No Fracking in France

Anyone who expects the French to fall in line with conventional thinking on energy (or on anything, really) grossly misunderstands these people.  Part of what attracts me to their culture is that they couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thinks of them.

In the decades that spawned whole generations of nuclear energy protesters all over the world with their “no nukes” signs, France was building nuclear plants so fast that, at one recent point, 78% of its electricity came from this source.

Now, I’m happy to report, they’re going in a different direction, but it won’t be natural gas – or at least domestically extracted gas from fracking.  According to this article, yesterday, France’s constitutional court upheld a ban on fracking, saying the measure legitimately protects the environment from the damaging effects of blasting water and chemicals deep into the earth. France first banned fracking in 2011, despite pressure from the gas industry.