August 7, 1984 Tuesday
BYLINE: DAVID MARSH; FT
LENGTH: 410 words
By DAVID MARSH
A potentially explosive nuclear energy controversy is simmering between
Paris and Washington over the world's largest fast-breeder reactor.
France's 1,200-megawatt Superphenix is being built with participation
from five other European countries at Creys-Malville near Lyons and is due
to come on stream early next year.
Disagreement surrounds the possible use of the fast breeder as a means
to produce weapons-grade plutonium for France's nuclear strike forces,
which are being modernized and upgraded as a key part of the Socialist
government's defence program.
French officials say the Government refuses to rule out the use of
Superphenix plutonium in the making of nuclear weapons although there are
no such plans at present.
According to State Department officials in Washington, the matter is
"not an issue." But the U.S. Government will be keeping a close watch for
any signs of military use of Superphenix, which Washington believes would
contravene 25-year-old uranium supply agreements between the United States
and the EEC and could theoretically trigger a suspension of nuclear co-
operation between the United States and Europe.
The possible use of Superphenix to help produce nuclear warheads as
well as electricity would tie in with a long-standing pattern of
intermingled civil and military use of some of France's nuclear
facilities.
As with the first three countries to explode nuclear bombs, the United
States, the Soviet Union and Britain, France's civil nuclear industry -
now the second largest in the world - was built up after the war as a by-
product of military programs.
But military use of Superphenix - which has been hinted at by members
of the French nuclear establishment over the past decade - would cause
unprecedented complications because of the international nature of the
project.
It would certainly run into strong opposition among the European non- nuclear weapon states, the electrical utilities of which are helping to finance Superphenix. Apart from Electricite de France with 51 per cent, other shareholders in the project are Italian state-owned Ente Nazionale per l'Energia Elettrica (ENEL) with 33 per cent, West Germany's biggest utility, Rheinisch Westfaelisches Elektrizitaetswerk (RWE) with 11 per cent, Belgian and Dutch electricity producers, and Britain's Central Electricity Generating Board with a small indirect stake of about 1 per cent. Financial Times
