Americans have been questioning the safety of nuclear energy ever since the incident at Three Mile Island in the 70s sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, scurrying for cover, even though the release was never shown to harm plant workers or residents in the area.

The British, who have never had a significant incident other than from a nuclear submarine, yet went into overdrive when the Sellafield data on fuel pellets came out, are now looking for a resurgence of nuclear power (sans the Scottish contingent) - as are the Russians, whose Chernobyl meltdown (which actually took place in the Ukraine) has become the stuff of nightmares and urban legends.

In France, where 80 percent of the country's energy is from nuclear power, a few recent accidents have made both France's nuclear regulatory agency, the ASN, and French citizens look askance at nuclear power as a clean energy solution. This, after more than three decades of a nuclear love affair which ignited almost spontaneously after the 1974 oil shock hit the world and the French government, faced with few indigenous resources, decided to circumvent both politics and oil with nuclear. As a result, France is today the world's largest net exporter of electricity.    

The ASN (pdf), or Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, led by Mr. Olivier Gupta and chaired by André-Claude Lacoste, met in Paris on March 7 with the heads of similar agencies from ten countries (Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, the UK, the U.S., China, Russia and South Africa) to discuss the progress of an international initiative directed at unifying the codes, standards and practices involved in nuclear energy. This initiative, the Multinational Design Evaluation Program, or MDEP, is designed to head off precisely the kinds of incidents France now finds itself facing.

The first of these, on July 9, saw nearly 8,000 gallons of radioactive waste dumped into two nearby rivers from the Tricastin nuclear site near Bollene, about 25 miles from Avignon in the south of France. The second, on the same day, saw 15 Electricité de France workers at the Saint-Alban plant in the Alpine Isere region near the borders of Switzerland and Italy exposed to what EDF, France's main electricity supplier, insists were non-harmful traces of radioactivity.

The spills are an unfortunate reminder to nuclear lobbyists in the U.S. that accidents do happen, even in the best-managed plants, and their effects can range from minimal to catastrophic. This reminder comes at an equally unfortunate juncture between previous U.S. skepticism and renewed interest in nuclear power as a result of high oil and natural gas prices. Currently, 48.6 percent of U.S. energy generation is obtained from coal, and almost 20 percent from nuclear, with natural gas (21.5 percent) a close second. This fuel mix is largely dependent on the fact that the U.S. has enormous coal reserves, and nuclear power plants still in operation that were built in the 70s and 80s.

In France, people have begun to ask if the country's love affair with nuclear power is at an end. The answer is no, if only because it takes at least a decade to convert from one resource to another. More important, France no longer mines coal, having disbanded the program during the 80s to the tune of $2 billion dollars.

Even if it were to decide to begin mining again, French coal costs far more to get out of the ground than it generates when sold. Recent estimates peg this disparity at close to 50 percent - a disparity that would likely tank the fragile French economy and send the thrifty French into fits. Natural gas, an even more expensive option for generating electricity, is currently the favored fuel in the U.S., but that very preference is rapidly depleting supplies and driving up prices around the world. 

Thus the French are pretty much stuck with their nuclear plants, and will undoubtedly face more incidents like the one at Tricastin, which forced the closing of two rivers and all public access, including crop irrigation and well-water usage. Concentrations of uranium in the Gaffiere River adjacent to the plant reached 1,000 times higher than normal but have since declined. The spill, which involved almost 8,000 gallons of toxic effluent, came from an onsite reservoir.

Environmental and regulatory groups, from Abandon Nuclear Power to Criirad (the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity, a non-governmental watchdog group formed in the aftermath of Chernobyl), are crying foul as the incident, rated at zero on a 0-7 scale of seriousness (and elsewhere mistakenly reported as a Level 1), continues to attract public attention. Even though the zero level is virtually a non-incident, Criirad's director, Corinne Castanier, notes that it is the number of releases in such a short period of time - rather than their seriousness - that concerns her. According to Castanier, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of incidents reported by French nuclear power workers, and Castanier suspects the higher number is linked to increasing pressure on power generators to deliver, resulting in more hazardous conditions to workers. In the latest Tricastin spill, 70 workers tested positive for low levels of radiation (1/40^th of the authorized limit, according to EDF).

The Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers, not just worker safety, present real problems, as well. Fields planted with commercial herbs adjacent to the plant have wilted for lack of water, which the Gaffiere River used to provide. Both rivers flow into the Rhone, which in turn waters France's southern wine fields, an essential part of the French economy and an inestimable part of its heritage as well.

The second leak, in the Alpine Isere - alternatively known as the Drome region - also captured a zero rating. This plant, also owned by Areva (A French-controlled energy firm), experienced leakage from a damaged pipe transporting liquid uranium. Reportedly the effluent did not reach groundwater supplies.

Areva is the same firm currently planning a nuclear enrichment facility in Idaho. Areva spokesperson Jarret Adams is careful to point out to the residents of Idaho Falls that an enrichment facility is quite different from a generation facility, in that liquids produced are minimal, and these are dried before shipping to a containment facility. In spite of that, Idaho may be reconsidering allowing Areva to build after these last two incidents.

Construction of the $2 billion plant, which is scheduled to begin in 2011, projects employing up to 1,000 people. The permanent workforce will be one quarter of that. Areva is currently applying for a license from the NRC and is preparing environmental studies to that end.

The residents of Idaho have suggested saying, "Areva -derci" to the plant. The residents of France, surrounded on all sides by literally irreplaceable nuclear power plants, do not have that luxury, and so they continue to watch the news, and their rivers, for evidence of failures in a power supply system that has always teetered on the brink between "clean" (in environmental terms) and gravely dangerous when it goes awry.

And therein lies the choice for the rest of the world. In the absence of immediately available mass quantities of renewable energies like wind, solar and hydro to replace fossils like coal, oil and natural gas, the world is faced with a slow death from pollution or a fast death from radioactivity. The difference is this; the first death is apparently inevitable, while the second can, to some extent, be controlled by man's ingenuity, care and foresight.