
After we left Montélimar, I snapped some quick photos while we drove by this humungous nuclear power station. There were people windsurfing just in front of them on the Rhône River, which the most polluted river in France (I’ll leave that subject for a later post…). These are only two of the four 4 cooling towers that have been in operation for nearly 20 years.
The power station generates 4% to 5% of the total electric energy production in France, 40% of which is the annual usage by the Rhone-Alps area (Lyon is the largest city in this area).
Contrary to politicians’ popular rhetoric, nuclear power is NOT a clean energy alternative. For the following reasons: 1) Nuclear power plants produce radioactive waste (liquid or solid), which is difficult to dispose of (where does it go?) This waste will be toxic for thousands of years and where to dispose of it has become a prodigious technical problem as well as a political problem. The technology of safely storing it is unproved and still under development; 2) Radioactive leaks (into the air) – leading to radiation poisoning and increased risk of cancer. These types of leaks allow radioactive gases to get into the atmosphere, which if breathed, could cause cancer and other grave ailments. Chernobyl allowed radioactive material to contaminate a considerable area, which is still unusable today; 3) Heat emissions (water) – Reactors release warm water into the local rivers and lakes. The warmer temperatures mean certain organisms, that would not normally thrive there, will grow and reproduce, then kill off some of the previous indigenous marine wildlife.
Related Links:
The Fate of France
Has France Become the Toxic Waste Dumping Ground for Europe
Tour de France Today in the Dreaded Le Creusot
Radioactive French Champagne?The Largest Wind Farm in France
Links on a Sick Day
58 of these in france
5 Comments so far
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Your risks for cancer, pollution, early death etc..are far greater living close to a coal fired power station than to a nuclear power plant !
But you probably would prefer living among the 10,000 150m high wind mills needed to replace ( when the wind blows..)this nuclear plant.
Comment by alain 11.17.07 @ 1:55 amYou’ll probably prefer living among the 10 000 wind mills when this nuclear plant blows
have you heard about the coal power station coming to burguundy? that blog post is coming up!
Comment by ptinfrance 11.17.07 @ 7:22 amChernobyl is an exception. You can’t count it as a fact about nuclear plants. Hazards maybe, but not normal facts. We’re not in USSR, we have a huge budget to keep those plants safe and that’s what we do. And could you give me reliable sources about the leaks? Because I doubt… Anyway, all the people who live near those plants are give iodine pills as a preventive measure, so they wouldn’t even suffer from it.
But if you have a solution for producing our own electricity, not being dependent, not paying five times as much for the same amount, as convenient as nuclear, I’m sure many people will be interested.
Germany uses a lot of windmills. Sometimes, they have to buy us MWs. In Denmark, when there is too much wind, they have to evacuate energy by producing heat, thus doing the exact same thing you complain about nuclear plants.
There is no good solution. Sadly, ecology is not the universal answer and we can’t do anything but to wait for someone to find out a solution. If we had already invented the perfect way to produce energy, we wouldn’t be there complaining about the nuclear plant because there wouldn’t be nuclear plants anymore.
Comment by Ewj 11.17.07 @ 4:33 pmDon’t forget the ever present risk of nuclear proliferation.
Comment by Josh 11.17.07 @ 5:25 pmLeave a comment
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