There’s nothing like actually seeing processes you have up to then only read or heard about. The mythical suddenly becomes real, and more normal and innocuous. Two weeks ago, I toured Areva’s MELOX plant near Avignon. MELOX makes new fuel from recycled plutonium. A couple days later, I visited the La Hague plant in...
Monthly Archives: June 2010
Deconstructing the Floodgates hypothesis: is nuclear recycling a proliferation threat?
Opposition to recycling used nuclear fuel in the U.S. centres around the assumption that if the U.S. resumes recycling, an activity it stopped doing in the 1970s, then that will open the floodgates worldwide. Countries that allegedly followed the U.S. lead in the 1970s will begin their own recycling programs. And, if recycling is...
State support for nuclear power in Canada and France: a tale of two countries
I recently visited the Flamanville nuclear generating station on the channel coast in Normandy, where the French electric utility, EDF, is building a new 1,650-megawatt EPR reactor. Two thousand seven hundred contractors, split into three shifts of 900 each, work around the clock six days a week to get the thing done. The locals...
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