What France figured out fifty years ago and why it still matters today
From Clayton “Tiger” Hulin, image from NuclearNY.org
New York’s State of the State reactions from Republican lawmakers were mostly predictable: high taxes, high energy costs, public safety, and affordability. But buried in the political back and forth was a quiet admission that deserves far more attention than it received.
State Sen. George Borrello acknowledged that expanding nuclear power would take “at least a decade.” In truth, that estimate may be optimistic. In today’s regulatory, legal, and siting environment, a realistic timeline for bringing a new nuclear reactor online in New York is closer to 10 to 15 years.
That long runway is often used as an argument against nuclear power. It should be viewed instead as an argument for it.
Infrastructure that matters is never fast. It is deliberate.
Before going any further, it is worth slowing down for a moment. Nuclear energy is one of those topics that tends to trigger instant, all or nothing reactions. For some, it represents progress and reliability. For others, it carries fear, history, and distrust. Those reactions are understandable.
This is not an argument that demands allegiance, nor is it an attempt to relitigate decades of political battles. It is an effort to step back from the noise and examine how one country approached a hard problem with patience, discipline, and long term thinking, and what that experience might tell us about our own choices today.
France’s Choice Wasn’t Ideological. It Was Practical.
France did not embrace nuclear power because it was fashionable or politically safe. It did so because it was vulnerable.
After the 1973 oil embargo exposed Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, France faced a stark reality. It had little domestic oil or gas and no appetite for remaining hostage to global energy shocks. In response, the French government launched the Messmer Plan in 1974, committing the country to a large scale nuclear buildout.
The reasoning was straightforward. Energy independence equals national security. Electricity demand would continue to grow. Nuclear power offered dense, reliable, non combustion energy that could be produced at home.
France treated electricity as critical infrastructure, not a political symbol.
The Power of Standardization
One of the least discussed but most important aspects of France’s success was standardization.
Rather than approving dozens of custom built reactor designs, France selected a small family of pressurized water reactors and built them repeatedly under a single national operator, EDF. Over time, engineers refined construction methods, training programs, maintenance protocols, and safety systems around those designs.
The result was faster construction, lower costs, easier oversight, and a workforce deeply familiar with the technology. Familiarity matters. Repetition breeds competence. Competence breeds safety.
By contrast, New York’s energy policy has been defined by fragmentation. Multiple mandates, shifting targets, and a regulatory process that treats every project as a first of its kind experiment.
Safety and the Numbers We Don’t Like to Talk About
Nuclear power remains one of the most misunderstood energy sources in public discourse. Measured by deaths per unit of energy produced, it is among the safest forms of large scale power generation ever deployed.
France’s nuclear fleet has operated for decades without a single civilian fatality attributable to reactor operations. It produces no air pollution, no particulate emissions, and no carbon dioxide during operation.
Meanwhile, fossil fuels quietly impose chronic health costs through air pollution, respiratory disease, and environmental damage. Those deaths are diffuse, normalized, and rarely attributed to policy decisions, even though they are policy decisions.
France chose managed risk over unmanaged harm. That distinction matters.
Why France Can Export Power and New York Can’t
At its height, nuclear energy supplied roughly 70 percent of France’s electricity. Even today, despite maintenance cycles and political hesitation, it remains the backbone of the French grid.
That stability allows France to integrate renewable energy without sacrificing reliability and, in many years, to export electricity to neighboring countries.
Intermittent energy sources like wind and solar work best when anchored by dependable baseload power. Without that anchor, costs rise and reliability falls.
New York is attempting the inverse. It is building a grid around intermittency while phasing out firm power sources. The result has been predictable: higher costs, strained capacity, and growing dependence on out of state electricity.
The Lesson New York Keeps Avoiding
Assemblyman Phil Palmesano rightly pointed to the state’s affordability and quality of life crisis. Energy policy sits at the center of both.
New York cannot regulate its way to cheap electricity. It cannot mandate reliability. And it cannot legislate physics into submission.
If the state were serious about affordability and emissions reduction, it would begin laying the groundwork now for a standardized nuclear future. That means streamlined permitting, long term siting decisions, workforce training, and partnerships with countries that have already done this successfully, including France.
The payoff would not arrive in the next election cycle. That is precisely the point.
France’s nuclear success was built on patience, consistency, and political courage. New York’s ongoing energy struggle is built on the absence of all three.
Long timelines do not invalidate good ideas. They reveal whether leaders are thinking beyond tomorrow.
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Tiger Hulin is a Cattaraugus County writer, registered nurse, family man, and music lover. You can reach him anytime, claymation_88@yahoo.com
References
International Energy Agency. (2023). France 2023: Energy policy review. International Energy Agency.
https://www.iea.org/reports/france-2023
World Nuclear Association. (2024). Nuclear power in France.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx
Electricité de France. (2023). Nuclear power generation.
https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/activities/production/nuclear-power
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Nuclear Energy Agency. (2020). The costs of decarbonisation: System costs with high shares of nuclear and renewables.
https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_51110
United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. (2020). Sources, effects and risks of ionizing radiation (UNSCEAR 2017–2018 report to the General Assembly, with scientific annexes). United Nations. https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2017_2018.html
Our World in Data. (2023). Energy production and safety.
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2023). Levelized cost of electricity and reliability considerations.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
European Commission. (2022). REPowerEU: Affordable, secure and sustainable energy for Europe.
https://commission.europa.eu/energy-climate-change-environment/energy/re-power-eu_en
Assemblée nationale (France). (1974). Déclaration de politique énergétique (Plan Messmer).
https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/134056-declaration-de-m-pierre-messmer-premier-ministre-sur-la-politique-energetique
New York Independent System Operator. (2023). Power trends 2023: Reliability needs and energy transition. https://www.nyiso.com/power-trends
