Good on Transparency

July 24, 2008 in objecting, speaking
Tags: areva, asn, france, lauvergeon, nuclear, radiation, transparency, tricastin

Here’s a good one on transparency:
“If each time we actually are transparent we get such fearful reactions, then we’ve got a problem.” (Anne Lauvergeon, Areva’s CEO, speaking at a press conference after Tricastin’s nuclear leak, reported in “Réactions en chaîne après l’incident du Tricastin”, Libération, July 19 2008)
And here’s this blog’s humble contribution to Lauvergeon’s [...]

Leak and Reminder

July 17, 2008 in explaining, objecting, politicizing, testing
Tags: andra, areva, asn, cea, criirad, france, military, nuclear, politics, radiation, radioactivity, risk, socatri, tricastin, uranium

Water is not good around the Tricastin nuclear power site in France since early July’s uranium leak (see “Uranium leak in southern France”, International Herald Tribune, July 8 2008). The concentration of uranium is now getting close to normal. But some bizarre stuff is still going on. Unusual concentrations have been detected in some spots. [...]

A Better Banker

July 15, 2008 in capitalizing, politicizing, speaking
Tags: finance, spanish, banking, money, botín, santander, euromoney, speech, utterance, advice, youth, cantabria, business

Check the accent of tomorrow’s finance here. It’s the video message from Banco Santander’s chairman Emilio Botín, broadcast at the Euromoney Awards, in which he praises his bank’s way of going “unaffected by toxic instruments”. A quote (but better listen):
“If you don’t fully understand an instrument, don’t buy it. If you would not buy [...]

More Business for Privatization

July 10, 2008 in economizing, objecting
Tags: administration, bbc, blair, brown, hutton, industry, labour, money, outsourcing, performance, peston, privatization, public, services, state, taxes, uk, wonga

Robert Peston blogs here about a document leaked from the UK government (authored by DeAnne Julius, commissioned by John Hutton) in which it is said that the outsourcing of public services is not bad but good because it has created a fantastic industry with great export expectations. Preston is right in being sarcastic about [...]

Atomic Urge

July 4, 2008 in capitalizing, economizing, explaining, pricing
Tags: areva, edf, electricity, energy, epr, finance, flamanville, france, gdf, grenelle, nuclear, power, reactor, sarkozy, suez

The mystery of Sarkozy’s atomic urge continues. Now France is going to get its second EPR (third generation pressurized water reactor), Sarkozy announced yesterday (see “France to build second new-generation nuclear reactor”, International Herald Tribune, July 3 2008, and “Nicolas Sarkozy confirme la construction en France d’un deuxième réacteur EPR”, Le Monde, July 3 2008).
Interesting. [...]