA), a Nigerien Company in which the Government of Niger owns a 20% interest. SOMIDA is building the Dasa underground uranium mine in the Agadez region of Niger (the Project). The Dasa Mine is scheduled to begin commercial production in early 2025. The Dasa underground mine will be accessed via a single decline ramp developed from surface. Mining will proceed in blocks, working upwards from access drives from the decline ramp, with pillars left between blocks for stability. The mined out voids will then be backfilled, allowing these temporary pillars to be removed.
Uranium from Africa had long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2002, George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” (later specified as the infamous “yellowcake from Niger”). Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. Yet that did not admit Niger, or any of Africa’s other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of “nuclear states.” Nor did it mean that uranium itself counted as a “nuclear” thing.
Gabrielle Hecht noted that in 1957, uranium ore was nuclear enough to give apartheid South Africa, a major supplier of the US and the UK in the early Cold War, a central role in the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A decade later, the nuclear industry in the West found that creating markets for reactors – and for uranium itself – would be better served if uranium ore lost its status as “nuclear material,” so that yellowcake (the processed form of uranium ore) could be bought and sold without undergoing the international inspections and safeguards that governed the transfer of other nuclear technologies.
In the 1970s, one consequence of this denuclearization was that France could counter Niger’s attempt to price its yellowcake as an exceptional nuclear material by arguing that on the contrary, uranium had to be treated and priced like any other market commodity. This framework enabled France to obtained Nigérien uranium at low prices. But it also enabled Niger to sell uranium to Libya, Pakistan and Iraq in the 1970s.
On March 11, 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency stated that it did not dispute the International Atomic Energy Agency conclusions that the documents on Iraq's agreement to buy uranium from Niger were not authentic. Yellowcake from Niger may not have gone to Iraq in 2002, but chances are overwhelming that it did end up in the first Pakistani bomb, and that it would have ended up in a Libyan bomb had Qaddafi managed to have one built. As Gabrielle Hecht noted, divesting uranium of nuclearity was risky business.
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