Gaspard d’Allens, Pierre Bonneau and Cécile Guillard (drawings),
Threshold, The comic book review, 2020, 152 pages, € 18.90
—
This comic retraces the history of the fight against the Cigéo nuclear waste deep storage center project, in the Meuse, with a very clear bias against this project. Even if the artistic aspects are necessarily very subjective, the drawing is very pleasant and the staging successful and touching. Over the pages, the main stages of the project are presented, from the beginnings of legislation to the occupation of Lejuc wood by anti-Cigéo activists to block construction, and the associated police interventions. In this long and complex history, a meticulous “cherry picking” 1 is carried out, consisting in retaining only those aspects which describe the militants as innocent victims of the nuclear lobby. We are therefore witnessing a “best of” anti-nuclear quotes and press clippings, police blunders and moments glorifying the fight against Cigeo. The damage committed by the militants is only mentioned in the appendix, while the fact that Andra does not claim financial compensation for the damage committed [1] is passed over in silence. From the description of these sometimes violent clashes, it emerges the idea that the struggle has taken on totally disproportionate proportions (ZAD on the one hand, police mobilization and exaggerated surveillance of activists on the other).
Beyond the story of the struggle itself, we also find errors very often widespread among some opponents of the project. First of all, if it is abundantly stated that we should not geologically store this nuclear waste, no solution to manage it is really proposed. Thus, the possibility of surface storage is mentioned several times, but without any analysis of the fact that this would leave a burden on future generations. The message that emerges from this comic is that Cigeo must be blocked in order to block the nuclear industry. However, these are two completely separate objectives. Regardless of whether to continue producing nuclear electricity (or that of nuclear medical isotopes, which also generates waste), this waste already exists and must be managed. The nuclear sector therefore needs a sector for managing its waste, like any industrial sector, if it wishes to continue to develop.
The only technical aspects presented relate only to the risks. Conversely, very comprehensive analyzes [2] and [3] concluding that the radiological impact on the surface will be much lower than the natural radioactivity are not mentioned.
Another biased representation, it is very poetically explained that it is impossible to keep the memory over a hundred thousand years to inform future generations of the storage, as if it were an important point. However, once the site is closed, the safety of the repository is passive, which means that there is no action to be taken, or even no need to transmit long-term memory. The project is designed with the objective that our descendants can live normally above without special precautions, in perfect safety. The fact that after a few centuries the radioactivity of the waste will have been divided by ten (disappearance of fission products whose half-life is less than ten years), correspondingly reducing their dangerousness, or that the radioelements which have the longest lifetimes are also the least mobile in the soil, will not be discussed either.
“Nuclear waste is not a technical problem”, the authors wrongly conclude. However, this waste already exists, is a problem, and only science and technology can make it possible to rid future generations of it. Moreover, to deny that it is a technical problem is to deny the possibility of a technical solution. 2.
It is therefore a militant, interesting book on the history of the project, to be read as a plea against the project, but terribly insufficient to give a complete overview of the subject. To get a fairer idea from a scientific and technical point of view, it would be necessary to hear the opposite pleading (to be sought by visiting the Andra website for example), or better, to obtain information directly from competent sources such as ASN [2] or IRSN [3]. For a less truncated presentation of the political controversy, we can consult the debates of the National Assembly.
1 | ANDRA press release of 24 October 2017.
2 | Project owner’s file for the public debate on the national radioactive materials and waste management plan – Sheet n ° 7: Long-term impact of a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste.
3 | IRSN, “IRSN opinion on the 2005 Argile file”, DSU report n ° 106.
1 In rhetoric, “cherry picking” consists of putting forward facts or data that give credence to one’s opinion, while ignoring all the cases that contradict it.
–
2 See the dossier “Radioactive waste management”, SPS n ° 323, January 2018.
—
–
