A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #340 - The militarization of civil nuclear power! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The last two 1,450 megawatt nuclear reactors commissioned in 1997 and 
1999, more than 25 years ago, at Civaux in the Vienne department, will 
become the missing link in the French nuclear deterrent force by 
producing tritium. ---- The H bomb (also called a fusion bomb or 
thermonuclear bomb) is a bomb whose main energy comes from the fusion of 
light nuclei. More powerful and more complex than a nuclear fission 
bomb, called an "A bomb", an H bomb is divided into two stages: ---- The 
operation of the first stage is that of a "classic" atomic fission bomb 
at plutonium.
The second stage consists of fusion fuels, the hydrogen isotopes 
deuterium and tritium. While deuterium exists in nature (in the form of 
heavy water extracted from seawater), tritium is extremely rare, and is 
a residue from nuclear electricity production released into the air. 
Radioactive, half of the stock of tritium disappears in a dozen years, 
which periodically involves its replacement in H bombs.
Tritium was produced in two military nuclear reactors of the Atomic 
Energy Commission (Célestin 1 and 2) shut down in 2009. Ultimately, the 
French bombs would become unusable... As long as the Russians do not 
take advantage of them...    Unless the CEA does not rebuild new 
production structures... which would cost a lot of money and would most 
certainly be late! Note that the production of tritium by the CEA has 
stopped for at least 15 years. As a result, the French army has H bombs 
which have lost at least 60% of the tritium gas they contained!

But there is another method to obtain tritium: using lithium by 
bombarding it with neutrons. Such neutrons are abundantly produced in 
nuclear reactors, as for lithium, projects are being put in place 
(geothermal in Alsace, mines in Allier) to make our country a producer. 
In other words, France could be capable in the near future of producing 
in situ the tritium which will be lacking in our nuclear arsenal.

On March 18, the Minister of the Armed Forces visited the site of the 
Civaux nuclear electricity production center. According to the 
ministry's press release: "the minister explained the collaboration 
being established between EDF and Defense consisting of installing a 
materials irradiation service on the site. This involves exploiting the 
power of the two Civaux reactors to, alongside unchanged electricity 
production, irradiate specific materials containing lithium into the 
reactor cores. Once irradiated, these will be transferred to a CEA site 
in order to produce tritium, a rare gas essential for deterrent 
weapons.» In this press release, we learn further that "this 
collaboration has been under study since the 1990s and is part of 
long-standing planning, usual for Defense industrial tools.» Note that 
in the United States, the operator Tennessee Valley Authority has made 
one of its reactors available to the Pentagon for the strike force for 
around twenty years.

The new industrial process will not be launched before 2025, the time to 
obtain authorizations. In particular that of the Nuclear Safety 
Authority (ASN), which will be supported by the Institute of 
Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). They must study the file from 
September so that a first test can be carried out when production of one 
of the reactors stops in 2025. According to Jean Marie Brom, physicist, 
research director at CNRS, " It is false to say that this militarization 
will have no effect on the production of Civaux, since it will be 
necessary to install lithium in the reactor, and periodically extract 
the tritium, before sending it to the CEA. The impact will be even 
greater for the employees and subcontractors of the Civaux power plant, 
who will not be asked whether they are for or against participating in 
the creation of death machines instead of producing energy. - even 
nuclear - for their fellow citizens, and who risk falling under a regime 
of "confidential defense"..."

We thus better understand the dismantling of the IRSN which will merge 
with the ASN under the control of the CEA which will be effective on 
January 1, 2025, whose mission is above all military. This new structure 
will be called the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority 
(ASNR). We also understand better the 100% nationalization of EDF 
effective since June 8, 2023. I had a thought of revolt when thinking 
back to the speeches of the French Communist Party and the CGT in the 
70s and 80s saying that it would not should not confuse civil nuclear 
power supplying electricity and military nuclear power which had to be 
fought "for Peace" when it was in the hands of the Americans!

Denis - OCL-Reims on March 30, 2024

Sources: Le Monde, Médiapart

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4157
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