IEA defends nuclear energy to reduce dependence on Russian gas

The executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, called on European countries with nuclear power plants to reconsider their scheduled closures to reduce dependence on Russian gas for electricity generation.

“Nuclear power is part of the solution” Both to guarantee the energy autonomy of the European Union (EU) and to meet climate objectives, Birol said at a conference in Paris with European ministers and commissioners to strengthen the autonomy of the Twenty-seven and be less dependent on Russian imports of hydrocarbons. .

He congratulated Belgium for having been the first European country to announce that it is going to reconsider the closing dates of its atomic reactors, after the IEA included that option in a Decalogue published on the 3rd for the EU to reduce by more than one third of Russian gas purchases in a year.

The executive director, who recalled that nuclear power plants provide 25% of electricity in the EU, warned that if the currently planned policies are not modified, that percentage “will go down significantly” in the next years.

That is why he estimated as “a very good decision” the strategy presented a month ago by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to build at least six new reactors to replace those that are now in operation.

France has 56 reactors currently in service that generate around 70% of the country’s electricity.

Birol advanced, on the other hand, that the IEA will publish next week a “emergency plan” also in ten points for Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian oil.

Last week, the member countries had decided to release 60 million barrels of their strategic reserves to the market in a month to try to cushion the tensions in the market due to the effect of the war in Ukraine.

The director of the agency recalled that these 60 million barrels represent 4% of the total strategic reserves of the IEA, which offers room for new operations of this type.