>How do atomic energy organizations succeed in doing this?
From my knowledge: they mostly don't. For example, in France, we have the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN) which is supposed to be an independent and transparent authority on nuclear safety and information.
However: it has been criticized many times since its inception in 2006 regarding conflicts of interest[1][2], and lacks in terms of safety issues reporting[3].
I'm glad my country invested so much into nuclear energies, I still believe it's our best chance at tackling the upcoming crisis, but we should not let nuclear in the hands of private interests. Governments _have_ to apply a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to safety, regulation, and transparency, regardless of how expensive and inconvenient it is.
We're not doing enough, in France[4], when it comes to safety, from within or without. On top of that: it's giving fuel to anti-nuclear militantism.
> Governments _have_ to apply a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to safety, regulation, and transparency, regardless of how expensive and inconvenient it is.
Only in combination with some kind of carbon tax, otherwise you make nuclear too expensive compared to coal or natural gas whose costs are externalized and harder to quantify than nuclear regulatory compliance.
The anti-nuclear sentiment is pretty strong in France as well[1], but if we compare to Germany for example:
- in 2016, 72% of the energy generation in France was nuclear, Germany never came close to that percentage[2], therefore making it easier to transition away from it.
- France invested a lot into nuclear energy and no government since then would dare to throw such a huge industry (2500 companies, 222 000 jobs) into the trash. I don't think it was the case with other European countries.
There's a lot of pride surrounding our history of nuclear research (since Pierre and Marie Curie), and politicians are often accused by militants of falling for the sunken-cost fallacy or to have a misplaced pride into the industry ("En France on n'a pas de pétrole mais on a des idées" - "In France, we don't have oil, but we sure have ideas").
Ultimately: the percentage of nuclear-based energy in France should go down to 50% by 2025, I just hope we'll manage to reduce our carbon monoxide emissions as well, Germany gave up on nuclear and they're failing at that so far.
> France invested a lot into nuclear energy and no government since then would dare to throw such a huge industry (2500 companies, 222 000 jobs) into the trash. I don't think it was the case with other European countries.
Germany all but killed off an industry of 80000 jobs (at the time) in the blink of an eye: photovoltaics.
One other main difference is that having your own nuclear industry is also important for countries aiming for (or having) nuclear deterrence power, like France (and unlike Germany which merely hosts US nukes).
Could you elaborate on how Germany did kill of the photovoltaics industry? Since this seems different than I remember.
Solar panel production in Germany mostly died because it couldn't be price competitive with those from China.
Installations went down due to reduced subsidies, apparently as an reaction to more than expected solar being installed [0]. I have a hard time calling that "killing of an industry".
> Installations went down due to reduced subsidies, apparently as an reaction to more than expected solar being installed [0]. I have a hard time calling that "killing of an industry".
"So we kickstarted an industry that created 80000 jobs by subsidizing it, and now we noticed that subsidies actually cost money, so let's turn off the faucet" is what I call a killing.
One of the issues in German politics is that politicians are easily scared of their own courage, instead of doubling down on it (and, in this case, help drive costs down for Germany-made PV through more industrialized and scaled-up production, thereby solving the subsidy problem while propping up an industry instead of leaving it for dead).
It's especially annoying to me because one of the "arguments" in favor of keeping coal alive is that there are 20000 jobs to protect in that industry (and for much more money than it would cost to give those 20000 folks their wage + social security/insurance, no questions asked, until their retirement age, which makes me think that's all just a ruse).
> The Green movement does not seem strong in France, but I'm not sure why.
I have a theory. The French people like the American people put a great deal of value on liberty. Most of the purposed changes made by green activists involve ratcheting up state control the citizen's daily life and as a result are unpopular.
Most French put a much greater deal of value on equality than on liberty, and prefer a central and technocratic government, in the vain hope of having it enforce equality.
Hence the immense importance there of Massive Things Backed By Long-Term Plans, natural fruit of any jacobinist gov.
IMHO this lead to massive failures, as those Massive Things are less and less adequate in a fast-paced world.
The French approach to liberty is extremely different to American libertarianism, though. Huge support for state control of business in particular, strong unions, employment law etc.
How does this relate to nuclear reactors? I do realize how Macro used environmental concerns as an excuse to burden poorer people in peripheral areas with more taxes (rather than, say, taxing the rich and helping to finance hybrid or lower-emission, fuel-efficient vehicles for people in the countryside).
The reason they are wearing the yellow vests are because some government official who knows better than the population decided that everyone must carry two of them in their cars at all times. Similarly they also decided to raise fuel taxes (cars are required for rural life) and subsidize public transport (used in urban areas).
The French are also pragmatic and have seen the failure of the German green energy model, why on earth would they want to do that?
From my knowledge: they mostly don't. For example, in France, we have the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN) which is supposed to be an independent and transparent authority on nuclear safety and information.
However: it has been criticized many times since its inception in 2006 regarding conflicts of interest[1][2], and lacks in terms of safety issues reporting[3].
I'm glad my country invested so much into nuclear energies, I still believe it's our best chance at tackling the upcoming crisis, but we should not let nuclear in the hands of private interests. Governments _have_ to apply a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to safety, regulation, and transparency, regardless of how expensive and inconvenient it is.
We're not doing enough, in France[4], when it comes to safety, from within or without. On top of that: it's giving fuel to anti-nuclear militantism.
[1] http://www.observatoire-du-nucleaire.org/spip.php?article281 [2] https://www.cairn.info/revue-revue-juridique-de-l-environnem... [3] http://mai68.org/spip2/spip.php?article1347 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STjGOGkMz4k