, Columnist
France's Nuclear Circus
EDF is trying to keep a lot of radioactive plates in the air.
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If power companies were rewarded for not pumping out planet-warming carbon dioxide, then Electricite de France SA would be a prince among paupers. Nuclear and renewables accounted for 88 percent of the French utility's output last year, whereas coal and fuel oil contributed just 4 percent.
Yet EDF is far from being electricity world royalty. Instead, it resembles a weary performer struggling to keep an array of china plates spinning overhead, while being barked at by a government circus-master.