Comments on: France: Vive Les Nukes
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- I was really surprised by 60 Minutes producers' trade off of investigative journalism for this puff piece on nuclear power.
A good start might have been to inquire why tens of thousands of French citizens filled 5 major cities on March 17, 2007 in protest of new construction of Areva's EPR reactor. It would have reflected the in-depth reporting that 60 Minutes is otherwise noted for.
Moreover why did the producers take a pass on addressing the serious environmental problems in both The English Channel (La Manche)and the Irish Sea as a result of the French and United Kingdom reprocessing programs for nuclear waste. Merely mirroring the nuclear industry's imagery of "recycling" of nuclear waste that instead volumetrically increases the nuclear waste problem as a less stable corrosive highly radioactive liquid.
Or perhaps they could have asked why both the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the largest US nuclear power company dropped the design certificatioun of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor like a hot potato several years ago? Or about the 1986 accident at the first commercial PBMR in Germany that permanently shutdown its further operation?
I am really curious as to why your usually probing news coverage swallowed this industry story hook, line and sinker without any balance what so ever? - Reply to this comment
- Nuclear power would solve virtually all of our energy problems. Relatively quickly. The risks have been overblown. If the French can do it, surely we can do it. Thank heavens our leaders are starting to see the light!
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- @ cbtdbn
what you have to acknowledge is that there is uranium all around the world, in Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Namibia, Niger, Uzbekistan, USA, Ukraine, China, South Africa, Czech Republic, India, Romania, Germany, Pakistan, Brazil, etc, and yep France have also its mines. It is better than having to rely exclusively on Russia/Algerian gas or middle-east oil, and that's why nuclear energy was on its rise in France after the 70s oil crises.
Otherwise i completely agree with you over solar energy for air conditioning, etc, even if the figures are not as much excessive concerning air conditioning percentage in the energy consumption in France.
EDF electricity production:
* nuclear: 74.5%
* hydro-electric: 16.2%
* thermal: 9.2%
* wind power and other renewable sources: 0.1%
cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_France - Reply to this comment
- EDF's CEO says nuclear power is energy independence for France. Perhaps you could follow up with a visit to one of France's uranium mines - if they had one. For atomic Annie question is why not use solar energy for air conditioning which is 1/3 of consumption and is needed when the sun is beating down. Besides every drop of oil, chunk of coal, and cu. ft. of natural gas is solar energy stored in the earth for the last 6 billion years. Finally, for the deputy DoE guy. If nuclear is so cost effective why all the billions of $ in subsidues, liability exemptions, and tax incentives necessary. You would think business would jump on this money maker. The more we are miseducated and misinformed by DoE and the power companies, the more likely we are to think nuclear is good. Come on Steve, how about some good follow up questions.
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- Americans today can thank the Democrats and one of the biggest donors, environmentalist's, for American not building any nuclear power plants since the 1970's. America has 108 current nuk plants operating and providing 20% of our electric. If it were not for the Dems blocking legisation, because of money coming in from folks like the Sierra Club, America would probalby not have one "oil burning" power plant and we would not be pumping CO2 into the atomosphere..............
SO American's next time you see a DEM or one of their rich liberal Enviro buddies........say :Thanks A Lot!!!!!!!! - Reply to this comment
- The radioactive waste is a concern, with workers working around it for reprocessing. And the life is limited. There is not an great deal of uranium in the world, and with its limited supply how is it spending billions to build these plants to later sell as cheap electricity? The Nuke business is like the Oil business, low supply and the price keeps climbing. Instead of polluting the air its waste is a huge problem. In fact it certainly costs in building the recycling plant costs more than the original nuke plant that supplies the electricity. Nuke power is a bandaid and then countries are going to be fighting over who gets the nuke materials the military for bomb building or for the electricity grid.
Better to dig a tunnel to the center of the earth for heat to run generators, than nuke risks. - Reply to this comment
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