Document without a name
If stupidity could be turned into electricity
All of France's energy problems would be solved
February 7, 2013 - February 9, 2013 - February 10, 2013 -
Even before François Hollande was elected, the menu was already on the door. I had titled it "Sarkoland or Hollsky."
Just watching this video was enough to instantly lose any illusions about this man and his supposed political label. And he is not alone in this regard—if you examine the entire spectrum of political formations in the country, where political life has simply become... nonexistent. As for political careers, they are nothing more than sinecures. Being a politician has become just another job, complete with an impressive array of social benefits, which our deputies continue to increase every year. They have just voted themselves an extension of their "unemployment allowance" from 6 to 60 months in the event of non-election. What is impressive is the natural way in which Hollande responds to the question posed. He explains that now the country must borrow from private banks, and that the interest rate depends on the country's economic state, its efforts to recover, and the way it is... rated. When the rating drops, the interest rate increases, and that is... normal. One only lends to the rich, as everyone knows.
He responds just like any politician would, especially those who come from those French octopuses that are the École Polytechnique and ENA (École Nationale d'Administration). François Hollande is not particularly stupid. He simply falls within the average of France's elected representatives. These people have never worked in their lives. Frequently emerging from ENA, they begin as high-ranking civil servants. The ceilings of their offices are immediately paneled. They walk on the ground with a rectangle of carpet fixed under each sole, which they will never leave.
When he was elected, Hollande's first act was to sign the construction permit for the experimental nuclear generator Astrid. This decision passed completely unnoticed. Yet this decision shows that, coming from this brilliant engineering school that is ENA, he follows to the letter the plans of the nuclear oligarchs, namely to develop, despite the failure of Superphénix (estimated time for dismantling: 30 years, due to its content of radioactive sodium). Astrid, renamed the "fourth-generation reactor," is nothing other than a fast-neutron breeder reactor cooled by sodium. See no malice, no perversity here. It's not even complicity, but simple incompetence, which is common among many of our elected officials.
This is the first step in a plan to deploy, by the end of the century, this type of generator, extremely dangerous, but allowing the exploitation of the treasure held by the French: 300,000 tons of uranium-238, accumulated over more than half a century of enrichment and refining of natural ore (see this article estimating the cost of a nuclear accident in France: 400 billion euros, not counting public health costs).
For those unaware of what this is about: natural uranium ore consists of 0.7% fissile U-235 and 99.3% non-fissile uranium-238. But if we use this "waste" from refining as a "fertile blanket" (for novices, read Energy for You, freely downloadable), subjecting it to bombardment by fission neutrons, this uranium-238 transforms into fuel, i.e., plutonium-239. As fuel, and also as explosive, since Pu-239 is the standard fuel for atomic bombs.
Even more: if we succeed in using this plutonium as new fuel in the reactor (fast neutrons), it will, through fission, which it is also fissile like uranium-235, regenerate itself from its surrounding uranium-238, just as Phoenix rises from its ashes. This is the great dream of French nuclear enthusiasts.
The problem is that to operate this type of generator, we are forced to use molten sodium, not water, to avoid slowing down the emitted neutrons, which travel at 2,000 km/s. Water would slow them down, and they would no longer be able to penetrate the nuclei of uranium-238 to perform their transmutation, turning them into fission fuel, plutonium-239.
This enormous mass of sodium, which serves as a "heat transfer fluid" (i.e., carrying the heat generated by the plutonium rods), is flammable. It spontaneously ignites in air and explodes upon contact with water. Furthermore, this medium is wonderfully opaque, unlike the water in pressurized water reactors. If something abnormal happens, it becomes very difficult, and practically impossible, to perform a diagnosis, whereas the water in pressurized water reactors is transparent and... does not ignite when you unscrew the reactor cover after cooling. In short, deploying such generators is a programmed suicide, because if an accident were to occur at such a facility, events like Chernobyl and Fukushima would be mere pleasant jokes.
February 14, 2013: part of the Chernobyl sarcophagus collapsed under the weight of snow
The article from Le Monde:
Simple remarks: while the fast-neutron breeder reactor Superphénix was not operational, the roof housing all auxiliary installations (outside the reactor containment structure) collapsed under the weight of snow. Its designers apparently didn't know it snowed in Isère during winter. Furthermore, the installation of a pool intended to store spent fuel elements near the reactor building caused, due to ground collapse under load, a tilt in the reactor building, which altered all calculations of sodium convection within its cube.
But this idea took root in the minds of French technocrats, who are also at the forefront in this field. Are they corrupt, perverse? Not even that. Incompetent would be the correct word. To launch such an ambitious project—“which would give France 5,000 years of energy independence due to its stock of uranium-238”—one must start with a minimal stock of 3,000 tons of plutonium-239, which would allow for the continuous "re-creation of consumed fission fuel from the inexhaustible stock of uranium-238." Currently, France possesses less than a third of this amount. Hence the construction of the La Hague reprocessing center, where shipments from French reactors and those of our neighbors are received, transported by "Castor" wagons, which my neighbor (who lives in Gréoux), the retired German Klaus Janberg, is so proud to have designed and developed throughout his career.
France does not only package nuclear industry waste and ship it back in vitrified containers; it also retains the precious plutonium-239, the key piece of this insane plan. As a representative of CNRS, a somewhat bald and obscure research director, insisted during parliamentary sessions in 2011: "It is then essential to keep this plutonium in its pure state, and not to package it as well." The targeted quantity is 3,000 tons. Knowing that a milligram of plutonium can cause death through ingestion or inhalation, this stock could potentially kill three trillion human beings, the population of thousands of planets.
Among deputies, Bataille and Vido have been staunch advocates of such a project for years. Don't expect them ever to question the validity of their positions. The "nuclear watchdog," ASN (the Nuclear Safety Authority), will ensure safety. A few months ago, its director, at the time of his retirement, lamented that his service had only 300 civil servants, which is far too few to monitor 58 reactors. Thus, for its audits, ASN outsources to nuclear operators. Bataille, who was unaware of this, briefly expressed concern.
This deployment plan extends to the end of the century. In doing so, it relies on the assumption that our physics will not have evolved in the next 90 years.
The lack of imagination in power, across all sectors
This plan is completely insane, irresponsible, criminal. But Hollande, completing his decision to authorize the construction of Astrid, has just, I believe, released 158 million euros for this operation. He is both incompetent and stubborn, listening only to his true masters. Criticized publicly, his face freezes into wax, like those of the figures in the Musée Grévin. His gaze mixes contained fury with sulking. He then pretends to take notes. Like true fools, he is completely unaware of his state. And he is not alone in the chamber. Newspapers headline "The left no longer has the right to make mistakes." They accumulate them and will continue.
But... what left are these people talking about???
Taubira, Minister of Justice, wants to empty prisons. Geneviève Fioraso, Minister of Higher Education and Research, inaugurated the ITER site on January 17, exclaiming, "We are going to conquer the sun." A fantastic waste, a planned failure. Everything I have said and written will have served absolutely nothing. Incidentally, note the total ineptitude of ecologists, "greens," and anti-nuclear activists ("who form chains, holding hands, engaging in pitiful pantomimes disguised as protests"). The representatives of EELV travel, debate, and care about their image. I won't elaborate—I've already spoken about all this.
Geneviève Fioraso, Minister of Higher Education and Research
"We would be crazy to miss this opportunity that ITER represents, through which we are launching a conquest of the sun."
A sparkling look full of intelligence
Megajoule (a bank aiming to achieve fusion using 176 lasers, compared to 192 for the American installation) will be completed in Barp, near Bordeaux, while its American counterpart, the NIF, concluded its two-year campaign at the end of 2012 with a complete failure (its managers said: "It is too early to conclude whether the NIF will or will not achieve ignition," i.e., the ignition of thermonuclear reactions). After this American failure, it would have been logical to halt spending, leave the Megajoule project as is, and wait until the goal is achieved across the Atlantic. But no, we live in a Shaddock world ("The more it fails, the more likely it is to succeed").
Cost of Megajoule: 6.6 billion euros, adding to the waste of ITER.
To learn more, obtain the January-February issue of the NEXUS magazine, the only journal that mentions this failure, which says much about the freedom of the French press, or simply its conscience, which are now mere myths.
Let's continue. Recently, the Minister of Ecology (...), Delphine Batho, visited the CIGEO facility in Bure, which will ultimately allow validation of a system for permanent storage of long-lived radioactive waste in a clay layer.
February 4, 2013. Delphine Batho (Minister of Ecology!!!):
"Storing waste at Bure is the safest solution."
Poor Michel Guéritte has courageously fought this insane project for years, now joined by a scientist, Bertrand Thuillier, who has analyzed all the flaws in such a project. NEXUS has agreed to publish an 8-page dossier in one of its upcoming issues. It is essential to understand one thing, which no one seems to perceive. This storage system (where France will again be "at the forefront," and may even accept, for a fee, storing waste from other countries) is one of the key components of this entire complex:
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Transition (by the end of the century!) to fast-neutron breeder reactors using sodium, operating on plutonium, relabeled "fourth-generation generators."
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Accumulation of an extremely dangerous amount of plutonium: 3,000 tons (naturally produced by all reactors, civilian or military, worldwide).
- Establishment of sites to store not past waste, but... future waste, from a horrifying future, through this underground storage system where, once again, France will demonstrate its "technological excellence."
Yet there are alternatives. One courageous option would be to globally decide to completely abandon nuclear energy as it exists today, investing massively in renewable energy on an industrial scale, not in a "baba-cool" decelerationist mindset.
The other possibility is the potential emergence of an aneutronic fusion, producing no waste (hydrogen-boron fusion produces... helium). Required temperature: between one and two billion degrees. Exceeded as early as 2005 in the American Z-machine at Sandia, New Mexico. Eight years ago. Such a technology is a dead end compared to the pharaonic (and/or) irresponsible dreams of our nuclear oligarchs, nuclear fanatics, and nuclear pathologists. It is completely and deliberately ignored in France.
Vox clamat in deserto
My attempts to enlighten the "figures" of French nuclear power—engineer Paul Henri Rebut, creator of the Tokamak at Fontenay-aux-Roses, academician Guy Laval, who led the 2007 Academy of Sciences audit on the use of fission to produce energy, yet seems in no hurry to revise his views, or former director of scientific projects at CEA, Robert Dautray, also an academician and former director of scientific research at CEA—have all ended in failure. On the phone:
Paul Henri Rebut, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences (71 years old): "Who tells you ITER won't work?" (contradicting his 2010 statements in the magazine Science et Vie).
Guy Laval, academician (77 years old in 2013): "Let's wait for the first results from ITER before making a judgment."
Robert Dautray, academician (83 years old): did not send, as promised, the article I wrote for him titled "WORLDS OUT OF EQUILIBRIUM," dedicated to the failure of plasma project management through computer simulations. No acknowledgment, nothing. A man who once told me on the phone, "I have the greatest respect for you because you are one of the rare scientists who go to the bottom of things, rather than staying on the surface." He believed "it was important that I continue my actions." He had committed to forwarding the article to the journal Pour la Science, recommending its publication, if it met his approval. I sent it to him in December 2012. Since then, complete radio silence, despite discreet follow-ups.
Clearly, the country is full of people who "have immense respect for me" but wouldn't lift a finger to support me in anything.
The man who first, in his 2006 article in Physical Review Letters, demonstrated the reality of this 2005 breakthrough, my old friend Malcolm Haines, died of cancer on January 13, 2013.
Malcolm Haines
One of the world's most eminent plasma physicists
Died of cancer on January 13, 2013
His 2006 article was titled "…over two billion degrees." He was the first to understand why a certain type of MHD instabilities (the bane of machines like ITER) allowed achieving temperatures previously unimaginable: billions of degrees, through "turbulent resistivity." A discovery that will mark the history of science by opening wide the door to a new domain: hyper-hot plasmas.
We are already far beyond this now. The Russians are joining the race by building the Baikal device.
This is nothing more than an impulsive fusion, another form of "inertial confinement fusion," but this one has a real chance of working quickly, because the amount of energy focused on the target is not, as on NIF and Megajoule, far below the threshold. Z-machines are the equivalent of the internal combustion engine compared to the steam engine (whose image is represented by the ITER project). Finally, a slightly intelligent, outsider perspective (bonus: it's a new type of plasma, with Ti >> Te), amidst flawed projects like the thorium fuel cycle or eternal mirages like cold fusion (although this is theoretically possible in principle). With Malcolm deceased, I remain one of the few people who understand what's going on, and certainly the only one in France, where it apparently interests no one.
The reality is somewhat different in that this new scientific prospect is, of course, rich in military applications (pure fusion bombs). Christian Nazet, former military engineer and former head of instrumentation at Mururoa, had already transmitted the directive in 2008, in hexagonal terms:
- Nothing will happen without the army's approval. These researches are "proliferating."
Therefore... nothing will happen, simply due to French incompetence. At the Biarritz conference in 2012, dedicated to Z-machines, where I had reunited with my old friend Haines, who opened the event with a presentation that united everyone, the French presence was simply... nonexistent. Not even a representative from the host country, France, said a few welcoming words, something no participant had ever witnessed in their entire career. The hostesses were charming, the petits fours delicious. The only words spoken were from a young student who simply said:
- On the microphone, the button starts it, and when the red light is on, it means everything is working. Now, enjoy the conference.
Authentic!
The journalistic news? In the hexagon, Johnny Hallyday's inner turmoil and, politically, the follow-up of the debate on same-sex marriage. The phenomenon is global. Regarding the USA, watch this video on the Ellsberg affair, which ended with the resignation of the US President (sanctioned by two Pulitzer Prizes) and the end of the Vietnam War. It is rich in lessons. The American power later realized two things had been overlooked.
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The press was still a "fifth power."
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The US military practiced conscription.
The remedy was quickly applied. See September 11 and the privatization of military activities.
In France, this absurd transformation has been completed for decades.
On the scientific front, you can choose between explanations for the avalanche of new observations (the universe, moreover, is... accelerating!) in terms of dark matter, dark energy, or the underground quest, deep in abandoned mines, for problematic "astroparticles." A descent into obscurantism, both literally and figuratively.
I am returning to writing scientific articles, very time-consuming. Here I am only providing a brief overview of current events. There remains one question:
| What will be the next stupid decision by the Hollande government? |
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On this point, our obtuse paddleboat captain is a sure bet.
How Alain Soral explains the politics of the "Socialists" and how "they do the dirty work"
Gayssot Lawthe Nuremberg Trial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04wnrpj6WD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5H4i4Q8Nd4
**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54yiGypKh0.
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