(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #226 - Nuclear fusion: the headlong rush! (fr)

Not content with having made France the world's most nuclear-armed world, different 
governments, both right and left, planning to make our country the leader of the "nuclear 
fusion." ---- Two nuclear installations embody the ambition of France: ITER [ 1 ] located 
in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (Bouches-du-Rh?ne) and Megajoule Laser (LMJ) in the town of Barp 
Gironde. ---- Research projects on fusion seek to use the energy produced by the fusion of 
hydrogen nuclei, reaction particularly difficult to control [ 2 ]. ---- Laser Megajoule 
and ITER ---- The goal is to recreate the LMJ thermodynamic conditions of an explosion of 
an atomic bomb to validate the simulation software of nuclear weapons. And thus circumvent 
the international treaty on nuclear testing. The site is at present largely engaged, even 
if the completion was postponed to 2014.

The program combines ITER Russia, the United States, European Union, Japan, China, Korea 
and India. Its aim is to "succeed in maintaining a nuclear fusion reaction for six minutes 
...". To date there is no evidence that man is never able to master nuclear fusion. 9 
November 2012, the Prime Minister signed a decree "authorizing the international ITER 
Organization to create a nuclear facility."

These two projects are large. The building for the LMJ is 140,000 square meters of space. 
ITER in Cadarache site covers 180 hectares and required the removal of 2.5 million cubic 
meters of rock. These facilities use highly sophisticated equipment: laser beams, 
superconducting magnets, containment facilities, measurement ... which will consume huge 
amounts of water - ITER will use each year nearly 3 million cubic meters of water - and 
energy: " To start ITER must have 500 MW [...] for about ten seconds [...]. Permanently 
installed 120 MW needs "[ 3 ]

What opposition?

Beyond the costs and environmental risks of these experimental facilities, we intend to 
denounce the logic that justifies: development of new weapons of mass destruction, 
headlong into a centralized energy model hyper when issues of our time are those economies 
energy and decentralized renewable energy.

Objections to these projects expressed in the anti-nuclear movement: the association and 
the Network Tchernoblaye out nuclear attempt to express the rejection of the LMJ. In May 
2004, 500 people demonstrated in Barp in the Tour de France to abandon nuclear power. As 
for the manifestation of 2000 people organized in November 2007 in Marseille by the 
Collective stop ITER, it demonstrates, too, the difficulties in mobilizing against France 
in the nuclear lobby. And yet always a bad opinion on nuclear energy in the country is no 
longer in doubt.

Jacques Dubart (AL Agen)

[ 1 ] International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor: International Thermonuclear 
Experimental Reactor

[ 2 ] It is the energy at work in the heart of the sun

[ 3 ] The World December 5, 2003