Europe could face a grim winter as nuclear outages in France put the continent’s energy market near a breaking point, raising the risk of rolling blackouts in the coldest months of the year.
Electricite de France SA is halting reactors accounting for 10% of the nation’s nuclear capacity, worsening Europe’s energy shortages and leaving the continent at the mercy of the weather at the height of winter in January and February. Even before the outages, a shortage of natural gas had already forced Europe to rely on burning coal to keep the lights on.
