France Relies on Nuclear Power - VOA Story

[JonThm]

Nature produces He and gamma wave radiation, as it does molecular nuclear fusion from water: Your own heart does it as it beats!

[MrBillcale]

arent we americans smart enough to copy what the french have done? quite remarkable actually

[HoOkEdOnBlEaCh]

@MrBillcale Oh we are smart enough, its just that we choose to be ignorant. In this Information age we have the information at our finger tips, its just that we can't even be bothered to do even 30 minutes worth of research because we all know that nuclear power is EVILZ *rollseyes* Greenpeace and other environuts have been so successful in their propaganda that the average American don't have a clue on the benefits of Nuclear power, just the overhyped dangers, which is completely out of date.

[JonThm]

EDF are expensive, toxic, fatal nuclear power

[HoOkEdOnBlEaCh]

@JonThm Are you serious? Fatal? Toxic? Expensive I get, at the start. Nuclear power plants need massive capital compared to coal plants. But have far less operating costs and is NOT prone to price fluctuating with the cost of oil. In the United States there has not been a SINGLE death attributed to commercial nuclear power when the USA has 103 nuclear plants currently online. If nuclear power is dangerous and fatal, then why does France have one of the least instances of cancer?

[JonThm]

@HoOkEdOnBlEaCh the only reason Franz has nuclear fusion on its soil is emission from Germany. Nuclear fission is toxic hazardous and fatal -remember Chernobyl

[HoOkEdOnBlEaCh]

@JonThm Nuclear fusion? Franz? Nuclear fusion on its soil? What the hell are you talking about? make yourself coherent if you want to be taken seriously, what are you? A 8 year old? Chernobyl is over used by anti-nuclear power members, why? Because it was the ONLY accident where there was a large release of radiation from a nuclear reactor in the decades of use. I mean really, the hysteria around nuclear power is just... astounding, you can really see the stupidity of humanity in the hysteria.

[hotFusionReaction]

If the United States had developed Nuclear Energy at the same rate as France, we would not only be in compliance with the Kyoto Treaty, WE WOULD BE ABOUT 15% UNDER IT!

Try telling the "so called" Environmentalists that and they act as though YOU are the moron.

Unbelievable.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

YOU are a moron. Replace one type of polution with another thousands of times worse for the planet now thats a MORON.

Very Believable!

[hotFusionReaction]

You are honestly going to tell me that it is worse to use Nuclear Energy were the by product, for starters is TINY compared to that of Coal fired plants, but better yet is COMPLETELY CONTAINED and will NEVER enter the environment?

That is your position?

And Don't waste time with the spurious argument of comparing radiation to CO2, they're BOTH EQUALLY DEADLY in sufficient quantities.

Please stick to the facts. BOTH produce waste but Nuclear is the ONLY one who responsibly HOLDS ON TO IT.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

Volcanos have released more CO2 and other greenhouse gases than humans ever have. But we live is a biosphere that self regulates, CO2 levels go up and organisms that need CO2 thrive and breed and convert the CO2 back to Oxygen and ballance is restored. You name one organism that thrives on nuclear waste and converts it back to something harmless. THERE ARENT ANY! For the biosphere to deal with CO2 it needs to be released into the environment where organisms can deal with it.Theres the difference

[captinseperoth]

@hotFusionReaction

get elected,that's the only way to fix things...oh and get support by every other scientist,engineer out there..then we can build a better American.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

How much to store the waste indefinitely?

Who will pay it. The power generated and money made from it is finite. The cost of dealing with the waste is almost infinite. This system is only viable because the people who made the money generating the power intend on walking away with the profit sooner or later and leaving the costly part of dealing with the waste products for someone else to deal with, your grandchildren.

Intergeneration bastardry at its worst!

[theflyingmusician1]

Indefinatly!!!!

Half life my friend, half life. It will disapear eventually anyway.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

OK 70 thousand years or so. In the scale of one lifetime and when compared to how long the benifit of the power generated will last that is INDEFINITELY!

[theflyingmusician1]

Sorry to bother you again, but please take a look at the article of Nuclear Waste in Wikepedia, and then you shall know how they actually deal with Nuclear waste. And then please explain to me the future of British energy without Nuclear Power. Do not say renewable to me because I will laugh.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

The future is nuclear, I firmly believe that but fusion of Boron(NOT fission).A functioning fusion power plant would be possible today at a cost of approx 100mil using a system called Polywell.This is about 3months budget spent on Tokamak fusion research. Inform yourself watch this video on youtube:

"Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power..."

The problem with Polywell is that it can be scaled down as well as up and the people who own the energy industry dont like that.

[HiTekVagabond]

Technologically it sounds like Superfenix was a marvel. However I wonder if economically it was a marvel too. During its 10 years of operation, it cost 15 billion dollars to build, countless more dollars to run it, and during that time it produced a total of 8 Billion KWH of electricity. How much plutonium did it produce? How much did the reprocessing cost? What was the final cost of the plutonium fuel? How does this compare with the once-through method using uranium?

[milofonbil]

This video is part of George WMD Bush's propaganda. Just think of it as Big Lie V2.0

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." - George W. Bush

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels

[jalexandref]

bad video quality... can u upload beter resolution ?

[ChrisPCrunchy]

Nuclear energy is not the cheapest system when you add the cost of safely storing guarding and disposing of the waste produced (not that there is a safe way to dispose of the waste) but it is the darling of the capalist system. A large profit up front and what happens later is someone elses problem.

[milofonbil]

Even better, France has run out of uranium. Does Superfenix make plutonium for them instead? No. The breeder is shut down permanently. France must import *ALL* of its uranium.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

France will eventually come to the only sane conclusion. Fision is not viable long term. Creating power used over months and leaving a legacy of deadly unsafe waist for the next hundred generations and another thousand years. But knowing the French they will dump it in Polynesia or someone elses back yard. The same is they did when they were testing their Nukes.Cowards to the end are the french.

[zassounotsukushi]

Meuse/Haute Marne Underground Research Laboratory -> The French underground repository site.

COGEMA La Hague site -> The French reprocessing facility, which decreases the amount of waste and ultimate half life by orders of magnitudes.

Shut up. Step aside. And let someone else solve the world's problems that you're working so hard to aggravate.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

Typical french arrogance. So the waste is now only deadly for 50 generations or so, that makes it OK to leave for future generations to deal with. Name one container that can be relied on to hold toxic corrosive waste over that time period. Once it leaches into the ground water what then? We find another planet to screw up because this one is too poluted to support life.

[bluebottle992]

Although not perfect, the French have not adopted the most obvious procedure of 'dumping it in Polynesia'.

Repository sites have been created to 'hold' the waste until they are able to deal with it.

The difference between 'storing' the waste and 'dumping' the waste is that it demonstrates a commitment by the authorities to return to it.

When the technology is available to safely dispose of it, this will be done.

As I said, not perfect, but better than the stance many think the French adopt.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

Why create the waste if there is no safe way to deal with it. There is no great certainty that there will EVER be a safe way and the Polynesia option will still be there. All the French have done is delay a descission hardly commendable.How can the economic viability of a system of power generation be assessed when the cost and effects of the disposal of its waste products is not yet possible? How much of the money made from the power sold has been set asside for dealing with the waste?

[sizzla53464]

dude shut up, u don't know what you're talking about. because of nuclear energy, France is now self sufficient in electricity, and the amount of energy produced is ridiculously high compared to the amount of pollution created.

by the way, u know that the british used to test their nuclear weapons on australian' soil ?

[ChrisPCrunchy]

Yes and it was the British and us Aussies who save your sorry arses during the war and how do the French pay us back? By testing their Nukes in our backyard and ignoring our complaints in the typical French arrogant way. At least when the British were testing little was known about the long term effects of exposure to radioactivity. Now we know its effects and the French once again proceed in the typical stubborn way a coward does.

[ChrisPCrunchy]

The polution is still there. Just it has to be stored indefinitely and it is thousands of times more harmfull than any other polution ever produced before. Short sighted people like you, with intellectual debate that begins with "dude shut up" cannot be expected to realise the real cost of power created cheaply but on the condition that we treat this planet and every life that depends on it as if it has a EXPIRY DATE!

[microfactory]

The cheapest energy source is an increase in efficiency. Also, with an increased efficiency the entire economy can benefit not just one energy sector or a town located near a power plant.

[milofonbil]

Nuclear power is only 35% efficient. 65% of the energy in fissioning uranium becomes waste heat released into the environment - steam from the cooling towers and a warmer river.

Wind turbines can recover more than 45% of the energy contained in the wind. And wind power has a zero heat impact on the environment.

[hshopkins7]

What kind of idiot are you, milofonbil. It does not release any radioactive materials or CO2 into the air. It just steam like from a kettle.

[milofonbil]

hshopkins, I never said anything like that.

A Nuclear power plant is only 35% efficient. To make 1000 megawatts of electric power, it takes 2800 megawatts (or more) of thermal power. The remaining 1800 megawatts of heat are released into the environment - not radioactivity, not CO2, but hot water or steam, just like steam from a kettle coming out of the cooling tower forming nice little clouds and nice warm water that kills fish in the river or lake.

Shall I draw you a picture?

[greyflcn]

Rather than going Nuclear, we should go Geothermal.

Gets all the benefits with Nuclear, without all the downsides.

[milofonbil]

Yes, France would not need to import all of it's uranium.