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LE CREUSOT — France will build a second new-generation nuclear reactor, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday, pledging a "new industrial revolution" in an era in which fossil fuels have grown too expensive.
France — the country most reliant on nuclear power — has been constructing its first European Pressurized Reactor, or EPR, on the Normandy coast, and it is expected to go into service in 2012.
EPR reactors are meant eventually to replace the aging reactors around the world whose designs date from decades ago. The Normandy site is one of only two EPRs in the world currently under construction; the other is in Finland.
A decision about where to build a second French EPR will be made in 2009, Sarkozy said, adding that construction would start in 2011.
"The era of inexpensive oil is over," Sarkozy said. "Nuclear power is more than ever an industry of the future, and an essential form of energy."
"France will experience a new industrial revolution," Sarkozy said. He spoke while visiting metal workers at the Industeel plant in Le Creusot in the Burgundy region, which he said would produce most of the components needed for the reactor. Industeel is a subsidiary of steelmaker ArcelorMittal Group.
During Sarkozy's visit, Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of French nuclear company Areva, and Aditya Mittal, CFO of ArcelorMittal, signed a memorandum of understanding to increase production at Industeel for the nuclear market.
Already, 77 percent of France's electricity comes from nuclear power, Sarkozy said.
"We, the French, can become exporters of electricity, though we have no oil and no more natural gas," Sarkozy said. "This is a historic chance for development."
France's Green Party and environmental groups oppose the building of EPRs, saying they are dangerous and costly and do not address root causes of global warming and shrinking world resources.
France Nature Environment called it a "catastrophic sign" for France's presidency of the European Union, which began this week and runs through the end of this year. The group lamented that Sarkozy made the announcement the same day that EU environment ministers were meeting outside Paris.
"The fight against climate disruption is unfortunately serving as a commercial argument for promoting false remedies such as nuclear energy," the group's spokesman Arnaud Gossement said in a statement.
