Claude Allegre on Monday received the prize in Paris 2011 “Atoms for Peace” award two international pro-nuclear for his role in “the preservation and development of the French nuclear industry” …
The price “Atoms for Peace” is awarded since 2007 by the International Institute for Sustainable Peace (IISP) based in Japan and the World Council of Nuclear Workers (WONUC) headquartered in France.
Claude Allegre is thus distinguished “for the important role it has played and continues to play through its publications, speeches, lectures for the preservation and development of the French nuclear industry , the world is modeled, “according to two organizations.
“I’m not part of the nuclear lobby, but now stop the nuclear for France, it would be suicidal,” he told AFP.
In his speech, Mr Allegre has even said “outraged by the propaganda from Fukushima.” “The 25,000 dead, it’s not nuclear power plant, the tsunami, we should not mix everything up,” he said and to AFP. It must be said that Claude Allegre has always denied the nuclear disaster in Japan . “At Fukushima, there was certainly an accident but there was no nuclear catastrophe,” he said already April 21, 2011, in an interview for Current Values.
The Charter of the “pro-nuclear”
The association “Atoms for Peace” (the Atoms for Peace “) is so named in honor of President Eisenhower, who suggested in a speech entitled” Atoms for Peace “, delivered at the UN General Assembly, the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This non-governmental association based in Paris (16th arr.), a principal activity “support any initiative aimed at peaceful use of energy nuclear. “For the association, nuclear energy work promotes” sustainable peace “for the planet.
The association has a “Charter of nuclear,” also called “Code of Ethics nuclear”, and that can be discovered on the site www.atoms-for-peace.org .
What does this Charter? Excerpts:
Nuclear power “is of profound dynamism of people wanting to put their knowledge at the service of humanity, for his well being and development”.
“The use of nuclear energy shows with particular intensity of the issues raised by industrial society, and more broadly in our society. Should we then reject it, as the power of wealth must then be reported as potentially perverting the man and make him lose his soul, passing the man, as Pascal had indicated, the state of angel than beast. Should it be adopted as standard and as a model, the atmosphere rustic and pastoral descriptive narratives of a lost Eden, stick to the rules set out the division as part of a subsistence economy where the amount of goods produced and consumed must be exactly constant and when it was not reduced by natural disasters or conflicts generators famine and misery? ”
“For nuclear workers, and in conscience, nuclear energy appears to be the best answer to the problems of our time . It is neither an end in itself nor a panacea. It is a way we deem legitimate and acceptable because safe, economical and ecological. The many controversies about this form of energy, often caused by manipulation of a credulous public opinion, the judgment weakened by repeated since the Chernobyl accident, slanderous campaigns, fears about waste management, almost obsessive anxiety caused by the mere mention of the word “radioactivity” are, we like it or not, become hard facts that the application of positive law is not sufficient to satisfy . ”
“Nuclear power, and therefore the ethical imperatives of its use, are at the crossroads of political futures, economic societies. In this sense the approach of the World Council of Nuclear Workers is part of the consciousness of humanity TODAY ‘Today. ”
For the association and its members, “continued research and development in the nuclear field is and remains a priority for governments and for those responsible for the nuclear industry.” And the Charter states that “the Nuclear power has a role in defining and implementing a sustainable development policy , projects related to uses of nuclear energy taking into account ecological, economical use of natural resources and their impact on the environment and the preservation of habitats. ”
The atom would be a “benefactor”
“Take his car on Sunday is a risk much, much higher than nuclear!” Claude Allegre wrote in his book “Should we be afraid of nuclear power?”.
The catastrophe of Fukushima in Japan has once again reminded, however, if proof were needed, after Three Mile Island in the U.S. and Chernobyl in Ukraine, that nuclear energy has very high risks to the environment and our health . While accidents are very rare. But, we can see, they are unpredictable and when they occur, it is extremely difficult if not impossible, to master the runaway of the atom. The only possible thing is to try to limit the damage.
The consequences of a nuclear catastrophe is clearly seen are disastrous: the irradiation plant personnel, irradiation of the inhabitants within a radius of up to several tens of kilometers around the plant, and final mass evacuation of the surrounding population on a very wide area ; soil contamination by radioactive particles whose half-life may exceed several centuries; permanent ban of access to the contaminated area; contamination of ground water and sea water or rivers that are used for cooling reactor and radioactive fuel used; air contamination at the local level but also globally in the event of explosions and radioactive cloud formation ….
Faced with these major risks, combined with the fact that theit remains unclear permanently eliminate large quantities of radioactive waste produced by nuclear plants , we present the expected benefits outweigh such energy independence. But this independence is relative because it is necessary to procure uranium from some producing countries, particularly Africa. And when you see how Africa is destabilized politically, we can ask questions. Besides uranium is not inexhaustible. And prices of this raw material, such as oil, can in the coming years, explode.
Remains the main argument: nuclear plants do not emit greenhouse gases. And it is also based on the argument that France lobbied the European Commission for nuclear power is classified as clean energy, as well as solar and wind .. . We must dare!
No, although very important, this argument can not prevail alone against the risks. Especially that there are other sources of clean and renewable energy . And the French have understood this as evidenced by a survey conducted for Ifop France Soir in April 2011, which found that 56% of French people are worried by the stock of our 58 nuclear power plants, and that 83% of French, of all political persuasions, wish that nuclear energy is reduced in favor of other energy sources .
“The real debate is not” for or against nuclear power “,” is that of nuclear safety. “Yes it is the eternal debate. But you can see how Japan, the new world champion technology, which was not even afraid to build plants in earthquake zones, so he was sure of the effectiveness of its security measures, and had planned everything, is now in a lamentable situation, forced to tinkering, improvising, facing a catastrophic situation for human and environmental consequences unbearable.
How Claude Allegre, a former minister of research and senior scientist, and may continue to deny the obvious and cautioner an energy that many countries are questioning …
Germany has decided to leave the atom by 2020. And we can not say that the Germans are irresponsible people who have suddenly decided to break their economy, and light up the candle . No, quite the contrary they are well placed to know that there is in the renewable energy potential to gradually replace nuclear power: they are in fact become one of the leading global green energy.
In June 2011, with a participation rate of 57%, well above the necessary quorum (50%), the Italian referendum has turned into a show of force against nuclear power with nearly 95% of voters expressed their opposition to the atom.
In Japan, tens of thousands of demonstrators, including members of the Japanese intelligentsia, marched across the country after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima demanding “an end to nuclear power plants.” According to several surveys, 82% of Japanese want their country today that sort of nuclear energy and 67% more demanding than any reactor is built in Japan. Because “the risk of nuclear power is too strong,” Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has himself expressed the wish to “move towards a society that can live without nuclear reactors” in July.
Claude Allegre can now enthroned his Oscar “atomic” on her mantelpiece.