War, experienced as a video game
Non-debate at the National Assembly
January 9, 2012
Below, a file on the war with drones
I am flooded with messages from readers asking me to talk about this or that. Each topic represents a bundle of hours of work. For now I have focused on nuclear energy.
There is urgency here, because our future is in the hands of complete lunatics.
On November 17, 2011, an audit was held at the National Assembly, led by two confirmed pro-nuclear deputies: Christian Bataille (Nord-Calvados, socialist, 65 years old) and Bruno Sido (UMP senator, from Haute Marne, 60 years old, former agronomic engineer and vice-president of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices).
One may wonder why I mention the names of these people. It will become clear later.
The participants of this "debate"
http://www.assemblee-nationale.tv/chaines.html?media=3012&synchro=0
http://www.assemblee-nationale.tv/chaines.html?media=3013&synchro=0
| F | please make the effort to watch these two videos, which are the hearings of a parliamentary commission on the theme "The Future of Nuclear Energy" (5 to 6 hours of listening!). You will be able to appreciate the patronizing tone of deputy Christian Bataille, and the apparently objective and disengaged tone of Bruno Sido. But when you look at the composition of the group of participants, you will see that everything is arranged to reach the conclusion "No nuclear, no salvation!" | Deputy from the North Christian Bataille | Bruno Sido, senator, co-chair of the session | Vice president of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices | A | bsence | total | of scientific and technical challenge. A pseudo-debate. It is lamentable, shocking. | . | Sylvain David, from CNRS: | the deployment of generation IV reactors would be completed by 2100 (...) | Pascal Garin, deputy director for France of the ITER project | C | 's really a meeting of a third age club. The presentation of ITER by Garin is very basic. If I had been there and asked him what a disruption was, he would have probably opened his eyes wide. But these are the people who are managing us. |
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During this day (where deputy Yves Cochet was the only "dissenter", who made some protests for 10 minutes regarding the projects under consideration. The attendees, mainly representatives of the CEA, ITER-France (Pascal Garin), EDF, AREVA, drew their conclusions. It's simple. Renewable energies could never possibly meet the energy needs of the Earth. But France has a solution. It has a reserve of
300,000 tons of "depleted" uranium, from enrichment operations since the beginning of nuclear energy in France
This reserve, provided it can be used, would represent *energy for 5000 years. *
The formula is then the old fast breeder reactor. You load the core of a reactor with this uranium 238 and plutonium, and you operate it without moderating the neutrons, without slowing them down (currently, in the PWRs, our pressurized water reactors, with light water).
To keep the neutrons of fission at their emission energy (2 MeV), it is necessary a coolant fluid that is "transparent" to this neutron flux, in this case sodium.
We know the misadventures of Superphénix, installed in Creys Malville, despite the desperate demonstration of 60,000 anti-nuclear activists (one dead, two seriously injured). But the CEA plans to build a new fast neutron generator, ASTRID, which should be installed in Marcoule, in the Gard. Decision in 2012, completion in 2020.
So we see that this idea is still alive. Our dear nuclear enthusiasts have not given up. This is extraordinary to understand in what context it is embedded.
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The first generation reactors are the first ones installed in France, before the 1970s.
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The second generation reactors are the current machines, with uranium and pressurized water (PWR, Pressurized Water Reactors, at 155 bars).
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The EPR (European Pressurized Reactors) would be the third generation. They are still pressurized water reactors, but more powerful (1600 MW electric), with double containment and corium recovery (in case of core meltdown, penetration of the vessel and falling of the molten fuel under the reactor).
The EPR and its corium recovery, in yellow
- The fast breeders, the fourth generation
The MOX (mixed oxides) is a discreet transition to plutonium fuel, from the reprocessing of "spent fuels". Indeed, the base fuel for reactors is initially uranium 235, extracted by refining (at the Tricastin center). Natural ore contains 0.7% of 235 and 99.3% of 238.
The refining, by gaseous phase ultracentrifugation of uranium hexafluoride (in centrifuges, rotating under vacuum, on magnetic bearings, at more than 1000 revolutions per second) of the ore allows obtaining enriched uranium with 3 to 5% of 235. Then the reactor can operate using light water (normal water) as a moderator, as a neutron decelerator.
The first reactors operated with raw ore, which required a transition to a moderator made of heavy water (where the hydrogen atoms are made of deuterium).
When pressurized water reactors are loaded with these fuel elements, the fission creates high toxicity waste. Some collisions of nuclei with neutrons do not create fissions, but transform atoms into radioactive isotopes. Some neutrons, fast enough, cause the transmutation of uranium 238 into plutonium 239. Even in a "normal" reactor, there is always plutonium production (plutonium represents 1% of its residual load).
It is then possible to chemically extract this plutonium, since it does not have the same chemical properties as its neighbors. Whereas it is not possible to chemically separate the two uranium isotopes. (Having the same electron shells, they have the same chemical properties).
Obtaining military-grade uranium (minimum 90% of 235) required laborious and costly enrichment operations. On the other hand, it was easier to obtain a mixture with a high content of plutonium 239, by simple chemical extraction. This is why it is the explosive of choice for bombs.
In military reactors, the production of plutonium is a priority. There is no fundamental difference in operating principles between slow neutron reactors and fast neutron reactors. It all depends on the "oven draft", the regime in which this "boiler" operates. All of this is explained in my comic book Energétiquement vôtre, freely downloadable on the Savoir sans Frontières website.