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Podcast: Energy Gang
Episode: France's Presidential Election and the Future of Nuclear
Description: To many, France’s ongoing elections are the latest showdown between the liberal world order and a new brand of right-wing populism. That narrative follows a similar path in energy.
France’s elections are pitting nuclear versus renewables, closed markets versus open, and disruption versus protectionism.
France is going through a quite radical revaluation of its electricity mix. It gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear. However, in 2015, President François Holland set a policy that would phase out aging nuclear plants, and reduce nuclear generation to 50 percent by 2025. He wants to fill in the gap with more renewables and e...