BREAKING NEWS: NUCLEAR PLANT EXPLOSION IN SOUTH FRANCE

 

Fact: When someone is killed, things have not gone according to plan. 

Fact: I am already very uncomfortable with radioactivity without explosions and deaths 

Fact: I am in no position to know whether there was a leak, but someone is dead and something blew up. 

Dirty Fact: No nuclear accident has ever begun with full disclosure anywhere. It's unreasonable to rely on the facility to accurately report any leaks initially... it's scary but true. Fukushima anyone?

Fact: Our concern is justified and reasonable in the circumstances. 

Fact: I don't want to live anywhere near these things for good reason.

At some point in time, we are going to have to face the facts about costing and research when it comes to alternative energy sources, reducing waste and helping the environment. I'm not one to stick my head in the sand, and those who can't face the reality of what man is doing to this planet and the people on it are a sorry lot indeed. 

We need to reduce the amount of energy we waste, and find solutions to better provide the energy we do need. There's something wrong with that?

Rescue and medics land by helicopter in the nuclear site 

of Marcoule, southern France, Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. (AP / Claude Paris)

Sep. 12 2011

An explosion rocked a facility in southern France that treats nuclear waste on Monday, killing one person but causing no radiation leak. One person was killed in the blast and another badly burned. Three others were injured.

This is the first time a “drama on this scale” occurred at the site, according to Socodei, the EDF unit that operates the facility. Socodei said the explosion was in a building housing a furnace where metallic waste is treated by fusion. An investigation will be carried out. “There is no risk of leaks to come,” EDF said in a later statement.

L'Autorite de Surete Nucleaire, France's nuclear safety agency, says it appears a furnace exploded at the Centraco nuclear waste treatment site. The blast was completely contained within the furnace, which is used to melt waste. 

It's not known what caused the explosion but an investigation is underway. 

There was no chemical or radioactive discharge from the Centraco plant in the town of Codolet in southern France, Carole Trivi, a spokeswoman for the owner Electricite de France SA, said by telephone. EDF slumped as much as 7.8 percent in Paris trading.

"According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity," the agency said in a statement.

"There have been no leaks outside of the site." 

Centraco is located on the grounds of the Marcoule nuclear plant, in Languedoc-Roussillon, near the Mediterranean Sea. 

Centraco treats waste mostly from power plants, as well as a small amount of material from hospitals or medical research labs. 

Officials from France's EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed there is no nuclear reactor on site. 

Europe’s biggest power producer, which also operates France’s 58 nuclear reactors, treats low-level radioactive waste at the plant about 130 kilometers (81 miles) northwest of Marseille, the country’s second-biggest city. France depends on nuclear reactors for about three-quarters of its power needs, the most of any country.

Even while other European nations vowed after the Fukushima disaster in Japan to phase out nuclear power, France has stuck firmly to its pro-nuclear policy. 

In June, President (ED: “snapping miniature poodle” ~ and traitor to humanity ~) Nicolas Sarkozy pledged France would stick to a plan to invest another $1.37 billion in future reactors. 

By contrast, neighbouring Germany recently took eight of its older reactors off the grid and has plans to shut the country's nine remaining nuclear plants by 2022. 

“Today’s incident in France is another example that we move into action,” rather than just discussing safety, Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference in Vienna. Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said she would visit the site.

Nearby populations weren’t advised to take any specific measures such as staying indoors or being evacuated, Trivi said. The person who died in the explosion was an employee of Socodei.