FLAMANVILLE (France): On a strip of France’s Channel coast cranes, trucks and cement silos are hard at work preparing the world’s most powerful nuclear reactor and showcase of French atomic savoir-faire.

In two months, workers in Flamanville will pour the first concrete for the third-generation EPR, or European Pressurized Reactor, touted as the safest and cleanest addition to France’s network of 58 nuclear reactors.

With more than 80 per cent of its electricity generated by nuclear plants, France sees itself as a model for successfully putting the atom at work toward producing carbon-free and relatively cheap power.

More than two decades after Chernobyl shook the world’s faith in nuclear power, France is vying to lead a worldwide revival of the nuclear industry as worries about global warming and rising energy prices have brought fission back into fashion.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has described nuclear power as the “energy of the future,” stood up at the UN last month and delivered what was tantamount to a sales pitch for French nuclear technology.

“France is willing to help any country which wants to acquire civilian nuclear power. An energy source for the future should not be the preserve of western countries and out of reach of eastern countries,” Sarkozy declared.

Such promotion at the top world body is music to the ears of France’s nuclear conglomerate Areva which builds reactors, mines uranium and provides fuel as well as utilities giant Electricite de France, which operates France’s nuclear plants.

“We have been running nuclear power plants for 30 years in France and there have been no major incidents,” said Goulven Graillat, the head of industrial strategy at EDF.

“We have 4,000 engineers working on designs — that’s our strength.” said Graillat. Vietnam, along with Morocco, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates are on the list of prospective new buyers of French-designed nuclear reactors, said Arthur de Montalembert, vice president for international affairs and marketing at Areva.

Areva is preparing for big business in the US where it has partnered with Constellation Energy to build some of the 15 planned new reactors, in China, which wants to put 40 new reactors on-line by 2020, and in South Africa.

It is building a third-generation EPR in Finland, upgrading a German-designed reactor in Brazil and is actively seeking a stake in reviving Britain’s outdated nuclear infrastructure in a venture with EDF.

India is also on the list of prospective new markets where “dozens of reactors” could dot the landscape in the coming years, said Montalembert.—AFP