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French naval defence specialists are planning to build a number of small underwater nuclear power plants. The central reactor, dubbed Flexblue, will be erected in Cherbourg (northeast France) and the first prototype will be ready by 2013. It will be activated some three or four years later.

Developed as part of a joint project with Areva, world leaders in nuclear energy, electrics company EDF and the Commission for Atomic Energy, the Flexblue is a mini reactor. Cylindrical in shape, it is 100m long with a diameter of between 12-15m and contains a steam turbine alienator and electrical equipment connected to a central power station.

Once installed on the seabed, the mini reactor would be capable of generating electricity bound for coastal towns and islands with up to 300 Megawatts of power. It could also store energy for towns of between 100,000 and 1 million inhabitants.

Although the project is still under review, DCNS predicts it will sell around 200 reactors over the next twenty years which will doubtless mean Flexblue posing a new front for anti-nuclear agents.

While the Director General of DCNS, Patrick Boisier, has assured that Flexblue uses safe technology, ecological associations have wasted no time in highlighting the dangers. According to Greenpeace, nothing has been finalised on a technical level or in terms of safety.

Should there be a nuclear accident "the sea will be destroyed," says the President of Anti-nuclear organisation Crilan, based in Cherbourg, the planned site of the Flexblue. "The fierce warming-up of the water will cause a massive thermal shock that will destroy sea life."

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