'A reversal of fortunes that the nuclear industry, whose plants emit no greenhouse gases, has been only too happy to exploit'

From: Nuclear Spring

 

Anne Lauvergeon (or "Atomic Anne," as the press calls her) is the fourteenth most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes. She owes this rank, and her nickname, to the fact that she heads the French nuclear company Areva. Three weeks ago, Lauvergeon made an appearance at Harvard's Center for the Environment. And, when she strode to the lectern, she set about toying with the expectations of her audience. Where Americans are accustomed to hearing Europeans lambaste their wasteful way of life and degradation of the planet, Lauvergeon took a more counterintuitive approach: "A tribute to your country's essential contribution to the world debate on the crucial issue of climate change!" She continued, "Yes, I want to pay tribute to Vice President Al Gore and his amazing Inconvenient Truth." This unexpected flattery of her host country didn't just make for good theatrics; it hewed to Areva's marketing plan. The nuclear industry, long the bete noire of environmentalists, has experienced a rehabilitation of late, as carbon--rather than radioactive nasties like uranium and plutonium--has become the chief enemy of the green movement. It is a reversal of fortunes that the nuclear industry, whose plants emit no greenhouse gases, has been only too happy to exploit.

France, which gets nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, has been particularly aggressive in marketing its atomic expertise. Within the span of a few weeks in December and January, President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, peddling French nuclear technology. And he is in hot pursuit of other markets as well. Late last year, Areva, which is largely state-owned, inked a deal to build two reactors for China, at a cost of $12 billion. India is its next major target; and Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Vietnam, and Turkey are considering the company's wares, too.

There are many reasons why countries like France would sell nuclear power (to build international prestige, to gain a strategic toehold in the Middle East, to make money) and many reasons why countries would buy it (growing energy demand, national prestige, anxiety over the supply of hydrocarbons from temperamental dictatorships). But, as Atomic Anne's talk at Harvard implied, there's one justification for nuclear power that the industry and its consumers will increasingly deploy to disarm critics: climate change.

While there's good reason to believe some countries intend to harness nuclear power toward green ends, there's also good reason to believe that other nations will use warming as a pretext for less virtuous purposes--namely, to acquire technology that would allow them to build nuclear weapons. And, even as nuclear power spreads to developing countries without such nefarious motives, the increased production of uranium and plutonium will provide new opportunities for would-be terrorists (or profiteers selling to terrorists). Nuclear power may be a necessary, if not sufficient, weapon against planetary apocalypse; but, in hyping its ameliorative properties, we could well open ourselves to a different sort of catastrophe.