France Seeks to Lead World to Nuclear Power

CHALON-SUR-SAONE, France - May 25 - Augusta Chronicle, The

At a factory nestled among Burgundy vineyards, workers shape, bore, polish and test pieces needed to put together a nuclear reactor. At each work station, technical charts are pasted next to a map of the country buying the product.

A reactor core marked for the Salem plant in New Jersey is propped on its side, 16.5 feet wide and resembling a chunk of an enormous railroad tunnel. Nearby, workers prepare to broach holes into a plate for 15,000 cooling tubes for a reactor in Lingao, China.

Twenty years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant coughed a cloud of radiation over much of Europe and scared consumers and governments away from atomic power for a generation, a new crop of leaders, from North America to Europe to Asia, is thinking nuclear.

One country has done perhaps the most to push back the pendulum: France. As the only European country that continued making nuclear plants after Chernobyl, France has up-to-date expertise that it's keen to export, and the market is ballooning.

Oil threatens to become unaffordable, gas pipelines run through zones of political uncertainty and coal-fired power plants clog lungs and might overheat Earth. With energy worries topping the world's agenda, even a few environmental activists are reconsidering nuclear power, persuaded by improved safety and the fear that fossil fuels pose even greater dangers.

China and India are embracing nuclear energy to support breakneck growth. The U.S. and Russia are reviving long-dormant nuclear plans, overriding concerns about proliferation of the potentially deadly technology.

Finland is building the first reactor in western Europe since 1991, made by Germany's Siemens and Areva, the world's biggest reactor maker, which operates the factory in Burgundy.

Not everyone is softening on nuclear power. Sweden and Germany are shutting, not starting up, reactors. But even Britain, Italy and the Netherlands are talking about the option. So far, it's only talk - but groundbreaking talk, given these countries' 20-year-old taboo on the topic.

"We're positioned rather well for a nuclear renaissance," says Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, an Areva vice president.

France's key partner in promoting that renaissance is an unexpected one: the United States. After two decades on the defensive, the nations' industries are cooperating closely in hopes of a new boom in nuclear power.

France is the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, with 59 reactors churning out nearly 80 percent of its electricity. The state owns the world's biggest electricity utility, Electricite de France, and nuclear group Areva, the key to France's international nuclear influence.

France is selling more than electricity and reactor parts. It's preaching an updated version of the long-abandoned nuclear idea, a gospel of emission-free energy to wean nations off foreign fuel and harness the atom for a peaceful, electrified future.

About 25 reactors are under construction around the world, adding to the network of 440 commercial nuclear power plants spread over 31 countries that supply 16 percent of the world's electricity. Areva is directly involved in at least five of the new projects.

To Helene Gassin, of Green-peace, who has fought France's all- powerful nuclear industry for years, the thriving, expanding reactor factory in Burgundy is an alarming sight.

"Whenever we see an offer on nuclear energy, anywhere in the world, it comes from France," Ms. Gassin said. "Nuclear is the French identity."

France, without oil, gas or much coal, chose the nuclear path in the 1970s and hasn't turned back. Only in the past few years, however, has its nuclear industry gone so aggressively global, as Areva's bulging bank accounts attest.

Though France has been working as the world's atomic advocate, any global nuclear rebound hinges on the U.S. because it has more nuclear plants than any other country and is the world's biggest energy consumer.

The Bush administration has enraged environmental groups with its "alternative energy" plan which, though promising money for wind and solar energy, makes the government's first big pitch for nuclear energy in 27 years.

Washington and Paris are aligning closely on the subject in a way few would have pictured during their clash over Iraq. This month, former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was named chairman of the board of Areva Inc., the company's U.S. arm.

A key to the resurgent interest in nuclear power is cost. Though each new reactor costs several hundred million dollars, a University of Chicago study concluded that a new fleet of more efficient reactors can be expected to produce power as cheaply as coal and natural gas.

France's electricity is among the cheapest in western Europe.

The high-profile battle for control of U.S. nuclear company Westinghouse - which Toshiba recently bought from British Nuclear Fuels for $5.4 billion, twice the expected price - underscores the business world's view that the industry is poised for a takeoff.