[deadmaker7]

Small, walkable towns with everything right in the town center. And tons of nuclear energy!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ivaux in southwestern France is a stereotypical rural French village with a square, a church and a small school. On a typical day, Monsieur Rambault, the baker, is up before dawn turning out baguettes and croissants. Shortly after, teacher Rene Barc opens the small school. There is a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a post office, a general store and a couple of bars. But overlooking the picturesque hamlet are two giant cooling towers from a nuclear plant, still under construction, a half-mile away. When the Civaux nuclear power plant comes on line sometime in the next 12 months, France will have 56 working nuclear plants, generating 76% of her electricity.


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. From the village school teacher, Rene Barc, to the patron of the Cafe de Sport bar, Valerie Turbeau, any traces of doubt they might have had have faded as they have come to know plant workers, visited the reactor site and thought about the benefits of being part of France's nuclear energy effort.


France's decision to launch a large nuclear program dates back to 1973 and the events in the Middle East that they refer to as the "oil shock." The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources. It has no oil, no gas and her coal resources are very poor and virtually exhausted.


French policy makers saw only one way for France to achieve energy independence: nuclear energy, a source of energy so compact that a few pounds of fissionable uranium is all the fuel needed to run a big city for a year. Plans were drawn up to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. Over the next 15 years France installed 56 nuclear reactors, satisfying its power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries.

[MD]

Because of their good decision making process thirty years ago, France may be the center of remaining civilization on this planet within a few short years.
Good for them!

[rogerhb]

The French are still living in the age of reason!

They used to sell electricity to the UK.

[skyemoor]

And to replace oil with nuclear-generated hydrogen and coal with nuclear electrical generating plants would require several thousand new nuclear plants. Not much of a chance for that, especially when the US can't find a suitable location for the waste products it has now, much less a two order of magnitude increase.

Demand destruction is necessary to return us to a sane level of consumption. Nuclear could be a part of the equation, but there is no reason not to utilize wind, solar, tidal, wave, geothermal, and hydro power.

[idiom]

The french don't have nay issues with storing nuclear waste, what with Tahiti and New Caledonia being so far away and all.

[spudbuddy]

started off good...
small, walkable-
ideallic, even!
That's half of the right thinking.

But that many nuclear facilities in a space the size of...(Colorado?)
Um...Chernoble, anyone?
They still have to find somewhere to store the waste...
They still have to wonder where all the uranium is going to come from...
And, as Dr. Helen Caldicott once remarked...
The European battlefield will never have to worry about nuclear arms,
a small fleet of bombers with conventional bombs can reduce Europe to
an uninhabitable mess in no time.

small walkable is good, though.

[deadmaker7]

^^ Got any better ideas for electricity?

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deadmaker7', '^')^ Got any better ideas for electricity?

[wildsparrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'T')he french don't have nay issues with storing nuclear waste, what with Tahiti and New Caledonia being so far away and all.

[gg3]

What France does with nuclear waste: Recycles it into new nuclear fuel.

20-something years ago I was opposed to nuclear power because at the time it appeared there was no viable solution to the waste problem. Since that time France has demonstrated a track record recycling their nuclear waste. I changed my opinion of nuclear power based on the evidence. As well, new reactor designs basically eliminate the operational safety issues associated with previous designs, but even the old designs are safe compared to most of our industrial infrastructure. There will not be another Chernobyl.

Wind? yes!, solar? yes!, but wind is limited to at most 20% of grid capacity due to the issue of intermittency and grid stability. So we still need a source of "firm and dispatchable power," and nuclear is the best we have at this time.

Sixty plants in 15 years translates to 20 per year. If France can do that, we in the USA can do it too, starting in the areas that are most heavily dependent on oil and natural gas for power (that includes California).

We have spent 200 billion dollars ($200,000,000,000.00) per year, total presently over $400 billion, on the Iraq quagmire, clinging to the old paradigm. The United States government could have *given that money away* to the utilities to build nuclear reactors and windfarms, and it would have translated into 400 gigawatts of electric power ($1-million per megawatt for nuclear and wind).

That's 400 new reactors, or (using the 80/20 ratio) 320 reactors and 80 large wind farms.

That's also ten or twenty years of major construction activity, with plenty of skilled jobs at dignified wages building and operating and maintaining these installations: a basis for solid long term economic progress and a sustainable middle class.

Wind farms can be built more quickly (dig a hole, plant a pole, string the wires, repeat:-), so by now we would have most of the 80 gigawatts of wind coming on line while the concrete is still being poured for the reactors, and we would be reducing our dependence on foreign oil at every single step along the way. And we would not have over 2,000 dead soldiers, 15,000 wounded soldiers, uncounted Iraqi casualties, a seething cauldron of terrorists breeding more each day, and the National Guard unavailable for emergency service in the biggest natural disaster in American history.

That's the difference between a competent national government, and an incompetent administration whose idea of faith is mutually exclusive with reason. We could have had a viable future. Instead we have a bunch of incompetents running the country into the ground.

On a purely emotional level, it must be highly satisfying to look over the treetops and say "That's where our electricity comes from." And a half mile from town no less! Think of living in a place where you never have to worry about electricity. In ten more years that will seem like an enormous luxury to us in the US.

France will remain viable. And they will also keep their 35-hour work week while we in the United States typically work 50 hours a week for a standard of living that is only better in terms of transient baubles, and hardly sustainable in terms of fundamentals, as we shall soon see.

To reframe an old political meme, French fries, cooked in a nuclear-powered fryer, *are* freedom fries.

[deadmaker7]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wildsparrow', '
')
Yep. Stop using it wherever possible. The more you look at the planet's eco-systems and depleted natural resources the more this seems to be the only workable solution. A complete turnaround of Western Society, or bust.

*parties on and plans humanure toilets and permaculture food growing*

[gnm]

Ok, first of all I have been to France, nice place, nice people... but give me a break...

Sustainable? Uh, Paris?

And I supppose they have never been imperialist like those nasty Americans... Uh, Algeria?

And you can enjoy nice new taxes like TV registration (RF?) tax...

If you think Europe is such a paradise then move there.. trust me you will find that the grass isn't always greener..

I do envy Europes rail system, man oh man why didn't we keep ours up to par?!

-G

[deadmaker7]

^^^ I didn't say paradise I said generally better off than the USA

[rostov]

er, moving forward, when the grid across the continent fails, folks can see light across the horizon at night where France is. Isn't it going to be like a beacon for those around who are deprived?

[gg3]

GNM, we didn't keep our rail service up to par precisely because we were too busy turning our economy toward stupid consumer nonsense, including things like tax-free televisions to make peoples' brains soften up like that expensive mushy cheese, or just rot through with holes like Swiss cheese.

France with the lights on: Could be in a position to string some wires across the border as a good will gesture, thereby keeping the refugees outside its own borders. Though, Europe in general I think will be in tolerably good shape.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
')20-something years ago I was opposed to nuclear power because at the time it appeared there was no viable solution to the waste problem.

[cube]

What's that saying they have in France?

"No coal, no oil, no choice."

Of course the French could of taken the Japanese route and that is to import massive amounts of oil. Since Japan maintains a huge trade surplus with the USA, finding a couple of spare US dollars to purchase oil is not a problem. However, France does not maintain a huge trade surplus with the US so it's a different situation.

I'm glad that France has taken the nuclear route. Their successful experience with nuclear power is proof positive that yes it is possible to run an economy on nuclear power. However no nation on this planet runs off of windmills and solar power. When PO hits and later peak NG (natural gas) the world will be left with 2 choices to meet it's electricity needs:
1) nuclear power
2) alternative power

What are you going to choose? Something that has a proven record of being possible or something that has yet to prove itself? I think the choice is pretty clear. Then again there's the coal option for any nation that has an abundance of it. However you'd think that after PO and Peak NG the world would wake up and realize that burning coal simply just lead to PC (peak coal).

hmmm peak oil, natural gas, and coal world....sounds interesting eh? I guess the fate of the entire world is to end up like France.

[FireJack]

Remeber that on top of nuclear power france also put a lot tax on gas. Not sure how succesfull that was though, I have never been to france.
Can anyone say here wether or not france will weather peak oil well?

[actionreplay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rance may be the center of remaining civilization on this planet within a few short years.

[Caoimhan]

France also just approved an emissions tax on gas guzzling vehicles, with the revenue going toward research projects on hybrid vehicle technologies. I find that a very fair tax. Those who pollute the planet the most should pay the most to help create the solution.