[ RadSafe ] [Nuclear News] Nearly half of all Swedes back new nuclear power: poll

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Nearly half of all Swedes back new nuclear power: poll
New energy behind nuclear power
Worries can't be buried as nuclear waste piles up
Nuclear Revival Rekindles Waste Concerns
Brown for new global networks on nuclear energy, terrorism
Quebec's nuclear future rests on fate of Gentilly-2 plant
German Minister Criticizes French Nuclear Stance
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Nearly half of all Swedes back new nuclear power: poll

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Nearly half of all Swedes back building new 
nuclear reactors in their country, which voted to scrap atomic power 
in a 1980 referendum, an opinion poll published on Monday showed.

An opinion poll conducted for the Dagens Nyheter daily by Synovate 
showed that 48 percent of Swedes back building new nuclear power 
stations, while 39 percent are against.

The survey was conducted between January 14 and January 17 with 1,026 
people questioned.

The result emerged two weeks after Britain decided to restart its 
nuclear program as it seeks to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets 
and tackle climate change.

A decision to go ahead with new atomic plants in Sweden would be 
tricky for either the government or for the opposition, if it wins 
the next election in 2010, as both coalition blocs are internally 
divided along party lines.

A breakdown of responses to the survey by political affiliation 
showed that of the four ruling parties, three are strongly for 
nuclear power and one, the Centre Party, firmly against.

Supporters of the opposition bloc are also split. Social Democrats 
are just in favor, while the Green and Left parties clearly reject 
atomic power.

Sweden has 10 nuclear reactors in operation but has closed two since 
voting, nearly 30 years ago, to phase out atomic power when the 
current plants reach the end of their lives.

The country generates around 45 percent of its electricity from 
nuclear power, while about 40 percent comes from hydroelectric 
plants.

The European Union is expected to raise Sweden's target for energy 
production from renewable sources to 50 percent in its new energy 
plan, to be presented next week.
---------------------

New energy behind nuclear power

VIENNA -- Global warming and rocketing oil prices are making nuclear 
power fashionable, drawing a once-demonized industry out of the 
shadows of the Chernobyl disaster as a potential model of clean 
energy.

Britain is the latest nation to announce support for the construction 
of new nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants produces about 20% of 
Britain's electricity, but all but one are expected to close by 2023.

However, some countries hopping on the nuclear bandwagon have abysmal 
industrial safety records and are seen as burdened by corruption.

China has 11 nuclear plants and plans to bring at least 30 more 
online by 2020. And a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report 
projects that it may need to add as many as 200 reactors by 2050.

Of the more than 100 nuclear reactors being built, planned or on 
order, about half are in China, India and other developing nations. 
Argentina, Brazil and South Africa plan to expand existing programs; 
and Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and Turkey are among the countries that 
are considering building their first reactors.

The concerns are hardly limited to developing countries. Japan's 
nuclear power industry has yet to recover from revelations five years 
ago of dozens of cases of false reporting on inspections for cracks 
in reactors.

The Swedish operators of a German reactor came under fire last summer 
for delays in informing the public about a fire at the plant. And a 
potentially disastrous partial breakdown of a Bulgarian nuclear 
plant's emergency shutdown mechanism in 2006 went unreported for two 
months until whistle-blowers made it public.

Nuclear transparency will be an even greater problem for countries 
such as China that tightly control information. Those who mistrust 
the current nuclear revival are still haunted by the 1986 meltdown of 
the Chernobyl reactor and the Soviet Union's attempts to hide the 
full extent of the catastrophe.

The revival, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates, means 
nearly a doubling of nuclear energy within two decades to 691 
gigawatts, or 13.3% of electricity generated.

"We are facing a nuclear renaissance," said Anne Lauvergeon, chief 
executive of the French nuclear energy firm Areva. "Nuclear's not the 
devil anymore. The devil is coal."

Philippe Jamet, the IAEA's director of nuclear installation safety, 
described the industry's record as "second to none." Still, he said, 
countries new to or still learning about nuclear power "have to move 
down the learning curve, and they will learn from [their] mistakes."

Vienna-based IAEA, a United Nations body, was set up in 1957 in large 
part to limit such trial and error, providing quality controls and 
expertise to countries with nuclear programs and overseeing pacts 
binding them to high safety standards.

But the agency is already stretched with monitoring Iran and North 
Korea over their suspected nuclear arms programs, and IAEA chief 
Mohamed ElBaradei said his organization could not be the main 
guarantor of safety. The primary responsibility, he said, rests with 
the operators of nuclear facilities and their governments.

Developing nations insist that they are ready for the challenge. But 
worries persist that bad habits of the past could reflect on 
operational safety.

In China, for instance, hundreds die annually in the world's most 
dangerous coal mines and thousands more in fires, explosions and 
other accidents often blamed on insufficient safety equipment and 
workers ignoring safety rules.

A Finnish study published in 2005 said India's annual industrial 
fatality rate was 11.4 people per 100,000 workers and the accident 
rate 8,700 per 100,000.

Overall, Asian nations excluding China and India have an average 
industrial accident fatality rate of 21.5 per 100,000 and an accident 
rate of more than 16,000 per 100,000 workers, according to the report 
by the Tampere University of Technology in Finland. The study lists a 
fatality rate of 5.2 people per 100,000 for the U.S. and 3 per 
100,000 for France.

Nuclear nations are obligated to report all incidents to the IAEA. 
But the study said most Asian governments vastly underreport 
industrial accidents to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization --
 fewer than 1% in China's case.

Separately, China and India shared 70th place in the 2006 Corruption 
Perceptions index, published by the Transparency International think 
tank. It ranked 163 nations, with the least corrupt first. Vietnam 
occupied the 111th spot, and Indonesia -- which, like Vietnam, wants 
to build a nuclear reactor -- came in 130th.

"Are there special concerns about the developing world? The answer is 
definitely yes," said Carl Thayer, a Southeast Asia expert in 
Australia.

Corrupt officials in licensing and supervisory agencies in the region 
could undermine the best of IAEA guidelines and oversight, Thayer 
said.

"There could be a dropping of standards, and that affects all aspects 
of the nuclear industry, from buying the material to processing 
applications to building and running the plant."

Permanent storage of radioactive waste -- which can remain toxic for 
tens of thousands of years -- is another major problem, as is 
shutting unsafe plants.

In China, permanent dump sites are not expected to be operational 
before 2040, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. So for now, 
China, like India, stores the waste in temporary sites, usually close 
to reactors, where it is more vulnerable to theft and poses a greater 
environmental danger.

Nuclear proponents say new generations of reactors now on the drawing 
board come with better fail-safe mechanisms and fewer moving parts. 
But even some of them have doubts about creating the foolproof 
reactor. IAEA official Hans-Holger Rogner said he was "suspicious 
when people say the next generation will be safer than the one we 
have."
--------------------

Worries can't be buried as nuclear waste piles up

BEAUMONT-HAGUE, FRANCE -- Thousands of canisters of highly 
radioactive waste from the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, 
silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above 
ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered 
hills.

The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain 
dangerous for thousands of years, is in "interim storage." Like 
nearly all the world's nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the 
long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and 
governments in the six decades since the atomic era began.

Industry officials hope renewed worldwide interest in nuclear energy 
will break a long, awkward silence surrounding nuclear waste. They 
want to revive momentum for scientific and political breakthroughs on 
waste that stalled after the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 
and Chernobyl in 1986, which raised worldwide fears about 
radioactivity's risks to human and planetary health.

So far, though, recent talk of a nuclear renaissance has focused on 
the "front end," or reactor construction. Engineers are designing the 
next generation of reactors to be safer than today's -- and they're 
being billed as a solution to global warming. Nuclear reactors do not 
emit carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas blamed for heating the 
planet.

Few people have been talking about the "back end," industry-speak for 
the hundreds of thousands of tons of waste that nuclear plants 
produce each year, and the lucrative, secretive business of storing 
it away.

Waste "is the main problem with this so-called nuclear rebirth," said 
Mycle Schneider, an independent expert who co-authored a recent study 
for the European Parliament casting doubt on a global nuclear 
resurgence. He says government efforts to revive nuclear energy will 
stall without a "miracle" solution to waste disposal.

Workers at this waste treatment and storage site on France's 
Cherbourg peninsula, run by industry giant Areva, don't see a 
problem.

Though much of the technology here dates from the 1970s and 1980s, 
they point to a strong safety record and the 26,000 environmental 
tests conducted every year as evidence that the public has nothing to 
fear from their activity.

The tests routinely find crabs, cows and humans living nearby to be 
healthy. One longtime plant employee gestured toward her pregnant 
abdomen, holding her third child, as proof that there's nothing to 
worry about. Plant officials say strict security measures, tightened 
since the Sept. 11 attacks, rule out terrorism risks.

Greenpeace questions state-run Areva's safety figures, and accuses 
the government of playing down accidents and soil and water 
contamination. A group called Meres en Colere, or Angry Mothers, was 
formed in the region after a 1997 study showed higher than usual 
local rates of child leukemia, a malady linked to radiation exposure.

For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most 
lethal waste is to shove it deep underground.

Yet no country has built a deep geological repository. Governments 
meet protests each time one is proposed. Another option is recycling. 
Countries such as France, Russia and Japan reprocess much nuclear 
waste into new fuel. That dramatically reduces the volume: Forty 
years' worth of France's highly radioactive waste is stored under 
just three floor surfaces, each about the size of a basketball court, 
at Beaumont-Hague.

Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear 
weapons -- so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation.

And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits -- such as 
fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel 
residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- must be 
sealed and stored away.

Among other ideas once floated for disposing of nuclear waste have 
been shooting it into space (deemed too risky because of the volatile 
rocket fuel) or injecting it in the ocean floor (stalled because 
testing its feasibility is too costly), or shipping all the world's 
waste to a collective nuclear dump.

Current research in industry leader France, which relies on nuclear 
energy for more than 70% of its electricity, more than any other 
country, is focusing on new chemical processes that would shrink 
nuclear waste and cool it faster. It will be at least 2040, though, 
before these might be put to use, scientists estimate. Areva already 
makes $2.2 billion in revenue a year on treating and recycling waste. 
The plant at Beaumont-Hague takes in 22,000 tons of spent nuclear 
fuel a year, from France, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the 
Netherlands, Italy and Australia. The foreign fuel by law must be 
returned to its owners once it has been reprocessed into a more 
stable form that, through lack of alternatives, is buried or held in 
storage.

The French fuel stays in Normandy indefinitely, while bulkier, lower-
level nuclear waste is piling up in dumps worldwide.

Nuclear scientists' dream is a wasteless reactor, and some sketches 
for the next crop of reactors, the Generation IV, include those that 
recycle 100% of their refuse.

Both nuclear fans and foes agree, however, that it will take a few 
more human generations for that dream to come true.
--------------------

Nuclear Revival Rekindles Waste Concerns

(AP) Jan 21 - Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from 
the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, 
beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and 
Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.

The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain 
dangerous for thousands of years, is in "interim storage." Like 
nearly all the world's nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the 
long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and 
governments in the six decades since the atomic era began.

Industry officials hope renewed worldwide interest in nuclear energy 
will break a long, awkward silence surrounding nuclear waste. They 
want to revive momentum for scientific and political breakthroughs on 
waste that stalled after the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 
and Chernobyl in 1986, which raised worldwide fears about 
radioactivity's risks to human and planetary health.

So far, though, recent talk of a nuclear renaissance has focused on 
the "front end," or reactor construction. Engineers are designing the 
next generation of reactors to be safer than today's _ and they're 
being billed as a solution to global warming. Nuclear reactors do not 
emit carbon dioxide, blamed for heating the planet.

Few people have been talking about the "back end," industry-speak for 
the hundreds of thousands of tons of waste that nuclear plants 
produce each year, and the lucrative, secretive business of storing 
it away.

Waste "is the main problem with this so-called nuclear rebirth," said 
Mycle Schneider, an independent expert who co-authored a recent study 
for the European Parliament casting doubt on a global nuclear 
resurgence. He says government efforts to revive nuclear energy will 
stall without a "miracle" solution to waste disposal.

Workers at this waste treatment and storage site on France's 
Cherbourg peninsula, run by industry giant Areva, don't see a 
problem.

Though much of the technology here dates from the 1970s and 1980s, 
they point to a strong safety record and the 26,000 environmental 
tests conducted every year as evidence that the public has nothing to 
fear from their activity.

The tests routinely find crabs, cows and humans living nearby to be 
healthy. One longtime plant employee gestured toward her pregnant 
abdomen, holding her third child, as proof that there's nothing to 
worry about. Plant officials say strict security measures, tightened 
since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, rule out terrorism risks.

Greenpeace questions state-run Areva's safety figures, and accuses 
the government of playing down accidents and soil and water 
contamination. A group called Meres en Colere, or Angry Mothers, was 
formed in the region after a 1997 study showed higher than usual 
local rates of child leukemia, a malady linked to radiation exposure.

Now the "pros" are on a new mission to dispel a generation of scares 
and suspicion, saying nuclear power is less dangerous to humans and 
the Earth than burning oil or coal. The "antis" say nuclear energy 
can never offer 100 percent protection from its radioactive 
ingredients.

The splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor creates the 
exceptional heat that drives turbines to provide electricity. The 
process also creates radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137 and 
strontium-90 that take about 30 years to lose half their 
radioactivity. Higher-level leftovers includes plutonium-239, with a 
half-life of 24,000 years.

Direct exposure to such highly radioactive material, even for a short 
period, can be fatal. Indirect exposure, through seepage into 
groundwater, can lead to life-threatening illness for those living 
nearby and environmental damage.

For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most 
lethal waste is to shove it deep underground.

Yet no country has built a deep geological repository. Governments 
meet protests each time one is proposed. The Yucca Mountain waste 
site in Nevada was commissioned in 1982 and is still awaiting a 
license.

Another option is recycling. Countries such as France, Russia and 
Japan reprocess much nuclear waste into new fuel. That dramatically 
reduces the volume: Forty years' worth of France's highly radioactive 
waste is stored under just three floor surfaces, each about the size 
of a basketball court, at Beaumont-Hague.

Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear 
weapons _ so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation.

And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits _ such as 
fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel 
residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium _ must be 
sealed and stored away.

That's what lurks 10 feet underground at this Normandy plant: More 
than 7,000 cylindrical steel canisters, each about the height of a 
parking meter, stacked and sealed upright in holes beneath the slick 
floor. Some contain compacted radioactive metal, the others hold 
spent fuel that has been vitrified into glass.

Among other ideas once floated for disposing of nuclear waste have 
been shooting it into space (deemed too risky because of the volatile 
rocket fuel) or injecting it in the ocean floor (stalled because 
testing its feasibility is too costly), or shipping all the world's 
waste to a collective nuclear dump.

The last idea proved too diplomatically delicate. But Greenpeace and 
Norwegian environmental group Bellona say European nations have for 
years been illegally shipping radioactive waste to Russia and leaving 
it there.

Current research in industry leader France _ which relies on nuclear 
energy for more than 70 percent of its electricity, more than any 
other country _ is focusing on new chemical processes that would 
shrink nuclear waste and cool it faster.

It will be at least 2040, though, before these might be put to use, 
scientists estimate. Schneider says scientists are "creating work for 
themselves" by researching methods that may never be commercially 
feasible or do much to solve the long-term waste quandary.

The World Nuclear Association, an industry group, disagrees, citing 
increasing interest in waste research by governments. The managers at 
the Normandy plant say long-held taboos about the industry are 
fading.

"We have the best scientific solution for treating waste," deputy 
director Eric Blanc said, referring to the plant's vitrification 
process and network of cooling pools. "Others are coming all the time 
to study it."

Visitors to the plant must wear special uniforms and trek through a 
maze of security and radioactivity checkpoints.

The plant used to have Webcams and "open house" days for people from 
nearby communities, but both practices were stopped after Sept. 11. 
Now the Defense Ministry regularly monitors the plant, and vets all 
visitors.

Meanwhile, new reactor clients are lining up.

China signed a staggering $11.7 billion deal last month for two 
nuclear reactors from Areva. Areva later said the deal included a 
feasibility study for a waste treatment and recycling facility in 
China that would cost another $22 billion.

Areva already makes $2.2 billion in revenues a year on treating and 
recycling waste. The plant at Beaumont-Hague takes in 22,000 tons of 
spent nuclear fuel a year, from France, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, 
Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia. The foreign fuel by 
law must be returned to its owners once it has been reprocessed into 
a more stable form that _ through lack of alternatives _ is buried or 
held in storage.

The French fuel stays in Normandy indefinitely, while bulkier, lower-
level nuclear waste is piling up in dumps worldwide.

Nuclear scientists' dream is a wasteless reactor, and some sketches 
for the next crop of reactors, the Generation IV, include those that 
recycle 100 percent of their refuse.

Both nuclear fans and foes agree, however, that it will take a few 
more human generations for that dream to come true.
-------------------

Brown for new global networks on nuclear energy, terrorism

New Delhi, Jan 21 (IANS) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Monday 
outlined plans to start global initiatives on climate change, nuclear 
energy and counter terrorism and to create an early warning system 
for 'financial turbulence'.

In a major policy speech delivered at a breakfast event hosted by two 
of India's business chambers, Brown said that there was an urgent 
need to finance environmentally sustainable development.

Brown, who arrived here Sunday on a two-day visit, proposed the 
creation of a 'global climate change fund', to be built on Britain's 
international environmental transformation fund of $1.6 billion.

The initiative, which will operate within the World Bank Clean Energy 
Investment Framework, will finance carbon investment, sustainable 
forestry programmes, adaptation and climate-resilient development in 
the poorest countries, he added.

While he talked about 'serious challenges from Iran and North Korea', 
Brown said that Britain will be at the 'forefront of the 
international campaign to accelerate disarmament among possessor 
states, to prevent proliferation - and to ultimately achieve a world 
free from nuclear weapons'.

At the same time, he said his country will 'press for early agreement 
to a new IAEA-led international system to help non-nuclear states 
acquire the new sources of energy they need, including through an 
enrichment bond.

'But this offer must be made only in return for firm commitments to 
the highest non-proliferation standards,' asserted Brown.

He also said that there was a need to achieve a 'global arms trade 
treaty' to end the proliferation of conventional weapons.

Brown placed emphasis on defeating terrorism, pointing out that it 
had no justification and 'no cause that sanctifies it, no way to 
appease it'.

'And our task is to defeat it - not only in our own countries, but as 
an international community.'

He suggested that all countries should 'strengthen networks of global 
law enforcement authorities, intelligence agents, police and 
financial regulators'.

Brown went a step further and suggested that the international 
community should step in to 'prevent and respond to breakdowns of 
states and societies'.

The British prime minister said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 
should develop a 'financial instrument able to provide insurance to 
well-managed economies against sudden reversals of capital flows'.

He also felt that the IMF should help create an 'early warning system 
for financial turbulence affecting the global economy'.

Brown made a reference to the 'place and power of the media, the 
private sector, civil society, faith groups and world wide web', all 
of which he said gives people 'power to be heard across the world as 
the technology of truth constantly outpaces the tools of repression'.
----------------------

Quebec's nuclear future rests on fate of Gentilly-2 plant
				
TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. (THE CANADIAN PRESS) - Quebec's state-owned 
energy utility is hinting it wants to give its badly aging nuclear 
plant an overhaul, but in so doing could revive hopes and fears about 
the future of atomic power in the province.

Hydro Quebec has been working quietly to prepare the way for an 
extensive, not to mention expensive, retrofit of the Gentilly-2 
nuclear generating station.

The other, almost equally expensive option is to shut the plant down 
when its lifespan comes to an end sometime in 2011.

Though the Quebec government will ultimately decide the plant's fate, 
it will likely act on a recommendation from its energy utility.

"Up to now, what we have as information and what we have accumulated 
as details, leads us to believe the refurbishment of Gentilly-2 could 
effectively be the best option," said spokesperson Sylvain Theberge.

Hydro Quebec is closely monitoring the refurbishment of New 
Brunswick's Point Lepreau facility - considered Gentilly-2's twin as 
both use 635-megawatt CANDU-6 reactors.

"If we perceive elements that all of a sudden increase the cost or 
which could represent major problems to the refurbishment, then we'll 
revise," Theberge said.

Located on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, about halfway between 
Montreal and Quebec City, Gentilly-2 supplies about three per cent of 
Quebec's total energy output and plays a key role in distributing 
electricity to the two urban centres.

Across the river in Trois-Rivieres, a city hit hard by widespread 
closures in the manufacturing and forestry industry, business leaders 
anxiously await the final decision about the plant's fate.

With the $100 million Gentilly-2 pays out annually in salaries, on 
top of the $13 million worth of goods and services it buys from local 
suppliers, many think the region can ill-afford its closure.

"Gentilly-2 has enormous importance the region, both on economic 
growth and on research and development," said Claude Durand, who 
heads the chamber of commerce in Trois-Rivieres. "The region is in a 
fragile economic state. It's been that way for a long time."

Most current estimates peg the cost of a refurbishment at $1.5 
billion, though that represents a more than $700-million increase 
from earlier estimates. Dismantling the facility, however, could cost 
as much as $1.6 billion.

Hydro's refurbishment plans would extend Gentilly-2's operational 
capacity until 2035, an investment Durand sees necessary to 
consolidate the region's nuclear know-how.

"Not only does Gentilly-2 supply high-paying, quality jobs, but it 
also allows our industrial manufacturers to develop products, 
research and technology to supply the plant," she said.

But claims of taking part in the so-called "nuclear renaissance" 
leave local opposition groups unmoved. Unlike other environmentalists 
who see nuclear power as a profitable green energy alternative, they 
claim Gentilly-2 is merely a dangerous source of electricity.

"Our principal preoccupation concerning nuclear electricity in Quebec 
is tied to the disproportionate risks it represents to the health and 
security of citizens, as well to their eco-systems," said Michel 
Fugere of the Mouvement Vert Mauricie, an environmental group that 
has spearheaded campaigns against Gentilly-2 almost since it came 
online in 1983.

Fugere also points out that Canada still has not developed a long-
term plan to deal with nuclear waste, charging it would be 
irresponsible to extend the plant's life without any idea of what to 
do with its radioactive byproducts.

Hydro Quebec is already working to expand the waste disposal site at 
Gentilly-2, giving it the necessary space to operate up to 2011 and 
beyond.

It has also submitted an outline of Gentilly's refurbishment to the 
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for approval.

This has left the utility open to claims it has already decided to 
renovate the plant and is simply going through the motions.

"One, it testifies to their arrogance, and two, it suggests they are 
a state within the state," Fugere said. "There has been an usurpation 
somewhere of its powers."

Theberge, however, stresses no decision has been made. A task force 
will make a recommendation this spring to Hydro's board of directors, 
who in turn will make a recommendation to Premier Jean Charest's 
government.

But given the strength of Charest's political rivals in the area - 
five members of the Action democratique du Quebec were elected from 
the Trois-Rivieres area in the last election - Quebec's nuclear 
future may be decided as much by politics as by economics. 
--------------------

German Minister Criticizes French Nuclear Stance

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has taken a sideswipe at 
France for exporting nuclear technology. French President Nicolas 
Sarkozy has placed the French nuclear industry at the heart of his 
foreign policy.

Gabriel said in an interview with the German newspaper Nordwest 
Zeitung that he was uncomfortable with plans to construct atomic 
plants in countries "that are hardly reputed to be repositories of 
stable democracy."

"Anyone who praises nuclear energy as a panacea to energy policy 
issues should not be surprised if there is a growing danger of the 
proliferation of atomic weapons," Gabriel told the paper on Monday, 
Jan. 21.

The minister, a member of the Social Democratic Party, said the 
example of Iran showed that it was not such a big step from civilian 
use of nuclear energy to the development of atomic bombs.

 Libya's Gadhafi among France's customers

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, left, shakes hands with French 
President Nicolas SarkozyBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit 
der Bildunterschrift:  Sarkozy's fostering of ties with Gadhafi have 
raised a few eyebrows

France has signed nuclear co-operation agreements with the United 
Arab Emirates (UAE), Algeria and Libya. Chief executives of state-
owned EDF, reactor maker Areva, as well as petrochemicals giant Total 
and electricity group Suez accompany Sarkozy on nearly all his 
official trips abroad.

At the end of last year Aveva clinched a commercial nuclear power 
contract worth a record 8 billion euros ($11.6 million) to supply 
China with two reactors and provide nuclear fuel for nearly two 
decades. EDF is also expected to have a stake in the Chinese plant.

Gabriel rejected German exports of nuclear plants. He said it was not 
against the law, but was in political contradiction with Germany's 
current law phases out nuclear energy.

"The last reactors will be taken of the power grid by 2020," Gabriel 
said.-
-----------------------------------------
Sander C. Perle
President
Mirion Technologies, Inc., Dosimetry Service Division
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

Global Dosimetry: http://www.dosimetry.com/
Mirion Technologies: http://www.mirion.com/