Greenpeace activists display 10 model wind turbines on the premises of a nuclear power plant in Penly, France in protest at the French government's decision to build another reactor on the site.
"Greenpeace is urging state owned EdF, Electricity de France,
not to impose yet another dangerous and uneconomic nuclear reactor
on Europe. The EPR, European Pressurized Reactor, is nothing new,
it is an outdated and unsafe design, to be fuelled by plutonium and
will produce extremely radioactive waste," said Greenpeace
campaigner on the site, Jan Vande Putte.
Greenpeace demands that EdF should instead invest massively in
wind power which has proven to be more reliable and economic than
the EPR. This choice would meet the approval of 85% of the French
consumers. European people and some countries have pronounced
themselves in favour of a nuclear phase-out and for a clean energy
future.
But, against all reason, the French nuclear industry wants to
impose a new reactor which will add to its large nuclear
overcapacity, just to keep the French nuclear industry alive. EdF
is already dumping vast amounts of subsidised nuclear electricity
on the European market. These large flows of electricity are a
heavy burden on the electricity system and have been a key factor
in the Italian blackout in September1.
The study 'Wind vs Nuclear 2003', published today by Greenpeace
(2), demonstrates that for the same investment, wind power
generates 5 times more jobs and 2.3 times more electricity than a
nuclear reactor. The cost of the EPR is officially estimated at
some 3-3.5 billion €. If this amount of money were invested in wind
power, some 7616MW of wind capacity could be built, compared to
1550MW in the nuclear case. Wind would generate a massive 24TWh/y,
the equivalent of 6.5 million households. Nuclear would only
deliver 10TWh.
In recent years wind power has gone through an industrial
revolution. In Germany, over 3,200MW of wind power was installed in
the last year alone, supplying electricity to more than 2 million
households. In the European Union, a massive 75,000MW of wind
capacity is expected to be online by 2010, tripling the current
power and adding the equivalent electricity production of 14 large
nuclear reactors.
Meanwhile, nuclear power is in decline. No single reactor has
been connected to the grid in the last 4 years, and it would take
at least another 10 years before a new reactor could come online
while a growing number of old reactors will shut down. In reality,
wind has already taken the lead and left nuclear far behind.
"Europe is at a cross road and we refuse to let the nuclear
lobby dictate our energy future regardless of the opinion, the
environment and the security of people. Greenpeace asks EDF to make
the right choice," Jan Vande Putte added.
Notes: 1 See the report of the UCTE 'Interim report of the Investigation Committee on the 28 September 2003 blackout in Italy' published on Oct. 27th at http://www.ucte.org 2 The report 'Wind vs Nuclear 2003' is commissioned by Greenpeace France with the research institute DETENTE. The full version is only available in French at http://www.greenpeace.fr A summary in English is available at http:// www.greenpeace.org