For electricity generation alone (which is also what TFA talks about) we could even have done it 30 years ago. In fact France did, so this is not pure speculation, it's just a terrible missed opportunity.
France's nuclear industry is a key economic sector, which represents 6.7% of the job market (220 000 people) for 2 600 companies and a turnover of €50 billion per year
What is interesting is that the article says other countries should use "France as blueprint".
- to have a state-owned electricity generation monopolist ?
- to use demand-based price increases to push down demand ?
- to provide half the funding for generating plants from taxpayers' coffers?
France's example in nuclear is, if you like to phrase it like that, one of "socialistic infrastructure policies that have proven to work well".
Quoth Lenin, "Communism is the Soviet state plus electrification of the country", https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOELRO - I would like to see a comparative essay on France's nuclear push of 60s/70s/80s and the USSR's 20s/30s/40s. And/or, in fact, later; the number two nuclear power generating country in Europe behind France is, after all, Ukraine.
It decarbonized its electricity production by building a lot of nuclear (eg. left fossil fuels in the dust). Of course only partly, as the nuclear fleet still depends on fossil fuels, but still a great achievement.
