A few are having their once in a decade maintenance check
Some are waiting for maintenance which were delayed due to covid
We didn't train enough maintenance workers because everyone was talking about shifting out of nuclear in favor of renewable (we're using American contractors now afaik)
So mostly bad decisions and poor management, it's a political issue more than anything else, it worked fine since the 70s to more or less a decade ago
At this point? It doesn't matter why they are on strike. They are always on strike.
Since WWII, the train company SNCF has been on strike -every- year. Except during covid because there was no train to be on strike from. Good luck getting a train for christmas, it's canceled. Same thing here. It's a crucial moment? It's very important for the french people? Go on a strike and ruin everything.
I live in France and I have no sympathy for these strikes. At least the Yellow Vests were striking on a Saturday. Everybody were pissed, but only on Saturdays!
Nothing is "unreliable recently", the mess is decade old, simply when EDF was private, after have acquired public made energy systems, they reduce investments to the minimum creating the present mess. Once the damage was so big they can't mask it again they left, leaving the mess to the public.
The public, who is abetter, have managed to push some excuses to avoid finger point any private friend and so reveal the mess all at once.
Wikipedia says the plants are managed by EDF, a private company. Ordinary asset management would have prevented known problems, so there must be a few things that went wrong at the same time.
A "private company", owned to 85% by the French state, taking price policy orders from the French state, getting regular cash injections from the French state to not go bankrupt.
EDF being a public company owned by the state means that it gets hurt by two things:
* It has to make money, instead of being a utility that the state provides, so decisions have to be taken in accord with all shareholders.
* When it does make these decision, well, politicians have been selling off EDF piece by piece on the right, and sacrificing it to get votes from the green party on the left.
All in all, incompetent fucks with a 5 year foresight running it like a pawn on a chessboard, happily sacrificing it to get a meager advantage.
Well, what is there to say given the state of Flamanville 3? Currently sitting at ~ €13 B compared to the initial estimate of €3.3 B. With a tentative start date for end of 2023.
All the while EDF is being nationalized. Should more money have been spent in even deeper pits?
Renewables already fill that gap at vastly lower costs. Unless you specify that you're one of the about a million people living north of the arctic circle, then sure, do whatever you need.
