The debate about the project of closing Fessenheim nuclear plant, which is not motivated by any security concern since its operation is authorized until 2022, is very sharp because of the 2 200 layoffs which will result of its closure. It is much more than in Florange for instance and it leads us to question about the consequences of the Ecologists economic choices on employment. This project was a François Hollande commitment precisely to get their support during the last presidential election. The same demand had been formulated, on the other side of the Rhine, by the Bade-Würtemberger länder, which has many elected members belonging to the Green party. It is not the least paradox since this power plant provides electricity, through long term contracts, to German and Swiss utilities which will receive compensations if the contracts are terminated.
The power plant age, put forward to strike imagination and justify its closure, is not a relevant argument because the plant has been subject to extensive controls every ten years. Past disasters were not caused by age. At Three Miles Island, in the U.S. in 1979, it was the design which was its cause and it has been abandoned. At Tchernobyl, the plant was recent and it was human errors which were at the origin of the disaster. At Fukushima, the utility did not protect the cooling system from the consequences of the tsunami which provoked the catastrophe.
The case investigated by the Ecologists against the nuclear industry, supported by some candidates from the left running for the next presidential election for the same politicians reasons, ignores its positive impact on purchasing power, competitiveness and, as a result, on employment. To benefit from a power price by far the lowest in Europe is a significant advantage. It is what the U.K. has understood which is restarting its nuclear program, with the support of France, which will finance job creations in that country. Major industrialized countries entrusted us the realization of Iter, where a new technology, the nuclear melting to produce tomorrow power, is experimented. Investments, at Cadarache, in Provence, represent several billions euro. Do we have to abandon this project and lay off the hundreds of jobs it has created?
The same inconsistency between speech and the real world can be found in the energy transition Act. The answer to the critics is always the same: investments to reduce nuclear energy and the consumption of fossil fuels and to diminish energy consumption will permit to offset, by far, the consequences on purchasing power and employment. It is the “Green Growth” myth. The experience shows it is not true. This message is based on insufficient analysis which reveal ignorance and even a contempt for the economic reality and was even at the origin of decisions which were harmful for public health.
CO2 emissions have consequences on a global basis. It is their accumulation, overtime and all around the world which provokes planet warming. The reduction of French emissions, which are, per capita, thanks to nuclear use, the lowest in Europe, brings only an insignificant contribution. In despite of that, our country has adopted a very aggressive policy to set an example. For instance, during the “Environment Grenelle”, the acquisition of diesel fueled vehicles, which had already fiscal incentives, was encouraged through a bonus. But these vehicles emit small particles which are another type of pollution, that one local, immediate and very dangerous. The first consequence was the closure, in less than ten years of 30% of the oil refineries. They had been built to produce gasoline, not diesel fuel. As it is not economically justified to import oil, to refine it and to re-export it, the plants were closed and thousands of jobs were lost. Confronted to the consequences on public health of this absurd policy, it was necessary to backtrack and cities, today, impose circulation restrictions for this type of vehicles. Small particles are much more damaging than CO2 and the car industry will have to adapt itself after this irresponsible return trip.
Ecologists attitude regarding shale gas is also quite harmful. Its exploitation in the U.S. has generated the creation of hundreds of thousands jobs and has made natural gas competitive against coal. Utilities have reacted in stopping power station using coal for the benefit of those using natural gas whose greenhouse emissions are four to five times less important. In 2015, American emissions fell by 400 million tons which permit, for the first time, to stabilize them for the whole planet. The winter episode we suffer this year goes along with a brutal fall of air quality because our nuclear plants, due to maintenance program, were not fully operational and renewable source of production were not able to satisfy our needs and we had to reopen power plants using fossil fuels. The phenomenon has been even more significant in Germany, which is highly dependent on coal. Due to the east wind, that has contributed to worsen the air quality in France. It could be added to the inconsistent of the ecologist message, the wood burning issue. It is a renewable source of energy because it is true that once the tree has been cut down, another grows again. But it has been quickly noticed that, among all energy sources, it was the one which was the most polluting.
How is it possible to imagine that such political positions which influenced public decisions did not carry deeply harmful economic consequences on growth and employment? And how justify the tax increases paid by households which weight on their purchasing power, to finance renewable energies projects, whose components are most of the time imported, when these sources aren’t able to provide with the energy when it is needed, as we have just seen these last months ?
Ecologists answer these critics in asserting that the investments in the isolation of buildings will offset the negative impact of their proposals. This kind of incentives is useful but its economic consequences are overestimated as their results on energy consumption. For instance,there are about 30 million homes in France. If every year, which would be a challenge, 300 000 are isolated with a reduction of the energy consumption of 25%, it means that it would take a century to reduce energy consumption by 25%. Atop of that, the diversity of individual situations, according to you are an owner or a tenant, a young first-time buyer or a pensioner, indebted or not, makes very difficult to bring in efficient incentives.
France has difficulties to find again a satisfying growth rate and to reduce unemployment. But the insistence of some political leader, in order to please a tiny minority of voters, in proposing measures which are weakening our production capacities and which underestimate their consequences on employment, our industrial fabric and our major public services is incomprehensible. The current debate, and which is not over, about the closing of the Fessenheim power plant, is, in all respects, revealing.