France24 - Sarkozy urges international finance for nuclear energy - 0 views
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France urged international financial bodies to fund a new era of global nuclear power on Monday and pitched its own reactor technology as the model to follow. Welcoming delegates from 60 energy-hungry nations to a conference in Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy said civil nuclear power had been unfairly passed over for World Bank development loans.
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He called on world and regional financial bodies to finance new nuclear projects in developing countries, and announced that France would set up an international institute to promote atomic technology. "I can't understand why nuclear power is ostracised by international finance, it's the stuff of scandal," he said, urging the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others to do more.
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"I have decided to change up a gear by creating an International Institute of Nuclear Energy that will include an international nuclear school," he said. He said the French school would become the heart of an international network of institutes, beginning with a centre in Jordan. "Other centres of nuclear training will be developed with French support, such as the Franco-Chinese nuclear energy institute, in cooperation with the University of Guangzhou," he said. France has the world's second largest nuclear sector and generates a greater proportion its own electricity through nuclear power than any other economy -- around 75 percent of its needs. It has also made the export of nuclear technology an economic priority.
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French engineering giants Areva and EDF are promoting the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), a third-generation reactor design that France considers the most advanced in the world. But the French firms recently lost out on a 20 billion dollar (14 billion euro) contract to supply four reactors to the United Arab Emirates after South Korean firm Kepco came in with a lower offer. "Today, the market only ranks designs on the basis of price," Sarkozy complained, calling on the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency to establish a classification system to rate reactor safety.