Some people might wonder why I
write so much about le nucléaire in
France while I live so much closer to Fukushima. One reason is that I can
understand written French much better than I understand written Japanese.
Another is that the Fuku-Ichi catastrophe is already being covered intensely by
others, and I ran out of things to say about. The best reason is that what is
happening in France has some instructive lessons to teach to other nuclearized
nations that haven't given much thought to what to do about nuclear fuel after
it has been through the fissioning process. This end-product is commonly called
"nuclear waste" but it should be recognized as the main product of
the nuclear industry. The heat that fissioning generates is just a passing
phenomenon, a by-product.
We can at least give France
credit for trying to face up to the fact that something needs to be done with nuclear
waste. Nations such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have pretended for a long
time that the problem could be ignored. Since the triple meltdowns and spent
fuel fire in Fukushima, the issue has gained some attention, thanks in part to
former prime minister Koizumi's efforts to make the political establishment
face up to it. It has become obvious that the original plan to
"recycle" nuclear waste with fast breeder reactors was a total pipe
dream, so now there has been some talk of finding communities that might agree
to allow geological disposal in a suitable site. Yet suitable sites are
impossible to find, and even if there were any, agreeable communities would
still be hard to find. Recently, there was even talk of burying nuclear waste
under the seabed.
Over the last two years I've
translated several articles about the French CIGEO project that aims to create
a deep geological repository in Bure, in northeastern France (see the links
below). I believe these reports from France can serve as a valuable warning
about what rural communities around the world can expect when national
authorities come around trying to impose their grand plans for "the final
solution."
This latest installment
illustrates how the original plan, once it has got some level of local
agreement and momentum, can later take on other aims and have wider effects
than the locals originally understood.
___________
In Bure, nuclear waste clears a path through the thickets
by Professor
Canardeau
December 2015
a translation of
A Bure, les déchets nucléaires se tirent la
bourre
Le Canard enchaîné, décembre 2015
Since 2008, in Bure, where the
highest level nuclear wastes produced by 58 EDF reactors are supposed to be
buried for 100,000 years (and longer!), the organization in charge of this
project has been undertaking land acquisitions at a frenetic pace. The purchases
consist of effectively 3,000 hectares that ANDRA (l'Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactifs) has
already bought in Haute-Marne and la Meuse. Yet the above-ground installation
at CIGEO (the deep geological repository for nuclear waste) is to occupy only
300 hectares, ten times less than what has been purchased.
Opponents of CIGEO are
intrigued to discover that certain parcels of land have been bought at high
prices, as much as 10,000 euros per hectare, which is double or triple the market
price.
Jean-Paul Baillet, assistant
director general of ANDRA explains these prices quite simply, "We
sometimes had to buy land from farmers, and we also had to buy their houses,
their cattle…" Their cattle? "Of course we resold those." But farmers
in the area are beginning to fear an escalation of prices. On November 15th,
2015, eleven tractors assembled in front of ANDRA offices to protest the land
grab by the agency.
3,000 hectares:
for what exactly?
But why such an unhealthy appetite
for land? Why did ANDRA buy 2,254 hectares for 15 million euros, and an
additional 850 hectares reserved close to SAFER, the regional rural land
management society, making a total of 3,014 hectares? Jean-Paul Baillet of
ANDRA adds, "By offering land swaps, we wanted to avoid having to
expropriate land from farmers who found they had land on the site." And
the forests? Among all the lands purchased, 2,052 hectares are forest land.
"This is also to have land for exchange because the entrances to the
tunnels will be on forested lands. We have to make up for this loss of
environmental heritage." But to buy more than 2,000 hectares of forests to
compensate for at most 100 hectares cut down? This is what is bizarre.
Unperturbed, Jean-Paul Baillet elaborates, "We want to conserve the
forests as good custodians while we safeguard our investments."
If ANDRA wants to safeguard
the 80 million-euro budget for CIGEO, all the forests of la Marne won't be
enough," scoffs Maurice Michel, president of Asodedra, one of the local
groups opposed to nuclear waste disposal. Bernard Heuillon, a proprietor of a
family-owned forest in la Meuse, confirmed such a view. "I never earned
anything from these woods." This former geologist doesn't doubt that these
purchases indicate ANDRA's intention to expand CIGEO. What if, as he believes,
the agency is preparing to store radioactive waste above ground?
It's plausible, in effect: the
storage site in la Manche, next to la Hague, where there are medium and
low-level wastes, has been full since 1994. And it's on the move. Since 2003,
new waste has been sent to the storage facility in l'Aube. But this site isn't
designed to hold it permanently.
So, is Bure set to be a future
site of above-ground nuclear waste storage? After all, while we are waiting for
the passage of a law on "reversibility" to come soon, the burial
project has not yet been officially validated.
___________
Previous posts on this topic:
2014/02/20: L'état, c'est MOX
2015/01/19: France's
Bure Nuclear Waste Site on Trial
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