Iodine pills issued near French nuclear plants (Bruno Comby, Environmentalists for Nuclear) France

About iodine pills around French nuclear plants and the nuclear situation in France Bruno Comby Founder – President of Environmentalists for Nuclear – International AEPN, Association des Ecologistes Pour le Nucléaire September 23, 2019 Iodine tablets have been distributed around French nuclear sites since more than 30 years in France (since shortly after Tchernobyl). But they were until now distributed in a radius of “only” 10 km around each NPP site to a total population of about 700 000 for the whole of France (less than 1% of the total population). In case of a nuclear accident with any amount of external leakage, all the population in that zone will probably be instructed to swallow the tablet. It gives the politicians the feeling they can take an important decision to “save” (most probably from a low dose exposure and nonexistent danger) the population in case of a major accident. It’s a sort of stupid “political insurance” that gives a feeling to the politicians they can act if necessary, by instructing to take the pills, to satisfy the pressure from journalists if anything happens. In case there’s an accident, it’s something they can do that seems (but isn’t really, except perhaps for a few children) useful. This is of course very stupid because: 1/ the risk is very small 2/ if anything leaks, the sand filters will capture >95% of the radioactive iodine, therefore the radiation doses will be at most 20 times lower than around Chernobyl, which means that most probably nothing is really needed... 3/ iodine pills are useful only for children (around Chernobyl, even large doses of iodine 131 has never induced thyroid cancer in adults, only in children, therefore the pills should be administered only to children below 13 down wind, at high risk of receiving a very high dose) 4/ only the downwind exposed cities should be concerned 5/ as you mention, just the fact of knowing about these pills tends to demonstrate that nuclear is a poison (as a counter-poison is needed...) and this greatly enhances the fear of anything nuclear.

What has recently changed a few weeks ago is that at Fukushima it was shown that on the downwind side there were large rises of iodine in the atmosphere even in locations much farther away than 10 km on the downwind side, up to 20 km (and above).

Therefore, the French safety authorities has advised the French government that the 10 km radius should be extended to 20 km or more. The French parliament has recently voted the new law extending the radius to 20 km (there was pressure for an even larger radius of 25 or 30 km that has been avoided...). The millions of additional pills (to be refreshed and renewed every few years...) are now in fabrication and being distributed. This implies that over 2 million French citizens (3% of the total French population) are now living inside the new 20 km radius “dangerous” iodine zone... of course this will once more greatly enhance the fear of everything nuclear amongst the 1

French population (but the safety authority ASN doesn’t really care...). Both Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown that radiophobia amongst the population and unfounded evacuation in case of a major accident kills a lot more than radiation itself. But the safety authority doesn’t care and continues to increase the radiophobia by everything they say and do... Radiophobia is also regularly reinforced by new stricter regulations about low doses of radon in basements and of course the constant pressure of very rich antinuclear groups (there are dozens of them in France and most are 100 or so times richer than EFN-AEPN) all this only making the situation worse year after year. AEPN does it’s best of course but there’s really big money (and powerful green politicians) against us to be countered. We remain very small in comparison with the budgets of antinuclear groups receiving large (multi-million) donations from foreign countries while EFN struggles with a much smaller budget (2 zeros less). Most of the journalists go to where the money and political power is. Even EDF and Framatome are afraid of communicating and showing themselves openly pronuclear (they promote an electric “mix” with plenty of wind and solar which is like shooting themselves in the foot, but that’s what they do) as with the years and under strong antinuclear pressure from the media, being pronuclear in France is increasingly becoming a sort of taboo that no one wants to speak about (much like it is in Germany). AEPN is the main openly pronuclear group still clearly advocating nuclear energy as the main source of electricity (the official discourse of the government is that the share of nuclear should go diwn from 80% to less than 50%, which is very stupid). EFN-AEPN has little or no money to operate, as our opinion differs from EDF and governmental views. This situation is completely ridiculous in a country that is said to be the most pronuclear in the world but it’s good for you to be aware, because as you mention, if France takes bad decisions (Macron’s Plan is to move towards stopping 2 reactors at the end of December at Fessenheim, and then 14 more reactors WITHOUT REPLACING THEM after 2025. If France does this sort of thing (which is already voted in the French law) many foreign countries will be discouraged and tempted to drop nuclear power. The only thing that protects us is that this decision, although already voted, is to be applied post-2025, and perhaps the law can be reversed before then (except for the closure of the 2 Fessenheim reactors which will be very difficult or impossible to be reversed as it applies in just a few months).

French advanced nuclear power that can provide all the world’s electrical energy needs for as long as civilization exists.

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