By Joseph Romm  Just when you thought it was safe to build  45 new nuclear plants by 2030 as John McCain wants , comes  this word  from France's Independent Commission on Research and Information on Radiocactivity (CRIIRAD):        "In less than 15 days, the CRIIRAD has been informed of four malfunctions in four nuclear plants, leading to the accidental contamination of 126 workers," CRIIRAD head Corinne Castanier told Reuters in an interview ...        But the conservative francophile  said  last year,      If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can't we?      McCain seems to forget we are a much, much larger country than France.  Heck, we already have more nuclear reactors than they do.  To achieve McCain's goal, we'd need  500 to 700+ new nuclear reactors  plus five to seven Yucca mountains, at a cost of some $4 trillion.  Not to mention the soaring electricity bills Americans would have to suffer through, with electricity from new nukes projected at some $0.15 a kilowatt hour -- some 50 percent higher than current national rates -- not even counting transmission (or reprocessing).      The only thing scarier than the radioactivity hazard of nuclear power is the  economic   hazard .    But wait, you say, where in fact will McCain store all of his radioactive waste -- assuming he doesn't plan to ask plant workers to toss it out the car window?  Don't worry, yesterday he reiterated his desire to be like the French and  reprocess, reprocess, reprocess :          But the Arizona senator repeated that Yucca Mountain should be approved only  if it can meet all environmental requirements.  And the reprocessing of spent  nuclear fuel, as is now done in France, must be part of the equation , he  said.      Let's put aside the 10 percent to 20 percent price increase reprocessing would add to the price of  nuclear power -- 1.5 cents to 3 cents per kilowatt hour on top of the 15 cents projected for new nukes.      Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel -- extracting the plutonium and running it in special reactor -- is just a bad idea, as detailed in the recent  Scientific American   article , "Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth," by former Clinton science adviser and Princeton nuclear physicist Frank N. von Hippel.  Von Hippel is one of the country's top experts on the subject, and he explains the three big flaws of reprocessing:         "Recycling plutonium reduces the waste problem only minimally";    "Extraction and processing cost much more than the new fuel is worth"; and       Separated plutonium can be used to make nuclear bombs if it gets into the wrong hands, which means that a lot of effort has to be expended to "keep it secure until it is once more a part of spent fuel."       But forget the facts -- who doesn't want to be like the French when it comes to nuclear power?  Other than, maybe, the French nuclear workers:      On Wednesday alone, some 100 staff at the nuclear power plant of Tricastin in  southeastern France were contaminated with low doses of radiation.  The incident followed another on July 7 at the same site, which shook public  confidence in the safety of France's nuclear industry ...    The French nuclear safety body, ASN, said that in 2007, less than a 100  nuclear workers had been contaminated by radiation in France,  where 80 percent  of power is produced by atomic energy.      Oh, well, then, as long as its under a 100 nuclear workers contaminated, why should anybody care?     This post was created for  ClimateProgress.org , a project of the  Center for American Progress Action Fund .