Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IDN
By Ronald Joshua
PARIS (IDN) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sprung a surprise on the international community by showing an easy way out of poverty that has been eluding practical solutions for decades now. He has discovered an energetic panacea against poverty: the cure-all nuclear power.
The nucleus of Sarkozy’s panacea against poverty consists of four insistent facts:
- France derives over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
- France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
- France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.
- France is building its first Generation III reactor and planning a second.
The French president told an ‘International Conference on Access to Nuclear Energy’ – organized by the French government in coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and with the support of the OECD – that the world must not choose between poverty and protecting the environment.
With nuclear energy, he said, we can change our economies towards new forms of power generation.
The solutions to future energy needs would not be found in no-growth theories. Such policies were selfish and would force the poorest people of the world to stay in their current situation and ‘would close the door’ on have-nots, argued Sarkozy at the March 8-9, 2010 conference.
France is deeply convinced that nuclear power is the key to more equitably sharing wealth on the planet. According to Sarkozy, the world would need 40 percent more energy by 2030, with the vast majority of the increase in demand taking place in non-OECD – mostly rich western – countries. Nuclear energy use must grow in these developing regions, he said.
RENEWABLES
The French president did not wish to sound outmoded and added that the world would need renewables and nuclear “if we were to honour our goals on climate change”.
He whined that nuclear projects were ostracised in terms of international funding. This, he said, was sentencing poorer countries to use more expensive generation options. The World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should undertake fully to fund new nuclear power generation.
Going a step further, Sarkozy called for the current rules governing the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism to be changed too to include nuclear energy projects, as the present restriction was impacting on the energy choices of poorer countries.
Sarkozy also had advice for countries starting to embark on nuclear energy programs. The general public needs to be closely involved in any project, with full consultation. Those countries wanting to embark on civil nuclear power must do so with full transparency.
Sarkozy proposed that an independent authority, under the auspices of the IAEA, should develop ratings for reactor designs currently in the market based on safety and security.
“This remark comes after the French corporation Areva’s painful rejection by nuclear planners in the United Arab Emirates, who opted for South Korean designs instead,” says Jonathan Cobb of the World Nuclear News.
At present, according to Sarkozy, the only rating available to compare reactors is price, whereas Areva has since claimed its designs to be superior in safety and security.
Sarkozy also said the international community would as well have to address the reprocessing and recycling of recovered fuel materials. France is opposed to the views of some countries that feel that reprocessing should be limited to a small number of countries.
However, broader access to reprocessing would require giving stronger powers to the IAEA. France had found reprocessing the best way to deal with high-level radioactive nuclear waste and would cooperate with many countries to help with the use of reprocessing, Sarkozy said.
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría appeared to be backing Sarkozy when he told the participants from some 60 countries: “We are indeed currently seeing a renaissance of the nuclear option, for reasons that are clear to see and primarily to allow us to meet the challenge of climate change.”
“It is also crucially important that this renaissance takes place under optimum conditions in terms of safety, while nonetheless ensuring that costs remain accessible. However, let us not make idle promises; this renaissance remains a considerable challenge for many of the countries present here today in terms of safety, financing, training, etc. And it is for this reason that this conference is both timely and welcome,” Gurría said.
IAEA WORKSHOP
The Paris conference was preceded by a workshop organized by the IAEA at its headquarters in Vienna on February 9, 2010 in which more than 60 countries examined how to include nuclear power into their energy plans.
The workshop included representatives from almost 35 Member States which are considering or already launching a nuclear power programme. Six of the major vendor countries – Canada, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the USA – are also in attendance, according to the IAEA.
Building a national nuclear power infrastructure is complex, requiring more than ten years of planning. "When we talk about infrastructure for a nuclear power programme we mean a system that provides legal, regulatory, technological, human and industrial support to ensure the effectiveness of the nuclear power programme and ensure that obligations for safety, security and safeguards are met," says Yury Sokolov, the IAEA´s Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy.
This was the fourth workshop since 2006 which has been organized by the IAEA to provide a platform for sharing experiences and lessons learned; and identify the main infrastructure issues that will need to be considered in the introduction of nuclear power, Giovanni Verlini of the IAEA Division of Public Information said. (IDN-InDepthNews/09.03.2010)
Copyright © 2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters
This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission the original author or copyright holder.
