Geoffrey Lean has an interesting piece in Grist about Nicholas Sarkozy’s green agenda in France. He makes the point that this isn’t all about the nukes:
At least one new solar power station is to be built in each region by 2011; by contrast, only two new nuclear power plants will be completed by 2017, despite France’s history as the world’s chief champion of the atom. By 2020 national capacities for geothermal energy will have been increased sixfold, for wind energy ten fold, and for solar photovoltaic energy 400 times over.
Still, the fact that France already gets such a large proportion of its electricity from nuclear power means that carbon pricing will have less impact on France than on many other developed countries. And it would be hard for me to imagine a robust, worldwide effort at reducing carbon emissions not being good for the French nuclear power industry. I’m not, personally, a huge proponent of nuclear electricity but I think at least a few countries will probably wind up following France in going big-time nuclear. Meanwhile, another large French company, Alstom, is a leading provider of rolling stock for high-speed rail and mass transit projects. So on this front, too, you would expect the French business community to be relatively enthusiastic about a low carbon agenda.
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