•France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
•France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
•France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.
•It is building its first Generation III reactor and planning a second.
How can the French do this and we can't?
One quibble...we "had" Yucca Mountain, but the Dems wanted those votes so now we just have a really expensive hole in a mountain and still no long term storage place for our nuclear waste.
Nuclear power plants and the toxic waste they generate are one of those things so completely and utterly stupid it literally *defines* the limits of our species intelligence.
We literally can not think past our own individual mortality in any significant way. Even when presented with lethal material being generated by the TON which will not only kill for tens of thousands of years but which -- and here's the real kicker -- will cause genetic mutations in any species it contacts long beyond its period of lethality. And the whole 'protected for eternity' bullshit? Its just a breathlessly astoundingly stupid form of NIMBYism. Put it in a hole. Yeah, right.. that'll do it. No, really! A deep hole. Uh-huh. Yep.
Humanity is not the be all and end all of life on earth nor is our current state of development the final result of our natural evolution. Its simply the limited hand we got to play right now. And clearly, intelligence has a LONG ways to go. But with enough toxic crap spewed into our common environment, humanity *is* now the cause of the next Great Extinction -- And we'll be right in the pack going down the tubes.
That canary (passenger pigeon/dodo/great auk) in that little cage over there? It's dead. We're just too damn primitive a species to act on the truth. Maybe the next species will take a different route, a smarter one, & last longer than our short reign of terror on other lifeforms.
One quibble...we "had" Yucca Mountain, but the Dems wanted those votes so now we just have a really expensive hole in a mountain and still no long term storage place for our nuclear waste.
Well, that was a promise Obama made but as far as I know, it's not a done deal. But even if it is, the DoE is charged with dealing with the nation's spent nuclear fuel. So if it's not Yucca Mtn. it's going to be something else. What other industry has the government take care of its waste issues?
How can the French do this and we can't?
Well, for one thing, it's nationalized, not privatized. The French electrical utility is Électricité de France (EDF). Maybe we should let TVA take over all nuclear plants here and put companies like Exelon out of business. Apparently the "free hand of the market" isn't sufficient for this industry.
But the real news is that they can't. New French nuke plants are way over budget and behind schedule; last summer there was a leak at the Tricastin power plant that contaminated drinking water with uranium solution.
You can read more about the French nuclear program overhyped nuclear program here.
You know, Proud Socialist, fission power generation does truly suck, but ..
but ... coal combustion power generation is far far far worse in terms of toxins (coal tar is a Superfund-scale problem)
in terms of industrial safety,
and in terms of public health. Thousands of people died last year as a direct result of power generation's appetite for coal.
There are small scale accidents all the time with nuclear power, there is contamination every step of the way from mining the uranium to refining it to generating power with it. I don't see how it's any better than coal. It's just trading one problem for another.
Even if we had begun to use Yucca Mountain, getting waste there would be almost impossible. Many states have state laws which prohibit the shipping of nuclear waste through their borders, there are laws concerning how waste can be shipped (rail or motor truck), etc. I haven't checked the area of law since I worked for a lawyer who followed it, but I'm sure it's even more messed up now than it was back in the 1980s. For example, NYS did not join a multi-state compact so it can't store waste in another state (i.e., in a waste site in New Hampshire or Maine) and internally they don't have a state-wide site because no county wants the waste. So all the waste is stored at the facility where it was created. Therefore the Indian Point nuclear plants would still have to hold the waste even it the plants were shut down. (Low-level medical waste is treated a bit differently.) The waste issue really needs to be handled before any more plants are built or brought on-line.
You can't seriously believe that something is not being used just because it is not as cheap as some are claiming? There are massive economic factors at work and it is these that determine government policy, at least in part. And one of the biggest economic factors is what the wealthy want.
Maybe we should let TVA take over all nuclear plants here and put companies like Exelon out of business.
New French nuke plants are way over budget and behind schedule; last summer there was a leak at the Tricastin power plant that contaminated drinking water with uranium solution.
A little history might also help. TVA tried building a nuclear plant in Hartsville forty years ago, just northeast of here. The cooling towers still remain unused because the subcontractors had underbid their actual costs and were cutting back on materials quality to the point the facility would never be safe to use. Safety and construction inspectors were bribed and threatened.
Solar and Wind.
All else is death.
Commenting by HaloScan
