The price of oil and global warming have been two contributing facts for many countries and politicians – from the American presidential hopeful John McCain to the Italian government- to propose the building of new nuclear reactors. The world economy is having big problems with the high price of oil and nuclear energy could alleviate those problems. And then it has been pointed out that nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases. So everybody seemed ready to go into that direction.
In France, a country which already has several nuclear plants, President Nicholas Sarkozy announced plans for a new reactor just last week. Even the general public had managed almost to put away their fears after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. And then, on Friday the 18th the French nuclear giant Areva, world leader in the design and construction of nuclear power plants, confirmed there was a radioactive leak from a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in south-eastern France, a week after a uranium spill at another of its plants polluted the local water supply when a tank was being cleaned. Two rivers near the town of Avignon were contaminated and people in nearby towns were warned not to drink any water or eat fish from the rivers or swim in them.
Both leaks ranked as a level-one incidents on the seven-point scale of nuclear accidents and France’s nuclear safety authority, the ASN, said the leak did not reach the ground water and that there was no sign of contamination. It said initial tests showed no impact on the environment because the quantity of uranium was very small. Nevertheless, in France the incident has angered residents and environmental organizations after officials downplayed the seriousness of the event, an event which has also the potential to make people and countries have second thoughts about nuclear energy.
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