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TechnoratiAccidents Tarnish Nuclear Dream
French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps
Bollène, France - Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.
For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds.
"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.
The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.
Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.
Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. "It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed."
At the centre for adults with learning disabilities where she works, some have seen her on the TV news and innocently asked for her autograph. At 10.30am on the dot, two men in green overalls from the nuclear site appear at her door to collect the daily sample of water from her tap to analyse it for uranium. Levels have fluctuated daily.
Even after the official ban was lifted this week and the families' urine samples tested normal, Eymard won't drink from the tap. "I always trusted that nuclear was totally secure. But now I wonder, have there been other accidents in the past we haven't been told about?"
The nuclear site at Bollène sits in a picturesque corner of Provence between the lavender fields and cypress trees that stretch north to the nougat capital of Montélimar and to the historic town of Avignon 30 miles to the south, which was hosting its famous theatre festival when the spillage occurred.
Until now most locals have accepted the plant as a risk-free part of everyday life in nuclear-dependent France. More than 80% of France's electricity is generated by the country's 58 nuclear reactors - the world's highest ratio. But the leak has shaken French trust in nuclear safety and embarrassed Nicolas Sarkozy as he crusades for a French-led world renaissance in atomic power.
The president wants to export French nuclear know-how around the world, including to Britain where nuclear power supplies 19% of electricity, and London and Paris are to cooperate on a new generation of nuclear power plants. Areva, 90% state-owned, is at the heart of foreign cooperation agreements not just with Europe but countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Libya. Last year it clinched the biggest commercial nuclear power contract on record, worth €8bn (£6.3bn), to supply China with two reactors and provide nuclear fuel for nearly two decades.
Areva has been criticised by France's nuclear safety watchdog over the Tricastin leak for not adequately informing local authorities and for unsatisfactory measures and operational procedures. The leak rated at level one of the seven-stage scale of nuclear incidents.
It was detected on the night of July 7 but the town hall and locals who continued to drink water contaminated with uranium were not informed until the following afternoon. Areva's chief executive, Anne Lauvergeon, called the leak an "anomaly" which posed no danger to humans or the environment. The treatment plant has been shut and the subsidiary's director removed.
But in recent days there have been other, lesser incidents at nuclear sites. In Romans-sur-Isère, north of Tricastin, at another site run by an Areva subsidiary, officials discovered a burst underground pipe which had been broken for years and did not meet safety standards. A tiny amount of lightly enriched uranium leaked but not beyond the plant. This week, about 100 staff at Tricastin's nuclear reactor number four were contaminated by radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe. EDF described the contamination as "slight".
The French government has now ordered tests on the groundwater around all nuclear sites in France. The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006.
People living near the Tricastin plant remain concerned. In basil and coriander fields farmed by the extended Eymard family not far from the nuclear site, part of the crop was ruined after wilting during the ban on using contaminated water. The herbs, which are sold to make frozen seasoning, have been tested for radioactivity and cleared.
Roger Eymard, 69, a retired farmer, now washes by pouring purified water into the shower fitting of his camper van parked in a stable. "Nuclear was progress and we wanted that. We thought people were competent. Now we ask, were there previous incidents we weren't told about?"
France's IRSN nuclear safety institute has pinpointed high levels of uranium in the groundwater that it said could not have been caused by the recent leak alone. A separate commission raised the possibility that this contamination could be linked to military nuclear waste at the Tricastin plant from 1964 to 1976.
The area's image has been so dented that the nearby Rhône Valley wine makers whose label is Coteaux du Tricastin want to change their name. In nearby Bollène, sales of bottled water have soared despite assurances that the tap water is unaffected. Some people have even asked chemists for iodine tablets, recommended for a nuclear emergency.
Not far from the nuclear site, Emilie Dubois, 61, sat by her luxury swimming pool framed by fig trees, poolside bar, shower and designer outdoor kitchen. But for two weeks the cover has been on as the family ordered tests on radioactivity levels in the pool water.
The day the emergency water ban was announced, more than 50 people swimming in a local lake were ordered out and fled. "It was as if there was a shark attack," one said.
Dubois was in her pool with her grandchildren when a town hall official arrived to tell her of a ban on watering with groundwater. He said he had orders not to give an explanation. She assumed it was a drought warning and got back in the pool. Only from television that night did the family learn of the leak. The pool, filled with local groundwater, was a potential contamination zone. It has now tested safe to swim in.
Her husband is a retired engineer from the plant and her sons work in the industry. "I've never questioned the safety of nuclear," she said. She has resumed watering her vegetable patch and ate freshly picked salad for lunch. "It's organic but it's been watered with the groundwater after the leak. Why would I eat anyone else's tomatoes that weren't organic? Although there are thoughts at the back of my mind as I'm eating."
Sarkozy recently announced that France will build a second new-generation nuclear reactor, a European pressurised water reactor or EPR. He said nuclear power was France's best answer to soaring energy prices and global warming. The Green party attacked the EPR as "useless, dangerous and expensive", saying: "France is becoming a nuclear showroom for Sarkozy the sales rep and Areva."
Not far from the stream that was contaminated from the Tricastin leak, Joel Bernard sat in his farmhouse tallying the loss to his carrots, radishes, turnips and cherries which couldn't be watered during the ban. "Until last week, it was paradise here," he said. "I don't want to return to the rural past. But something like this creates a kind of suspicion."
© 2008 The Guardian
35 Comments so far
Show AllIf it was purposefully written ~Namaste~, and I do believe it was, then you need help. Not help because you purposefully wrote it, but for denying it was purposefully written in the first place and later claiming it was an honest error.
You see NAM, you don't make those types of errors, ___ and we BOTH know it.
This entire argument is a damn shame isn't it?
When you apologized, I thought you were being sarcastic.
You are correct about being pig headed.
The 5% figure I referred to is the 5% loss when transmitting current over long distances with "AC". I say that 5% would not be lost by using DC.
You said, "BUT, there is added (non reocurring)" costs when using DC.
In other words, you said there is NO difference with DC and the energy loss would be comparrible to AC with DC. That's the argument Namaste.
You are in denial and cannot admit a mistake or your continual attempts to show that I'm wrong about almost everything.
You see NAM, you just posted how you say you replied "in agreement" to what I'd posted, buttttttt you LEFT OUT the following paragraph YOU wrote, where you stated,
"But there is added (non-reoccurring) cost, etc, etc, etc."
Thererfore there is no difference in power loss of transmitting DC versus AC and you are wrong Kem. And that is what you wrote, without saying "Kem you are wrong". You didn't have to say it, you'd just "proven" to all that I was wrong with my post to Paul with that final paragraph of your post.
Then you posted additional comments to back up your first comments with your 3:49 post.
Then you start backing off after I'd refered you to the other article, by saying you had agreed with me all along. That's a sick mind ~Namaste~. I'm very sorry to say that.
Well this argument began when you explained that I was TOTALLY wrong about DC power loss in transmission lines over long distances ~Verocity~. I was speaking to my friend Paul Smith then. You then came on and stated that the loss of energy when transmitting DC, is hardly any different than that of AC transmissions. ___ Is that a fact?
I say you're wrong and you didn't need to personally give me your silly lessons and tell everyone who reads this that I was wrong. The other day you told everyone that I'm out of my "comfort zone" when discussing global warming. ___ Shove it.
Now, when I ask you why don't you argue with the author who says there is FAR LESS loss of energy with DC tranmission over long distances, as I had originally posted here, you now say that you won't bother to do that, because you agree with me about the subject. ___ WHAT???
I do hate to say this, but I fear that you are going insane bud, you appear to have a serious mental problem and you need to seek professional help. So just leave me alone, ____ Please.
~VERACITY~ With a "V". LOL
Why don't you reply to the July 23 article here about the solar tower in the Sahara, and explain to ALL, and to your brothers and sisters here at C/D, why THAT author is wrong about DC versus AC tranmission, instead of whining about how I answered you ~Presence~.
The article I refereced here states that DC transmitted over "long" distances is a far superiour method with less energy loss than with AC. My reply to you should be fully understood by you.
I didn't attack you at all, I said exactly waht I meant to say that your post to me was un-needed and that is what I wrote.
You have been posting commments here recently addressed to me saying that I'm wrong about many things, such as your un-needed post here addressed to ME about DC versus AC and offer your silly and incorrect BTW lessons to me here and I've previously requestd that you don't do that and you continue. You are a pain in the ass.
You often run your mouth and don't really know what you're talking about but with your engineering type and high fallutin word usage and phrases, it may sounds good to many.
You also are fully aware that my vision is very poor for computer use and I often make spelling errors. I don't give a rip how you spell your code name or which one of the many you use. Sound as if you are also becoming a bit paranoid.
Thank you for another un-needed lesson ~VEROCITY~ as according to the recent article here about the solar tower power plants planned for the Sahara desert, which could furnish all of Europe's electrical needs, use of DC current during lengthy transmission will cut the power losses by a great deal.
And if the power was transmitted over long distnces via __DC__ current and with smaller diameter tranmission lines, the transmission loss would be far less than 5%. At any local, the DC could easily be converted to AC.
My apologies, wolf123, I thought you were sticking up for the call for more nuclear power plants by denigrating the potential of solar. In another article I read it was also shown a 10 mile square plot of either wind, solar, or better yet both, located in one of our southwestern states could provide enough power for all the US.
Another research I did about power loss when transmitted over distance put the figure at about 5%, a negligible consideraion since the source is virtually unlimited AND non-polluting. Of course there is a drop in production of power at night (or in times of slack wind), but this can be compensated for by over-producing during the day (non-peak times), and storing the excess as compressed air in underground caverns & already drained oil & gas wells. The compressed air can be piped, and could also be used to power air cars, a clean technology advancing rapidly.
With innovation, proper funding, and a determined public we won't need nuclear or fossil fuels at all after a few years, OR the trillions we waste on a military now dedicated to stealing these resources from other countries as we are doing presently & previously. We might need to tighten our belts for awhile, but eventually we won't be sending $700 billion per year (and surely increasing until we formulate a sound energy policy that gets away from oil almost entirely) out of the country.
Hey ~WOLF~, did you see the recent article here at C/D about solar power towers planned to be built in the Sahara, that would furnish all of electrical power required for Europe?
I think ~Paul M. Smith~ may have mis-read your commment. He's a swell guy who displays a high degree of common sense and honesty, is well educated and is very intelligent. Like all of us, he's not always right. ___ He most often is.
PaulMagillSmith July 27th, 2008 11:19 pm
"PROVE WHAT?, wolf123,"
Apparently you desperately need a course in reading comprehension, rtdrury July 27th, 2008 5:37 am said "1% of European land area can electrify Europe via solar power plants."
AND I said prove it, NO WHERE was Strontium 90, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki mentioned, I challenged rtdrury to prove 1% of the land area of Europe could electrify Europe via solar power plants. I DON"T have to prove ANYTHING about nuclear's overall safety. READ what is written, NOT what you want it to say.
~URTHSONG~ ~PAUL M. SMITH~ You two managed to say it all like it is in very brief blogs. ~Thank you.
I was talking with an engineer who had worked in a couple of nuclear power plants during his career as well as some coal-fired ones. It's his opinion that we are way past due for a nuclear accident that will make uninhabitable a huge area comprising several states. Three Mile Island came remarkably close to taking out much of the northeast. I live on the Delaware coast. He says that we are in the range of ten aging nuclear power plants. The odds are against us. Then there is the little problem of nuclar waste disposal. When Atoms for Peace was first begun, the problem was to be solved by the mid-'60s. Then it was to be solved by 1980. Then it would surely be solved by 2000. Here we are with nuclear power plants storing their waste around them. Even if the waste were all gotten to that earthquake-prone area of Nevada, shipping across the nation in special railroad container cars, they still would max out capacity. There is nothing safe or economical about nuclear power. Now let us get on with developing renewable energy systems for wind power, solar power, geothermal and other possibilities. And don't forget building well-insulated homes and more efficient transportation. By the way, Gore has been avoiding supporting nuclear power for the future. Perhaps one can see this as a weakness on his part given the huge portion of our electrical power presently in use. But I rather think it is the conundrum of how grave the danger of continuing is. Damned if we do and damned if we don't, quite literally. Unless you get down to the nitty gritty of developing entire new clean renewable energy systems. Many of these plants will have to shut down soon because of their age. This is the time to start switching. Encouraging profitable entrepreneurial activities involving small wind generators and solar collectors on many home roofs, for instance, could change the landscape far more quickly than you might think. That's what they are doing in parts of Europe.
PROVE WHAT?, wolf123, that Strontium 90 increased in baby teeth in the '50' & '60's due to above ground tests, then decreased when they stopped (with the long term effects on those babies unknown...have we noticed an increase in the cancer rate in our society?), that the background radiation level as far away as England increases a thousand times after Chernobyl 'accidentally' blew, that tens or hundreds of thousands of troops returned from Gulf War I (and will also from our current WMD using troops in the ongoing quagmire for oil) with a strange multi-symptom malady linked to the use of depleted uranium (interestingly enough DU & Agent Orange sprang like snakes from the same lab/experiments), that the government (with a complicit media because of advertising revenues) has hidden numerous nuclear 'accidents' from an unwitting public?
Do you realize how many people died at Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, after the fact, or that Madame Curie & numerous other women painting watch faces that glow in the dark died of radiation poison, and they were only exposed to radium, not more toxic fatal 'new' radioactive substances?
Until you absolutely prove to us there is nothing about mankind fumbling around in the dark, with risky radioactive substances that could potentially kill everything on this planet, I'd say take a seat in the back row with all the other third graders, simpletons, & dunces. I would say STFU, but that might be a bit harsh, and contrary to an the ways of an overly secretive current administration I believe everyone should be free to voice their opinion, even if it is wrong, we disagree, or it is contrary to factual information free of spin or financial/political motivation.
Surely you jest, the onus is on you to prove nuclear's overall safety without natural or man/person caused mishaps. PROVE IT!!!
veracity, namaste, it's like I've told KEM (and he agrees, "Everything ever built eventually broke"). The consequences are just so devastating why lower the odds by building more of these unsafe things, especially when better options are available that only lack the funding that is drained away by an industry that has been subsidized for about 50 years now. Move over nuclear, coal, oil, and let some patriotic progressives in the game. If you are smart you will get on board, otherwise you will be tossed overboard. Your choice, but remember 'choices have consequences'.
rtdrury July 27th, 2008 5:37 am
PROVE IT!!
It is common knowledge that an accident at one of these plants can be devastating. It is common knowledge that these accidents do happen. It is common knowledge that there is no way of disposing of nuclear waste, unless as the US has done, it is stored on Indian Reservations. Of course this is just a different kind of Small Pox.
Sometimes, with the decisions made, I wonder if for some reason they are trying to eradicate us all.
"You have to die of something. Despite thousands of nuclear explosions and hundreds of nuclear reactors, mans life expectancy still increases. Go out in the sun, and get exposed to UV rays, and you might die of skin cancer. Fear is the mind killer. It has proven deadly here."
Thanks, but not only do I choose to NOT die of radiation sickness but I also choose to not saddle future generations 10,000 years from now with a bunch of deadly toxic waste generated by our self centered society.
T A R N I S H,
Does _ N_O_T _ c u t __ it,
… and like that fallen bridge in Minneapolis, it's all about the _ A c c i d e n t s _
|______ R U S T I N G __ A W A Y ______|
|_________ THE _ AMERICAN ___________|
|__ N U C L E A R __ N I G H T M A R E __|
1% of European land area can electrify Europe via solar power plants. Meat production consumes around 20 times that amount of land.
Paranoia is a sickness, but caution indicates wisdom. Enough deaths are directly attributable to atomic energy, even in its limited lifespan of use, that we should consider rejecting it in all military & civilian forms, including nuclear power plants, bombs, and the even more insidious longer lasting depleted uranium weaponry.
`
Fear really has little to do with reality and common sense ~MIMI~. A certain amount of fear is a very normal condition for animals.
An analogy, if you will bear with me for a moment. A man is a midnight shift police officer, he leaves his loaded service revolver lying unattended on a dining room table while he showers before going to bed. He knows his two young children often invite other children over to play video games.
Would yu term it "FEAR" that he suddenly decides to put the gun safely away before the children show up? Or would it be a practicle and sensible action?
Everyone dies ~MIMI~. We don't have to rush it.
On one hand we have accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Tricastin. But on the other hand, we have Gore and Obama endorsing nuclear power as environmentalism. Therefore, accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Tricastin don't really matter. This is easily proven by the Gorbama infallibility principle.
You have to die of something. Despite thousands of nuclear explosions and hundreds of nuclear reactors, mans life expectancy still increases. Go out in the sun, and get exposed to UV rays, and you might die of skin cancer. Fear is the mind killer. It has proven deadly here.
Nuclear power proponents like to think that accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Tricastin are "acts of God" and therefore totally unpredictable. The occurence of ocasional such accidents is not unpredictable at all; such occurrence is guaranteed with 100 percent certainty.
What is fundamentally at work here is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law stipulates that in inanimate Nature, a high degree of organization is unstable compared to randomness or chaos which is stable. The Second Law says that in inanimate Nature, a high degree of organization always has a strong tendency to give way to randomization of such a state of affairs.
Yes, a living thing even as lowly as an amoeba is able to locally circumvent the Second Law and organize its environment to meet its requirements for life. (The Second Law however requires that such a local "decrease of entropy" be balanced by an increase in entropy -- or the creation of more randomness -- somewhere else to compensate.) Obviously human beings can for a time organize things on a much greater scale than an amoeba. But keeping large quantities of extremely dangerous materials isolated is a highly complex and difficult task for that will in some cases last for many thousands of years. To expect zero accidents is based on incredibly over-optimistic assumptions. Think leaks, think possible terrorist attacks, or think a hundred other scenarios that can go deadly wrong.
When we work with extremely dangerous materials such as Uranium, and even more dangerous Plutonium, we are inherently taking a large risk of possible "leakage." A single one millionth of a gram of Plutonium inhaled into a person's lungs will give him lung cancer; nuclear installations deal with such materials by the ton. No, nobody really knows where every last microgram has gone.
Felix.
Sarkozy is a fascist. He is taking France down the same path as the fascists in America. In 1978, the TMI accident was a homegrown terrorism act on the 1st day of FEMA's operation in order to discredit nuclear power and make us and the world dependent on Oil which they could better control. Those accidents in France were likely for the same purpose. One of the reasons we ousted the Shah were his plans to develop nuclear power in Iran. Once the Ayatollahs took over, this ended.
Excellent points ~NATE W~, and remember the French Maginot line, and their decision to invade Mexico and their Vietnam intrusion?
Of course they did have a neat revolution when their citizens finally became fed up with their kingly government. Guess they have many similar problems as we have with government. I recall we also had a problem in Vietnam and with our nuclear power plants, etc. It's gonna be tough to have our elected support clean energy and leave the nukes out of the equation.
Perhaps this is the first bit of buyers remorse the French public is experiencing after they bought their government's propaganda campaign about their "having no choice but nuclear," lock, stock and barrel. It should be noted that the French are notoriously clingy to anything they perceive as being theirs well past obsolescence (their phone based precursor to the Internet, Minitel, is an obvious example), so getting the French public and political class (who pushed the nuclear agenda) to abandon nukes when there is so much money intermingled will be extraordinarily tough.
Liberal - I don't care what anyone does as long as it doesn't hurt me or anyone else
Conservative - I know what's good for everybody so do what I say or else
Kem:
As they say: Can 50 million French be wrong?
How about 1 billion Chinese?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/china-wants-100-westinghouse-ap1000.html
(I saw this while trying to help SiouxRose with her homework. A meeting in Florida)
i wonder if the u.a.e. are having second thoughts now about the deal they just signed with france for nuclear reactors..................
And the nuclear DREAM turned out to be a nightmare.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html