The summer has not started that it is already too hot. EDF announced it on May 9: electricity production could be assigned until Sunday, May 15, especially at the Blayais power station. The water temperature rejected in the Gironde estuary no longer meets the standards for the protection of the environment. This micro-event will have only a marginal impact on electricity production, but it highlights what intense public relations and communication campaign has been used for several months to hold under the bushel: presented as a solution major in the face of warming, nuclear is also vulnerable.
It is not questionable that this source of energy is controlled, weakly carbon, little consumer of raw materials, and that it has other numerous advantages. We see it moreover today: Germany, very dependent on Russian gas, is much more shaken by the war in Ukraine than France, with its proud nuclear central.
In fact, the data available today incline to be reasonably convinced that, throughout the production chain and by integrating the balance sheets of Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear is by far the source of Historically the least lethal energy (through pollution, accidents, etc.).
enthusiastic story
Nuclear is therefore the future: how could it be otherwise? This enthusiastic story has so well percolated in public conversation in the past few months that he convinced the majority of political staff, and undoubtedly a large part of opinion. In addition to the occupation of television or radio sets by pronuclear consultants and editorialists, some micro-influencers assisted by an anonymous trolls of trolls have practiced a contiguely on social networks, launching harassment and denigration campaigns Against any personality issuing the slightest reserve on the revival of the national nuclear program.
Reserves, however, there are some. In recent years, warming has highlighted the vulnerability of power stations more and more cruelly to temperature elevation. Today, it is in early May that problems are starting in Blayais. In August 2018, the Saint-Alban and Bugey power plants were partially stopped for similar reasons. The following summer, the same as well as that of Golfech were also slowed down. In August 2020, for the first time in its history, the Chooz power plant was in turn temporarily stopped for similar reasons.
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