AFTER THE ENERGY CRISIS OF 1974, FRANCE embraced nuclear power as a route to energy independence. Today its 58 operating plants provide more than three-fourths of its electricity at much lower cost than in the United States. France has a single governmentowned utility, Electricité de France, whose nuclear installations were built by a single supplier, Framatome. These were originally standardized in two sizes, at 900 and 1,300 megawatts; recently a new size, 1,450 MW, has been added. In effect, France has built the same three plants over and over.
The contrast with America could not be sharper. The United States has dozens of independent utilities that serve limited regions. Each one works with its own construction firm and architect-engineer. Reactors and plants have been built with a wide range of power ratings, often as custom designs.
After building a few early reactors, the French launched their program in earnest in the mid-1970s, when nuclear development in America and other nations was already well under way. This gave France the benefit of others’ experience in Grafting a system of regulations. The nation has thus maintained a stable regulatory environment, avoiding the turbulence that followed Three Mile Island in America. (Indeed, France met that accident with renewed determination. A week after it occurred, President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing announced plans to step up construction of nuclear plants.) A third key aspect of the French approach lies in financing. The country’s nuclear plants have been paid for with year-toyear appropriations in the government’s national budget, thus avoiding interest costs.
A comparison of energy costs in France and America shows a spectacular advantage for the former. During the mid-1980s, with France’s construction program near its peak, a new plant near the town of Cruas generated power for less than 4 cents per kWh. At the same time the Somerset coal-fired plant in upstate New York achieved 7.5 cents per kWh. A hundred miles away the Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant was approaching completion- at a planned cost of 18 cents per kWh.
—T.A.H.
