France bets on small unit reactors

Cathedrals will now have to deal with prefab buildings. After betting everything on giant nuclear power plants, France has decided to participate – along with the new generation of EPRs (European Pressurized Reactors) – in the race for small modular reactors, SMRs (small modular reactors). “The first goal is to bring about the emergence in France by 2030 of innovative small-scale nuclear reactors”, Emmanuel Macron praised, in October, his announcement of an investment of 1 billion euros in nuclear energy, half of which should finance the development of these small and medium enterprises. Finally, rather, SMR, since France has so far only one project called “Nuward”. It was designed by a team between EDF, the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), TechnicAtome and Naval Group, with the goal of starting a demonstrator in 2030 – “Commercially, it will happen later”, Define a specialist.

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Today in “preliminary draft” status, Nuward takes over pressurized water reactor technology, already in 56 French reactors in operation, that uses nuclear fission to produce steam and activate the reactor. Turbine generator for electricity. All in a smaller size, but also less energy – the French project aims to produce 340 megawatts of double SMR, ten times less than renewable energy.