France: Vive Les Nukes

(CBS)  With power demands rising and concerns over global warming increasing, what the world needs now is an efficient means of producing large amounts of carbon free energy. One of the few available options is nuclear, a technology whose time seemed to come and go and may now be coming again.

For the first time in decades, new nuclear plants are being built, and not just in Iran and North Korea. With zero green house gas emissions, the U.S. government, public utilities and even some environmental groups are taking a second look at nuclear power.

And as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, one of the first the places they are looking is to France, where it has been a resounding success and the attitude is "Vive Les Nukes."

---

When much of the world spurned nuclear power, 30 years ago, the French, being French, decided to go their own way and embrace it. Paris, the "City of Light," is lit by nuclear energy, which powers just about everything else in France: its homes, its factories, even its high speed railroads.

Nearly 80 percent of the country's electricity comes from 58 nuclear power plants, crammed into a country the size of Texas. Pierre Gadonniex, the head "Electricite de France," the country's national utility says it all began with a French obsession for energy independence.

"In France, we have nearly no coal. We have no oil. So clearly, nuclear appeared to be the best way," Gadonniex explains. "And 30 years later, it appears to be a very smart decision."

Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, it has the lowest electric bills in Europe. In fact, France has so much cheap electricity, it exports it to its European neighbors. French nuclear plants supply power to parts of Germany, Italy and help light the city of London.

"It is a very competitive way of producing electricity when oil prices are beyond, I would say, around $40 a barrel," Gadonniex tells Kroft.

And the rest of the world has taken notice. Nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, are either building or planning to build new nuclear plants, and some of that business will go to AREVA, the French government monopoly that controls every step of its nuclear industry from uranium mining to plant design construction to radioactive waste disposal.

Deep in the wine country of Burgundy, in a massive factory, AREVA is building the first European reactors since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Bertrande Durrande, the Executive Vice President for Manufacturing, tells Kroft the business is "definitely growing."

Besides the new reactors it is building for France and Finland, Durrande says, AREVA is bidding on a project to build four new nuclear reactors in China.

Asked how many plants he thinks might be built in the next 20 years, Durrande says, "A minimum of 20. Which is quite a change when you compare it to the past."

And some of them will almost certainly be in the United States, which hasn't built a new nuclear plant since the 1970's. With energy prices and global temperatures near their reported highs, and the possibility that greenhouse gases will be regulated, the Bush administration is pushing a nuclear revival.

In many respects, the nuclear industry in the United States has disappeared. Over 100 plants were cancelled in the 1970's.

Kroft talked to Clay Sell, the Deputy Secretary of Energy and the administration's point man on nuclear power. With world energy demand expected to rise 50 percent over the next 25 years, he says it is the only practical option for producing huge amounts of electricity with no carbon emissions.

"No serious person can look at the challenge of greenhouse gases and climate change and not come to the conclusion that nuclear power has to play a significant and growing role in meeting that challenge worldwide," Sell says.

Asked how much interest there is right now in building new plants, Sell says, "There is a tremendous amount of interest. Two years ago there was exactly zero plants on the drawing boards here in the United States. Today, there are about 15 companies talking about building over 30 commercial nuclear power reactors. Now, all of those won't get built. But we think there's a significant chance that many of them will be built."

But so far, no one has signed up to actually build one, an undertaking that requires a huge investment of capital and a certain amount of faith. In the 1980's and 90's political opposition, regulatory delays, cost overruns, and a drop in electricity demand forced utilities to pull the plug on dozens of projects, and the industry has a long memory.

"I recall one story, a man who is a CEO today of one of our leading companies," Sell says, "And he described the pain associated with beginning what he thought would be a billion-dollar plant in the 1970's, and bringing it online as a $9 billion plant 20 years later. And he made the point to me that that is not a lesson that'll quickly be forgotten in the industry."

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page »

[harri183]

Answer to comment about French government running power plants instead of 'greedy coporations': The US government values keeping the government and the nuclear power generators seperate. This is for the same reason the Department of Energy (promotion of nuclear technology) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (regualtion of nuclear technology) were seperated into two agencies. The reason is to allow a seperate entity to do the regulating, and avoid having the fox watch over the hen house. In fact the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is very well respected internationally and many other countries look to the US for insight into better regualtion.

[killaw]

@cbtdbn.
"What percentage of that is derived from uranium that is mined within the national boundaries of France?"

Sorry i missed your question!
But I don't know mate i would say around 0% lol. From what i have read over the Areva website, Areva is the world leader in natural uranium production with around 15% of market share (a position which ensure the so-called 'independance' that we were talking about), they stopped mining in France lately and operate mostly in Canada, Australia, Niger and Kazakhstan.

[killaw]

Another important project relating to nuclear fusion that will be researched in France:

http://www.iter.org/

[arnol_]

To begin with, the French example is irrelevant. As the report explains, it's a different situation there. They didn't have many choices.

But more importantly, in France it is a government program run by scientists. As that woman in charge there was saying, we are very very careful. No compromises.

Here it's in the hands of greedy and corrupt energy corporations whose only motive is profit. And why they are so enthusiastic about nuclear power? The report does not mention it, I guess Steve Kroft would not want to embarrass the government industry lobbyist he was interviewing, but new power plants would be built to a major extent on taxpayers dollars! Billions and billions of them. In France, given their situation, the country decided to invest in nuclear energy, for its people. Here it would be a government investment in corporate profits.

[nukesrbad]

Nuclear is so so so not the way to go. I will personally weed it out from the face of the earth.

"This aggression will not stand, man"

[organicg]

This story was far too one sided, but there is a bigger issue beyond the oblivious.

Say we do build several nuke power plants, which will take about 10 years to bring on line. These are profit motivated corporations, but they are also utilities which can petition for rate increases on future power. So if the country is successful over the next 10 yeas in reducing it dependence on fossil fuels through conservation and innovation the nukes will come on line just about the time they are least needed. So the price of the energy from these plants will the most expensive power offered for the next 30 years.

As for the claim that the US is developing a recycling program for spent fuel that does not create weapons grade plutonium, the correct term for that statement is Vapor Ware.

Solve the waste problem first, and then consider building a new power plant. Have we learned nothing from our current nuke waste problem?

[dan544]

I am very disappointed in 60 minutes and steve Kroft in particular. the story on Nuke engery did not even question alternatives. When the ceo said you can'nt relie on the sun Why did'nt you fall off your chair laughing. the Sun has'nt stop shining since before Christ. the only reason why anyone does'nt see solar as a viable alternative is because no-one can get rich on a natural resource like the sun or wind. your cost are paid for and few people make the amount of money you would if you had needed repairs and government givebacks to nuke indusrty. PLease Steve start acting like a inquistive person and not like your doing a entertaiment tonight fluff piece.

[jessedo]

"Wind and solar are you know, temporary sources of energy. It works when you have wind, it works when you have sun. No sun, no wind, no energy. You don't want watch TV only when you have wind."

I would question the motives of anyone who would make a statement like the one above. That it came from the C.E.O. of an atomic energy plant operator makes me even more suspect.

Last Summer, there was a major power outage in Europe that was only briefly mentioned in the US media. What happens when the water runs low or out and the nukes cannot be cooled without killing off the fish in the rivers?

[kcstan11]

Nuclear is the way to go ... at least for now. We need nuclear as a short term fix %u2026 40-50 years. However, long term, solar, wind and maybe even ocean turbines need to be developed. Solar and wind technology are simply too expensive for an individual. To make solar and wind affordable it will be necessary to change our lifestyle, but only a little. Communities of the future (everything from small sub-divisions to cities) will need to first be conscious of their source of energy (solar/wind) and then planned and developed around that energy source.

Right now there is a town in Alberta, Canada with a population of about 17,500 that is entirely powered by solar energy. So, as you can see, it is not necessary to live in the sun-belt to utilize solar energy.

[kcstan11]

Nuclear is the way to go ... at least for now. We need nuclear as a short term fix %u2026 40-50 years. However, long term, solar, wind and maybe even ocean turbines need to be developed. Solar and wind technology are simply too expensive for an individual. To make solar and wind affordable it will be necessary to change our lifestyle, but only a little. Communities of the future (everything from small sub-divisions to cities) will need to first be conscious of their source of energy (solar/wind) and then planned and developed around that energy source.

Right now there is a town in Alberta, Canada with a population of about 17,500 that is entirely powered by solar energy. So, as you can see, it is not necessary to live in the sun-belt to utilize solar energy.