It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word, “renaissance,” to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is “clean,” “safe” and even “renewable.” And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry’s propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the “successful” example of the French nuclear program.
France serves as a convenient sound bite for politicians and others advocating a nuclear revival (hypocritically evoked by many of the same people who insisted on “Freedom Fries” at the start of the Iraq War). A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality.
France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, this alone does not constitute a success. Rather, it results in the production of an enormous amount of radioactive waste that, as is the case for all other nuclear countries, has nowhere to go. France has no operating geological repository for nuclear waste. To date, therefore, it has resorted to reprocessing, a highly contaminating chemical process that separates uranium and plutonium while releasing large quantities of liquid and aerial radioactivity into the environment.
Nuclear energy has not gained France energy independence. France imports all uranium used in its 58 reactors — having abandoned the last of its 210 uranium mines in 2001. These latter also produced a large waste stream, including tailings (radioactive rocks and soils) that have been used to pave children’s playgrounds and public parking lots. Today, French uranium is imported largely from Niger where Areva — which, despite its corporate appearance, is 90 percent government-owned — has mined for 40 years. Its legacy in one of the poorest countries on the planet is one of depleted and contaminated water, wide dispersal of radioactive dust and discarded radioactive metals that have been sold in local markets and used in homes. Nor can nuclear meet all French electricity needs. During heat waves and droughts, the French have been forced to power down or close more than a third of their nuclear plants, which rely on water sources such as rivers and lakes for cooling. None of this has deterred Areva or EDF from driving aggressively into new nuclear markets, especially the U.S., where Aerva is promoting its huge Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR), with seven targeted at six U.S. sites. Since new reactors are too expensive to build unless federally funded, EPRs in the U.S. could result in American tax dollars flowing to the French government. However, French nuclear success overseas has proved as elusive as it is at home. All but two of the U.S. EPRs are now on the back burner or canceled altogether.
Linda Gunter is co-founder of Beyond Nuclear and specializes in researching the French nuclear sector.
