Nuclear irony finds French power company ads in Nevada

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 | 6:59 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A French nuclear power company's flashy new advertising campaign promoting new U.S. nuclear power plants has popped up, strangely, in Nevada.

Nevermind that the state would not likely be home to any of Areva's "cleaner, safer, more efficient" power plants of the future and all that bountiful new electricity. But Nevada could be home to the waste.

The Paris-based company Areva, which recently formed a partnership with the firm Constellation Energy with the goal of building a new generation of U.S. plants, launched the $6.5 million advertising campaign in June. National television commercials, newspaper and news magazine advertisements are scheduled to run through November.

The 30-second television commercial zips the viewer along on an animated tour of how nuclear plants work, beginning with the mining of uranium ore for the reactor core fuel rods and ending with a shiny new nuclear plant, set by a blue stream, powering the skyscrapers of a modern city.

Of course, in Nevada, people know that the nuclear power generation cycle doesn't end quite there. It ends with highly radioactive waste coming out of those nuclear reactors. And for now, the nation's plan to deal with the deadly material is to dump it at Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- for permanent burial.

An Areva spokeswoman acknowledged that there was an irony to her company's commercials airing in Nevada.

"I can see where you are coming from," Areva spokeswoman Penny Phelps said said with a laugh, "but we couldn't cut out the airwaves to omit Nevada."