Look, France has Nuclear Power and it’s safe!

Filed in National by on July 9, 2008

I guess your version of safe depends on how much Uranium you allow to leak from your power plant though.

PARIS (AP) — Liquid containing traces of unenriched uranium leaked Tuesday at a nuclear site in southern France, and some of the solution ran into two rivers, France’s nuclear safety agency said.

Authorities banned the consumption of well water in three nearby towns and the watering of crops from the two rivers. Swimming, water sports and fishing were also banned.

A spokeswoman for the nuclear safety agency, Evangelia Petit, said about 7,925 gallons of solution containing uranium spilled at a factory at the Tricastin nuclear site, about 25 miles from the historic city of Avignon.

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Comments (8)

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  1. MikeW says:

    mmmm, three-eyed fish.

  2. liberalgeek says:

    The third eye is for flavor!

  3. arthur says:

    we already have 3 eyed fish and no nuclear power in sight. thanks uncle dupie

  4. Von Cracker says:

    Doesn’t Grenoble rhyme with Chernobyl?

    😛

  5. Von Cracker says:

    I still think there’s a place for Nuclear Power, though.

  6. G Rex says:

    Okay, so we won’t use French engineers to build our nuke plants, or let our forklift drivers drink wine with lunch. Maybe if the French had more German engineers…

  7. Anders says:

    Unenriched Uranium

    Unenriched uranium is about as hazardous as lead. Clearly, we should be concerned about any environmental releases, and under no circumstances would I argue against strict industrial hygiene laws or tough penalties.

    However, I also think our concern should be proportional to the actual health/environmental risk, and not part of some knee jerk emotional response. Spills of equal consequences almost certainly occur at any site that mines or processes any heavy metal – I’m not saying that this is acceptable, but perhaps we should consider that the environmental remediation steps taken at a e.g. a cadmium mine are likely several orders of magnitude less stringent.

    This was not a spill at a nuclear power plant. This is not a nuclear power issue, this is a metal processing issue and no one would have even noticed if it were not for the hysteria over all things nuclear.