[adrianN]

When did France announce a massive nuclear project? The last news I heard was that they plan to build a couple of new nuclear power plants, but far from the numbers they'd need to maintain the current capacity as ageing plants go offline in the coming years.

[WillPostForFood]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro...

Is this not a major project? The article is very lacking in details, so it is hard to tell what it amounts to in terms of impact.

[adrianN]

That really depends what "up to" means and how big the "fleet of smaller reactors" is going to be. Announcing up to 14 today is very little when you have over fifty reactors to replace in the next two or three decades when you consider that building a reactor takes around fifteen years. Nuclear energy hopes are pinned on those small reactors, but afaik, none of them are ready for prime time today.

[Retric]

While France is aiming to significantly reduce the number of nuclear power plants they operate, building any nuclear power plants is seen as a good sign by the industry.