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Paris Terror Spurs Plan For Military Zones Around Nuclear Plants
mdsolar sends this report from Bloomberg:
Lawmakers in France want to create military zones around its 58 atomic reactors to boost security after this month's Paris terror attacks and almost two dozen mystery drone flights over nuclear plants that have baffled authorities.
"There's a legal void that needs to be plugged," said Claude de Ganay, the opposition member of the National Assembly spearheading legislation to be considered by parliament on Feb. 5. The proposals would classify atomic energy sites as "highly sensitive military zones" under the control of the Ministry of Defense, according to an outline provided by de Ganay.
"There's a legal void that needs to be plugged," said Claude de Ganay, the opposition member of the National Assembly spearheading legislation to be considered by parliament on Feb. 5. The proposals would classify atomic energy sites as "highly sensitive military zones" under the control of the Ministry of Defense, according to an outline provided by de Ganay.
What he's proposing there is domestic war against an undefined enemy. Friendly fire in this case is a dumb ass soldier shooting some critical safety system in the nuclear plant.
Get a grip, and be grown up politicians and not chicken littles.
This is further proof that nuclear power is the safest and greenest on the planet and everyone should build lots more nuclear power plants...
Instead of turning your entire state into a police state, focus on the locations where a successful terrorist attack could actually HURT. If you see how easily activists enter many of those sites, you know how sloppy security generally is.
Didn't the Obama explain yet again, right after the police station attack, mowing-the-pedestrians attack, Christmas market attack, journalist killing and supermarket killings, that "Islam is a religion of peace" ?
And didn't Obama say that we are not allowed to discuss Mohammed's order "oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him"
(Sahih Muslim Book 41, Number 6981) - as it is not relevant to today's world?
On sites like this, nuclear energy is often claimed to be much safer than e.g. coal.
A proposal like this don't exactly give credibility to that claim.
Fighting local terror is a police task. They are trained for that. They normally don't shoot people, they try to apprehend them. It would be a total disaster if we would think that we are on war with something. True the US is at war with all number of problems, like drugs, terror, violence you name it, but that is not a solving strategy. Beside the will of "security people" we should fight terrorists with good police work and we should address the core issues which trigger people to become terrorists. One key ingredient for radicalization (which is a requirement to become a terrorist of any kind) is a feeling of powerlessness and the feeling of lack of communication. The latter includes that nobody really listens to you. It is not enough when you are allowed to post or say anything, as long as no one is really engaging in a personal discussion (not debate) then there is no real communication in terms of the problems the people have. Also people get frustrated and angry, because what ever they do they are not getting anywhere. For instance in Germany or France it is harder to get an apprenticeship training position if you have a foreign name, especially if it sounds Turkish or Arabic. It is worse with small companies than with bigger ones and it is worse if you are male. In addition your school grades are similar effected (males) when you have a foreign name or if you have a name which is typical associated with low income (e.g. Kevin in Germany).
Yes, there is no war and this terrorist attack is just a twitch of no lasting consequence. Quarter of a million people died the same day across the world.
Yet Claude de Ganay wants to assign the military to operate domestically in France, like some third world coup country.
Now it doesn't seem to have been such a good idea to put all those reactors on the border of the country, where people can cross over without presenting any papers. (Schengen)
For lots of them, drones can be easily operated from neighboring countries.
"...millions of muslims in their country?"
It's a small thing called 'Constitution'. Also, half of Africa speaks French for some reason you can't remember, I'm sure.
The real enemy of France is the government
It is the government of France which has allowed unabated invasion of the Moslems into the country
Most of those Moslem that immigrated to France are from former French colonies, what is to say that they are from countries that France invaded first.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
It doesn't make Islamic neo-colonialism right.
Hi Eric Z, how are you today?
They have been Muslims in France for a while. Algeria was part of France as soon as 1830, for example.
The USA etc. would not be in the Middle East for oil (stirring up resistance) if we had a nuclear-based economy (including hot or cold fusion, too). So, if everyone had built (safer) nukes in the 1950s and later, our global geo-politics might have been much different. The USA would have never aligned itself with Saudi Arabia, propping up a repressive regime (to get oil profits, especially for Bush-related families), and stirring up a lot of resistance (most of the 9/11/2001 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and unhappy with their own country as far as the USA's involvement in it).
In James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear", his fictional Chironian society, based on nuclear fusion, is a society with an abundance world view, where there are a lot less crazy conflicts from people butting into other people's lives in order to gain "profits" and material wealth. In theory, a big shift to (better) nuclear in the 1960s could have produced such a society here -- if "too cheap to meter" had come true through better research and a focus on nuclear plants designed to produce energy safely and not be part of a nuclear weapons program. For example, there is the Thorium cycle which is somewhat safer, but the USA did not pursue that as it is harder to make bombs out of that.
I discuss another version of that here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...
"Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?"
Still, your point remains insightful, and people have been saying similar things for decades. That is why, for now, I think solar and other renewables are the way to go. Much more decentralization is made possible by the current form of renewable compared to the current form of nuclear energy (big plants). Decentralization is much more compatible with distributed wealth (and a smaller rich/poor divide) which seems essential for a democracy. And with solar energy following an almost Moore's law like drop in price for a certain level of performance, it is finally reaching grid parity, and with new high speed printing technologies, as well as maybe paint-on versions and such, solar will likely be dirt cheap in another two decades. The storage issue is also being solved by better batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and such.
However, if we had "Mr. Fusion" (like if Rossi's "cold fusion" LENR eCat or similar really worked), then I might feel differently given some downsides to scaling-up solar (like blocking light for green plant growth).
Still, back to current reality -- France is now admitting the risks first hand of the current approach to nuclear energy -- that you essentially need a police state to go with conventional nuclear energy because the risks of a meltdown cause by terrorists is just to high. Chernobl shows what is possible -- and that was in a remote area. mage such a melt down in the middle of Western Europe. Horrible. But that "cost" from the risk of intentional terror attacks was not factored into the original political calculations of whether to build big nuclear plants. -- even though people raised it at the time and since!
However, even with fairly conventional nuclear, there are other alternatives like Hyperion/Gen4 which are small nuclear "batteries" which could power a town and be trucked back and forth to a factory for replenishment every thirty years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
"Gen4 Energy, Inc (formerly Hyperion Power Generation, Inc.[1]) is a privately held corporation formed to construct and sell several designs of relatively small (70 MW thermal, 25 MW electric) nuclear reactors, which they claim will be modular, inexpensive, inher
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Typo: "mage such a" should be "Imagine such a"
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Call it an "enhanced security zone" staffed by well-trained, well-armed civilians with broad arrest- and secret-court prosecutorial powers which report to a newly-created cabinet level post. How do you say "Department of homeland nuclear security" in French?
--
Disclaimer: This is supposed to be funny. Anything that amounts to a huge government power-grab at the expense of its citizens' and legal residents' basic freedoms whether it's called a military force or a "civilian" force scares me and it should scare you as well.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Lets say you've a memory more than a week and you remember Fukushima and Chernobyl and then want to protest Nuclear Energy for safety reasons, and/or you want different green energy.
Now you're arrested, and no safety of civilian courts. FUN!
The US should also have a sizable military force surrounding our reactors. It is one way that terrorists could cause major harm that persists for centuries. Some of the terror loonies are sick enough to try to put a reactor into meltdown. And the retaliation from the US against nations known to harbor terrorists would be severe and perhaps nuclear in nature. My premiss is that terrorism can only harm Islam and followers of Islam. They probably know that but reason that there is a line in the sand that will trigger retaliation and as long as their attacks are low grade they can continue using terror tactics. That may be a very foolish belief as the US or Israel can get a bit crazy at times and any hostile actions may be received and great retaliation applied. One example is the US invasion of Iraq as Iraq was not the source of the 9/11 attacks nor did they have stockpiles of weapons of mass distruction. Who knows what nation we might crush if a reactor was sabotaged in the US?
"It doesn't make Islamic neo-colonialism right."
They just came home to 'the old country'.
A nuclear power plant is a strategical target, not a terror target. A terrorist group would most likely attack "human" based targets as opposed to industrial or strategical. That is not to say they wouldn't attack it, their attacks are more likely to occur in highly populated areas. The group (as fly-overs have occurred at several sites on the same day) responsible would most likely be state sponsored or a commercial rival.