Tsunami warnings, written in stones centuries old in Japan
Japan, Switzerland, Italy and now Germany have called into question their nuclear power programs. Despite similarities in the industrial organisation of the French and Japanese nuclear industries, real debate has barely begun to appear in France.
How long will close ties between the French government and its untouchable industrial champions--EDF, AREVA--be able to stave off serious discussion?
Can questions about the risks and costs of nuclear energy be stopped, like the Chernobyl cloud, at the borders of France?
Nuclear power has long been seen as a source of pride in France, an indicator that, whatever else happens, it is still a contender.
Yet, even as Anne Lauvergeon, the head of Areva, dismisses Germany's decision as "pure politics", change may be a-coming....(Lauvergeon was replaced in June)
Here a a few lessons for France from the ongoing Fukushima catastrophe.
1) Do not risk something you cannot afford to lose.
Like your home. Your agriculture. Your patrimony.
France, like Japan, is small.
Unlike the Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan cannot simply walk away from Fukushima, dumping poisoned lands on someone else.
Neither, of course, can France...
Nuclear reactors and waste storage facilities should not be built in areas that it is unthinkable to lose. Ever.
2) Conflict of interest is lethal for safety.
The collusion of interests between the nuclear industry, Japanese politicians determined to promote nuclear, and financial firms with huge bets on the industry ensured that repeated, flagrant safety violations were ignored. Regulatory agencies were weak and compromised, scientists and researchers afraid to lose their jobs and managers more interested in profits than safety.
This situation is not unique to Japan. In France, too, governments are committed to nuclear, industry ties are pronounced and independent experts cowed. EDF, AREVA and the French government collaborate closely.
(Witness the French government's public support of the nuclear industry before the Fukushima crisis was even resolved.)
Only with strong, completely independent regulators can safety be ensured. Japan did not have these regulators--and neither does France.
3) Experts can and will make mistakes.
- Assuming electricity supplies will never be cut off for more than 12 hours.
- Failing to take tsunamis into account in a region known for tsunamis.
- Installing nuclear reactors in major earthquake zones.
- Depending on the massive, uninterrupted flow of water in areas which periodically suffer devastating droughts.
- Promoting nuclear power in violent countries with profoundly fragile regimes.
- Stocking radioactive materials "temporarily" in dangerously exposed positions.
- Failing to plan for simultaneous problems at more than one reactor and a natural disaster that disrupts roads, electricity and other infrastructure surrounding a plant
Nuclear experts are human and make mistakes, just like the rest of us. Also, as Fukushima shows, situations can rapidly spin out of control where the expert know longer knows what is happening or how to respond.
People like Claude Allègre are dead wrong when they argue that nuclear power is too complicated for a democratic debate. On the contrary, it is ONLY democratic debate, with full disclosure, that will enable us to make the right choices.
It is a mistake to put blind trust in experts. France is not exempt from this rule.
4) Black Swans happen
Refusing to seriously plan for human error, terrorist attack, computer failures, hacking, fire, flood, or any of the many things which can and do go wrong--because the consequences would be to terrible to contemplate--is stupid and irresponsible. Black Swans happen.
Extreme events are not just possible, they are inevitable. (Think: Kobe, tsunami in Thailand, Katrina, Volcano...)
Do not let people with a financial, political or emotional stake in the nuclear industry tell you that it is childish to envisage an unlikely event.
See lesson number 1.
5) The costs of nuclear energy are much higher than stated.
For years, government and industry have conspired to conceal the true costs of electricity produced by nuclear energy.
Decommissioning costs, spent fuel storage costs, the costs of the inevitable accidents--none of these costs are included in current calculations, and they should be.
Only when the full costs are calculated and included can a reasonable cost comparison be made with alternative energies.
Nuclear's costs, still unknown, are rising.
EDF must be forced to quantify major and inevitable costs associated with nuclear-generated electricity. Only then can costs be compared with other forms of energy production.
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