A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #340 - Relaunch of nuclear power, relaunch of the anti-nuclear fight??? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Macron officially announced the relaunch of the nuclear, civil and 
military industry. However, the revival of the civil nuclear industry 
seems to be impossible. ---- The revival of civil nuclear power involves 
three axes: EPR2, SMR and extending the lifespan of existing power 
plants. ---- The EPR2s are supposed to be EPRs improved from a safety 
point of view thanks to "feedback". The experience in this area is an 
EPR in Finland which was seriously delayed, disconnected shortly after 
its connection due to unprofitability, two in China stopped after 
technical problems, and the Flamanville site, started in 2007 and still 
not completed, for which the estimate has been multiplied by 6, for 
which we already know that the tank and the cover are defective and will 
have to be replaced, and for which there are suspicions of fraud and 
poor workmanship. Even EDF announced that it was not ready. There is 
also a shipyard in Great Britain, Hinckley Point. His announcement led 
to the resignation of EDF's financial director. As he had predicted, the 
debt linked to it endangers the survival of EDF, to the point that the 
government hastily re-stated it.
SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) exist mainly as nuclear submarine engines 
around the world. They equip the Charles de Gaulle in France. 2 SMRs 
operate as nuclear power plants, one in China and one in Russia, but on 
floating barges (in the Arctic for Russia). Suffice to say that the 
"slight" problem of cooling and moderation of these reactors, without 
them being too bulky or too expensive, does not seem close to being 
resolved. Even the United States has thrown in the towel for cost 
reasons. On the other hand, it is already profitable for some. Start-ups 
have already reached millions of France relaunch 2030 even though they 
do not yet even have a factory to design a prototype.
Making a power plant last longer than expected is very dangerous. This 
means that leaks and releases during normal operation will be even 
greater (everyone knows that old cars tend to lose oil), and the risk of 
a major accident multiplied. But if the risks incurred by populations 
and workers stopped nuclear technocracy, we would have had the 
opportunity to notice it. On the other hand, it will still be very 
expensive. It will be necessary to carry out revisions and repairs, all 
estimated by the Court of Auditors at around a hundred billion euros.

If the aim of the civil nuclear sector was to produce cheap electricity, 
it is clear that it is a failure. If it is to improve national 
sovereignty, it is also a failure (uranium entirely imported, and 
partially enriched in Russia, power plants under American license, 
etc.). If it's against global warming and to earn carbon points, let us 
laugh. The earth will be at an unsustainable temperature long before a 
new power plant is completed, the carbon footprint of these concrete 
cathedrals is doubtful to say the least, and in any case the power 
plants are vulnerable to water availability and climatic phenomena, and 
contribute to warming. If it is to become leaders in a sector in 
decline, we are very far behind Russia, but hey... But do we have the 
financial means? In any case, we are not yet technically ready.
We can legitimately wonder what part of ideological blindness is behind 
this announcement effect. Our leaders have no scientific background and 
know that when you graduate from a large, prestigious school, you can't 
go wrong. They have a form of magical thinking: they order, and reality 
(and the engineers) will follow. In the meantime, they have started the 
only thing they know how to do: legislate, repress and spread money.
Legislate: part of the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety 
(IRSN) should be integrated into the Nuclear Safety Authority, so that 
experts who may have had an inclination to criticize will be monitored 
by much better disposed leaders. Another part should be integrated into 
the CEA, under the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. Those 
concerned have already announced their resignation. Always legislate: 
public consultation procedures and authorization procedures will be 
simplified. This will not solve the technical problems, but it will 
avoid too much agitation.

Repressing: it's such a habit that there would be too many examples to 
list. We nevertheless notice an increasingly strong repression on an 
increasingly timid anti-nuclear movement, from the grotesque accusations 
which have ruined the lives of anti-cigeo people in Bure for several 
years to the recent complaints from EDF (claiming quite a few millions 
anyway) against Greenpeace for having damaged their image...
Sprinkle money: we have seen that France Relaunch has planned a few 
million for companies in the sector. Behind the speech presenting 
nuclear power as a green energy, there is not only a laughable ideology 
if it were not so harmful, there is also the race for money planned by 
the European Union within the framework of the ecological transition.
In summary, the relaunch of civil nuclear power seems to be more of an 
announcement effect from the point of view of its technical and 
financial feasibility. But we don't actually know. They will undoubtedly 
extend the life of the power plants, which is in itself very dangerous. 
We also know the love of the French company for useless, prestigious and 
expensive projects. Let us remember the Concorde, the Superphénix, the 
France... And until they don't succeed, they can cause quite a bit of 
destruction. Not to mention the revival of the military side for which 
the civilian sector is useful: for example, the military requested that 
Civaux be used to irradiate lithium to manufacture at a lower cost the 
tritium necessary for the bomb.

And what about the anti-nuclear fight? Because it's a little annoying 
not to be able to shake up such a shaky program.
The anti-nuclear movement was moribund. Ultimately it was only in Bure, 
against waste, that there remained a concrete movement. But in a very 
sparsely populated region. It also woke up in La Hague with the fight 
against the construction of new swimming pools.
There is a striking paradox: environmental struggles, in any case on the 
theme of climate, are draining people, and young people, while almost no 
one talks about nuclear power anymore. There is undoubtedly a generation 
gap. The "old people" tried to prevent the construction of nuclear power 
plants. The "young people" were born in a country where 70% of 
electricity is nuclear and where it is part of the landscape. And they 
are very French: they have not yet realized that countries in this 
situation are very rare in the world. Remember that nuclear energy 
production represents less than 2% of global energy. And of course, this 
nuclearization of electricity is striking proof of our failure. A 
movement that has lost, so massive, full of utopia and hope, so 
exemplary in terms of the type of actions it may have been, is not very 
attractive. There is also the nucleophilic media bulldozer, notably 
Jancovici and his shift project, financed by Bouygues, Spie, EDF, 
Veolia, Vicat, Vinci, Thalys, BNP, etc. Jancovici is a polytechnician, 
and we know the involvement of the network of grandes écoles in the 
nuclear industry. It's still fabulous that something financed by the big 
names in construction and cement can pass as green.
Finally, in a political context where revolution has disappeared as a 
possible horizon, ecology, like many protest movements, is the business 
of pragmatic people and/or who think in terms of power. The pragmatists 
know that nuclear power is a big deal, and they are looking for winnable 
struggles. From this point of view, the anti-nuclear fight is not great 
for marketing and communications. And the closer we get to power, the 
less we hate nuclear power. The Greens and the LFI are designated as 
anti-nuclear, and they are admitted as such by the anti-nuclear people 
themselves, but we have never seen a Green minister oppose the nuclear 
program in any way. . As for the LFI, it is structured around Melenchon, 
a great admirer of Mitterrand under whose presidency the share of 
nuclear power more than doubled, and whom I never heard at the time 
contest this policy in the slightest.
However, anti-nuclear activists are trying to restructure themselves. 
There were several anti-nuclear assemblies from the opposition to the 
"great debate" organized by the CNDP on the relaunch of nuclear power, 
which nevertheless obtained the cancellation of a debate and the 
withdrawal of NGOs such as Greenpeace. An Anti-Nuclear Coordination 
emerged from these assemblies (1), with the primary objective of 
stopping the recovery. It is very heterogeneous (which is not 
necessarily negative), bringing together local collectives, Greenpeace, 
the Greens, LFI, individuals, Getting Out of Nuclear Power, Stopping 
Nuclear Power, etc.

It is marked by the faults of our time: communication is favored over 
the struggle on the ground. However, its activists are most often 
grassroots activists. She joined the demonstrations against military 
nuclear power on September 23, local actions were organized in many 
places in France, with more or less success, on October 22. The next big 
deadline is April 26 (more precisely from 26 to 28) with regional events 
on the theme of the disaster (it is the anniversary of Chernobyl). You 
will find what is planned in your region on the coordination blog. The 
latter has in fact been structured into regional coordination: working 
together undoubtedly makes more progress than all the debates.

And it's not just communication. A regional demonstration took place in 
Caen on March 23. The date does not correspond to the one chosen 
nationally because it was a question of demanding the non-start-up of 
Flamanville, and the deadline for the ASN decision was April 10. This 
event was a success. Buses came from all over the region and from 
Brittany, and even one from Ile de France. There were around a thousand 
demonstrators at its peak, in pouring rain, a varied and dynamic 
demonstration. Obviously, the combination of rain and somewhat political 
speeches during a strange stop along the way made its ranks very thin 
for the finish... The Flamanville EPR is not part of the recovery 
program, but the The opposition to its start-up is an important obstacle 
due to the fact that it is the only EPR under construction. In addition, 
the first two EPR2s planned are in the region, at Penly. This 
demonstration reflected the full diversity of the struggle, from the 
Greens to autonomy. It received quite a bit of coverage in the regional 
press. Above all, she demonstrated a desire not to limit herself to 
photos and press releases, and she showed that the anti-nuclear fight 
can still mobilize people.
The next "big action" will be on October 12, a national event this time. 
The form and location have not yet been decided. They will probably be 
there at the end of May, at the next anti-nuclear assembly.

We are in a paradoxical situation: a shaky and unrealistic nuclear 
program, while those in power have managed to widely convey the idea 
that nuclear power is essential, a controlled technology and the only 
possible path to ecological transition. To the point that no one in 
France imagines a future without civil nuclear power, a future that 
exists in the present, including in certain European countries. 
Opposite, an embryonic movement whose fetus is parasitized by political 
and power issues.
The nuclear program was at the heart of the structuring of French 
capitalism, which explains the enormity of the repression it had to face 
in the past and its crushing in the open countryside. Just as the 
government announced in Sainte Soline how it was going to manage the 
water shortage and the "ecological transition", so in Malville it 
announced that the nuclear program would be carried out at all costs, 
including with means of war. . And he kept his promise. But what about 
today? Is the nuclear sector, this caricatured summary of 
authoritarianism and the murderous madness of capital, still central to 
the bourgeoisie? In which case our chances are more than slim but our 
subversive reach is significant. But in which case also the French 
bourgeoisie seems badly hampered in the competition between capitalists. 
Or else, it is a vestige that the bourgeoisie still clings to, which 
leaves us with a greater glimmer of hope. Let us never forget, no utopia 
can be built on contaminated territory.

Sylvie

(1) Blog of this coordination: https://coordantinucleaire.noblogs.org/

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4165
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