nuclear-news

France’s confidence in nuclear power is cracking

First public debate on nuclear energy Oman daily Observer, 01 December 2012 By Muriel Boselli — For decades, the elite engineers turned out by Paris’s grand Corps des Mines academy were faithful followers of the pro-atomic creed that transformed their country into the most nuclear-reliant nation in the world. But a new generation of Mines graduates is starting to question that policy. It is a change of mindset that could aid efforts by President Francois Hollande to cut reliance on nuclear power from 75 per cent to 50 per cent of the electricity mix by 2025……
The Corps des Mines  became an example of French post-war “dirigisme”
— the policy under which the state seeks to direct the economy —
determining how nuclear energy was used for civilian and military
purposes, with the development of France’s atomic bomb.
The construction of 58 nuclear reactors prompted successive French
governments to invest massively in electric heating to absorb the
supplies. France became the world’s top electricity exporter. Now some
Mines graduates say the heavy dependence on one energy form means
France struggles to cope with seasonal demand spikes…..
Alumni include Anne Lauvergeon, ex-head of nuclear giant Areva,
current head of France’s nuclear energy watchdog ASN, Pierre-Franck
Chevet, his predecessor Andre-Claude Lacoste, and Jacques Repussard of
the IRSN nuclear safety institute.

The nuclear industry’s image was tainted in the eyes of the French
public after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, when the nuclear
watchdog insisted radioactive contamination from the accident had not
spread to French territory.
In fact it released vast quantities of radioactive material over the
whole of Europe and France was no exception. For many French, the
episode created the perception of an invisible pro-nuclear lobby
pushing its interests against those of the nation.
France’s nuclear lobby is hard to pin down because it is intricate.
Its critics tend to be anti-nuclear NGOs or green politicians with no
ministerial experience. A rare exception is Corinne Lepage, former
ecology minister under Alain Juppe’s government between 1995 and 1997.
Lepage said the lobby had strong leverage in parliament.
“There is at the parliament a powerful group of parliamentarians and
senators who are pro-nuclear, with some formerly from EDF,” she said,
referring to the state utility that is Europe’s biggest electricity
producer. “They are so close to the (nuclear) lobby that they are
called ‘EDF allies’.”
Chernobyl was for many a wake-up call to the dangers of nuclear
energy, an alarm which sounded again with Japan’s Fukushima nuclear
disaster last year. “Graduates who started out working in the 1990s
are more worried about a riskier world where no technology is
perfect,” said Bordes.
Hollande’s government is due to shut France’s oldest reactor by the
end of 2016 and launched on Thursday a national debate on energy that
will for the first time include discussion of the role of atomic
power.
That debate will help shape a framework energy law in 2013 that will
define how to cut France’s nuclear capacity, boost renewable energy
and lift energy efficiency. …..
http://main.omanobserver.om/node/131346

December 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics