Leading European Industry Expert to Debunk Myth of 'French Nuclear Model' For U.S.

[bananas]

Leading European Industry Expert to Debunk Myth of 'French Nuclear Model' For U.S.
Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:00am EDT

50 Years of French Failings in Nuclear Power Seen As Poor Model for U.S.;
Nation's Nuclear Woes Seen Escalating in Huge Cost Overruns at Finnish,
Flamanville Reactor Projects

Yves Marignac, a leading international consultant on nuclear energy issues and
the executive director of the energy information agency WISE-Paris, will hold
a major U.S. news media briefing at 11 a.m. EDT on September 15, 2009 to
challenge the myth of the so-called "French nuclear model" that supposedly
could serve as a blueprint for the revival of the embattled industry in the
U.S.

As the U.S. Senate considers additional subsidies to the nuclear industry in
its version of pending climate legislation and the U.S. Department of Energy
(DoE) seeks public comment on weakening the rules for loan-guarantee bail-outs
of proposed new reactors, Marignac is visiting the United States to meet with
federal and state officials, among other groups.

He will outline how the "nuclear success story" myth that is being promoted by
the U.S. nuclear industry is far removed from the reality of France's 50-year
history of technological dead-ends, failed industrial challenges and planning
mistakes. Marignac will highlight how these problems have accelerated in
recent years with the design flaws, construction problems and ever-escalating
cost overruns now plaguing the troubled reactor projects at Olkiluoto 3 in
Finland and Flamanville-3 in France.

Yves Marignac is executive director of the energy information agency
WISE-Paris, which he joined in 1997, after four years shared between academic
research at Paris-XI University and applied studies in the French nuclear
institute CEA and the nuclear company STMI. His consultant work covers a wide
range of nuclear issues for various institutional bodies and NGOs at the
national and international level. In 1999-2000, Marignac participated in the
economic evaluation of the nuclear option commissioned by French Prime
Minister (known as Charpin-Dessus-Pellat report), and in 2001 he was a
co-author of a report to the European Parliament's Scientific and
Technological Option Assessment (STOA) Panel on reprocessing of spent nuclear
fuel. In 2005, he acted as consultant to the Commission that organized the
institutional public debate on the project of the new French reactor, EPR
(Flamanville-3).

Marignac is the author or co-author of a number of books and other
publications, including Nuclear Power, the Great Illusion - Promises, Setbacks
and Threats (October 2008) and Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France
(April 2008).

TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with
full, two-way Q&A) at 11 a.m. EDT on September 15, 2009 by dialing 1 (800)
860-2442. Ask for the "debunking the French 'nuclear model'" news event.

CAN'T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be
available on the Web at http://www.nuclearbailout.org as of 5 p.m. EDT on
September 15, 2009.

CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, [phone], [e-mail], for Yves
Marignac, of WISE-Paris

/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- Sept. 14/

SOURCE Yves Marignac, of WISE-Paris

[NNadir]

1. WISE is a "nuclear expert" group?

Fat chance of that.

It's just another chain in the cog of self-referential fundie anti-nuke religious groups.

[DCKit]

2. Geez, with that kind of information on the loose, our nuclear, carbon-free future is dubious. n/t

[NNadir]

3. It's not, um, "information." It's chanting, religious chanting.

The anti-nuke cults here have not been able to establish that there is EVEN ONE person in either France of the United States who has been injured by commercial nuclear energy use, and were they able to do so, they would not even come close to producing as many deaths as their friends in the dangerous fossil fuel industry will produce in the next ten minutes.

Basically, the anti-nuke cults are driven by Amory Lovins types.

Here's who pays Amory Lovins:

Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, CIBA-Geigy, CLSA, Coca-Cola, ConocoPhillips, Corning,Deutsche Bank, Dow, Equitable, Ford, GM, Hewlett-Packard, Holcim, Interface, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Wal-Mart, Westinghouse, Xerox, major real-estate developers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amory_Lovins

The bold is mine.

There are zero anti-nukes who can understand, even when presented with numbers - which are preternaturally beyond their comprehension - that nuclear energy need not be perfect to be vastly superior to all the stuff they don't give a fuck about. It merely needs to be vastly superior, which it is.

[DCKit]

5. Speak for yourself. I'm agnostic, at best.

Though it's more about $$$$$ than the safety of nuclear, the contractors who build the reactors (Bechtel's a huge player), the corporations that run them and the agencies that are supposed to oversee them are corrupt and/or incompetent. And that's just for starters.

Solar, wind and the various hydro schemes aren't perfect, but they're not as expensive/watt (and don't bother slinging any of your bullshit statistics my way), the components are repairable and recyclable and those industries have the potential to employ far more people than will ever be needed to build and run a nuclear power plant.

I think of alternative energy as a huge, non-destructive jobs and economic stimulus program above anything else. The additional baggage of nuclear safety, waste disposal and public fear is just more shit on an already gigantic pile.

[Terry in Austin]

4. Please - this is giving myth a bad name

:hide:

[Nihil]

6. The biggest reason why the "French Nuclear Model" will not work in America is "Americans".

For supporting evidence, I give you Congress, Senate, DoE, FDA, DoD and
all of their big-pocket sponsors who *almost* guarantee that honesty,
efficiency & integrity never enter into public projects in the USA.

:shrug:

That's why I rarely bother with the pro-/anti-nuke pissing matches here
in E/E these days if they are specific to the US as the science & technology
involved will never outweigh the politics & grafting (on both sides) there.