France « nuclear-news

France’s need for transparency and nationwide check on nuclear plants

French FM: France to have safety checks on every nuclear power plant nationwide, English.news.cn 2011-09-14 Editor: Mu Xuequan BEIJING, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) –– Alain Juppe, the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs and State Minister, said on Tuesday in Beijing that France would soon conduct a nationwide examination on each of its nuclear power plants.

The French government will also cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to raise the maximum security level of its nuclear installations, according to Juppe. The French government had already decided to continue its nuclear programs after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, said Juppe…

Concerning the nuclear accident in the south of France, Juppe said he hadn’t got the latest news of the investIgation, but French authorities would announce the results of investigation with the utmost transparency.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano said on Monday that the IAEA had sent a request to French authorities for more information and underlined the need to address nuclear safety.

An explosion hit France’s Marcoule nuclear site on Monday, one person was killed and four injured in the accident. The country’s energy ministry said there was no danger of a radiation leak. ..http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09-14

September 14, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, safety | Leave a comment

A political and economic embarrassment – France’s accident at nuclear site

France on edge after accident at nuclear site, The Independent By John Lichfield in Paris, 13 September 2011 France was yesterday quick to play down the significance of an explosion in a nuclear waste recycling plant in the south of the country which killed one man and injured four others. Ministers said the blast, close to the Marcoule nuclear power station, near Avignon, was an “industrial accident” and not an explosion in, or near, a nuclear reactor. There had been no radioactive leak and no need to evacuate workers or local people.

The explosion at the sprawling Marcoule site on the banks of the Rhône – one of the oldest and largest nuclear facilities in France – is nonetheless a political and economic embarrassment to the French government. France is more dependent on nuclear-generated electricity – 79 per cent – than any other country in the world. It also has a powerful nuclear export industry.

Since the calamity at the Fukushima plant in Japan in March, France has been at pains to reassure its citizens, and potential foreign buyers, of the safety of its own nuclear technology. Environmental groups called yesterday on the French government, traditionally secretive on nuclear questions, to allow “total transparency” and an independent investigation of the Marcoule blast

The pressure-group France Nature Environnement (FNE), which has 3,000 member associations, said the accident “underlines the problems with control of nuclear risks in France”. The significance of nuclear accidents has sometimes been obscured by French authorities in the past, FNE pointed out.

Famously, the French government announced in 1986 that the radioactive nuclear cloud from the Chernobyl explosion in the Ukraine had “stopped at the French frontier”…. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-on-edge-after-accident-at-nuclear-site-2353692.html

September 13, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, safety | Leave a comment

France’s Marcoule nuclear site – doubts on its safety

the priority was to get the job done – to meet the military imperative of fuel production, to irradiate whatever needed irradiating, without much of a thought about how the facilities would eventually be rendered safe. Marcoule is now dealing with the legacy of radioactive waste that created….

The French nuclear programme does not have a stellar record of transparency…..What the incident implies for the future of the French nuclear programme is not entirely clear….

Marcoule’s long nuclear history, By Richard Black, BBC News 12 September 2011 The Marcoule site is one of the oldest in France, and played a significant role in the development of the French nuclear and thermonuclear deterrents. It opened in 1956 – well after the US began the era of nuclear armaments, at a time when France was among the nations looking to gain their own seat at the nuclear table. Continue reading →

September 13, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, safety | Leave a comment

A nuclear cost chain reaction – explosively expensive

So, the construction of nuclear is stalling and the costs are rising. Contrast that with renewable energy, where installations are surging, and most of the technologies are coming down in price as they mature and reach scale....

Nuclear power’s real chain reaction: spiralling costs, The Guardian (UK) Damian Carrington, 22 July 11, Time is money, they say, and the new nuclear power plant being built byEDF at Flamanville in France is now at least four years behind time and €2.7bn over budget. EDF blamed the delay on two fatal construction accidents and dealing with safety analyses prompted by the Fukushima disaster. Continue reading →

July 22, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France | 1 Comment

More delays, more cost blowouts for France’s “new generation” nuclear plant

The reactor has already faced repeated delays and run billions of euros over budget…….

France delays new generation nuclear plant, News Tribune, July 21, 2011 – Tacoma, WA, PARIS — France’s electricity giant announced Wednesday it is delaying its new generation nuclear reactor for two years after a pair of deadly accidents and safety reviews prompted by the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

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

July 14, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, renewable | Leave a comment

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 →

July 10, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, renewable | Leave a comment

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

July 10, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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 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….

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e490bc14-ab04-11e0-b4d8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Rj3Z63K9

July 10, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics | Leave a comment

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 →

July 8, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics | Leave a comment

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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July 6, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, safety | Leave a comment

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

June 21, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics | Leave a comment

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

June 20, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France | Leave a comment

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

June 18, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France | Leave a comment

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.