Going Nuclear: Is France Really the Example to Follow?
* June 15, 2009, 2:20 PM ETGoing Nuclear: Is France Really the Example to Follow? The Wall Street Journal, by Keith johnson “…………………..
One of the biggest potential hurdles to the Republican Party’s newfound love of nuclear power is that in France, the government is nearly inseparable from its energy industry. The biggest power company, Electricite de France, is state-owned. Nuclear-engineering groups like Areva are extensions of government industrial policy.
That cozy relationship clears away many of the obstacles facing nuclear power—especially financing—
Going Nuclear: Is France Really the Example to Follow? – Environmental Capital – WSJ
AREVA and the nuclear illusion
Areva’s difficulties and the nuclear illusion
The View From Brittany June 3 2009Areva is no ordinary company. It is the nuclear arm of the French state, in charge with the building and the supplying of French nuclear plants. Even though it is technically a corporation, it is owned by the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique, a public agency whose director is appointed by the French President who has occasionally sold nuclear plants on its behalf.
Areva, supposedly the “jewel” of the French industry is in real troubles. Even though it sells more than ever, its benefits have plummeted and it has been forced to cancel a mining project in Canada. According to the “Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire”, Areva needs 3 billions euros, mostly because of the costly failure the Olkiluoto EPR has proven to be. The Finnish third generation nuclear plant, which should have been put online this year has been delayed due to technical difficulties and costs are sky-rocketing – 5.4 billions instead of the original 3 billions. Moreover, South Africa has recently cancelled the building of 12 nuclear plants while the “sells” announced by the French presidency (4 plants in Italy and 2 in India) remain virtual – nobody know how they are going to be funded.
Areva is presently clamouring for public funds. It will probably get them, no matter how loud we, and others, protest. France, trapped as it is by its own nuclear strategy, simply cannot afford to lose the control of its uranium supply.
That is hardly the whole story, however. What this affair highlight is how problematic is nuclear power at the eve of catabolic collapse. A nuclear plant is very costly and takes a long time to build. Besides, it is of absolutely no use as long as it is not completed. The end result is that to launch a nuclear program you have to immobilize a lot of capital – human, natural and financial – without any hope of anything looking like a return of investment for quite a long time……………………Areva’s difficulties pose, however, another, often overlooked question : what will nuclear plants will become after the nuclear industry fails. In a number of countries, it may happen sooner than one thinks……………….And then what ?
Dismantling a nuclear plant and disposing of the wastes are very costly operation. Will the impoverished societies of forty years from now be able to afford them ? One can seriously doubt it. In fact, in a situation of worsening energy and capital shortage, one can expect them to operate their ageing nuclear plants to very end – the way the Ukrainian government did with Chernobyl – then let them decay away.
The result, needless to say, won’t be good for the neighbourhood,……………. This, by the way, can have interesting geopolitical consequences in countries such as France which are littered with nuclear plants.
The activists who, in the late seventies, have made sure no nuclear plant would ever be built in Brittany may have won their far descendants more than what they thought.
http://theviewfrombrittany.blogspot.com/2009/06/arevas-difficulties-and-nuclear.html
Sarkozy to meet Iran’s foreign minister
Sarkozy to meet Iran’s foreign minister Jun 2, 2009
PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, in rare talks between a leader of a major power and a senior Iranian politician…………………………
Bilateral encounters at such a senior level between Iran and one of the countries involved in the nuclear issue are highly unusual. It will be the first time Sarkozy has met a top Iranian minister since he took office in 2007.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The West accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons. Iran, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, denies the charge and says it only wants nuclear power to generate electricity………………………………..Sarkozy is due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday in France and Iran is certain to be on the agenda.
Sarkozy to meet Iran’s foreign minister Wednesday | International | Reuters
French nuclear utility deep in debt
EDF confronts $34.2 billion debt pile
Troubled French utility, Electricite de France, which acquired half of U.S. utility, Constellation Energy, in December, has already offloaded part of its ownership of British Energy, which it also acquired last year. EDF is staggering under a $34.2 billion debt pile and has sold 20% of British Energy – the British nuclear operator – to Centrica. EDF will also try to raise $1.4 billion through retail bonds. For more on EDF’s financial struggles, read here and here. Furthermore, new nuclear build in the UK may be in jeopardy as EDF is demanding government subsidies there to go forward. Read more here.
Sarkozy – nuclear salesman off to Pakistan?
Sarkozy may visit Pakistan in autumn: official
ABU DHABI (AFP) 27 May 09 — French President Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to visit Pakistan this autumn……………………….Sarkozy’s visit would also be an opportunity to outline cooperation in civil nuclear energy that Sarkozy proposed to Zardari during his recent visit to Paris, the official said.
“France must invest diplomatically, politically and economically in Pakistan,” he stressed…………………….
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jg2IU2J1lpF6y639I_bg8BSbt0VQ
France to pay (well, a bit) for nuclear health problems
France to pay for nuclear health problems
Euro News 28 May 09 People who have suffered health problems arising from France’s past nuclear tests are in line for compensation. It is the first time the government will vote on such a measure after decades of campaigning by pressure groups. France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin said the compensation system would reflect similar ones in Britain and the United States
Paris is setting aside some 10 million euros initially but victims groups say the money needs to be offered to more people exposed to radiation.
Patrice Bouveret, from support group, Truth and Justice, said: “the government is talking about a few hundred victims, whereas several thousand people have health problems which can’t be explained by genetics or smoking but by their presence during France’s atomic tests.”
Around 150,000 people were on site for the hundreds of nuclear tests France carried out in the South Pacific and the Sahara until 1996.
http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/27/france-to-pay-for-nuclear-health-problems/
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation The Chosun Ilbo 23 May 09 A French appeals court has rejected demands by military veterans for millions of dollars in compensation for illnesses allegedly contracted during 30 years of nuclear testing in Algeria and French Polynesia. Still, the French government is preparing draft legislation to compensate some nuclear testing victims.
The court case is just one in a series of long-running complaints that French nuclear testing between the 1960s and the 1990s sickened many people. The latest case involves a dozen French veterans who claim the cancers they subsequently fell ill to are linked to radiation exposure from the testing. France conducted 210 nuclear tests in Algeria and French Polynesia over the three decades.But a Paris appeals court rejected their compensation demands, claiming they pertained to events before 1977 — when a law on compensation took effect………………………….Separately, another court in French Polynesia began to hear this year complaints from former workers at France’s nuclear test sites there.
Harvesting the Wind
Harvesting the Wind
Three young French designers hatch an ingenious plan to use existing infrastructure to create clean energy.
METROPOLISMAG.com By Suzanne LaBarre
Posted May 13, 2009 “……………………..Delon, who is 31 and an architect, is the recipient of Metropolis’s 2009 Next Generation prize, along with Julien Choppin, also a 31-year-old architect, and Raphaël Ménard, a 34-year-old engineer. Their project, Wind-it, addresses this year’s theme—which beseeched entrants to “Fix Our Energy Addiction”—with the effortless simplicity of a Pythagorean proof. The team proposes inserting wind turbines into existing electrical towers or, where infrastructure is broken or spare, building new towers that double as wind-power generators, thus introducing a fount of renewable energy into an aspect of civilization that’s as certain as taxes. With three potential sizes, the turbine towers could be integrated nearly anywhere: Lille, France, China’s Sichuan Province, or the streets of New York City. http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20090513/harvesting-the-wind
Nuclear is not the answer
Nuclear is not the answer
“………………………………….To forestall the reopening of the BNPP, Greenpeace has brought in Yves Marignac, an international consultant on nuclear and energy issues, who is executive director of WISE-Paris, an organization dedicated to “promoting independent information and well-informed decision-making” regarding the use of nuclear energy for power generation…………………………….A mathematician by training, Marignac says he has been going around the world talking about the French “experience” with nuclear energy because French President Nicholas Sarkozy “has been aggressively promoting the French nuclear industry,” convincing governments in the developing world to invest in nuclear power with the help of French-built machinery and expertise……………………………
France is extraordinarily committed to nuclear power generation, with 50 reactors around the country, and some still under construction. But a report on the French nuclear industry, published by Global Chance, an association that includes among its members several of France’s independent nuclear experts, shows that “France’s nuclear promises are a dangerous illusion … locked into nuclear power in a way that presents an obstacle to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.”
As Marignac puts it, the French nuclear power industry “hasn’t delivered even against its own set targets.”………….
………..Marignac has many tables and charts to show how power generated by nuclear plants provides only a small percentile of the total energy required by the French people, mainly because so much of this demand is created by reliance on gasoline……………………………
BUT the main drawback to an energy program dependent on nuclear power, says Marignac, is that “it approaches the problem from the wrong end.”
In his view, any long-term solution to cut dependence on fossil fuels must be addressed from the “demand side,” that is, reducing dependence on electricity and fuel by cutting down electricity use. Not only is nuclear power dangerous, expensive and wrought with untold health and security issues, it ultimately will not bring an end to the threat of climate change. As France has shown, even with 50 nuclear power plants, the French remain as dependent on fossil fuels as ever.
Nuclear is not the answer – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Espionage and the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’
Espionage and the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ The New York Times April 28, 2009,By James Kanter Accusations of spying and corporate hacking are swirling in Europe’s nuclear industry. – “………………
French judges last month opened an investigation into allegations that the power company’s executives may have been involved in espionage — including breaking into computer systems at Greenpeace offices.
Another dimension to the affair could involve Britain, where Greenpeace is concerned that spying activities also took place.
E.D.F. has suspended two staff members from their duties while the French inquiry continues………………………….The allegations of espionage are important for the future of nuclear power because they do little to help generate trust in major operators like E.D.F., which are seeking to rebuild an industry plagued by giant cost overruns and the legacies of nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Espionage and the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com
Spying by French nuclear company?
GOING NUCLEAR
UN Dispatch Morning Coffee – 21 April 2009
<!–
–> Lindsay Beyerstein – April 21, 2009 – 6:30am
– A judicial inquiry in France is trying to determine whether the state-run electricity generation and distribution company, EDF, broke the law by paying spies to infiltrate anti-nuclear groups across Europe.
A security officer testified that he organized surveillance of Greenpeace and other groups starting around 2002, but did not seek to hack into their private networks. This is a particularly sensitive issue in France as memories are still fresh from the 1985 sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior by French intelligence officers. Brits likely perked up at the news too, as EDF just bought British Energy, the UK’s nuclear operator. Link
Dirty Plans of France to Nuke the US – Starting With DC!
Dirty Plans of France to Nuke the US – Starting With DC! OpEd News 8 April 09 by Cathy Garger French radioactive disasters at home render an abysmal nuclear safety record – and now they are being helped to bring the same disasters here to the US!………the ASN, (Autorite de Surete Nucleaire) the French nuclear safety authority, yesterday came out with a report which states that 5 out of 19 of their nuclear power plants are “underperforming.” …………
the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) design has never before operated anywhere in the world. Judging from the nuclear track record of the French state, the operation of this over-sized, unproven reactor will unquestionably ensure the further toxic and radioactive contamination of the MD-DC-VA area, surrounding the nation’s capital with deadly discharges – thermal, toxic, and radioactive – into the already heavily oxygen-depleted, Chesapeake Bay.
Despite many local citizens’ disdain for France‘s ambitious and greedy visions for the US, however? The far greatest sin is absolutement not France’s blatant disregard for the certain worsened contamination of the United States of America – demonstrated by its callous disregard shown both its own environment and own people………………………. the blame and focus must instead be placed squarely where it belongs… in the very laps of the US (s)elected officials themselves, as manifested by their enthusiastic and unanimous dedication to these experimental double-size nuclear monsters, originating with the radioactive French “christening” of the greater Washington, DC area.
……………Five (5) out of nineteen (19) French “underperformers” equates to a rate of 26 percent of nuclear power plants identified as sub-standard performers. In other words, France itself admits its own nuclear power plants have a measly 74% acceptable performance (think “safety”) rate……………………….It’s important to realize the French nuclear invasion is being welcomed with open arms by those in power in our very own government. AREVA’s big plans to take a colossal slice of what I’ve termed the US “nukuler insurgency” pie has been accomplished by AREVA’s Congressional lobbying efforts to the tune of over $5.2 million in the years 2005 to 2008 alone.
Sarkozy in Niger to back deal
Sarkozy in Niger to back deal news 24.com 27/03/2009 (SA)
Nairoby/Niamey – French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Niger on Friday to back a deal by French firm Areva to exploit uranium deposits in the north of the West African country.
………………Niger is Africa’s biggest uranium producer and a vital source for Areva………………..However, mining has caused problems in the north, where nomadic Tuareg are fighting the government, saying they have remained poverty-stricken despite the mineral uranium riches.
Strong local opposition to storage site in eastern France
Strong local opposition to storage site in eastern France*
Reuters, Thursday March 26 2009
Areva says hopes to find site in exchange for jobsBy Muriel Boselli and Marie MaitrePARIS, March 26 (Reuters) – Public opposition to storage sites for highly radioactive waste could derail France’s prized nuclear energy programme, the scientific adviser at French nuclear energy group Areva told Reuters on Thursday.France, where 58 nuclear reactors produce 80 percent of the country’s electricity, has not found permanent underground storage with the capacity to bury nuclear energy waste it has generated in the past three decades and the waste it will produce in future.
The highly radioactive waste generated so far is currently stored in above ground facilities at Areva’s nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in La Hague on the northwestern coast of Normandy.
Under French law, Areva will have to bury the waste in a permanent repository by 2025.
French nuclear authorities are considering permanently storing the waste, 500 metres below ground, near Bure in eastern France ……….
……………. But the project is being fiercely resisted by the Bure population, which is calling for a moratorium and a national public debate on radioactive waste management in France………..
……. “A general opposition (to underground storage) in France would eventually kill the nuclear (industry),” Bertrand Barre told Reuters in an interview at Areva’s headquarters.
AREVA – 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.
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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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