École Nationale Supérieure de
Techniques Avancées

Résumé

The turnaround from fossil fuels to renewable energy is one of the biggest challenges in the 21st century. Nuclear Power plants emit almost no air pollutants or Green House Gases (GHG) over their entire life cycle and have a constant and secured production of electricity (stable and predictable prices, and fully manageable production). To reach the goals set by the Paris Agreement, Nuclear energy could be a part of the solution. However, Fukushima’s accident in 2011, has raised a lot of concern about the safety of the power plants and the production of radioactive nuclear waste. In order to understand how it can be integrated on a larger scale in the future and its impacts, this paper studies the emissions and the costs of nuclear electricity production in terms of CO2 and radioactive material, under the scope of the French electricity production system in a European context.