Climate Changed
French Nuclear Delays Escalate as Contractors Fumble in Dark
- EDF spending 4 billion euros a year extending life of reactors
- Subcontractors struggling with utility’s supply-chain process
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France faces a decade-long struggle to upgrade its nuclear power plants, but for Natacha Piot, whose firm makes metal pipe supports for reactors, there’s little visibility beyond Christmas.
She’s chief executive officer of one of the dozens of subcontractors engaged in a 48 billion-euro ($56.4 billion) project to extend the life of Electricite de France SA’s aging atomic plants. Like several of her peers, Piot is critical of how the state-run utility is managing the process.