Making a commitment to build six new EPRs in France would be an "effective stimulus" for the country's economy as it recovers in the years ahead from the shock of COVID-19, the French nuclear energy society wrote in a position paper published this week. Nuclear energy "ticks all three boxes" highlighted in the debate about the recovery - that investments should be in low-carbon, resilient and sovereign industries, it said.

France's Framatome and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany have started commercial development of nuclear research reactor fuels based on uranium-molybdenum fuel alloys. The fuel can be used instead of highly enriched uranium, which is seen as a potential nuclear proliferation risk.

EDF estimates that the coronavirus pandemic will reduce its annual nuclear output in France to about 300 terawatt hours this year and to 330-360 TWh each year in 2021 and 2022. The estimate is down from an initial expectation of 375-390 TWh before the outbreak.

EDF has withdrawn its financial targets for 2020 and 2021 as the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic impacts key areas of its business. In a statement yesterday, the French state-owned utility said these targets include the lower end of the forecast range for its core earnings in 2020 of EUR17.5 billion (USD19 billion).

The construction of the EPR unit at the Flamanville site in Normandy was authorised by the French government by a decree of 10 April 2007, which stated first fuel loading must be completed within thirteen years. With that date approaching, a new decree has extended the deadline by four years.

French utility EDF has scrapped its nuclear generation target for 2020 on an anticipated fall in output this year because of the coronavirus crisis. Fuel cycle company Orano has likewise suspended its financial outlook for this year.

Iran has tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium to 1,020.9 kg over the past three months and failed to provide International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to two undeclared sites, various news agencies reported yesterday.

Shutting down the Fessenheim nuclear power plant will lead to additional emissions and the loss of thousands of jobs, writes Valérie Faudon, general delegate of the French Nuclear Energy Society.

France's support to the International Atomic Energy Agency's technical cooperation programme "goes a long way" in helping African countries get access to nuclear technology and expertise in the areas of food and agriculture and cancer care, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian yesterday.

Framatome has officially opened a new engineering research and operations centre at Cadarache in south-eastern France. It has also announced an expansion of its Intercontrôle automated non-destructive testing subsidiary, which is based at the same site.

EDF has disconnected France's longest serving nuclear power unit - Fessenheim 1 - from the electricity grid, thus ending the reactor's 42 years of low-carbon electricity production. The unit was removed from the network at 2am on 22 February, as scheduled. The utility said the primary circuit cooling operations had been initiated to open the reactor vessel and unload its fuel. Unit 2 is scheduled for closure on 30 June.

Framatome has signed service contracts with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj to support the long-term operation of unit 3 of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant on Finland's west coast. Grid connection of the European pressurised reactor is scheduled for November, with the start of regular electricity production expected in March 2021.