Is France a nuclear wonderland?

Posted by Joshua Holland at 12:30 PM on May 2, 2006.

There are lots of comments on "Bush's Nuclear Madness" over on the front page about how France is a model of successful nuclear energy. But it's not quite the shining example that nuclear proponents would have you believe.

It's true that nuclear power plants generate almost 80 percent of France's electricity, and that by and large the French public supports it.

But the French don't want a nuclear future any more than the American public does; a poll in 2002 found that 61 percent of French respondents "would prefer to phase out nuclear energy."

They support nuclear energy but want to phase it out in the future -- how do you explain that dichotomy?

Part of the answer is waste. Another poll, in 1999, found that seven out of ten French people "tended to 'distrust' nuclear-waste management, this response being similar to that observed in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom."

France has the same waste problems that we have. When Dick Cheney said in a speech that France was a model for how we could deal with our waste at Yucca Mountain, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research answered with a press release:

"The facts regarding the French repository program contradict Vice-President Cheney," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER, who has written widely on nuclear waste issues. "France has no repository, and their siting program faces huge domestic opposition. The controversy that surrounds waste management is a thorn in the side of the French nuclear industry."

The French government's schedule for a repository, like the U.S. schedule, is far too rapid for a careful scientific investigation required for estimating repository performance over hundreds of thousands of years, according to IEER.

An incident in September 1999 at a nuclear power plant in Tokaimura, Japan, provided a sharp reminder of the risks involved. Considered to be the most dangerous nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the Tokaimura incident left one employee dead and eventually compelled the Japanese government to scale back its nuclear power plant construction program. And Japan is not an isolated example. New nuclear power plant construction programs around the globe have been reduced or eliminated entirely. In Europe, nuclear energy users such as Sweden and Germany are staging a gradual withdrawal. Given this general trend, the question remains whether France can afford to go against the tide.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.