Europe's energy crisis is getting worse.
Dozens of France's nuclear reactors, which are essential to the nation's energy security, remain offline due to a series of troubling outages believed to be caused by stress-inducing pipe For a struggling continent on the verge of winter, the fixes can't come quickly enough.
The head of France's energy regulator told the WSJ that it was important to restart the work as soon as possible.
The nuclear fleet in question is made up of 56 reactor, of which 26 are currently out for the count.
There was a crack in a high-pressure pipe close to the reactor's core last year, according to the WSJ. Other plants discovered their own stress issues after launching their own investigations.
According to a note from France's Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, it is only possible to identify stress corrosion's presence once cracking begins. The phenomenon can only be identified by regular inspections of the pipes.
These aren't easy fixes. The majority of the cracks are so close to the reactor core that radioactivity is a real threat for technicians.
According to the WSJ's sources, the timelines for several reactor fixes have already been pushed back by at least six weeks, and French power experts are not optimistic that the EDF will be able to get their reactor back online in time for the winter.
It's clear that these are terrible for France, but they're just as bad for Europe as well.
Natural gas prices have gone up as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which sparred with a barrage of Western sanctions and Russia's subsequent retaliation. Nations are asking a lot of their citizens and they need a lot of energy to get through the winter.
The Wall Street Journal reported on France's nuclear reactor malfunction.
Europe's energy crisis is so bad that it may have to be stopped, according to a new report.
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