Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Technical Note
.
:
(cont.)
isolation time for spent fuel from hundreds of thousands of
years to around one thousand years. This new technology
will be used to treat spent fuel from all reactors when the
new technology is available.
R&D on new ideas and technologies will proceed in par-
allel with the main highway so that new on- or off-ramps can
be constructed if needed.
The French long-range nuclear-energy plan was
developed with the involvement of their electric utility, the
company that builds their nuclear reactors, their CEA (the
equivalent of the US Department of Energy), and their
Parliament. As in the United States, the nuclear waste issue
was the most contentious and the contrast between how they
handled it and how the US is still struggling with it is
striking.
France has what is called the Parliamentary Of
ce for
Scienti
c and Technological Assessment (POSTA). It is
a joint committee of their two houses of parliament, has
a membership proportional to representation of the political
parties in parliament, has a civil servant staff, and has
a high-level external scienti
c advisory committee. The
United States had something like it, too, but it became
mired in political in
ghting and Congress abolished it in
as part of the Gingrich revolution in the House of
Representatives.
France passed a law in
on the advice of the POSTA
giving the government
years to report back with their
proposal for handling nuclear waste. In
POSTA began
a series of hearings on the government
'
s proposal (I testi
ed
at one). The result was the Act of
blessing the road
outlined above. In contrast, the United States has no coher-
ent long-term policy though the administration is trying to
craft one, and we have not been able to get our own reposi-
tory started in spite of
years of effort.
