As memories fade, nuclear energy makes return
News Archive - Environmental, New & Alternative Energy - April news
CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE, France At a factory nestled among Burgundy vineyards, workers shape, bore, polish and test pieces needed to put together a nuclear reactor. At each work station, technical charts are pasted next to a map of the country buying the product.
A reactor core marked for the Salem plant in New Jersey is propped on its side, five meters, or 16.5 feet, wide and resembling a chunk of an enormous railroad tunnel. Nearby, workers prepare to broach holes into a plate for 15,000 cooling tubes for a reactor in Ling'ao, China.
 
Twenty years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant coughed a cloud of radiation over much of Europe and scared consumers and governments away from atomic power for a generation, a new crop of leaders, from North America to Europe to Asia, is thinking nuclear.
 
One country has done perhaps the most to push back the pendulum: France.
 
As the only European country that continued making nuclear plants after Chernobyl, France has up-to-date expertise that it is keen to export. And the market is ballooning as fossil fuels become more expensive.
 
In addition, gas pipelines run through zones of political uncertainty and coal-fired power plants clog lungs and may overheat the earth.
 
China and India are embracing nuclear energy to support breakneck growth, and the United States and Russia are reviving long-dormant nuclear plans, overriding concerns about proliferation of the potentially deadly technology.
 
Finland is building the first new reactor in Western Europe since 1991, made by Siemens of Germany and Areva, the world's biggest reactor manufacturer, which operates the factory in Burgundy.
 
Not everyone is softening on nuclear power. Sweden and Germany are shutting down, not starting up, reactors. But even Britain, Italy and the Netherlands are talking about the option. So far it is only talk - but groundbreaking talk, given these countries' two-decade taboo on the topic.
 
"We're positioned rather well for a nuclear renaissance," said Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, an Areva vice president.
 
France's key partner in promoting that renaissance is an unexpected one: the United States. After two decades on the defensive, the nations' industries are cooperating closely in hopes of a new boom in nuclear power.
 
France is the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, with 59 reactors churning out nearly 80 percent of its electricity. The French state owns the world's biggest electricity utility, Électricité de France, and nuclear group Areva, the key to France's international nuclear influence.
 
About 25 reactors are under construction around the world, adding to the network of 440 commercial nuclear power plants in 31 countries that supply 16 percent of the world's total electricity. Areva is directly involved in at least five of the new projects.
 
To Hélène Gassin of Greenpeace, who has fought France's powerful nuclear industry for years, the thriving, expanding reactor factory in this modest industrial town is an alarming sight.
 
"Whenever we see an offer on nuclear energy, anywhere in the world, it comes from France," said Gassin. "Nuclear is the French identity."
 
Greenpeace insists that despite the industry's claims, safe nuclear power is a myth. The group wants reduced energy consumption.
 
Unlike other European countries, France has never had intense debate over nuclear energy. Gassin and the few nuclear opponents in France's legislature say that is because the industry is in effect state-controlled.
 
France has also never suffered an accident the likes of Chernobyl or the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.
 
David Bryant, an energy analyst based in London, said the French government has made safety paramount because it's key to keeping the industry afloat. Now, as more governments join research into the next generation of reactors, the industry says Generation IV will be the most efficient yet, producing less waste and simplified to operate more easily and prevent accidents.
 
France, without oil, gas or much coal, chose the nuclear path in the 1970s and hasn't turned back. But only in the last few years has its nuclear industry gone so aggressively global, as Areva's bulging bank accounts attest.
 
The company had revenue of $12 billion last year and net profit is up 54 percent since 2002, excluding one- time gains. When President Jacques Chirac of France makes major trips abroad, Anne Lauvergeon, the Areva chief executive, accompanies him.
 
A welding technician, Tajeddine Taoufik, has watched the Chalon-Sur- Saône plant's fortunes rise, fall and rise again since he started here in 1976. "At this moment, I'm glad I'm still here," he said.
 
While France has been working as the world's atomic advocate, any global nuclear rebound hinges on the United States, because it has more nuclear plants than any other country and is the world's biggest energy consumer.
 
The Bush administration has enraged environmental groups with its new "alternative energy" plan which, while promising money for wind and solar energy, makes the government's first big pitch for nuclear energy in 27 years.
 
Washington and Paris are aligning closely on the subject in a way few would have pictured during their clashes over Iraq. This month Spencer Abraham, the former U.S. energy secretary, was appointed chairman of the board of Areva's U.S. operation.
 
Bush and Chirac recently visited India and snared major new nuclear energy deals, and consulted with each other to ensure their stances were in sync.
 
The high-profile battle for control of U.S. nuclear company Westinghouse - which Toshiba recently bought from British Nuclear Fuels for $5.4 billion, twice the expected price - underscores the business world's view that the industry is poised for a takeoff.
 
The most surprising new nuclear debate, however, is happening within Europe. While European public opinion remains strongly anti-nuclear, some of the member governments are hoping that a European Union plan to increase nuclear energy will help them overcome the naysayers.
source:International Herald Tribune
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