http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-brazil-corruption-nuclear-idUSKCN0Q425O20150730

Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30pm EDT
Brazil nuclear leader's arrest may stymie its atomic ambitions
RIO DE JANEIRO | By Jeb Blount

The arrest of the longtime head of Brazil's nuclear energy utility on corruption charges could disrupt a plan to revive Brazilian nuclear ambitions whose roots go back to its atomic-bomb program in the 1980s.

Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, a retired admiral, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly taking 4.5 million reais ($1.35 million) in bribes from engineering firms working on the long-delayed Angra 3 nuclear power plant.

While its constitution commits Brazil to the peaceful use of atomic power, Pinheiro, 76, has for three decades been a central player in plans to finish Angra 3, build eight additional reactors and even a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

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"The industry was already in crisis, but now the corruption concerns are bound to delay Angra 3 further and cause costs to rise even more."

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-30/top-french-official-contradicts-kerry-on-iran-deal

Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal
12 Jul 30, 2015 1:52 PM EDT
By Josh Rogin

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The French official, Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.”

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He told them that if U.S. sanctions were kept in place, it would effectively prevent the West from doing extensive business in Iran. “I asked him specifically what the Europeans would do, and his comment was that the way the U.S. sanctions are set in, he didn’t see an entity or a country going against them, that the risk was too high,” Sanchez said.

Audibert also wasn’t happy with some of the terms of the deal itself, according to Sanchez and Turner. He said he though it should have been negotiated to last forever, not start to expire in as few as 10 years. He also said he didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program. He also expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/27/us-nuclear-future-france-idUSKBN0NI1WJ20150427

Next-generation nuclear reactors may not be safer: French watchdog
PARIS | By Geert De Clercq
Mon Apr 27, 2015 1:17pm EDT

The next generation of nuclear reactors being developed in countries such as France, Russia, China and Japan may not be safer than those being built today, French nuclear safety watchdog IRSN said on Monday.

In a study of six future reactor designs being worked on by the U.S.-led "Generation IV International Forum", the IRSN said only the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) model was far enough along in the development process to envisage building a prototype during the first half of this century.

But it could not say whether it would be safer than models currently being built for service.

"While it seems possible for SFR technology to guarantee a safety level at least equivalent to that targeted by generation III pressurised-water reactors, IRSN is unable to determine whether it could significantly exceed this level," it said.

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The agency also questioned the degree to which the reactor would be able to burn up "actinides", among the most dangerous by-products of nuclear fission.

4G advocates argue that SFRs would reduce the amount of nuclear waste and the need for deep storage, but the IRSN said this feature offered "only a very slight advantage", which would not be the deciding factor in the choice of future reactors.

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