Nukes for all my friends!
The President of France wants to supply Libya with a nuclear reactor. From the Telegraph:
During a meeting with Col Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Mr Sarkozy agreed to help the country with a nuclear-powered project to desalinate seawater. France has Europe's largest civil nuclear power industry and a vital commercial interest in exporting reactors and technology.Any Libyan reactor could be supplied by Areva, France's leading nuclear energy company. Until he invited international inspectors into Libya in 2003, Col Gaddafi had a covert nuclear weapons programme.
I guess 2003 is ancient history. Oh, wait, no its not. It's only four years ago.
To spell it out. Civilian nuke proliferation leads to military proliferation. And that's not something I want to see any more of. But don't get me wrong. I'm not picking on Libya. I don't trust France with nuclear power either. Or Japan (which has tens of thousands of kilograms of plutonium stockpiled). Or the USA. None of them, for that matter.
Comments
I think every nation has the right to make nuclear civil programs. It's a very cheap source of energy & under heavy precautions they are also clean comparing to other sources of energy. It's also important to prevent any country from creating nuclear weapons. I dream of a day when I can see all the nations that has nuclear weapons disposing them.
Posted by: Mustafa Ahmed | July 28, 2007 6:52 PM
Yup, not too proud of being French lately... Stories like these keep popping up.
The best part (well, not really) is that Sarkozy pretends he's doing it to reward Gaddafi of his good will in liberating the Bulgarian nurses and doctor.
So, that how it goes:
1) Have hospitals with such terrible sanitary conditions that many children contract AIDS.
2) Blame others for it.
3) Jail them 9 years, torture them, then sentence them to death.
4) tell the EU that if "the price of blood" is payed, their death sentence will be commuted in life in prison.
5) Wait for over 500 million dollars to come in.
6) Release them.
7) Get nuclear power because you've obviously shown to be such a reasonable person.
And Sarkozy thinks he won a diplomatic crisis? How stupid is he?
Posted by: Juliette | July 29, 2007 2:35 PM
Thanks Mustafa. That is a breathtaking amount of falsehoods to pack in one paragraph. In reply...
Cost:
Nuclear is an expensive distraction from real answers to climate change. See our report "Economics of nuclear power" for details.
Or just look at the example of Olkiluoto 3, which was supposed to prove the promise of next generation nuke plants. It was supposed to cost 2.5 billion. Now it's running years late and the final price tag will top 4 billion. That's certainly not cheap.
Security:
Nuclear power provides the basic ingredients for nuclear weapons, dirty bombs and provides an obvious target for terrorists.
Posted by: Andrew | August 29, 2007 4:48 PM