Where does all of France’s nuclear waste go?



  1. 0 Votes

    Scarily enough, it gets shoved down a mine shaft.


    They claim the shaft is a good spot, as it is surrounded by clay, an element capable of slowing the filtering of the water through the earth. Supposedly, the waste could only travel a few feet in a million years.

    What if, say, an earthquake occurs?

    “There are very few earthquakes,” Eric Sutre, one of the mines geologists says.

    This will not end well.

  2. 0 Votes

    This is still a hot debate in France, nuclear energy and what to do with its waste. At first, in the 80s they were going to bury it in the rural sections of France. Though locals heavily protested and the plans had to be abandoned, but the problem remained. So the engineers elected a politician, Monsieur Bataille, to try and solve the problem and he deduced that the local people were not happy because it would tarnish the land and soil, the Earth as a whole. So it was proposed that the nuclear waste be stored in a lab.
    “A popular French riposte to the question of why they have so much nuclear energy is “no oil, no gas, no coal, no choice.” People felt much happier with the idea of a “stocking center” than a “nuclear graveyard”. Was this just a semantic difference? No, says Bataille. Stocking waste and watching it involves a commitment to the future. It implies that the waste will not be forgotten. It implies that the authorities will continue to be responsible. And, says Bataille, it offers some possibility of future advances. “Today we stock containers of waste because currently scientists don’t know how to reduce or eliminate the toxicity, but maybe in 100 years perhaps scientists will.”

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