Compensation for French Nuclear Test Victims: Undermining of the Law

The first French nuclear test took place in Algeria February 13, 1960.  Some fifty years later France  passed a law to recognize and compensate the victims of French nuclear testing.  The Morin Law was published in the Journal Officiel January 5, 2010.

Now a draft decree implementing the law have been drawn up and has been sent to the  Conseil d’Etat for approval.  Organizations representing civilian and military victims of the testing charge that the decree as written would emasculate the law.  “ One feels that the decree has been drawn up in such a way as to block any escape from the ‘mathematical’ logic that would lead to the exclusion of the majority of the victims from the compensation system,” Me. Jean-Paul Teissonnière, lawyer for the Polynesian Association Moruroa e tatou” says.

The decree draws narrowly-determined geographic lines that will be used to decide whether an alleged victim was in a location that was subject to radiation.  To be eligible for compensation claimants  must suffer from one or more of eighteen types of cancer, although the United States recognizes thirty-four types of cancer as radiation induced and the Japanese in a law of June 2009 list all cancers and pathologies of the thyroid.

Whether or not an individual applyicant is eligible will also be subject to a mathematical formula drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency and based on the dose of irradiation, the time since the irradiation, and other human factors.  The formula is intended to apply to a group, not to individuals and its use for individuals is not justified, according to cancer expert Claude Parmentier.

“What [the state] had to give with one hand, it is trying to take back with the other,” an editorial in Damoclès, the periodical of the Observatoire d’armements/CDRPC, remarks.  The organization published, February 10, the first volume of a “Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français (1960-1966),” classified as “confidential, defense.”  The report has caused a stir in the French press, in particular because it states that French military personnel were sent into radioactive zones shortly after two of the tests to learn how the soldiers would react to intense radiation.

In late February the Algerian government is hosting a colloquium on the tests, which includes a visit to a test site.  French journalists are invited. Therefore, will presumably be heard on the subject.  The decree implementing the compensation law is expected to be published in March.

Readers can obtain access to French copies of the law, the decree, the confidential report, and a statement by Moruroa e tatou through the web site www.obsarm.org .

–Mary Byrd Davis

copyright© 2010 by EcoPerspectives

Plans for a second French EPR move forward

A public debate on construction of a European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) at Penly (Seine Maritime) will open March 22.  Two 1330 MW pressurized water reactors are already in operation at the site, which is located on the English Channel.  Penly 3 would be the second French EPR.  The first is under construction at Flammanville.

The debate will be organized by the National Commission on Public Debates (CNDP).  For four months, discussions, in which the public is invited to participate, will be held across the country.  Then the CNDP will have two months to present its report on the debate to the National Assembly; and the construction manager will have three months, to the end of January 2011 to reply.  If the results of the debate, in particular the conclusions in the report of the CNDP, are favorable to construction of the reactor, a public inquiry into the proposed plant will begin.

In the past Electricité de France (EDF) has been the only construction manager and operator of French nuclear reactors.  However, at Penly, GDF-Suez, thwarted in its attempt to become sole owner and operator, is anxious to participate as an operator beside EDF.  Its hope is that, by such participation, it can  gain recognition from the nuclear safety authority (ASN) that will pave the way for its becoming the sole operator of one or more future French reactors.

GDF-Suez was formed in 2008 from the merger of Suez and Gaz de France, privatized to permit the merger.  An independent company, it is active in many countries and with various types of energy.  It owns and operates seven nuclear reactors in Belgium under the name Electrabel as well as plays a role in other aspects of the nuclear industry.

At Penly 3, GDF-Suez will be a minority owner (25%) of the proprietary company .  EDF will own 50%; ENEL, EON, and Total will also have shares.  GDF-Suez is trying to persuade the public authorities to name the company, rather than EDF, the operator.  In this case, EDF-Suez can be regarded as an operator alongside EDF.  The CGT, a powerful labor union, however, wants EDF to remain the only nuclear reactor operator in France.

Knowing the roles of the companies that will participate in a Penly 3 would facilitate the public debate on the reactor.  Therefore the state may shortly clarify the relationship of EDF and GDF-Suez there.

Sources:  Articles on Penly Les Echos, 27 January and 10 February 2010

–Mary Byrd Davis

Copyright© 2010 by EcoPerspectives

EDF and Areva Reach Reprocessing Agreement

Areva and EDF announced February 5 that they had reached an agreement on transportation, treatment, and reprocessing of irradiated fuel.  Starting in 2010 EDF will increase from 850 to 1050 tons of heavy metal per year the amount of irradiated fuel that it sends to La Hague for reprocessing and from 100 to 120 tons per year the amount of MOX fuel that it has manufactured at Melox.  The quantities are actually those announced when a framework agreement on reprocessing was reached by the two parties at the end of 2008 [Nuclear Fuel, 29 Dec.08].  Areva and EDF promised to  sign a contract before the end of the first quarter of this year.  The two companies are working as hard as they can to rapidly reach an agreement in regard to Eurodif’s enrichment of uranium for EDF, they said.  Prime Minister François Fillon had given them a deadline of two weeks from a January 20 meeting to resolve their differences.

–Mary Byrd Davis

Copyright©2010 by EcoPerspectives

Dismantling a Nuclear Power Plant in France: Brennilis

Although Brennilis (Monts d’Arrée, EL4) in Brittany is far from being a typical French nuclear power plant, EDF hoped to make its dismantling a showcase for its technology. Unfortunately for EDF, the operation has been on hold since 2007.

The reactor, a heavy-water plant with a nominal capacity of only 70 MW electric, stopped  operating in 1985.  It had been jointly managed by EDF and the CEA, but in 1999 EDF became the only operator.  Dismantling began in 1996 after authorization for partial dismantling had been granted.  Plans changed, and an authorization for complete dismantling was delivered in February 2006.

However, in June 2007 the Conseil d’Etat, acting on a request from the safe-energy organization Sortir du Nucléaire, annulled the decree authorizing complete dismantlement, on the basis that the environmental impact statement in regard to that action was not released to the public before the authorization was granted.   Dismantling came to a halt, with only the reactor block, the heat exchangers, and various nuclear waste remaining in place at the site.

A public inquiry on a new authorization for complete dismantling was held at the end of 2009.  A few days before it closed, Sortir du Nucléaire wrote (in French) to Mme Faysse, President of the Public Inquiry Commission on the Dismantling, to ask that she recommend in her report to the ministers concerned, that a decision on completing the dismantling of Brennilis not be made until a national public debate on the dismantling of nuclear installations has been held. The organization pointed out that the national Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and the Local Information Commission (CLI) look with favor on such a debate, which would be a formal process organized by the national agency responsible for public debates.

The CLI had asked the scientific organization Acro to make recommendations on the file submitted by EDF to the Brennilis inquiry,  Acro’s report (in French) states that continuing the dismantling is the safest way of proceeding, but points out lacks and discrepancies in EDF’s dossier.  For example, no measurements of the alpha releases in gaseous effluents are given.  Alpha releases, Acro states, should be accounted for and reported even if they are small.  Another point involves metallic waste contaminated with short-lived cobalt 60 and long-lived nickel 63 and classified by EDF as short-lived.  Cobalt 60 now dominates in this waste, but after several decades of storage, nickel 63 will be one hundred times more prevalent than cobalt 60.  Can the metal then go to a site for short-lived waste?  This problem needs to be addressed, the authors say, because with an increasing number of reactors to be dismantled, the question of nickel 63 will recur.

Americans who are clamoring for more nuclear reactors should give thought to the process of dismantling them, a problem not yet solved in France.

–Mary Byrd Davis

Copyright© 2010 by EcoPerspectives