The U.K. has ended up “too reliant on French energy,” said ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.Leon Neal/Getty Images

Britain’s heading for a nuclear power crunch. Blame the French. – POLITICO

by · POLITICO

LONDON — When Queen Elizabeth II opened the U.K.'s first domestic nuclear power plant in the 1950s, the world came to watch.

Scientists and statesmen attended from nearly 40 countries. It was, said Richard Butler, Lord Privy Seal, an “epoch-making” moment.

By the 1990s — the sector’s peak — the U.K.'s nuclear fleet supplied over a quarter of the country’s electricity capacity.