France has accumulated in 30 years “a considerable delay” in its ability to meet its energy needs, in particular electricity, concludes a commission of inquiry of the National Assembly, which calls for a leap and a new programming over 30 years.
In a report presented this Thursday, the result of 88 hearings in the form of group psychotherapy within a winter marked by the insufficient production of the nuclear park, the commission “with the objective of establishing the reasons for the loss of sovereignty and energy independence de France” has been criticizing what he describes as “slow drift” and “political ramblings, often unconscious and inconsequential” since the mid-1990s.
“Therefore, today we find ourselves before an unprecedented energy wall”, this is how the majority rapporteur Antoine Armand and his colleague LR, the president of the commission Raphaël Schellenberger, estimate after 150 hours of work and questions to those responsible for the French energy elections. companies of the last three decades.
Experts, scientists, business leaders and regulators, senior officials, former ministers and even two French presidents, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, have been on the gridiron since November 2. The report, which preserves six important errors from the past, makes 30 recommendations, most of them in favor of the nuclear reactivation announced by the executive, but also in favor of hydroelectricity and the development of heating networks.
30 proposals
“Over the last thirty years, our energy mix has ultimately changed little and its weaknesses have increased,” according to the report. He points to the “multiple dependencies on imported fossil fuels (gas and oil, editor’s note) that are becoming scarce and will run out in a few decades.” He also criticizes the “very weak development of the means of controlling demand” consisting of consuming less.
The “electricity consumption forecasts requested from RTE”, the management company of the high-voltage network, only contemplate “the short or medium term, oblivious to the well-known climate objectives, nor the long time required by the energy industry” . sector”, the authors also write. They also see it as one of the factors that led to “underestimating our electricity needs” and lacking “long-term reflection on our industrial and climate ambitions”.
For this reason, they advocate, among their 30 proposals, for a “30-year climate energy programming law with climate, energy and industrial objectives, as well as related means, which will be closely and periodically supervised by Parliament and expert institutions. “. They also ask for “greater transparency” and better anticipation on the part of EDF, while the nuclear park is weakened by phenomena of corrosion of the pipes of certain reactors and must exceed the milestone of 50 years of age.
Source: BFM TV
