Dialogue: Arrogant French nuclear firm trying to polish grubby image

Sponsorship of an America's Cup boat by a French nuclear energy company is just a cynical bid for acceptance, writes BUNNY McDIARMID*.

As far back as I can remember, someone has climbed into a boat or on to a surfboard to promote the idea of New Zealand being nuclear free.

Sailors, kayakers and surfers of the 1970s and 80s protesting against visits by nuclear-armed and powered ships entering our harbours were instrumental in gaining our nuclear-free legislation in 1986.

And it was intrepid New Zealanders time and again sailing halfway across the Pacific in the middle of winter to protest against the French nuclear testing programme at Mururoa that contributed to its end in 1996.

As recently as last year, a flotilla of New Zealand and Australian boats took to sea again to protest against the transport of plutonium through the Tasman Sea and the Pacific.

You would be forgiven for thinking that sailing and being anti-nuclear go together in Godzone.

So you have to wonder why the French nuclear company Areva would think that sponsoring the French entry into the America's Cup would go unnoticed or unchallenged. And this is not just any old nuclear company. Sure, Areva is a new name but it is still the same dirty nuclear business.

This is the company that is majority owned by the French Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw Mururoa and continues to develop France's nuclear weapons today.

An Areva company produces plutonium - the deadly part of nuclear weapons - which is then shipped from France to Japan, past our shores despite opposition and concern from many countries, including New Zealand.

And it is that same industry that pumps millions of litres of radioactive discharge into the sea off France every year.

Areva says it is just a power company and that the answer to the world's climate change problem is nuclear energy because nuclear reactors don't produce carbon dioxide like a coal-fired power plant does.

Dr Ron Smith, of Waikato University, is quick to add that using nuclear power in north-east Asia would also avoid burning up to 100 million tonnes of oil a year.

But replacing one set of problems with another does not solve the problem; it just replaces it.

And this is well recognised internationally. In the Climate Treaty itself, despite furious lobbying by the nuclear industry, nuclear power is not part of the clean development mechanism - the means by which developing countries can gain access to non-polluting technologies.

Well, guess why their technology did not make the grade? It's because it is so polluting. The long-lived, often highly radioactive waste produced at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle makes nuclear power unsustainable.

Every country that has nuclear power has a nuclear waste problem for which it has been unable to find an acceptable solution. Even those countries considered to be technologically advanced, such as the United States, face billions of dollars in clean-ups for dumpsites inadequately designed or monitored.

Asia, it is true, is seen by the nuclear industry as its growth market as there have been next to no new reactors built in Europe or the US for the past 20 years. Why? Probably because of the growing public unease with safety issues, the increasing piles of nuclear waste and a growing sense of awareness that energy needs to be renewable and environmentally sustainable.

So why is Areva choosing the America's Cup for its sponsorship deal? Why take the risk that people will blow your cover and expose you as polluters of the oceans? It smacks of the same arrogance with which the French secret service in 1985 came to this little backwater in the Pacific and sank a peaceful protest boat thinking we wouldn't find them out.

But mainly, the answer lies in the hard times the plutonium reprocessing industry is experiencing worldwide and the growing international unease with the plutonium transport and stockpiles around the world.

A major sailing event must have looked like the ideal chance to spruce up a tarnished image and promote the business as clean by association.

Well, we say no way. By all means we welcome a French entry, but certainly not at the cost of allowing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous industries to promote its business.

From the sound of it a good part of the sailing community in France is none too happy about Areva's sponsorship of the America's Cup either.

The sailing community has just lost one of its great ocean and racing skippers in Sir Peter Blake, a man who in his later life redirected his sailing to advance the cause of protecting the oceans.

Early last year, when the New Zealand flotilla of boats was preparing to head out to the Tasman to protest the plutonium shipment by an Areva company, we approached Sir Peter for a message of support.

He said: "You have my full support in principle and I thoroughly agree with a stand being made to protect the oceans from what will, given time, cause a catastrophe of unheard of proportions.

"There is no doubt in my mind that it will only be a case of time before one of these vessels has a problem [as with oil tankers] and dumps a load into the sea."

Sailors here and in France are clearly telling Areva to keep our oceans and the America's Cup nuclear free. But are they listening?

* Bunny McDiarmid is a spokeswoman for Greenpeace.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup