Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs).
This is scaremongering.
You stopped halfway through in your reasoning: a PWR reactor is less prone to reactor meltdown than an RBMK one, AND the consequences would be different.
Because there's no graphite, there would be no fire, then the radioactive dust cloud would be almost nonexistent. What would happen instead would probably be a Fukushima-like scenario, where tons of contaminated water would end up in the environment. But this time, the environment wouldn't be the gigantic Pacific Ocean, but the Seine river… which crosses Paris and is a major supplier of freshwater for the whole urban area.
You really don't want a catastrophic failure at Nogent!
(You'd have the same issue with CNPE du Bugey and the city of Lyon btw).
So even the need to discharge contamination in the Seine wouldn't matter that much. It would forbid some uses of the Seine for a few months.
Containment pools can be readily dug to contain discharge until activity levels decay and to dilute the discharge.
These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
It's still not handled in Fukushima yet… And because of that, Fukushima is higher than Chernobyl in terms of radioactive material released in the environment…
> The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent.
What?
> These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
This is probably why some people won't ever trust nuclear: the feeling of invulnerability conveyed by some nuclear enthusiasts, is just scary.
I'm long on nuclear, I moved from Paris to the middle of nowhere because my wife is working at the local powerplant, I studied nuclear engineering myself in engineering school and even considered it as a career (but I eventually chose software engineering instead). And let me tell you: this argument “These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process” is bullshit. The plant was designed, then after some bad experience (France and worldwide) security was improved, then computer simulation improved and they discovered other failure possibilities and improved the security again. Then, Fukushima happened, and they discovered huge holes in security (especially when you lose all power supply AND all water supply, which wasn't a scenario deemed plausible before) and they improved security yet again (they created the FARN to have a dedicated emergency response agency, in case everybody else is busy as hell with other issues, and they added new bunkerized and elevated diesel generators to ensure the power is never fully lost).
But we cannot be 100% sure we have everything covered now, and I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if another catastrophic event occurred in the next twenty years somewhere in the world. (And if it happens in France, I'm ready to bet this will be caused by fire, because French safety standards regarding fires are waaay behind UK ones.
In fact, even Fukushima there were human (stupid) mistakes:
- the levee was too low, and the regulator told TEPCO they needed to improve it (which they didn't). Interestingly enough, the exact same issue (too small levee, leading to loss of all power and water supply) happened in France in CPNE du Blayais in 1999, and in this case also the regulator told EDF that their levee was too low, with no reaction…
- a valve was automatically closed (which is the standard behavior in case of shutdown) but the Japanese operators weren't aware of this behavior, so they believed the valve was still open. When they realized it, it was too late. Opening this valve would have given several hours more of cooling water to the reactor, which could have been enough to save it because help came only a little too late.
Main takeaway: humans are going to do stupid things, which in case of nuclear will eventually lead to a disaster every once in a while. The question raised by the article, is “how much of a disaster is it really” and “do we really need to evacuate a entire region when things like this happen”.
If the answer is “yes” (which is what's commonly accepted) then nuclear is probably too risky to be reasonable (for instance, if CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated).
But if the answer is “no”, and the actual risk from contamination (not irradiation actually…) is actually comparable or even lower than regular air pollution or other pollutants, then maybe nuclear is fine, even if we admit that dramatic events will inevitably occur.