nuclear-news

The “Sortir du nuclear” Network denounces the attempts by France and the industrial nuclear lobby to include this technology in the European taxonomy (classification) project supposed to define “green” investments.

Nuclear power, eligible for green investments? An environmental and climatic aberration, based on cynical and dishonest reasoning!
https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Le-nucleaire-eligible-pour-les-investissements April 2, 2021
The “Sortir du nuclear” Network denounces the attempts by France and the industrial nuclear lobby to include this technology in the European taxonomy (classification) project supposed to define “green” investments.

By promoting nuclear power at European level, France is sabotaging the fight against climate change

While nuclear has so far been excluded from “green” investments because of its environmental impacts, France has resorted to the worst strategies to create a balance of power favoring its inclusion. Already, at the European Council in December 2019, it did not hesitate to ally itself with states that are great defenders of coal to defend nuclear power. It is now open to making fossil gas eligible for “green” investments, as the Hungary of Viktor Orban wishes, in the hope that nuclear power will in turn find its place [1].

The nuclear lobby to manipulate the European Commission

We also denounce the undermining work carried out by the European atomic lobby. Dissatisfied with the previous work of the European Commission, for whom the nuisances caused by nuclear power prohibited its inclusion in green investments, it pushed for the drafting of another more favorable report (see the text unveiled by Politico). Entrusted to the Joint Research Center, an organization historically linked to Euratom and close to the Foratom lobby [2], this new report arrives at surrealistic conclusions: nuclear power would represent “no more danger to human health” than renewable energies! In an incantatory fashion, he insists that nuclear power would not have a significant environmental impact, everything being well managed and the waste problem being solved. An observation that only exists in the minds of nucleocrats.

To present as non-harmful a polluting, dangerous technology, which must be the subject of permanent monitoring and which produces waste that will remain dangerous for periods exceeding human time, is a matter of deep intellectual dishonesty. It is unacceptable that the nuclear lobby can thus dictate its conclusions and influence European policy.

No, nuclear power will not save the climate!

This strategy aimed at promoting nuclear power as a solution to climate change in order to allow it to benefit from new sources of financing reveals the great difficulties of a sector which, however, already survives only thanks to significant public support. Heavily indebted, struggling to manage its waste and dismantle its facilities, EDF is unable to finance itself the construction of the six new reactors that it wants to see emerge from the ground in the coming decades.

Allowing nuclear power to benefit from the financial windfall of the European Green Deal would however be an absurdity which would seriously prejudice the fight to reduce our emissions. Vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, this energy is also out of the game in the face of emergencies. It is impossible to drastically reduce our emissions in less than a decade, as recommended by the IPCC, by relying on expensive technology, slow to develop and subject to significant delays, as illustrated by the EPR project. from Flamanville. Any euro directed towards nuclear would then be sorely lacking in the development of real solutions and in the necessary transformation of our production and consumption systems.

April 2, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized