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Waste and cost raise doubts about nuclear power:

Waste and cost raise doubts about nuclear power
indyweek.com by Gerry Canavan 22 April 09 “………………………..There is no long-term solution to the problem of what to do with nuclear-generated waste, merely the hope that something will be worked out. Those hopes may dwindle further in the face of what has happened to France, once vaunted as the nation that did nuclear “right.” First, French attempts to build new reactors in France and Finland has been financially disastrous, much like that of the American nuclear industry in the 1980s. The Finnish Olkiluoto reactor is now 55 percent over budget, while the Flamanville project in France has exceeded its budget by $1 billion less than a year into construction.But more important, claims that France had perfected the recycling of nuclear waste are coming under scrutiny. Critics of the French system point to the reprocessing plant at La Hague, which has been discharging 100 million gallons of radioactive waste annually into the English Channel, as well as similarly radioactive gas releases from La Hague. And the French nuclear industry, despite reprocessing, nonetheless has generated 10,000 tons of spent fuel rods like those that now sit in “temporary” storage at Shearon Harris.

Waste and cost raise doubts about nuclear power: News: National/ International: Independent Weekly: Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill

April 23, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive