Received this in an email:
Areva is a nuclear power company – this make me wonder ? about the success or otherwise of this project. Having played a role in Friends of the Earth in Qld in trying to stop uranium mining in the Qld and nuclear power plants in general in the 1970s/80s I saw that the nuclear industry did not have and still does not have a clean political record just like the coal lobby.
So
1. Is it really a nuclear power company wanting to engage in truly clean technologies and keep the nuclear reaction (the SUN) at a safe distance and divest itself of all future current and planned nuclear plant? Hopefully yes.
2. Is it political / economic opportunism that says that ” Nukes are in strife now and we have to diversify?” Still a good thing as solar thermal is likely to become cheaper than any form of nuclear plant very soon.
3. Or is it a conspiracy theorists dream that Areva will take over solar thermal discredit it and shut the industry down?
I think the first two are more probable particularly 2. But it makes you wonder?