Non-debate at the National Assembly
January 9, 2012
Further down, a file on the war with drones J
I am flooded with messages from readers asking me to talk about this, that. Each subject represents a bundle of hours of work. For now I have focused on nuclear energy.
Here, there is urgency, because our future is in the hands of complete lunatics.
Le 17 November 2011, an audit was held at the National Assembly, led by two confirmed pro-nuclear MPs: MP Christian Bataille (Nord-Calvados, Socialist, 65 years old) and Senator Bruno Sido (UMP, Haute Marne, 60 years old, former agronomic engineer and vice-president of the Office Parlementaire d'Évaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Techniques).
One may wonder why I mention the names of these people. It will become clear later.
For the sake of effort, watch these two videos, which are the hearings of a parliamentary committee on the theme "The Future of Nuclear Energy" (5 or 6 hours of listening!). You will be able to appreciate the patronizing tone of MP Christian Bataille, and the apparently objective and disengaged tone of Bruno Sido. But when you look at the composition of the group of speakers, you will see that everything is arranged to reach the conclusion "No nuclear, no salvation!"
MP Christian Bataille from the North
Bruno Sido, senator, co-chair of the session
Vice president of the Office Parlementaire d'Évaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Techniques
Absence
of any scientific or 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'it is 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 blinked in surprise. But these are the people who are managing us.
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
At the course of this day (where MP Yves Cochet was the only "dissenter", who expressed 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.
CThis reserve, provided it can be used, would represent energy for 5000 years.
LThe formula is then the old reliable fast breeder reactor. You load the core of a reactor with this uranium 238 and plutonium, and you run it without moderating the neutrons, without slowing them down (currently, in PWRs, our pressurized water reactors, with light water).
PTo keep the neutrons of fission at their emission energy (2 MeV), it is necessary to have a coolant fluid that is "transparent" to this neutron flux, in this case sodium.
One knows the misfortunes of Superphénix, installed in Creys Malville, despite the desperate demonstration of 60,000 anti-nuclear activists (one death, 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.
One can 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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Generation I reactors are the first ones installed in France, before the 1970s.
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Generation II reactors are the current machines, with uranium and pressurized water (PWRs, at 155 bars).
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EPRs (European Pressurized Reactors) would be Generation III. They are still pressurized water reactors, but more powerful (1600 electric MW), with double containment and corium recovery (in case of core meltdown, penetration of the vessel and dropping of the molten fuel under the reactor).
The EPR and its corium recovery, in yellow
- Fast breeders, Generation IV
Le MOX (mixed oxides) is a discreet passage to plutonium fuel, from the reprocessing of "spent" fuels. Indeed, the base fuel of reactors is initially uranium 235, extracted by refining (at the Tricastin center). Natural ore contains 0.7% of 235 and 99.3% of 238.
Le refining, by gaseous phase ultracentrifugation of uranium hexafluoride (in centrifuges, spinning under vacuum, on magnetic bearings, at more than 1000 revolutions per second) of the ore allows to obtain 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.
Le 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 nuclear collisions with neutrons do not create fissions, but transform atoms into radioactive isotopes. Some fast neutrons cause the transmutation of uranium 238 into plutonium 239. Even in a "normal" reactor, there is always production of plutonium (plutonium represents 1% of its residual load).
One can then 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).
The obtaining of military-grade uranium (minimum 90% of 235) required laborious and expensive enrichment operations. On the other hand, it was easier to obtain a high content plutonium 239 mixture, by simple chemical extraction. This is why it is the explosive of choice for bombs.
During 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 draw", the regime in which this "boiler" operates. All of this is explained in my comic book "Energétiquement vôtre", freely downloadable on the site of Savoir sans Frontières.
Energétiquement vôtre
, freely downloadable on the site of Savoir sans Frontières.
Current reactors, pressurized water reactors, are not designed to operate in a fast neutron regime. But 50% of our reactors have their cores equipped with a certain percentage of MOX, the future fuel: 94% U238, 6% Pu239.
The EPR is designed to operate with 100% MOX.
It will be sufficient to switch to the breeder system for the MOX to behave as fuel for these new machines. In this mode of operation, the fast neutrons will transform uranium 238, acting as "fertile cover", into plutonium 239. This plutonium can then be chemically recovered. Thus, "the breeder will produce as much, or more fuel than it consumes..."