Or do some people object to carbon dioxide in France?
Is there some special reason you do not examine this case?
Do you imagine that the French are in favor of oil slicks?
What about soot? Are the French in favor of soot?
You have not evoked a
law of any kind, but merely, again, raised an
irrelevant point that has
nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand, which is French
scientific analysis of actinide recycling.
The trouble that people who are anti-nuke is that they simply attempt to isolate the issue of so called "nuclear waste," and demonstrate no concern at all with other forms of energy waste.
I have been to France over 50 times. Many times I have tried to engage my French friends into a discussion of the subject of nuclear energy, but usually they are
unexcited about the issue. Their lights are on; they work; and that's about it. One can almost hear them thinking, "stupid Americans." They have a point in this case. There may be
some French who feel otherwise, but my personal perception is that while they garner much attention from
some Americans, they don't garner all that much attention in France.
In any case, your comments are technically irrelevant. Even so, according to
your link, the majority of people in France
support nuclear power. From your link:
Second, Mandil cites cultural factors. France has a tradition of large, centrally managed technological projects. And, he says, they are popular. "French people like large projects. They like nuclear for the same reasons they like high speed trains and supersonic jets."
Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America. Many high ranking civil servants and government officials trained as scientists and engineers (rather than lawyers, as in the United States), and, unlike in the U.S. where federal administrators are often looked down upon, these technocrats form a special elite. Many have graduated from a few elite schools such as the Ecole Polytechnic. According to Mandil, respect and trust in technocrats is widespread. "For a long time, in families, the good thing for a child to become was an engineer or a scientist, not a lawyer. We like our engineers and our scientists and we are confident in them."
Thirdly, he says, the French authorities have worked hard to get people to think of the benefits of nuclear energy as well as the risks. Glossy television advertising campaigns reinforce the link between nuclear power and the electricity that makes modern life possible. Nuclear plants solicit people to take tours--an offer that six million French people have taken up. Today, nuclear energy is an everyday thing in France.
Many polls have been taken of French public opinion and most find that about two-thirds of the population are strongly in favor of nuclear power. It's not that the French don't have a gut fear of nuclear power. Psychologist Paul Slovic and his colleagues at Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon, discovered in their surveys that many French people have similar negative imagery and fears of radiation and disaster as Americans. The difference is that cultural, economic and political forces in France act to counteract these fears.
What part of "Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America," do you not understand?
The French, being a people with a long history of excelling in the sciences, understand concepts like external costs.
They can easily understand this
simple concept:
No matter how efficient the the game that other wastes don't matter, extremely toxic material is produced by all forms of energy. It happens that so called "nuclear waste," is still the
only form of (exajoule scale) energy waste that has
not caused vast human tragedy.
It happens by the way, that storing spent nuclear fuel above ground (or at least where it is readily accessible for recovery) is the safest and most rational way to deal with it, since it is clearly true that this spent fuel will be a future resource of immense value in the improbable case that humanity survives global climate change. Thus even if an appeal to ignorance results in this outcome, it is probably all for the best.