Offshore wind energy for France
France says ‘oui’ to offshore wind energy, Smart Planet, By Melissa Mahony | July 13, 2011, Nuclear plants often spring to mind when thinking of the French electric power regime. But the country is dipping its toes into the Atlantic and English Channel for some of its energy needs, joining a few of its neighbors in the offshore wind business. Across Europe, offshore wind farms have a total capacity of almost 3,000 megawatts, according to the EWEA. By 2020, France hopes to add 6,000 megawatts to it.
On Monday, the French government began asking for project proposals for 5 zones off the northern and western coasts near Saint-Nazaire and Le Tréport, respectively. The $14 billion call did not go unanswered. Six companies (Dong Energy, EDF Energies Nouvelles, Alstom,Nass&Wind Offshore, Poweo ENR, and wpd offshore) have been gearing up to go to sea. They announced a consortium yesterday to help get the country’s first offshore turbines built, up and whirring….
France has been looking to expand its renewable portfolio, even toying with the idea of abandoning its notable nuclear program. In 2010….its first wind turbines could hit the water as early as 2015. Alstom says it hopes to design, manufacture, and assemble the turbines all in France using French technology…..http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/france-says-8216oui-to-offshore-wind-energy/7604
France moving towards renewable energy, despite AREVA and other nuclear lobbies
Critics have accused France’s nuclear lobby – made up of the industry’s powerful unions and its state-controlled companies EDF and Areva – of impeding renewable investment.
France aims to rebalance its energy mix, FT.com By Peggy Hollinger, 10 July 11, France will on Monday begin a big push on renewable energy that could signal a weakening in the traditional hold of nuclear power over a country that has long led the field in atomic energy.
“Our objective is to rebalance the energy mix in favour of renewables,” said Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, ecology minister, in an interview with the Financial Times as she prepared to launch a €10bn ($14.2bn) tender for five new offshore windpower farms. Continue reading
France rejects compensatioin for its Pacific atomic test victims
France says no to Pacific compensation, VIDEO from Australia Network News, Nuclear veterans disappointed, Radio Australia News, Geraldine Coutts, 06 Jul 2011
French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans say they are shocked and disappointed at France’s decision to reject their compensation claims.The rejection comes two years after Paris formally acknowledged that nuclear weapon tests in French Polynesia were not clean and there was an obligation to pay compensation.
There was legislation passed to allow for compensation, but now France has rejected seven out of eight compensation claims filed by veterans. In the 30 years to 1996, France carried out almost 200 nuclear tests in French Polynesia, including 42 atmospheric tests held despite opposition from residents.
President of French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans organisation, Roland Oldham, has told Pacific Beat the rejections show France is not committed to compensating the veterans.
“As far as we’re concerned, it is clear that the French government does not [plan] to take any responsibility in compensation,” he said.
“[It] is only some sort of masquerade to make the world believe that France is making a big speech, that France is paying compensation for the victims.
“But the matter of fact is France is not really going to pay compensation – that’s a feeling we have from this result.”
Mr Oldham said the French Government was triying to “delay as much as we can to discourage first the victims, and secondly, to hope that in five or 10 years time there will be no former workers alive and it will be even harder for the family to get the paper together.”
“That’s what they’re trying to do.” http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/story.htm?id=41838
France’s new Ecology Minister quietly not too keen on nuclear power
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..
France aims to rebalance its energy mix, FT.com By Peggy Hollinger, 10 July 11“…….The ecology minister, Ms Kosciusko-Morizet ,one of a young generation of bright ambitious politicians brought into government by President Nicolas Sarkozy, is too aware of the highly sensitive nature of nuclear politics in France to say outright that she is against the construction of new reactors.
But she seems less than enthusiastic about the project to build a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) – which has been on hold since the Fukushima disaster – or the proposal to showcase new French technology by approving plans for a smaller prototype reactor, known as the Atmea.
“We are in a phase in which there are projects, and there are questions on existing reactors and on the development of renewable energy,” she says. “If we wanted to do only nuclear power, we would not have launched these offshore projects.”
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet admits that France lags China and Germany in the race to build a solar power industry. But the government has now restructured incentives that might in the end favour French technology.
“We are reinvesting again in solar, but in very high quality,” she says, and France is now five years ahead on its 2020 objectives to have 5,400MW installed by 2020….
France will consider exiting from nuclear power
An energy ministry official told Reuters one scenario would consider a total exit from nuclear by 2050, or even 2040……A poll last month showed three quarters of the French people interviewed wanted to withdraw from nuclear energy,
France includes nuclear power exit among options, Reuters, Jul 8, 2011 Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Writing by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Anthony Barker)
* France mulls full exit by 2040-2050, not govt’s choice
* Option part of wider study on French future energy mix
* Poll showed three quarters of French want full exit
PARIS, – France raised the possibility for the first time of pulling out of nuclear power Continue reading
French regulators allow oldest nuclear reactor to keep going
French nuclear watchdog allows Fessenheim to continue, PARIS, July 4 (Reuters) – France’s nuclear watchdog on Monday gave its go-ahead for France’s oldest operating nuclear reactor in eastern France to continue working for another 10 years, a move that will anger ecologists.
But the government could still decide to shut the plant, commissioned in 1978, permanently after results of post-Fukushima stress tests are made public around mid-November.
There has been mounting pressure from ecologists over the last few years to permanently shut the plant because of its age, location in a seismic area and its proximity to the German border.
Fessenheim’s opponents stepped up their pressure after Japan’s nuclear disaster in March and after Germany decided last month to pull out of nuclear energy by 2022, arguing the plant would not resist an earthquake…….http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFWEB831820110704
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French government rejecting poll showing unpopularity of nuclear power
French Industry Minister Rejects Poll Backing Nuclear Withdrawal Bloomberg, By Tara Patel June 11 French Industry Minister Eric Besson rejected the findings of an opinion poll that called for the gradual phasing-out of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors…..Fifty-one percent of respondents in an Ifop survey commissioned by the European Green party published March 21 said France’s reactors, along with its nuclear energy policy, should be phased out in the next 25 years. Just 19 percent wanted a more rapid pullout.
France, which depends on nuclear power for about three quarters of its electricity, should “progressively” exit from atomic energy, according to 60 percent of respondents to a Viavoice opinion poll published in today’s Liberation newspaper. Thirty-five percent are against the change, the newspaper said……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-20/french-industry-minister-rejects-poll-backing-nuclear-withdrawal.html
As nuclear power unpopular, France gives Anne Lauvergneon the chop
French Government Fires Anne Lauvergeon, Forbes, Maha Atal, Jun. 17 2011 – The Wall Street Journal reports that Anne Lauvergeon, the longtime CEO of France’s state-owned nuclear firm Areva SA, has been asked to step down when her term expires in June. There’s been no comment from Lauvergeon, but the WSJ has a few hypotheses as to what happened:1. Nuclear energy is unpopular, to put it mildly, following the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi. France is unique in its dependence on nuclear power (80% of French power generation), and can’t afford to pull back on the technology. Indeed, Lauvergeon has been traveling the world defending the technology in the wake of the disaster. Replacing her pays lip service to public outrage at nuclear execs without making any changes to France’s overall nuclear position. …..
French Government Fires Anne Lauvergeon – Maha Atal – Foreign Exchange – Forbes
AREVA struggles to cope with freeze on nuclear investment
Investors demand clear Areva strategy from new CEO– By Marie Maitre The replacement of Areva’s charismatic head by a top executive little known outside the company ends a drawn-out battle for the group’s top job but offers no clues on how Areva plans to overcome project delays after the Fukushima disaster. PARIS, June 17 (Reuters) – Investors called for clarity on Areva’s strategy for dealing with a global nuclear investment freeze on Friday after a power struggle at the French nuclear power plant maker led to the dismissal of its long-serving boss.
Areva’s thinly traded shares were down 2.2 percent at 25.81 euros by 0950 GMT, lagging France’s CAC-40 .FCHI blue chip index, which was up 0.1 percent….http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/areva-ceo-idUSLDE75G0K820110617
French Green coalition party pledge to end nuclear power in France
French Greens prepare presidential poll with no-nuclear call By RFI 6 June 11 French Greens pledged to fight to rid France of nuclear energy in the next 20 years at their conference this weekend. The demand is part of the party’s programme for next year’s presidential elections……With support growing for their traditional opposition to nuclear power traditional boosted by the Japanese nuclear disaster, they called for no more nuclear in France within 20 years…..Whoever wins is likely to play a decisive role in the election, as the Socialists may have to turn to them for support in winning the presidency from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP.
The party in its present form, which goes by the initials EELV, was formed by the fusion of the Green Party (Les Verts) and another party called Europe Ecologie……http://www.english.rfi.fr/environment/20110605-french-greens-prepare-presidential-poll-no-nuclear-call
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Problems in France’s plan for 100,000 years of nuclear waste storage
“No geologist can guarantee that there will never be water infiltration in the places intended for storage,”
Europeans Pursue Labyrinths of Nuclear Waste, NYTimes.com, By SUE LANDAU, June 2, 2011 BURE, FRANCE —”…….Gérald Ouzounian, the international director at Andra, said that research had found that this hard clay had a water content of just 15 percent, and that water remained in the clay rather than moving through it. This is critical for the repository, because it must prevent radioactivity seeping out into groundwater and contaminating soil, plants, animals, and ultimately, human beings. Continue reading
France’s nuclear wastes must be secured for over 100,000 years
The repositories are supposed to remain hermetically sealed for at least 100,000 years — roughly the length of time human beings have existed on Earth
Europeans Pursue Labyrinths of Nuclear Waste, NYTimes.com, By SUE LANDAU : June 2, 2011 BURE, FRANCE — Reached by narrow roads that meander through picturesque villages, a high-tech laboratory sits in a corner of France so remote that until construction started on it a decade ago, the local inn was not connected to the electricity grid.
Beneath a plateau surrounded by fields of colza and wheat, the underground laboratory, located near the village of Bure, in the eastern French region of Lorraine, is run by the Agence Nationale pour la Gestion des Déchets Radioactifs, or Andra, the national authority charged with the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Continue reading
AREVA neglecting France’s old radioactive uranium mining sites
Today, the site is the responsibility of Areva, a majority state-owned French multinational that builds nuclear power stations and manages uranium mines around the world……
France’s respected Independent Research and Information Commission on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD). is similarly critical of the situation. “These exposures are totally unjustified and levels should be reduced by properly redeveloping the site and removing radioactive material,”
Radiation fears surround France’s old uranium mines, Google News, By Simon Coss (AFP) 27 May 11, ROSGLAS, France — It looks like any other another leafy woodland path in Brittany, but campaigners say ramblers on this particular trail may face levels of radiation at least 10 times higher than normal. Continue reading
Global nuclear industry slowdown, as investment in renewables grows
The deepening nuclear debate over nuclear energy in France, meanwhile, may have global implications…….Even France’s allegiance to nuclear appears to be loosening…..several candidates vying to take on Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election next year have called for France to begin shifting from nuclear to renewable energy.China and the U.S. are also showing signs of strain over the issue…..In the U.S., nuclear investment plans are wavering
A Worldwide Nuclear Slowdown Continues – Technology Review, May 18, 2011, By Peter Fairley“……….The German government has already identified renewable energy as the future, setting plans to boost renewable generation to 50 percent of electrical consumption by 2030 (from 17 percent last year) and to 80 percent by 2050.
….Germany’s accelerated nuclear phase-out may also threaten plans in Eastern Europe by undermining support for subsidies. Continue reading
Greenpeace now blocking construction of dangerous Flamanville nuclear reactor
The EPR design in particular has a number of safety risks similar to Fukushima, as the French nuclear safety authority ASN pointed out a few weeks ago.
Greenpeace Blocks Construction at France’s Flamanville Nuclear Reactor, Greenpeace by Justin – May 4, 2011 , At dawn on Monday this week, Greenpeace activists began blocking the construction of the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) under construction at Flamanville, France. Two trucks were anchored to the ground, blockading the entrance carrying activists. More activists scaled four cranes, attempting to impede further construction work at the site. Continue reading
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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