On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:41:42 -0500, dpb wrote:

Paul M. Eldridge wrote:
...
Nuclear is a complex and in many ways unforgiving technology. Let me
just say I hope the French have better luck that we Canadians.

It certainly seems as though they are doing quite nicely (and have for
30-some years, so far)... (1)

It is certainly _possible_ for some latent design or material problem to
arise, but seems a pretty farfetched hypothesis on which to base future
energy policy after the accumulated operating reactor-years in the base
pool (particularly when add in that of essentially equivalent designs
throughout the rest of the west).

For large baseload generation (ie, non-load-following), it's hard to
conceive a better solution in hand outside the wishful thinking crowd's
suggestions.

(1) Of course, a modern coal-fired plant isn't exactly trivial
technology, either!

Well, bear in mind this is the same country that brought us the
Renault, Peugeot and Citroën. =:0

And with that your honour, I rest my case. ;-)

Cheers,
Paul "That would be MISTER MOPAR to YOU" Eldridge