France What's New

Bure waste dump plan reaches "public inquiry" phase

2013-05-22T14:07:16Z

Having based its power system on nuclear energy since the mid 1970s, France has accumulated around 2700 cubic metres of high-level radioactive waste and about 40,000 cubic metres of long-lived intermediate-level radioactive waste. Between them these contain 99% of the radioactivity from nuclear power generation. A highly controversial geological burial site has been chosen near Bure that straddles the Meuse and Haute-Marne regions. A research facility is currently in place there - along with a permanent "vigilance" of opposition. Now the "public" inquiry phase has begun. A series of public meetings will be held through Oct. 15, 2013, and the government and regulators will consider the outcome when they decide whether to approve the site.Andra, the waste-management agency spearheading the plan, wants to start construction in 2019 and begin operations in 2025.

Nuclear France and the uranium fuel chain

2013-04-29T17:59:10Z

A simple and compelling dramatization of the insanity of nuclear dependency in France.

March 9th human chain in Paris to remember Fukushima

2013-03-05T18:48:17Z

Everyone to Paris, Saturday, March 9th! For those who can - and for the rest of us who'd like to - the French anti-nuclear network will be assembling in Paris in a human chain to remember Fukushima and call for an end to nuclear power.

Démesurément dangereux et coûteux, le nucléaire soumet les humains et tous les êtres vivants à des pollutions et à une menace inacceptables. Hiroshima, Tchernobyl, Fukushima : aucune autre technologie n’a créé en si peu de temps des catastrophes si « durables ». Avec 58 réacteurs, le parc nucléaire français représente un risque majeur, pour nous et nos voisins européens. Attendrons-nous que la centrale de Nogent-sur-Seine, à 95 km de Paris, devienne le Fukushima français ?

Immeasurably dangerous and expensive, nuclear energy submits humans and all other living things to contamination and an unacceptable threat. Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Fukushima: no other technology can, in such short time, create such "long-lasting" catastrophes. With 58 reactors, the French nuclear complex represents a major risk, for us and for our European neigbors. Are we going to wait for the Nogent-sur-Seine reactor, 95 kilometers from Paris, to become the French Fukushima?

Areva loses a bundle in 2012

2013-03-05T16:34:20Z

France's state-controlled nuclear engineering giant Areva lost $130 million in 2012 and its business is struggling to move past the Japan's nuclear disaster and a troubled mining venture. The company lost (EURO)2.5 billion in 2011, a year that saw many countries rethink their use of the nuclear energy after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Fukushima power plant. Much of those losses were due to a troubled uranium mining venture that was the subject of investigation.

EPR: Four years behind, at least, and now even MORE over-budget

2012-12-05T20:26:11Z

Source: CRILAN, an activist group in Normandy working to stop the EPR reactor at Flamanville and elsewhere and the construction of high-tension transmission line corridors. (CRILAN also serves as the global expert and watchdog on the La Hague reprocessing facility).

✔ 1.8 billion euros in 1998 when EdF envisaged building an EPR at Carnet, near Nantes, according to M. Ayrault.

✔ 3 billion euros in 2003, announced at a presentation in Rennes by the Minister of Industry.

✔ 3.3 billion euros during the “Public Debate” organized after the decision to build the reactor on EDF land at Flamanville, from where the very long high-tension lines to reach the Loire Country, are also costly.

✔ 6 billion euros in 2011 when, citing inside sources, CRILAN affirmed the the cost would be at least 8 billion euros.

✔ Today, 8.5 billion euros! And the enormous cost over-run is not, as the company claims, only due to the make-good payments because of faulty subcontracting and post-Fukushima measures.

How much in 2016 ? How much will we need to pay per kWh for electricity produced by this type of reactor? Three times more than anticipated?

We still do not know, despite our repeated demands to the Local Commission on Information,what type of fuel will be used in the EPR! MOX, or more enriched uranium with cladding “doped” with chromium, or traditional uranium like at OLKILUITO ?

Areva moves to wind energy as nuclear continues to slide

2012-11-21T20:40:56Z

From Reuters: French nuclear power engineering giant Areva is planning to set up an offshore wind turbine factory in the east of Scotland, which could create 750 jobs, the group said on Monday.

Areva plans to invest "several 10s of million euros", Chief Executive Luc Oursel said at a news conference, and the plant for Areva's 5 megawatt turbines should be up and running in 2015 or 2016, he said.

"Areva has chosen to locate its future facility in east Scotland to optimise logistics costs for UK projects and to benefit from a growing cluster of offshore supply chain businesses in the area," Areva said in a statement earlier.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond during a visit to Paris, the state-owned group said.

The Scottish site, which has yet to be identified, will be Areva's third European site for offshore turbines, alongside a future plant in Le Havre in northern France and Germany's existing Bremerhaven factory.

Radioactive leak at Flamanville reactor in France

2012-11-02T14:07:23Z

The EDF-owended Flamanville 1 reactor on France's Normandy coast experienced a radioactive leak late on October 24th. Although downplayed by the French nuclear authority, a French watchdog group based near Flamanville received direct reports from workers, who described a very close call that almost cost three plant workers their lives. The unit had been shut down since the end of July for refueling. Around 42,000 liters of 300°C radioactive water escaped from a primary cooling circuit, contaminating the reactor building. Flamanville has two operating reactors, with the third, an EPR design, still under construction but way behind schedule and over budget.

"The Rust-Bucket Reactors Start to Fall"

2012-10-26T21:58:17Z

Harvey WassermanHarvey Wasserman, editor of Nukefree.org and author of Solartopia, has written a blog inspired by the announced closure of the Kewaunee atomic reactor in Wisconsin. He begins by stating 'The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped "nuclear renaissance" is now definitively headed in reverse.'

He points out that Kewaunee may be but the first domino to fall, describing the impact of "low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance" at numerous other old, age-degraded, troubled reactors across the U.S. But Harvey also points out the momentum applies as well as overseas, in the wake of Fukushima, not only in Japan, but also India, and even Europe, led by Germany's nuclear power phase out.

Referring to the new French Areva "European Pressurized Reactors" (or EPRs), under construction in Europe and proposed in the U.S., Harvey writes that "projected cost estimates for new reactors soar out of control---here [in the U.S.], in Finland, France and elsewhere."

He adds "A proposed French-financed reactor for Maryland has been cancelled thanks to a powerful grassroots campaign. Any other new reactor projects will face public opposition and economic pitfalls at least as powerful."

Harvey, a senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), will address "From Fukushima to Fermi-3: Getting to Solartopia Before It's Too Late" in Dearborn, MI on Dec. 7th at the official launch event for the new organization, the Alliance to Halt Fermi-3.

Explosion at oldest French nuclear plant

2012-09-11T14:16:59Z

The oldest operating French nuclear power plant, at Fessenheim near the German border, suffered a chemical explosion on September 5 that sent 8 workers to the hospital, two of them with steam burns. This was just the latest set-back for the French nuclear sector which is struggling to maintain a presence overseas but saw its Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) all but canceled at the Calvert Cliffs, MD site on August 30. Fessenheim sits on the banks of a river and on an active fault line and has been the object of consistent and large opposition to its continued operation (Colmar rally in 2009 pictured). At first alarm, it was believed a fire had broken out as 50 firefighters were dispatched to the site, operated by EDF. Later, it was described as a chemical explosion that released "non-radioactive" steam. The newly-elected French president, François Hollande, said he would shut the Fessenheim plant during his five-year term which most observers believe means at the end of it, in 2017. Furthermore, his energy minister, Dauphine Batho, has been quoted recently describing nuclear energy as "necessary" and the "energy of the future" causing a flurry of critical and often derisory articles and commentaries in the French media.

EDF Gets Six Years to Carry Out $12 Billion of Safety Measures

2012-06-29T22:00:19Z

From news reports: Electricite de France SA, operator of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors, has six years to complete about 10 billion euros ($12 billion) of measures to boost safety after Japan’s Fukushima atomic meltdown, the regulator said.

Autorite de Surete Nucleaire today published deadlines for measures including employing equipment such as diesel generators and bunkered control rooms, and guarding against flooding.

An estimate by state-owned EDF that the measures will cost about 10 billion euros “is not improbable,” Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of the watchdog, told reporters today.

“No one can ever guarantee that a nuclear accident will never happen in France,” he said. “We may need 10 years to completely understand what happened at Fukushima.”

Unfortunately, the approach in France appears to be likely futile (and expensive) efforts to "fix" safety issues rather than move toward a nuclear shutdown like Germany.