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AREVA – France’s nuke power poster child has a money melt-down

France’s nuke power poster child has a money melt-down
THE FREE PRESS Harvey Wasserman March 19, 2009 The myth of a successful nuclear power industry in France has melted into financial chaos. With it dies the corporate-hyped poster child for a “nuclear renaissance” of new reactor construction that is drowning in red ink and radioactive waste.Areva, France’s nationally-owned corporate atomic fa�ade, has plunged into a deep financial crisis led by a devastating shortage of cash.

Electricite de France, the French national utility, has been raided by European Union officials charging that its price-fixing may be undermining competition throughout the continent.Delays and cost overruns continue to escalate at Areva’s catastrophic Olkiluoto reactor construction project in Finland.

Areva has admitted to a $2.2 billion, or 55%, cost increase in the Finnish building site after three and a half years. The Flamanville project—the only one now being built in France—is already over $1 billion more expensive than projected after a single year under construction.In 2008, France’s nuclear power output dropped 0.1%, while wind generation rose more than 37%.Attempts to build new French reactors in the US are meeting stiffened resistance.

And the definitive failure of America’s Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump mirrors France’s parallel inability to deal with its own radioactive trash.Widely portrayed as the model of corporate success, reactor-builder Areva is desperately short of money. As it begs a bailout from its dominant owner, the French government, Areva’s mismanagement and overextension in promoting and building new reactors has wrecked its image in worldwide capital markets.
According to Mycle Schneider, Paris-based author of “Nuclear Power in France—Beyond the Myth,” Areva shares have plunged by over 60% since June 2008, twice as much as the CAC40, the standard indicator of the 40 largest French companies on the stock market…………….
…………….At the French heart of its “renaissance,” the nuclear clock is winding down, not up. Time is running out for a radioactive technology that, after fifty years, remains unable to muster a sustainable level of private financing, shows no real promise of ever paying for itself, and has now plunged into deepening financial chaos.

The Free Press — Independent News Media – Harvey Wasserman

March 25, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France