There is something else that has to be taken into account: our energy needs are not just electric. We use tremendous amounts of heat of chemical processes, metallurgy, manufacturing. Of course, this could be cut down if production/consumption as a whole was down. But I don't feel that it can be eliminated. Quite the contrary, if we are to produce fertilizers one day with hydrogen that comes from water, not natural gaz, convert other plastics manufacturing to biomass feedstocks for CHON that could be energy sinks instead of sources like fossil fuels double up today in most process where they are used as materials also.

When you need heat, a fuel is at an advantage against electricity: you get 100% of the energy in it, not just 45% as limited by thermodynamics when converting to electricity. It is very wasteful to generate heat with electricity that has been slowly accumulated with renewables. Some newer nuclear plants address this need (PBR, IFR, super-critical water reactors...). The EPR does not. But in my view it is clearly a stopgap to cope with the obsolescence of current plants, with only incremental upgrades to PWR, doesn't qualify as true 3-rd gen in any way.

Pierre