Japan's Nuclear Accident Raises French Hopes for a Big Job

Japan's Nuclear Accident Raises French Hopes for a Big Job

Aug 17 - Global Information Network

PARIS, Aug. 17, 2004 (IPS/GIN) -- The fatal accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Mihama last week has stirred hopes here that France will build the new international nuclear power plant called ITER, an experiment in new nuclear technology.

The United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are cooperating to build the plant beginning in 2010, but are undecided on the location.

Michele Rivasi, director of the independent French Environmental Observatory, told IPS that the Mihama accident could strengthen the French candidacy. Paris officials and nuclear industry representatives avoid speaking publicly about the accident but in private they express hopes it will undermine Japan's chances, she said.

The European Union, Russia, and China support the French candidacy while the United States and South Korea prefer Japan.

The Mihama accident in which at least four people were killed and seven seriously injured follows a string of nuclear accidents in Japan. A major accident had occurred earlier at Mihama in 1991. Accidents were reported following that at nuclear facilities in Monju in 1995, and in Tokaimura in 1997 and 1999.

But the French safety record is not much better, says Rivasi. "We have had our share of accidents at nuclear power stations, we cannot say French technology is safer than the Japanese," she told IPS.

"Extremely serious accidents, such as that of the nuclear power plant of Civaux in May 1998, were never discussed publicly," Stephane Lhomme, spokesperson of Sortir du Nucleaire (Get Rid of Nuclear Power) told IPS. "Transparency, an essential in such a dangerous issue as nuclear power, does not exist in France."

On May 12, 1998, the control panel at Civaux, the most modern French nuclear power plant, reported a sudden pressure drop. Engineers and technicians worked frenetically to decode a set of confusing signals. It took them nine hours to cool the system. Only after that technicians were able to locate a leak and change a broken tube.

Just weeks later engineers discovered another construction error that brought near-catastrophe. Cracks were discovered in a welded tube. "That night we all, the French nuclear industry and the society at large, had enormous luck," Lhomme said.

The German Agency for Nuclear Safety which inquired into the leak said French technicians had shown "considerable insecurity" in handling the case. The plant had to undergo major reconstruction.

Accidents have taken place at other French nuclear power plants. In December 1999 the nuclear station at Blayes on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux had to be shut down after it was inundated by heavy tides.

Last year environmental activists say there were fires in six nuclear power plants. Rescue teams needed more than 50 minutes on average to react, well beyond the established limit of 15 minutes. "All these facts confirm not only the inherent weakness of nuclear technology, but also of French systems to react to a nuclear catastrophe," Lhomme said.

Fears over environmental damage have risen. From this year nuclear plants have been authorised to discharge water into rivers above the earlier limit of 50 degrees C. The limit had been raised temporarily last year due to the heat spell.

"Nobody knows exactly the effects on public health and the environment that the temporary permissions of 2003 had," Lhomme said. "Now radioactive discharges into rivers will go without control for ever."

France relies heavily on nuclear power to meet its energy needs. It has 58 nuclear plants providing over 80 percent of its electricity.

France continues to ignore renewable energy sources such as the wind and sunlight. Germany has an installed capacity of 13,500 megwatts through wind energy, France only 220 MW.

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