France, already a world leader in nuclear power generation, plans to build at least six new reactors, with President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 10 saying the country will consider building an additional eight on top of that as it also moves forward with developing small modular reactors (SMR).

Macron, who is up for re-election in April, made the comments during an appearance Thursday at GE Steam Power’s manufacturing site at Belfort in eastern France. He said nuclear power is critical to the country’s efforts to increase its output of carbon-free electricity as it moves away from coal and natural gas. Macron also said his country would add more renewable energy, including as many as 50 offshore wind installations that would enable France to have 40 GW of offshore wind generation capacity in service by 2050.

French officials recently said the country would allow its last two operational coal-fired power plants to operate far more than usually permitted through at least the end of February due to about a dozen of France’s 56 existing reactors being offline for maintenance.…

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