Question 23016 — energy and fuels

Summary

Ms Émilie Cariou questions the Minister of Ecological and Inclusive Transition on strengthening her economic and environmental expert skills concerning the downstream of the nuclear fuel cycle. In July 2019 the Court of Auditors published a thematic public report “The back end of the nuclear fuel cycle”. This publication covers all questions relating to the downstream of the cycle, namely the reprocessing of spent fuel and waste storage. This independent and institutional report raises several concerns and provides several recommendations. One of them consists of strengthening public expertise, particularly due to the intrinsically long nature of the time scales of civil nuclear power. For example, on the closure of the nuclear cycle, the Court of Auditors notes that, although “the decisions to be taken in the short, medium and long term, on the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, must be based on economic and environmental data”; “a certain amount of this data is missing to be able to compare the different scenarios. The environmental assessment of the “closed” cycle in particular remains to be explored in greater detail. [...] The economic comparison of the different possible scenarios for the evolution of the cycle (maintenance of the current cycle, abandonment of reprocessing, development of fast neutron reactors making it possible to complete the closure of the cycle, etc.) has not been carried out exhaustively for the French situation”; “Choices must also be informed by a more thorough evaluation of public policy alternatives than are available today.” Faced with this observation, the Court therefore rightly proposes in its tenth recommendation to “strengthen the capacity of counter-expertise of data and studies from operators and carrying out cost-benefit studies of scenarios for the evolution of the nuclear power sector (MTES, 2019)”. The MP would therefore like to ask the Minister to what extent and within what time frame it is planned to strengthen the establishment of second opinions and the analysis of public policy alternatives. The Court also notes that “it is important that the capacities evaluation of the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition be strengthened in order to assess more precisely and comprehensively the technical, economic, financial and environmental aspects of the management issues of radioactive materials and waste. In order to carry out this recommendation, it appears necessary to strengthen the Ministry's resources to measure all of the impacts and possibilities. She therefore wishes ask him about the necessary budgetary and human resources identified by the MTES to achieve this strategic objective.

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