[lbo-talk] French set new rail speed record

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Wed Apr 4 11:31:10 PDT 2007



>
>Another point, the French TGV is powered by electricity generated mostly by
>nuclear reactors. I have nothing against nuclear power plants - they are
>clean and efficient - but the US small-is-beautiful populists and
>enviro-nuts would go berserk if a plan of fast rail powered by nuclear
>plants were announced here.
>
>Wojtek

Yeah. That would never happen in France.


>Superphoenix (French: Superphénix or SPX) is a
>nuclear power station on the Rhône River at
>Creys-Malville in France, close to the border
>with Switzerland. A fast breeder reactor, it
>halted electricity production in 1996 and was
>closed as a commercial plant in 1997.
>
>[....]
>
>There was considerable popular protest during
>construction; a march by 60,000 protestors in
>July 1977 was broken up by the CRS with the
>death of Vital Michalon and over a hundred serious injuries.
>
> Rocket attack
>
>Against a background of ongoing protest and
>low-level sabotage,[1] on the night of January
>18, 1982 a rocket attack was launched against
>the unfinished plant by an "eco-pacifist group".
>Five rockets were launched using a Russian
>rocket launcher. The incomplete containment
>building was damaged by two of the rockets,
>which narrowly missed the reactor's empty core.
>
>On May 8, 2003, Chaïm Nissim, who in 1985 was
>elected to the Geneva cantonal government for
>the Swiss Green Party, admitted carrying out the
>attack. He claimed that the weapons were
>obtained from Carlos via the Belgian terrorist
>organisation Cellules Communistes Combattantes (Communist Combatant Cells).[2]

[....]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix



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