Nuclear power in France

Belleville

Blayais

Brennilis

Bugey

Cattenom

Chinon

Chooz

Civaux

Cruas

Dampierre

Fessenheim

Flamanville

Golfech

Gravelines

Marcoule/Phénix

Nogent

Paluel

Penly

Saint-Alban

Saint- Laurent

Superphénix

Tricastin

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Fission-electric stations in France (view)
 Active plants
 under construction
 Closed plants

In France, as of 2002, EDF — the country's main electricity generation and distribution company — produces about 78% of its electricity with 59 nuclear power plants (making it the leading world country in its production of nuclear power). France is the world's largest net exporter of energy, exporting about 100 TWh to Italy, Britain, and Germany in 2004, and its electricity cost is among the lowest in Europe.

In 2006, the French Government asked Areva and EDF, main electricity generator and distributor in France, to build a new nuclear reactor, EPR (European Pressurized Reactor), in Flamanville, Normandy.

History

France has a long relationship with nuclear power, starting with Henri Becquerel's discovery of natural radioactivity in the 1890s and continued by famous French nuclear scientists like Pierre and Marie Curie.

France had been heavily involved in nuclear research before World War II through the work of the Joliot-Curies. In 1945 the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) created the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) governmental agency, and Nobel prize winner Frédéric Joliot-Curie, member of the French Communist Party (PCF) since 1942, was appointed high-commissioner. He was relieved of his duties in 1950 for political reasons, and would be one of the 11 signatories to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955.

The CEA conducts fundamental and applied research into many areas, including the design of nuclear reactors, the manufacturing of integrated circuits, the use of radionucleides for curing illnesses, seismology and tsunami propagation, the safety of computerized systems...

This was discontinued after the war because of the instability of the Fourth Republic and the lack of finance available. However, in the 1950's a civil nuclear research program was started, a byproduct of which would be plutonium. In 1956 a secret Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy was formed and a development program for delivery vehicles started. In 1957, soon after the Suez Crisis and the diplomatic tension with both the USSR and the United States, French president René Coty decided the creation of the C.S.E.M. in the then French Sahara, a new nuclear tests facility replacing the C.I.E.E.S. See France and nuclear weapons.

In 2001, Areva, the world leading company in nuclear energy, was created by the merger of CEA Industrie, Framatome and Cogema (now Areva NC). Its main shareholder is the French owned company CEA, but the German government also detain, through Siemens, 34% of the shares of Areva's subsidiary, Areva NP, in charge of building the EPR (third-generation nuclear reactor).

Public opinion

Historically, nuclear power was supported both by the Gaullists, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party. A 2001 Ipsos poll found that 70% of the French population had a "good opinion" of nuclear energy in France and 63% want their country to remain a nuclear leader. According to reporter Jon Palfreman, the construction of the Civaux Nuclear Power Plant was welcomed by the local community in 1997:

In France, unlike in America, nuclear energy is accepted, even popular. Everybody I spoke to in Civaux loves the fact their region was chosen. The nuclear plant has brought jobs and prosperity to the area. Nobody I spoke to, nobody, expressed any fear.

A variety of reasons are cited for the popular support. At the time of the 1973 oil crisis, most of France's electricity came from foreign oil. France was strong in heavy engineering capabilities, but had few indigenous energy resources. The French government decided to invest heavily in nuclear power, and France installed 56 reactors over the next 15 years. President of Electricite de France Laurent Striker said:

France chose nuclear because we have no oil, gas or coal resources, and recent events have only reinforced the wisdom of our choice

Various anti-nuclear movements have been created over the years, starting with the emergence of the environmentalist movement in the 1970s which opposed the creation of the Superphénix nuclear power station, culminating in a rocket attack on the containment building in 1982. In June 1997, one of the first actions of socialist Lionel Jospin on becoming Prime Minister was to announce the closure of the plant "because of its excessive costs", in accordance to electoral deals with the The Greens, created in the beginning of the 1980s. After the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, the network Sortir du nucléaire (Nuclear phase-out) was also created.

See also

• Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA)
• List of nuclear reactors in France
• Politics of France
• Nuclear energy policy

External links

• Green nature [dead link]
• Rene de Preneuf. "Nuclear Power in France — Why does it Work?". Retrieved 2007-08-25.