SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00303R000500700013-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
• Document Release Date: April 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: March 25, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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25 March 1982
Supporting international safeguards
The US State Department must now persuade Congress to back the international
safeguards system - and then worry about what will happen a decade hence.
Not before time, the United States is edging in the right
direction in its policy on the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Almost two years have gone since President Reagan, then merely
a candidate for his office, began promising that he would repeal
President Carter's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, passed by
Congress in 1978. Now, it seems, the Administration is planning
to do what it can, within the framework of the act, to remove
some of the sillier restrictions on the supply of nuclear equipment
from the United States made necessary by this unfortunate
legislation (see page 279). But there is still no sign of when it plans
to carry the fight to Congress, seeking at least to amend the Carter
act. Mr James Malone's departure from the State Department
(Nature, 18 March) may be a sign of impatience, but mere
irritation is not a substitute for action. Part of the trouble seems to
have been that the Reagan Administration, while staunchly
opposed to the Carter act on the doctrinal grounds that it
needlessly restricted the freedom of American suppliers to sell
nuclear equipment overseas, has not fully understood why the
Carter act is self-defeating. Now, to judge from the good sense of
what the State Department was saying last week about the
problems of nuclear proliferation, enlightenment is at hand.
How can a piece of legislation with such laudable objectives
have the opposite effect, of assisting the proliferation of nuclear
weapons? The explanation, now familiar, is not all that
complicated. Between 1%5 and 1970, the United States took the
lead in persuading non-nuclear powers to sign the Non-
Proliferation Treaty, then offered as the best way of controlling
the spread of nuclear weapons. Persuasion was necessary
because, to many non-nuclear powers, it was not self-evident that
a treaty that did not restrict the right of nuclear powers to keep on
making nuclear weapons could serve the stated purpose. Against
the odds, however, persuasion worked. More than a hundred
non-nuclear powers have ratified the treaty and have agreed to
put up with repeated and unavoidably irksome visits by inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, especially as interpreted
by the Carter Administration, was a shock to this system because
it signalled that in the opinion of the United States, even strict
compliance with the terms of the treaty would be insufficient. The
act was also a unilateral denial of the promise in the treaty that the
nuclear powers would help with the free flow of nuclear
technology. And by implicitly asserting that compliance with the
international safeguards system would not be taken as an
assurance that a signatory of the treaty was not making nuclear
explosives on the sly, the act undermined the credibility of the
safeguards system as a whole. No doubt the consequences would
have been more serious if the civil nuclear industry had not been in
such doldrums in the past few years.
The new enlightenment that has overtaken the United States
Administration, well put by Mr Eugene Rostow last week, is that
technical devices such as the safeguards system operated from
Vienna are necessary but not sufficient means for controlling the
spread of nuclear weapons. Now, as since the invention of nuclear
explosives, the decisive determinants of the spread of nuclear
weapons are likely to be political - that is, governments'
perceptions of the international dangers that confront them and
their calculations, never straightforward, of whether nuclear
weapons would help or, by provoking imitation, hinder. So
governments such as that of the United States seeking to limit
the spread of weapons can hope to accomplish more by diplomacy
than by tinkering with the Vienna safeguards. After all, the non-
nuclear powers best placed to make nuclear weapons for
themselves - India, Israel, Pakistan and South Africa, for
example - are not even signatories of the treaty. In this sense, the
preoccupation of the United States Congress (and of two
unreflective members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
with the supposed loopholes in the safeguards system are strictly
speaking irrelevant, and should be recognized as such. Luckily,
the Administration seems to have accepted the point. Its task now
is to persuade those who continue to grumble that even though it is
not feasible to make the safeguards system strictly watertight, that
does not imply either that the system is without value or that it
should be scrapped.
No safeguards system can be perfect. The Vienna system now in
force cannot, for example, guarantee that some signatory of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty has not built clandestine nuclear plants
in some remote part of its territory. (Surveillance satellites,
however, can.) Nor can it prevent a government that has privately
decided to make nuclear explosives from taking advantage of the
intervals between physical inspections secretly to divert fissile
materials to some hidden bomb-making plant. It is, however,
unthinkable that any government would invite the trouble that
would follow when it could achieve the same objectives by
withdrawing from the treaty at three months' notice. Then even
the best-designed monitoring instruments can break down, and
the most alert inspectors be misled. The pursuit of perfection is
therefore pointless. So long as the chance of the detection of
violations of the rules is substantial, the international community
has a reasonable assurance that signatories of the Non-
Proliferation Treaty are not breaking the rules.
None of this implies that the safeguards system needs no
attention. But its most serious weaknesses are not technical but
administrative and financial. The new director-general of the
international agency, Dr Hans Blix, has been stressing in the past
few weeks that the technical qualifications of his small but rapidly
growing staff of inspectors should be improved. But where will these
people come from? As things are (or were at the end of 1981), 130
qualified inspectors were required to inspect a total of 850 nuclear
installations, but were able to carry out only half as many
inspections as they should have done. What will happen when the
number of nuclear installations under safeguards has grown by an
order of magnitude, and when inspections will have to be more
frequent because the quantities of fissile material involved will be
much larger? On the face of things, the international inspectorate
will need several thousand skilled people. Is it sensible to think
that they will materialize, or that their work could be organized
effectively?
The danger that at some point in the future the safeguards
system will collapse under its own weight is thus perhaps the most
serious threat to the integrity of the whole system. What can be
done to head it off? In the short term, technology has much to
offer. Automatic devices for monitoring what happens in nuclear
plants have been installed within the safeguards system, and will
no doubt be improved (see page 279). Devices that could sample
data from a distance would be potentially invaluable. There is also
some reason to believe that inspection could be simplified if those
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ure Vol. 296 25 March 1982
278 -
who operate reactors, for example, would agree that a continuous
and incorruptible record should be kept of, say, neutron flux or
some other physical quantity sensitive to the movement of nuclear
material within them. The safeguards system now in use, devised
merely to account for quantities of fissile material in the input to
and the output from a reactor, does not require the collection of
such data - which would in some places be regarded as an
infringement of national sovereignty. It is not too soon to plan for
a return of this provision at the next meeting of the signatories of
the treaty three years from now.
Further ahead, there is a strong case for planning for a much
more radical simplification of the safeguards system. Even as
things are, governments with nuclear installations on their
territory will, if they are prudent, take steps to make sure that
fissile material is not spirited away. These domestic interests thus
coincide with those of the international safeguards inspectorate,
but the work is duplicated. The ideal, then, would be that self-
policing should be done in such a way that it could be
unambiguously and internationally verified. (Some concessions
to this notion are already made within the Euratom system, which
has its own set of safeguards.) The sooner this goal is recognized,
the more likely it is to be attained. And that, in the long run, will
be the best assurance that this important instrument in the non-
proliferation system remains intact.
Europe in the doldrums
Could science and technology help the EEC a
second twenty-five years?
What is to become of the European Community, which will be
celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this week? On recent
form, member governments will use what energy they can spare
for the Community on now-familiar disputes about the prices that
farmers should be paid for various foodstuffs or the shares to
which they are entitled from this and that central fund. In their
defence, governments will say that in the middle of a recession and
with more than 10 million people unemployed in Europe, this
cannot be the time for pausing in the pursuit of self-interest. They
will also rightly say that a great deal has been accomplished in a
quarter of a century. There is a customs union which works
reasonably well. The Community has been enlarged (from six to
ten, but Greece is shaky). And there is a sense that Europe is
culturally more of a piece than it was. The snag is that the benefits
are intangible, so that it is the public quarrels that stick in people's
minds. is easily
That things should have come to such a pass
understood. The treaty signed in Rome on 25 March 1957 was
necessarily a blend of idealism and practical politics. The earlier
collapse of the plan to set up a European Defence Force had
that even the tiniest infringement of
i
ators
warned the negot
national sovereignty would have to be made explicit and agreed in
recentColy been Yet kunli ely to be
Problem not for now advance. u dAlthough efence the European
Is it too soon to be worrying about who should chosen as the vehicle.
operate the shuttle system? The tentativeness of the past quarter of a century means that
If this week's space shuttle, diverted by the aftermath of heavy even now the Community does not enjoy economic cohesion. nies are
comp
required
....I ...hacenti successfully, have freely, governments tcan and do bias their purchases inefavour of
with rain from California to New Mexico, returns
-' _ ?? -~_-- x--........11 ,r ,nhers of the
dimunisnea. i uc su as s.?+ ?Le??- - -
function as intended. This time there should be information
bearing on its potential usefulness. But it will be a long time before
anybody will known that the shuttle will do the job for which it
has been built - to put large satellites cheaply into orbit. The
immediate need is to reduce the intervals between successive
flights of the one machine in service - an interval artificially
lengthened by the need to return it from its landing site to its
launching pad in Florida but also by the need to replace whatever
ceramic tiles have fallen off in flight. The plan is that the next
y
flight but one should take off from and land in Florida, b`only
when there are four machines in service will it be possible whether the turn-round time is really as short as planned.
So why is the United States government already in a tizzy
trying to decide within what legal framework the shuttle should be
operated in the closing years of this decade? It is not even as if the
problem is all that novel. The development of tele-
communications satellites in the 1960s is an obvious precedent.
Then, as with the shuttle, there of were three k kinpotential ds of customers users of
sight - the US Department
communications satellites in the United States and customers
from elsewhere, principally the international consortium of
communications authorities called Intelsat. The largely successful
solution was to leave the launching of military satellites to the
Pentagon and to set up the corporation called Comsat as an
organization independent of the government for launching and
managing communications satellites.
ttle commercially will be more complicated
h
th
u
e s
Operating
so has
only in two respects. It may turn out to be uneconomic to have comp rt. Elsewhere, it is shocking that ^^~"-
separate spacecraft for civil and military launchings, while, for a governments suppo
time at least, whoever owns the first four spacecraft will enjoy a been done to coordinate research on problems or fields of
monopoly of some kind. But there is no reason why a corporation common interest. Should not, for example, something be done to
nsidera
very
the
concert
work for the
rc,
effective?
le efforts along the lines of reComsat ason why the tenmpta~~it make outrageous so as to save oney but inbthe hope of b o uming m more reeanot
Military, and no reason wp
profits should not be restrained by a modicum of regulation. The stock answer, that Europe is better balkanized. t would
These difficulties will be clarified only several years from now. In another way of saying that
the meantime, it might be thought, the US government has more be better to devise machinery that made efficient collaboration
-
communuy use .,".........,- ----- -
labour in some of the most important fields of technology. There
was a minor sensation when British Telecom ordered new
exchange equipment from a non-British corporation, but nobody
appears seriously to have suggested that the British Central
Electricity Generating Board should order the pressurized water
reactor it wants to build from say Framatome (see page
ands over
the European Commission in Brussels is wringing
what used to be called the "technology gap" and seeking some
way of strengthening the industries that its members have
themselves weakened by their purchasing policies. Would it not
be more productive to work out some set of inducements for
persuading the member governments that they must give up their
technological chauvinism?
Much the same question should soon be asked about the
support of Community governments for research. Over the past
quarter of a century spending by the European centre on research
has if anything been set back. At the outset there was Euratom,
but now there is merely the Joint European Torus and a
miscellaneous programme of research at the old Euratom
laboratory in Italy. Otherwise, governments deal independently
with their spending on research, making separate decisions about
their membership of international organizations or their spending
in their domestic laboratories.
Up to a point, all this is justifiable. Governments responsible
for universities also have to equip them for carrying out research,
but even here there is scope for planning on a European basis
different
urgent problems crying out for its attngon.
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Nature Vol. 296 .6 Marcn eras
'US backs nuclear safeguards
Rostow hints at
new policy
on plutonium
Washington
The Reagan Administration rallied
behind the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) last week, claiming that a
strong international safeguards system was
essential for the development of nuclear
commerce. It argued that weaknesses in the
safeguards system should be remedied by
greater support for IAEA programmes,
not by changing their basic objectives.
The Administration's views were given
in testimony to two subcommittees of the
House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs
Committee. One issue was the adequacy of
the Administration's proposed contribu-
tion to IAEA in the 1983 budget. Although
the increase over the 1982 contribution is
larger than that for any other international
organization, it will still not be enough to
keep up with inflation - a source of
concern to some State Department officials
faced with rapidly growing demands for
IAEA inspection procedures.
The hearing was also an opportunity for
the State Department to rebut some recent
criticisms of IAEA, in particular com-
plaints about its admission last year (in
connection with a reactor in Pakistan) that
it cannot always assure member countries
that nuclear materials are not diverted
from peaceful to military purposes.
Such criticisms, State Department
officials argued last week, are not only
misdirected but also potentially harmful,
tending to undermine the credibility of
IAEA. Mr Richard T. Kennedy, Under-
Secretary of State for Management and
head of the delegation to IAEA, angrily
rejected charges by Congressman Richard
Ottinger that the agency had been involved
in a "cover-up" by not making public its
concern about the possibility of the
diversion of nuclear material in countries
such as Iraq and Pakistan.
Mr Kennedy was accompanied at the
witness table by Ambassador Richard
Kirk, deputy US representative to IAEA,
and Dr Eugene Rostow, head of the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency. Each
spoke strongly on the theme that the
agency requires as much support as
possible from the industrialized nations,
and that the adequacy of safeguards should
not be considered in isolation, but merely
as one element in the control of nuclear
proliferation.
Thus Mr Rostow told the subcommittees
that halting the spread of nuclear
explosives was "inconceivable" without
IAEA safeguards, but added that they did
not prevent diversion since, for example,
they did not permit searches for clandestine
materials or facilities. "In my view, it is just
as wrong to overestimate the importance of
safeguards in nuclear commerce as it is to
denigrate the system for not accomplishing
objectives for which it was not designed,"
Mr Rostow said.
The State Department's consensus on
IAEA, however, was not shared by all
members of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). Under the terms of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, of
1978, the commission is responsible for
checking that safeguards are applied to any
foreign nuclear installation to which
nuclear materials are being exported from
the United States.
Mr Peter Bradford, on his last day as one
of the five members of NRC, was out-
spoken about the difficulties experienced
by both NRC and congressional
committees in obtaining data by which to
assess the effectiveness of the safeguards.
At one point, he accused the State Depart-
ment of unnecessarily censoring NRC's
reply to questions submitted by Congress-
man Richard Ottinger.
Mr Kennedy refuted the charge of
censorship, pointing out that the
information was being withheld at the
request of the Central Intelligence Agency
- which has since offered to brief Mr
.Ottinger on the subjects that he had
inquired about. Both he and Dr Rostow,
however, declined to say whether the State
Department has evidence of the diversion
of nuclear materials.
Both Mr Bradford and a second NRC
commissioner, Mr Victor Gilinsky,
expressed reservations about the adequacy
of IAEA inspection procedures for
warning about the diversion of weapons-
grade plutonium from reprocessing or
enrichment facilities - concerns which led
the Carter Administration to attempt to
dissuade other countries from adopting
such technologies.
Dr Rostow in reply criticized the
previous Administration's approach,
suggesting that attempts to impose
unilateral controls could backfire by
encouraging the spread of reprocessing
while making less likely the agreements on
a common policy with other nuclear
suppliers. The Administration's policy is
soon to be defined in a new executive order
which Mr Reagan is to sign; Dr Rostow said
it was important to acknowledge that civil
reprocessing in the stable industrial
democracies did not in themselves present a
proliferation risk.
On the IAEA safeguards, Dr Rostow
urged that member states should provide
the international safeguards system with
the resources needed. Mr Kirk, however,
told the subcommittees that as the number
of installations under IAEA safeguards
had risen from 360 in 1977 to 850 in 1981,
even though the IAEA budget allowed
much faster growth for safeguards than in
other activities, its expansion of the
safeguards system had caused "a resources
pinch, growing pains in IAEA's adminis-
trative structure, and a lag in IAEA
safeguards coverage".
David Dickson
Nuclear monitoring by telephone
Washington
A scheme for collecting nuclear
safeguards information by means of tele-
phone lines is to be discussed at a meeting
planned for Vienna in June this year. The
system, called the Remote Continual Veri-
fication programme (or "RECOVER"),
which was given a systematic trial in the
autumn of 1980, has grown out of the tech-
nical proposals for the remote verification
of arms control agreements in the draft of
the Comprehensive Test Ban Agreement,
uncompleted since the end of 1980.
In evidence to the House of Represen-
tatives last week, Dr Eugene Rostow said
that on the basis of a cost-benefit study
carried out at Brookhaven National
Laboratory, the Administration was now
hoping that the system could be put into
service soon, and that it might even be
valuable in the verification of treaties (yet
to be negotiated) on chemical and
biological weapons.
In the nuclear context, the new system is
a means of making sure that automatic
monitoring equipment does not break
down between visits by inspectors from the
International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). This is done by the repeated but
irregular interrogation of monitoring
equipment by means of signals transmitted
on the international trunk telephone sys-
tem. So that the authorities responsible for
safeguarded nuclear installations cannot
corrupt the signals received and sent,
signals are encoded by means of an un-
breakable code of the type developed for
use in what is now called public-key
crytography.
The Brookhaven study has apparently
shown that the new monitoring system is
potentially most valuable in nuclear in-
stallations such as reactors which can be
refuelled on load and in fast critical
assemblies, to which frequent visits from
inspectors are at present required. One
critical assembly in Japan, containing a
fixed quantity of 300 kg of plutonium and
200 kg of enriched uranium, has on present
criteria to be inspected every week or two.
The new monitoring system, by reducing
the frequency of inspections, would save
an estimated $200,000 a year at that in-
stallation alone. The system is, however,
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280
unlikely to be used at separation plants
(where inspectors are virtually per-
manently in residence) or in light-water
reactors (where redundant monitoring
equipment is probably cheaper).
In Japan, the system is also being
advocated as a means of safeguarding the
sea transport of fissile material, providing
a means of making sure that cargoes are not
illicitly diverted on the high seas. In such an
application, communication would be by
means of Earth satellites of the kinds being
developed for marine navigation. The
effective use of the system for the
inspection of nuclear installations on land
is thought to require the development of a
network of IAEA field stations (of which
there are at present only two, in Toronto of an
and Tokyo) and the existence (found
efficient trunk telephone system wanting in Bulgaria during the 1980 trial of
the system). to the
. The application of the at and
monitoring of agreements chemical al and
biological weapons presupposes
and installation of effective automatic
monitoring equipment at plants covered by
an agreement.
Soviet nuclear power
Signs of caution
The Soviet nuclear energy programme is
running into difficulties. In spite of the
high priority given to power station con-
struction, last year's targets were not met.
And although no specific reference has been
made to the need for greater standards of
safety, Pavel Falaleev, first deputy
Minister of Energy and Electrification, has
said that the safety requirements of power
stations were being tightened despite the
radiation around than being "considerably
below the permissible limit and practically
no different from natural levels ". In a
Soviet context such a remark is sufficient to
indicate considerable high-level
rethinking.
The discussion of the nuclear
programme began about six weeks ago,
with a meeting of the Central Committee of
the Communist party to review short-
comings, where the emphasis was on the
logistics of construction although inade-
quacies in the design sector were noted.
Three weeks later, the theme was taken
up in a leading article in Pravda. This at
first followed the line of the central
committee meeting, noting that
production-line nuclear power units had
already been developed, and that supply
problems could be dealt with by economic
sanctions to penalize those who held up the
plan. Pravda then went on, however, to
.6- A.eian
Sticky problem over Iraq fuel supplies
Two French nuclear physicists, The only advantage of caramel is that
backed by three prestigious members of it cannot be used directly to make
the Academic des Sciences, have bombs, whereas 95 per cent enriched
warned President Mitterrand in a report uranium is more easily converted. But,
that there would be no easy way to stop the reports point out, four years ago
Iraq making bomb-grade plutonium - Giscard d'Estaing set limits on
if France rebuilt the Osirak reactor deliveries of enriched fuel to Iraq. Fuel
destroyed in a bombing raid by Israel would be sent in single reactor-loads of
nearly a year ago. 13 kg, each of which would be loaded
This is the second report condemning into the reactor under supervision
the reactor sale to be prepared by the and promptly irradiated making
two physicists and to be sent - diversion technically very awkward.
unsolicited - to the president who is From that time, the diversion of the fuel
said to be sympathetic to the arguments itself ceased to be a problem - so the
but to be short of apolitical technical use of caramel solved nothing.
advice. , The production of plutonium by
What stung the physicists to produce neutron bombardment, however, could
a second report were widely-reported amount to 3.3-8 kilogramme per year
claims that "caramel" - a low (7 per (to quote the assessments fo both the
cent) enriched uranium oxide fuel - Commissariat a I'Energie Atomique and
was the answer to the problem. If the International Atomic Energy
aramel were sold to Iraq to fuel the Agency). The amount of plutonium
reactor, to place of the 95 per cent required for a bomb is generally taken
enriched uranium for which it was to a circumstances although could under c B
originally
no the quick route ute to o the the Thus, say the two reports, Iraq could
would have have no designed,
Iraq n
have the capability (in plutonium, at
atomic bomb. least) of producing a bomb within six
.However, this misses the point, the months of beginning irradiation,
new eport stresses. The caramel fuel whatever fuel the reactor was loaded
would still produce the same neutron neutron with IAEA inspection, however, might
intensity in the large pool around the
reactor, where test materials are placed interfere considerably with this rate of
to investigate their reaction to neutron prods ohas d it will help rebuild
bombardment. If these test materials
were replaced by depleted - or natural Osirak, provided Iraq guarantees that
- uranium (of which Iraqis believed to the reactor will be uged entirely for
have supplies) plutonium would be peaceful purposes. The new report
r
produced in the uranium, and could be make pi is politically m Romf difficult for
extracted chemically.
apparatus for selecting the "most Intelligence testing ?
progressive" solution to engineering ? ?
problems. In particular, a proposal put Soviet inequ ty
forward by the Atomefergostroiproekt "come out"
design trust, for a change in the structure of The Russians have finally
the "protective shells" of power stations, on the subject of intelligence and other
was turned down without being studied ality. objective tests of performance a ds er on-
the necessary multi-disciplinary panel of Psikhologii (Problems of Psy-
experts. The scientific council of the Voprosy papers endorsing
ministry, Pravda said, must bear greater chology) contains three presponsibility for such decisions. such tests in r~ prp eunted prominently at
This reference to protective shells is The papers
significant. If, as seems likely, this refers to the front of the journal, preceded only by a
the concrete containment vessel common major statement on ofuture pycionls )
in Western power stations, it reflects a services policy
change in Soviet policy. Until recently, the November plenum of tte Sovie
such vessels were dismissed by Soviet Union's ruling communist party.
l
designers as unnecessary, and a capitalist journal quotes Pa esiiddle t Bre ccozhnev
ent a e se 0i
ploy to raise construction costs. Demands in support
from the Finns and Hungarians led them to scientifically-based solutions to the prob
introduce containment vessels into reactors lems of the nation's education in the servic
designed for export. The remark in Pravda of the scientific and technologicz
revolution".
b
een
suggests that they may now have
This is a startling but unequivocal volt'
s~, ?~??~_-~---- -
suggesi son introduced into reactors for home M
who
sector. Soviet
reactorst on gthe funtilb owe(in publicauthaorities,
haN Here, it was claimed, the dfailed to sufficient to it was
least) rega de Of whereas viously Energy and Electrification had instru
class wa
exercise its supervisory duties. Changes in outskirts of major cities with fa,asometre or fare oral ''l a ds of the ruling capital=
materials and specifications had been made two of parkland or playing VeraRkh fare. Testing was even made illegal
without either proper justification or the
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'Nature Vol. 296 25 March 1982 Science in France
Taking a nuclear power lead
"ONE reactor, one producer, one seller":
that is the structure of the French nuclear
industry, and according to one observer it
is a prime example of how France has
managed to mobilize its technical resources
towards particular goals. Whether this
technocratic centralism will survive a
socialist government has yet to be seen,
but the nationalization of large sectors of
industry, and the grand "mobilization
programmes" of the minister for research
and technology smack not so much of a
change as a clarification of previous
government positions.
The reactor is the pressurized water
reactor (PWR), built under licence from
Westinghouse in the United States; the
producer and seller the 5,000-strong
company Framatome, now geared up in its
pressure vessel and steam generators shops
at Le Creusot and Chalon to produce six
1,300-MW reactors a year. Mitterrand did
not nationalize Framatome. It was already
in effective government control through its
sole French customer, Electricit6 de France
(EDF) and its principal collaborator in
research, the Commissariat it l'Energie
Atomique (CEA).
The main impact on the Framatome
programme has been the reduction in the
EDF order from a possible nine reactors
over the next two years to six, which leaves
Framatome with a large surplus capacity
and a hunger for export orders.
Framatome has sold one reactor a year for
export over the past eight years: two to
Belgium, both to come into operation this
year, two to South Africa (to operate next
year), two to Iran (although the orders were
cancelled by Khomeni with the plants half-
completed) and two to Korea. The sale to
Korea was a considerable achievement
because Korea's previous reactors had
been constructed by US companies.
Nucleaire, s'il vows plait!
A suGtrr majority of the French people
Is In favour of nuclear power, a poll
conducted just before the October 1981
energy debate Indicated. Some 45 per
cent are in favour, compared to 40 per
cent against and 15 per cent who don't
know, in a sample of over 2,000 people.
On the extremes, 16 per cent were
"definitely" favourable, and 17 per
cent "definitely" unfavourable.
One surprising result which might
give the government pause, however,
was that 64 per cent were in favour of a
referendum on nuclear power - an
election promise that was subsequently
dropped. Another surprise: unclear
power is more supported on the political
left than on the sight. Compared with
the average 45 per cent in favour, 51 per
cent of those who voted communist and
52 per cent of those who voted socialist
favour nuclear development.
Framatome has also put in tenders for
two reactors for Taiwan and two for
Mexico - and if it were not for the world
recession would be confident of orders.
The dollar rose by nearly 30 per cent
against the franc during 1981 (from FF 4.5
to FF 5.8), giving Framatome a distinct
price advantage - which is enhanced
by the company's ability to spread
its overheads over a large national
programme. However, Mexico, at least,
concerned about its economic situation, is
beginning to have doubts about whether it
needs the 20 reactors it was planning to
build by the year 2000, and the same fear
appears to be gripping other developing
Coudray, is that while the Texas reactors
are not likely to go critical before 1984 (three
to four years late), the first Framatome
1,300-MW reactor - at Paluel - should
be connected to the grid early next year.
Framatome will thus have taken less than
six years to build it, whereas Westinghouse
will have taken more than ten years for
a similar reactor.
In part, this achievement can be put
down to standardization. Framatome has
not had to make substantial changes in
design in mid-stream to meet- changing
safety regulations. Apart from the first five
reactors, which were fairly variable -
Framatome was on its learning curve -
there have essentially been only three
designs: a group of 16 reactors of 900 MW
which began construction in 1974-76; a
states interested in nuclear power. So
Framatome may be forced to look to the
home market.
In France, Framatome is now building
26 reactors with a total power of 28.6 GW
electric, 16 at a nominal 1,300 MW and 10
at 900 MW. Another thirty units,
accounting for 21.8 GW, are already in
operation. The smaller reactors are
effectively the original Westinghouse
design, as modified by Framatome; but the
1,300-MW plants are almost completely
French, and a new 1,400-MW design,
called "N4" and now on offer to EDF, is
totally so.
Going it alone
The Westinghouse licence expires this
year and then Framatome will be officially
on its own - apart from certain research
agreements which will continue - but
already the sluggishness of the US nuclear
programme has given Framatome a com-
manding lead. According to Framatome's
technical director, M. Michel Coudray, the
company began work on the 1,300-MW
design in 1975. By then Westinghouse had
already sold two 1,300-MW systems to a
Texas utility, and Framatome believed
that it would be able to benefit from
Westinghouse experience before putting
the final touches to its own 1,300-MW
plants. But in the event, construction of the
Texas reactors has ground almost to a halt,
due to quality control problems on site
and concern on the part of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. The result, said
second group of 12 begun in 1977-81; and
the 1,300-MW reactors, begun in 1977 in
parallel with the second tranche of
900-MW systems. The result has been that
Framatome has been able to place long
orders for components, which gives a
guarantee of supply, and streamlines
production processes. (One danger, how-
ever, is that mistakes, once made, are
propagated over many systems; see p.301.)
With this powerful production system
now established, Framatome would, of
course, like a long list of orders; but even
under the unbounded nuclear enthusiasm
of the previous government, orders came
only in occasional handfuls. Furthermore,
EDF is now producing 40 per cent of its
electricity from nuclear power, and while it
aims for 60 per cent nuclear by 1985
(compare Britain's present meagre 11 per
cent contribution), there is finally a limit to
the proportion of an electric power
network that can be driven by nuclear
systems. The reason is that national power
demand fluctuates by as much as 40 per
cent during a working day, and nuclear
power stations are not easy to turn on and
off: they are said to provide "'base-load
power". So already, EDF has insisted that
Framatome consider the problems set by
imposing a ten per cent peak to peak
fluctuation on demand.
This so-called "daily load follow and
frequency control mode" leads to a
number of new technical problems, caused
by the high frequency at which the control
rods have to be driven in and out (up to
002e-0e76/92/I20299-03f01.W O 1982 M.wiUan,ournak Ltd
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 The map shows the situ of the Flinch PWR; filling many of thesukobksites on France's rivet . Thefigure on the right tlh motes the poet of the PWR constnrction
programme since the early 197(k The bases extendfrom the start of conttructan to connection to the arid.
1,000 times a day according to some
estimates) and by the thermal stress on
components as the core heats up and cools.
Nevertheless, Framatome has under-
taken an extensive test programme at
Cadarache, in conjunction with EDF and
the CEA, to discover the behaviour of the
reactors under such conditions, and the
company believes it is now in a position to
make the necessary design changes.
By 1990, French orders may be down to
two reactors a year. Outside France,
Framatome has sought to sell in many
countries - including Britain, whose
rejection three years ago of a possible
arrangement with Framatome is still a
bitter memory in the company. The UK
Central Electricity Generating Board was
said to be quite enthusiastic about an agree-
ment with France over PWR construction,
but the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA)
was cool. "Britain could have had an
industrial agreement, or a research
agreement or both but she decided to go
with Big Brother (the United States)", said
Coudray recently. "Once again Britain has
preferred America to Europe" he said,
reflecting a feeling in France that Britain is
on all fronts a reluctant European partner.
In the United Kingdom, the chairman of
My steam generator's better than yours
AICEY problem affecting the running of Westinghouse "F-type" steam
pressurized water reactors is corrosion generator. Framatome analysed the
of the steam generators - the massive basic design of the model F in 1977-8
heat exchangers that transfer heat from and was not impressed. The F-type is
the primary coolant to boiler water still just a design - it has never operated
which, as steam, will then be used to anywhere - and the previous model on
drive turbines. which it was based had major problems.
Any boiling kettle makes a lot of Westinghouse has solved some of the
noise and bubbling vibration, and the problems, but nothing like all of them,
same is true of steam generators. So the according to Framatome engineers.
tubes which carry primary coolant "We believe in rugged systems" said
through the steam generator must be one. "The Westinghouse model is more
clamped firmly to stop them vibrating of a watchmaker's approach, with
and working loose. Tight clamping smaller tubing of which there is no
leads to corrosion at the clamps. Loose experience."
clamping, as originally adopted by Westinghouse, however, is unper-
Framatome, leads to tubes working turbed. The company believes Frama-
loose. (Fessenheim 1, the first French tome is wrong on water chemistry, and
PWR, suffers from this.) that the French steam generators will
So steam generator design is some- corrode within four years. However,
thing of a black art, and the engineers at EDF, the operator, is proud of the
Framatome think they've mastered it chemical control procedures. "We are
and that Westinghouse has not. Britain, keeping our fingers crossed" say
for its PWR design, has adopted the Framatome's engineers.
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a7{:Krws In ivunai , wfuru V%06. i
the UKAEA, Dr Walter Marshall, sees
things slightly differently. At the time of
the French approach Framatome was still
bound by the terms of the licence with
Westinghouse, Marshall points out - so
Britain would have had to "throw out
Westinghouse", with whom negotiations
were well advanced, without being able to
sign up with Framatome until this year.
Also Britain would have found it difficult
to modify the French design to suit British
conditions, for that would have been an
implied criticism of French safety
judgements, Marshall argues. Westing-
house itself, however, was more sanguine
about design changes because it could
always claim that in the United States its
designs were bound by the rules imposed by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
which might or might not be considered
sensible. In France, by contrast, the close-
knit character of the nuclear establishment
implies that changes are a challenge to the
whole system. The Framatome PWR is the
world's safest, cheapest and best PWR: so
why change it?
Another, purely commercial reason for
rejection of the French deal was that there
has been a recognition in Britain that
Westinghouse, in the past at least, has been
the world's most successful reactor vendor:
and that on the other hand its credibility as
a fuel supplier was severely damaged by
President Carter's retrospective legislation
on the supplies of enriched fuel. That leads
to a natural partnership between
Westinghouse and British Nuclear Fuels
Limited (BNFL) whereas in a French deal
BNFL would have been in competition
with the French fuel company, Cogema.
Nevertheless, Britain's nuclear power
capability would certainly have grown
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 Nature Vc Approved For Release 2008/04/10: CIA-RDP86T00303R000500700013-8
careful with what you do about safety".
According to M. Remy Carle, a director at
EDF, the cost of a Framatome 1,300 MW
PWR station is now about FF 5,000 per
kilowatt (that is, about #600 million in
total) - a price that does not include
decommissioning, and assumes a reactor
on the coast, but includes all other costs. By
contrast, at the recent announcement of
the completion of the work of the British
PWR task force, whose objective was
essentially to reduce the cost of safety
systems on the PWR, the figures being
quoted were more like #1,000 million.
According to Coudray, the problem is
that the British have adopted a four-loop,
independently pumped emergency core
cooling system (for use in the event of the
most serious possible emergency, a "loss of
coolant accident" or LOCA). Such a
system is easier to explain, and "nicer
much faster with Framatome, a, . now
France can gloat over the difficulties facing
the British nuclear industry - particularly
over the design and cost of safety systems.
"We are very sorry for the British" said
Coudray. "You can increase the cost of a
plant by a factor of two if you are not
intellectually" that the French safety
system, says Coudray. The British system
takes five minutes to explain whereas the
French takes 34 hours - but the French
system will do everything the British one
will do a much lower cost. Britain has
probably adopted the "transparent"
system for political reasons, thinks
Coudray, to satisfy a suspicious public.
How then has France got so far ahead
with its nuclear programme? The research
programme undertaken by Framatome in
the early 1970s, and which was in full swing
by 1975, was crucial to success. A licence
brought information; but understanding
requires research, said Coudray. Research
enabled Framatome to move away from
and improve on the Westinghouse design.
The exact scale of the French research pro-
gramme has not been revealed, but it
matches anything that Westinghouse has
done in the United States.
The company does its research under
four framework agreements which allow
very rapid changes of direction and com-
mitments of money without the need for
constant negotiation and renegotiation.
Framatome has its own unique programme
Cowdroy ofFn ntotome - wn/ike the Britirh, not
bowbi& by a Jultdowpwb/k
All they're cracked up to be?
You couldn't really have a better whole of the core is removed first. But
recommendation. "Now's the time to Marshall believes it would be adequate
buy from the French" said Dr Walter to monitor frequently only the cracks in
Marshall, chairman of the United the hot outlet nozzles, which are
Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, accessible, as a kind of statistical sample
recently, when describing the French of crack growth, while inspecting the
design for a pressurized water reactor inlet nozzles less frequently - say every
(PWR). Dr Marshall heads the PWR ten years - a policy which Framatome
task force which recently tidied up the and EDF will probably follow.
d
i
f
es
gn
or a British PWR, built under
licence from the American company
Westinghouse. However, the
recommendation is somewhat
backhanded.
"The French have been caught with
their pants down", said Marshall, re-
ferring to a series of cracks discovered in
the reactor pressure vessel and steam
generators of a number of plants three
or four years ago. The result is that the
manufacturers, Framatome, are now
taking every possible precaution to
avoid such potentially dangerous flaws,
even though their own "pessimistic"
calculations had shown the existing
cracks to be unimportant.
Marshall says he has every confidence
in Framatome's calculations and
experiments, and believes that it has
done a "very thorough job". French
safety authorities will impose a require-
ment to inspect existing cracks every
time a reactor is shut down for servicing
(perhaps every 2-3 years), and Marshall
- who made a deep study of the
problems of cracking in reactor
pressure vessels - believes this will be
quite sufficient to prevent accidents.
This is despite the fact that some of
the cracks, which appear in the black
steel under the stainless steel cladding of
the primary containment system, are
difficult to observe. They are the ones in
the shoulders of the inlet nozzles of the
pressure vessel, where cool primary
y
ar
circuit water enters to extract heat from to replace; but if faulty, they will have to
the core: it is simply physically difficult be replaced, for broken broches could
to reach them with the usual ultrasonic jam and interfere with the movement of
and eddy current detectors, unless the control rods.
at Creusot-Loire, mainly on materials; a
"very privileged and active" programme
with the CEA (which is, incidentally, a 30
per cent shareholder in Framatome); a
quadripartite agreement, under which one-
third of the work is done in the United
States and two-thirds in France; and a
tripartite agreement among the French
partners. Corrosion problems in the
primary circuit and steam generators,
among the main causes of the low
availability of the Westinghouse reactors,
were studied under the quadripartite agree-
ment; but surprisingly Westinghouse and
Framatome then diverged over steam
generator design (see page 300).
The principal reason Framatome has
been so successful, though, lies in the extra-
Around 25 of Framatome's earliest
reactors are affected by the underclad
cracking problem - an example of how
design continuity can lead to problems
if the design or manufacturing process
has a hidden fault. But the cracks may
prove to be a very minor hitch com-
pared with another problem which
became apparent only this January -
faults in the "broches".
These are spring clips which grip and
support the fuel cans at the top of the
core, and some three years ago in Japan
It was discovered that they can be
subject to embrittlement caused,
perhaps, by neutron bombardment.
Until January there had been no
evidence of this in Framatome reactors,
but then a loose part of a broche was
found circulating in the primary coolant
in one of the Gravelines reactors. Now
the loading of the latest Framatome
reactor, at Chinon, has been delayed -
according to some reports to test and
inspect or even to change all the broches
before the reactor is started.
Framatome staff do not understand
yet what caused the Oravelines broche
to break, and whether it was a unique or
general fault. But if it was the latter, 37
reactors would be affected, so a crash
programme on broche design and
testing is now under way. The problem
is compounded by the fact that the
broches on working reactors will be
highly irradiated and so ver
awkw
d
ordinarily tight organization of the nuclear
industry in France - a legacy of the work
of the previous industry minister, Andre
Giraud. After the battle between CEA and
EDF over whether the French gas-cooled
or American pressurized water reactor
should be chosen - a battle in which de
Gaulle championed the CEA, which he had
himself set up in 1945, and its gas-cooled
system, and which was only won by EDF
after de Gaulle resigned - Giraud picked
up the pieces of the industry and dried the
CEA's tears, giving it total control of the
fuel cycle and the development of the fast
breeder. He thus created the stable, three-
legged organization - CEA, Framatome,
EDF - which has put French nuclear
power in a world-commanding position. ^
01%2 Macmillan Journals Ud
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 .
oe p
ng
ban look
Superphenix - great white hope UKAEA officials also believe in inter-
national collaboration on fast breeder
THE world's first commercial-scale fast- as it is at present on foreign supplies of oil. programmes, and are contemplating agree-
breeder reactor, Superph6nix, should be The introduction of fast breeders, the CEA ments with either France or the United
generating 1,300 MW of electrical power argues, could reduce this demand to as low States. However, France was reported two
for the French national grid by 1984. But is as 8,000 tonnes a year in 2025 - provided a years ago to be asking a price of #20-25
it, or will its successors be, economic? And fast breeder programme were started soon. million for access to Superph6nix--tech-
will EDF order Superph6nix 11, which is There are two arguments for the fast nology, a price which Britain at the time
already being designed? breeder, says the CEA: that at a certain rejected.
Superph6nix is in fact owned by an inter- uranium price the fast breeder will become The reprocessing technology, , whose
national consortium, NERSA, which is 51 cheaper per kilowatt hour than a PWR, efficiency in extracting p is critical fast b
n, is per cent French with the rest largely divided because of the former's breeding capacitymuch of a e er operati
at the CEA not seen to 1 be
between Germany and Italy (which has the and that it represents an insurance against larger share). NERSA is the customer of loss of uranium supplies. "And you expect tonnes of fast breeder fuel have been repro-
Novatome, a kind of fast-breeder to have to pay an insurance premium if you cessed through small fast breeder plants at
CEA La Hague (now closed) and Marcoule, and
companion to Framatome (which want insurance," says Michel Rapin,
constructs the PWR). Framatome in fact director for nuclear applications. 380 of Superph6nix's 400 or so fuel assem-
now controls Novatome, which is also held The question of what balance should be blies have been made of plutonium
34 per cent by the CEA. struck between these two arguments is extracted through reprocessing. "We Superph6nix is expensive: estimates ultimately a matter for gone bent and the dosed the fuel cycle" i says Rapin. was the vary, but the price is usually put at around electricity supplier, hree". In recent years
twice that of the equivalent PWR. Of shows any desire for hneeds "a aste although, i~t ~AfiIt pos t ve of whom work years - ,00D on
course, it is a prototype; it is alone rs its site the CEA. Fran breeders by the end of reprocessing technology - have reduced
(PWRs are usually built fours); and the 1980s programme"
to make any impact on French plutonium losses during reprocessing by a
e
PWR construction is well-developed the 19800
(Framatome is on the fortieth of its series). uranium needs by the second decade of the problem" fact r of five. "But that is not get actor th of
But there are some fundamental reasons next century.
why Superph6nix should be more Moreover, the reprocessing and other plutonium bred by a fast breeder, a thick
expensive: it has an extra cooling circuit - pieces of fuel-cycle plant necessary for a depleted uranium blanket is necessary. But
the second sodium circuit; safety systems fast breeder programme are uneconomic the thicker the blanket, the less the concen-
So the, CEA is ;ration of plutonium produced in the outer
are more complex, navmg w ucai w?...
possibility of sodium fires as well as almost looking for two options: first, a French
instantaneous nuclear shutdown in the case programme of seven or eight fast breeders,
of coolant loss; and the reactor vessel is the first of which should be ordered in
stainless rather than ordinary black steel. 1986-87 or, perhaps more practical, an
l llaboration on fast breeder
o-
Superphinix nears completion
In the long run, the fuel cycle costs should
be lower because the fast breeder can
generate its own plutonium by neutron
bombardment of waste uranium from
enrichment plants and depleted gas-
graphite fuel.
This would also give France a degree of
security in uranium supply. French-con-
trolled uranium production is expected to
peak at around 4,500 tonnes a year by the
mid-eighties, but the PWR programme is
expected to need around 8,500 tonnes a
year by 1990 and 12,300 tonnes a year by
the year 2025 (according to CEA figures).
So France is in danger of becoming almost
as dependent on foreign uranium supplies
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Science in Fiance lvarurr rvw. 147U 25 March 1982
a
mwruauun co
construction on about the same scale.
Of course it would appeal to France if
the international reactor were close to
Superph6nix 11, and the CEA has already
layers of the blanket. And a low concen-
tration of plutonium means a high repro-
cessing cost. So the best balance has to be
struck between the reactor breeding ratio
and these costs. Costs, yet again, come
back to the centre of the fast breeder stage,
and there are certainly some in France who
look at Superph6nix and think of another
costly marvel - Concorde.
Nuclear power - how committed?
W Francois Mitterrand was elected aunt) and the establishment of the new
president of France on 10 May 1981, the government. Usually, no major decisions
nuclear establishment was worried. His or commitments are taken at such times.
socialist party, a relatively new and un- But Raymond Barre, Giscard's Prime
known force in French politics, had corn- Minister, unexpectedly announced that the
mitted itself to a fairly strong anti-nuclear reprocessing facility for spent nuclear fuel
policy. Paul Quil6s, the architect of the at Cap de la Hague, near Cherbourg, was
socialists' plan, was effectively seeking a to be massively extended - at an estimated
halt to the construction of new nuclear cost of FF 20,000 million (L2,000 million)
power plants. If this plan had been imple- - to cope with 1,600 tonnes of fuel a year.
mented, the monopoly electricity supplier Some of this capacity was to honour
(Electricit6 de France, EDF) would have contracts already signed with Belgium,
had only 39 GW of nuclear electricity Germany and Japan; but the rest implied a
available in 1990, compared with the 59 strong national nuclear programme. The
GW planned by the previous government, decision could hardly have been taken
and EDF's supplier of nuclear steam without the tacit agreement of Mitterrand,
supply systems - Framatome - would who would have to carry the policy
have found itself with (to say the least) an through. So what exactly was the new
embarrassing overcapacity. With the government's position on nuclear power?
export market also sluggish, this would Initially, it seemed as if the Quil6s
probably have meant the collapse of the policy might be adhered to. One of the
French nuclear industry. Mitterrand government's first acts was to
However, six days after the presidential "freeze" construction on five nuclear sites
election, a strange thing happened. Giscard - Chooz, in the Ardennes near the Belgian
d'Estaing's centre-right government was in border, Cattenom, Civaux, Golfech near
its last days of limbo, before the the elect onsf to he National Assembly (parlia- nuclear plant at Plogoff in Brittany fwe e
In Britain,
artners
f
i
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 Nature Vol 2 Approved For Release 2008/04/10: CIA-RDP86T00303R000500700013-8
shelved, at least temporarily. Media l in helve
plug
But then other notes were sounded.
Jean-Pierre Chevtnement, the minister of Jusr to the side of the Electricity de
state for science and technology and a France (EDF) edifice in Paris is an
powerful figure in the new government, unobtrusive set of doors. In the case of a
declared himself solidly behind the French major nuclear accident at one of the
nuclear programme, and all but described EDF power stations it is through this
the small French environmental movement door that most of the world's (official)
as "anti-scientific". information about it will come.
Discarding the chaff
Speaking cynically, it is as if Mitterrand
had used the environmentalist tendency in
his socialist party only so far as was
necessary to help build the party and gain
power. Now it was possible to let such chaff
blow away. The environmentalists do feel
themselves hard done by. Giscard had not
even lent them an ear. Mitterrand had
appeared to listen, and then ignored them.
Recently there was a rocket attack on
Superphtnix, the world's first commercial-
scale fast breeder power station. Nobody
has claimed responsibility, but there are
fears at EDF that this means that an
extreme section of the environmental
movement has now gone underground.
Although the Mitterrand government
can in no sense be called "green", it is
showing itself to be sensitive to arguments
for more democratic control of technical
choice. Mitterrand is emerging as a social
democrat, although he would not dare to
use this label- within his party.
In the energy sphere, the evidence for the
socialist government's liberalism came first
with an energy debate in the National
Assembly last October. In contrast to the
Quilts policy, the energy policy revealed by
Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy and the
junior minister for energy, Edmond Hervt,
was very mild. It was forced through
against the Quilts faction on a vote of
confidence. Instead of 59 GW nuclear in
1990 there would be 56 G W . Instead of nine
new reactor starts in 1982-83, there would
be six. The La Hague development would
go ahead. The fast breeder was not
debated. The frozen reactor construction
sites would be reopened, if a local vote
approved; if it did not, it would be up to the
regional council (a higher elected
authority) to decide; if the regional council
did not approve, the matter would come
before the National Assembly - a
mechanism designed, it seemed, to get a
"yes" vote at some level or other.
The environmentalist lobby looked on
the black side - this was just the old
centralist technocracy by another name.
But there is another view, which as time
passes comes more and more to the fore.
The Mitterrand government is fiercely
realistic - while at the same time wanting to
make historic and lasting changes in the
nature of French society. It is not going to
compromise either on economic develop-
ment or on a slow, emphatic shift of power
away from the Paris-based elite, towards
the regions, towards the small enterprises
rather than the giant conglomerates.
Realism leads the government to under-
For behind this door is a FF 4-milhon
(6400,000) communications suite, the
brain-child and pride of EDF's chief
public relations officer, Mme Marie-
Claude Vigna. Mme Vigna began to
plan the suite after a French power
black-out in 1979 had led to a great press
of journalists in a tiny room in EDF
headquarters, all attempting to use five
telephones at once. If it was like that for
a mere power breakdown, what about a
"Three Mile Island", Mme Vigna
reasoned?
The consequence is that EDF now has
probably the most sophisticated "press
office" in France. At street level, tele-
vision vans can simply plug in to a series
of channels giving television output
Agence France Presse and Reuters, so
that journalists - and EDF staff - can
monitor media output by the minute.
There are of course more than five tele-
phones; a television studio, executive
briefing room; and literally every
known form of video recording and
playback equipment. And officials
being interviewed can be relayed
information over private monitor
screens which are within their vision but
not that of the journalists interviewing
them (see photograph below).
Outside Paris, hundreds of EDF
officials throughout France will be kept
in touch by a private videotext signal,
sent through the French ANTIOPE
system.
A French prefect (regional head man)
who was responsible for the region
around the Dampierre nuclear power
station recently sent out a notice to his
constituents telling them what to do in
case of a nuclear accident. Don't panic,
he said. Keep your children indoors.
Don't eat apples from the garden. And,
from the suite above. Within the suite, mysteriously, don't telephone. Well,
sound-insulated rooms take tapes direct there'd be no need to with what EDF
from the major wire services such as has in Paris, would there!
Energy minister Edmond Hervicogfronts tare press in EDF's medic room
stand that a country 70 per cent dependent
on foreign fuel, whose healthy non-oil
trade balance is wrecked by the cost of oil
imports (99 per cent of oil is imported),
must attempt to internalize the costs of
energy production. Nuclear electricity is
part of the solution. The government is also
realistic enough to know that the wholesale
destruction of the nuclear industry would
be immensely demoralizing to French
people - who, while being as suspicious of
nuclear power as the next nation, see its
success as one of the great symbols of
French strength. France has been overrun
by a foreign power three times since the
Revolution, and no Frenchman is going to
let it happen again - either militarily or
economically.
Handling the public
On the other side of the equation, the small
group of men at the head of EDF, the CEA
and Framatome, who effectively control the
nuclear development of France, are grad-
ually being forced to pay serious attention
to the general concerns of the public and
the particular demands of the regions
where nuclear facilities are being sited.
For example, when the government says
it will "reinforce the independence" of the
Conseil Suptrieure de Is Surttt Nucleaire
(the senior nuclear safety council) and
"modify its composition", it means that it
really will attempt to detach the safety
council from its tutelage to the nuclear
establishment. The proposal to create a
"safety director" under the control of
EDF may be looked at a little askance, as
may guarantees of the independence of
the Institut de Protection et de Surttt
Nucleaire, the technical safety assessment
body which exists under and has constant
exchange of staff with the Commissariat a
l'Energie Atomique; but the establishment
of local information commissions on each
nuclear site could be taken more seriously.
These commissions are proving slow to
set up (so far there is one at La Hague and
another at Nogent-sur-Scine) but, accord-
ing to commitments made by the govern-
ment in the energy debate, they will be
pluralist, "contradictoire" (in other words
allowing serious debate and close question-
ing), independent and permanent.
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304 Science in France Nature Vol. 296 25 March 1982
Hard bargaining at Golfech T
The apparently anodyne decision to
subject the five frozen construction sites to
a hierarchy of democratic assessments,
from local to national level, until at some
stage somebody said "yes", has also
proved a thorn in the EDF flesh. The votes
went in favour of continuing construction
at Chooz, Cattenom and Civaux. But at
Golfech, near the border with Spain, and
Le Pellerin, there were marginal local votes
against. So the question went to a higher
level - the regional council. The Le
Pellerin council voted for the reactor. But
Golfech, while eventually agreeing, drew
blood from EDF in the process.
The "blood" took the form of a contract
with EDF - the first ever such binding
arrangement between EDF and a region -
which guarantees the locality 40 per cent of
the jobs that will eventually be created at
MidheiRapsn of CEA says the nuclear programme is
stronger under Mitterrand
the power station, a large fraction of the
construction work and EDF support for
amenity development. EDF is currently
seeking sites for five reactors at 1,300 MV
and one at 900 MW - the programme
?1 agreed at the National Assembly for
1982-83 - and the Golfech deal may prove
to be an awkward model. EDF, however,
argues that it has always tried to place jobs
and contracts around the region of a
nuclear site. The real difficulty, says EDF,
will be to find 40 per cent of its nuclear
engineers in the Midi-Pyrenees.
The latest twist in the tail is literally there
- at the tail end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Waste disposal has been neglected in
France (although the Marcoule process for
the vitrification of highly active waste has
been adopted by Britain). Edmond Hervi,
minister for energy, has asked the CEA to
provide, within a few weeks, an outline
plan for the management of nuclear
wastes. No such plan exists at present, it
seems. Within 18 months, two or three dis-
posal sites must be selected, promising a
new political problem for nuclear power.
Some in the nuclear establishment,
however, are quite sanguine about the
developments. Michel Rapin, director for
nuclear applications at the commissariat,
believes the new political approach will
actually strengthen the nuclear pro-
gramme, by providing a degree of demo-
cratic assessment. Once there has been a
vote, who can disagree? All very well, while
the votes are "yes"... 0
Trebling renewable energy by 1990
ONE of the most surprising but rational
moves made by the Mitterrand
government in the energy field has been
its appointment of Michel Rolant, a
union activist in his late 40s, as the head of
a completely revamped organization to
promote renewable energies in France.
Rolant was an agricultural worker who
took a strong interest in labour relations,
and early on became general secretary of
the federation of agricultural workers, a
branch of the liberal union, CFDT. But
his attention shifted to industry and
employment, and he established a
reputation, among the pro-nuclear
lobby, of being totally anti-nuclear.
Certainly, as CFDT's number two,
Rolant moulded the union to form
effectively the only organized opposition
to the nuclear establishment - a position
which it will retain despite Rolant's
departure.
ElectricitE de France is turning a rather
jaundiced eye on Rolant's appointment
- the cosy club of grandes 6coles men at
the top of the ministries and the great
industries is being jostled these days by
one or two workers with some peculiar
ideas - but for the government the move
is really a master-stroke (and, by the way,
one long advocated by CFDT). For, from
the nuclear point of view, one of the
principal irritants has been mollified: he
to be determined. The CFDT
recommends a balanced regional and
central organization, with 22 regional
branches each with perhaps 50-100 staff,
and a 600-700 strong national body. (By
comparison, COMES and AEE presently
have about 500 staff mostly in Paris). The
new body should also be capable of doing
research on its own behalf, together with
the major research organizations.
Moreover if capital loans could be
arranged on the kind of terms on which
they are offered to Third World nuclear
purchasers - terms such as 8 per cent
interest to begin five years after
completion of a reactor as were offered to
Korea, for example - then wonders
could be worked, say the enthusiasts.
In fact COMES announced an
objective at the end of last year: to
treble the funds devoted to solar energy
between 1981 and 1985. The most
promising areas for development were
the production of petrol and methane
from biomass, particularly wood waste of
which France has a particularly good
supply. But Rolant will want to see all
alternatives, including energy saving, in
perspective, and perhaps COMES's
priorities will not be his. The government
is certainly committed in principle to a
trebling of funds for renewable energy
projects, although the allocation of the
Consumption of primary energy: evolution and objectlves?
1970
1974
1980
1981
Plan 1990
Coal
38.1
31.6
34.0
33.5
35-40
Petrol
87.5
113.2
102.1
93.0
70-75
Gas
9.3
16.0
23.6
24.6
31-40
Hydroelectrics
12.4
12.5
16.0
15.0
14-15
New energies
2.0
2.1
3.2
3.4
10-14
Nuclear
1.2
3.1
12.9
19.5
60-66
Total
150.5
178.5
Proportion from
sous sources M
65.6
75.0
*Values are in million tonnes of oil equivalent
is now part of the government club and
must be expected to obey the rules. And
from the alternative energy point of view,
here is a man who is a passionate and
serious advocate of such forms of energy
who must now turn his dreams into
reality. If they work, well, that means
more energy for France.
In fact the government's energy plans
for the next decade are extraordinarily
ambitious both in respect of their nuclear
component and their renewables (see
table). The energy supply from
renewables - such as solar power and
biomass - is expected at least to treble by
1990 compared with 1981, and M. Rolant
will be presiding over that growth. Rolant
will have available to him COMES, the
commission for solar energy, and the
AEE, the agency for energy saving, which
will be formed into a new organization
whose exact definition and scale have yet
cash will not be known until mid-1982.
No doubt Rolant will have consider-
able influence on this, and perhaps his
agricultural background will influence
him (his colleagues at CFDT deny it); but
it has been clear for some time that in
renewables France is concentrating on the
conversion of biomass. Of the 10-14
million tonnes of oil equivalent expected
from renewables in 1990, half will come
directly from the use of wood, and a
further 2 million tonnes of oil equivalent
from wastes. Surprisingly, however, of
FF 35.2 million (#3.5million) research
ministry funds available for renewables
research in 1981, only FF 0.2 million
(#20,000) went to support biomass
research. The largest sum (around half)
went to coal. COMES spent FF 50 million
(C5 million) on biomass development in
1981, but only a small fraction of that
went on basic research. This may change.
002$1!{36/$2/I2M0641901.ro C 1962 Macmillan Journals Ltd
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