China

China

In China, there are two storage facilities for intermediate-level waste and a centralized facility for high-level waste. A geological disposal repository for high-level waste will start operation in 2050 at the earliest.

Reprocessing
When China started to develop nuclear power, a 'closed fuel cycle' strategy was formulated and declared at an International Atomic Energy Agency conference in 1987: at-reactor storage; away-from-reactor storage; and reprocessing. China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)  has drafted a state regulation on civil spent fuel treatment as the basis for a long-term government program. There is a levy of CNY 2.6 cents/kWh on used fuel, to pay for its management, reprocessing, and the eventual disposal of HLW.(*01)

China began construction of a multi-purpose reprocessing pilot plant at Lanzhou nuclear complex in July 1997. This project was approved in July 1986 and began receiving spent fuels from Daya Bay reactors in September 2004. The plant is fully operational.

Moreover, a commercial reprocessing plant (800 tHM/a) is planned to be in commission around 2020 at the Lanzhou Nuclear Complex, and site selection has already begun.(*02) However, as of December 2009, no final agreement had been reached between China and France on the transfer of the relevant technologies; the plant construction appears to remain on hold.(*03)

Interim storage and final disposal
In the 1980’s, radioactive waste disposal work was initiated in China. The former Ministry of Nuclear Industry (MNI) subsidiary Science and Technology Committee set up a panel of radioactive waste treatment and disposal. The siting of solid LILW disposal site began in the 1980’s and was implemented under the auspice of the former Ministry of Nuclear Industry. Industrial-scale disposal of low- and intermediate-level wastes is at two sites, near Yumen in northwest Gansu province, and at the Beilong repository in Guangdong province, near the Daya Bay nuclear plant. These are the first two of five planned regional low- and intermediate-level waste disposal facilities.(*04)

A centralized used fuel storage facility has been built at Lanzhou Nuclear Fuel Complex, 25 km northeast of Lanzhou in central Gansu province. The initial stage of that project has a storage capacity of 550 tons and could be doubled.(*05) However, most used fuel is stored at reactor sites. New Chinese plant designs include on-site spent fuel storage with a capacity of 20 years worth of spent fuel.(*06)

Although most of China’s nuclear power plants are located in the more populated eastern regions, storage facilities are located in the far west. This policy is likely aimed at avoiding local opposition to locating these facilities near populated areas, signaling at least a marginal impact that public opinion might have on Chinese policies.

However, as one Chinese nuclear expert observed, unlike democratic systems where public opinion holds significant sway, the decision of the Chinese government is really “the only decisive factor for spent fuel management in China.”(*07) Since 2003, the spent fuel from two nuclear power plants in the southeastern province of Guangdong has been shipped to the Gansu facility – a distance of about 4000 kilometers. This is consistent with CNNC policy to ship spent fuel by rail to centralized storage facilities for interim storage and reprocessing.(*08)

In 1985, CNNC worked out an R&D program for the deep geological disposal of high/level waste. The preliminary repository concept is a shaft-tunnel model, located in saturated zones in granite.(*09)

Site selection and evaluation has been under way since then and is focused on three candidate locations in the Beishan area of Gansu province and will be completed by 2020. All are in granite. An underground research laboratory will then be built 2015-20 and operate for 20 years. The third step is to construct the final repository from 2040 and to carry out demonstration disposal. Acceptance of high-level wastes into a national repository is anticipated from 2050.(*10)

The regulatory authorities of high-level radioactive waste disposal projects are Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). The China Atomic Energy Agency (CAEA) is in charge of the project control and financial management. CNNC deals with implementation, and four CNNC subsidiaries are key players: Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology (BRIUG) handles site investigation and evaluation, engineered barrier study and performance analyses, with the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) undertaking radionuclide migration studies. The China Institute for Radiation Protection (CIRP) is responsible for safety assessment, and the China Nuclear Power Engineering Company (CNPE) works on engineering design.(*11)

Czech Republic

State-owned utility CEZ is fully responsible for storage and management of its spent fuel until it is handed over to the state organization SURAO (RAWRA in English: Radioactive Waste Repository Authority), founded on 1 June 1997.(*01) Eventual provision of a high-level waste repository is the responsibility of RAWRA. Most of low and intermediate level waste is stored on site or moved to the near-surface repository in operation at Dukovany.(*02)

Long-term interim storage
The concept preferred at the moment is the long-term interim storage of spent fuel in container interim storage facilities at the sites of the nuclear power plants at Temelin and Dukovany. Problem concerning this is that the spent fuel must be stored in an interim storage facility for a very long period of time, because the final disposal in a repository is only planned after 2065. The condition of the nuclear waste or the level of the hazard potential of the waste at that stage is unforeseeable.(*03)

In agreement with the Policy for radioactive waste and spent fuel management of 2002 the Czech Republic anticipates to develop a national deep geological repository in magmatic crystallytic rocks (granites or homogenous gneiss massifs) after 2050 and it should start operation in 2065.

The program of the repository development started back in 1992 (in the first year jointly with the Slovak Republic). Thirty potential locations were gradually identified, of which 12 potential locations were selected with varied geological conditions and diverse host rocks. The first geological survey was performed on six locations with granitic massifs in 2003 – 2005, without utilization of surface survey methods, and areas were selected for future prospecting stage of the geological survey. The works were suspended in 2005 due to public resistance.(*04) On 17 December 2009 “as a gesture of goodwill”, RAWRA announced that it will make it possible for communities to claim a financial compensation for geological research work of potentially CZK 100 million in total.(*05)

On November 25, 2010 a working group for dialogue was established to “strengthen the transparency of the process of selection a suitable site for a deep geological repository of spent nuclear fuel and high level waste, with respect to the public interests and to facilitate the active participation of the public and the communities in particular in the related decision-making process.”(*06)

Based on results of the completed stage of negotiations with the general public the Administration anticipates the start of surveying works start gradually after “negotiations with the general public are completed" and “only if the affected municipalities get involved on a voluntary basis in the selection process of the future deep geological repository location.”(*07) One possible site is at Skalka in southern Moravia. In the late 1990s, this site was considered for a centralized used fuel interim storage facility as an alternative to the Temelin storage facility and to the storage capacity expansion at Dukovany (beyond the 600 t facility).(*08)

Finland

In 1994, the Nuclear Energy Act came into force, according to which all nuclear waste must be treated, stored and disposed of in Finland. Before that some of the spent fuel was sent to Russia.(*01) Posiva Oy is responsible for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. It is established in 1995 by TVO and Fortum, two owners of nuclear power plants.(*02) Storage of spent fuel takes place on site until the final repository is finished. Finland hopes to begin with final disposal in granite around 2020-2025.

Onkalo
Preparations for the disposal of high level radioactive waste began in the late 1970s.(*03) In 1985, 102 potential sites were listed and in 1987 reduced to five for further research. This resulted in detailed site investigation at four sites from 1992 on, two of them at the Loviisa and Olkiluoto nuclear power plants. For all sites an environmental impact assessment was carried out and in May 1999, Posiva Oy proposed for a permit for the disposal at Olkiluoto in the municipality of Eurajoki. Local consent was highest in Olkiluoto and Loviisa, but at Olkiluoto a larger area was reserved for the repository and a larger part of the spent fuel was already stored there.

In January 2000 the town council of Eurajoki accepted the repository, followed by approval by the government and parliament in May 2001. In Finland the same disposal concept is applied as in Sweden.(*04) The construction application will be submitted in 2012, and operating license application in 2018. Posiva Oy expects that the first cannisters will go down in 2020 and final disposal will end in 2112. Around 2120, the repository is finally closed and sealed.(*05)

Construction of an underground rock characterization facility (called Onkalo) started in 2004. This will later become (part of) the final repository.(*06)

In May 2010 it was found that the time schedule might not be met. The Finnish TV showed that there is still much research to be done before the application for the permit (scheduled end of 2012) can take place. The Director of the Research Department of Posiva Oy, Juhani Vira, stated his willingness to request the permit at a later date.(*07)

However, in the planned facility will not have enough space for the spent fuel from the already approved nuclear reactor at Pyhäjoki. In October 2011, TVO and Fortum stated that the repository could not safely be expanded to accommodate used fuel from Fennovoima's planned plant.(*08) In March 2012, Despite pressure from the government to make a deal, Posiva Oy maintains that it could not be extended any further without compromising its long-term safety.(*09)

Because Finland has the same disposal concept as Sweden, there is the same criticism on the stability of the granite and on the use of copper. Dr. Johan Swahn, Director of the Swedish NGO office for nuclear waste review, wrote in December 2009: “There is no way that anyone can honestly claim that Posiva has a completed robust safety case. The Posiva safety case has not been developed independently, but relies entirely on the Swedish safety case work. The final test of the Swedish safety case will not be done until the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority gives an approval of the safety analysis…This will not be the case before 2013-2014.” “Already now there is concern from the authority about the barrier systems of copper and clay. It is not clear if all relevant copper corrosion processes are known and the risk for clay erosion is still not understood. So an approval is not at all certain. And nothing can today be claimed to be robust."(*10)

In 2010, the Swedish geologist Nils-Axel Mörner noted that there are many horizontal and vertical fractures around the planned repository. According to Mörner the safety is therefore not proven.(*11)

Geology Professor Matti Saarnisto, former Secretary-General of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, told in June 2010 Parliament that “an exaggeratedly positive image has been presented of the integrity of the structure of Olkiluoto’s bedrock”. He warns that a honeycomb of storage sites extending over an area of several square kilometres will weaken the bedrock, making it vulnerable to earthquakes, and that during an ice age permafrost could spread deep into the rock, potentially rupturing the canisters and releasing radioactivity into the groundwater.(*12)

“The matter of fact is that to some extent all of the research institutes involved are suffering from a hostage syndrome. They see it as essential that spent fuel be disposed of at Olkiluoto, because it has been planned that way for decades. There is no scientific basis for it,” Saarnisto said in 2009.(*13)

France

As in almost all countries, in France, the storage of radioactive waste is controversial. Pressure groups believe the storage of high-level radioactive waste in clay, planned at Bure from 2025 at the earliest, is in violation of the legislation of the government, because there is only one underground laboratory and a 1991 law requires at least two. All spent fuel is reprocessed in La Hague. France dumped low- and intermediate level waste in sea twice, from 1967-1969.(*01)

LLW
Low-level radioactive waste was stored at the above-ground site CSM (Centre de Stockage de la Manche) from 1969 till 1994. In 1996, the government-appointed commission 'Turpin' concluded that the site also contains long-living and higher radioactive waste and that the inventory was not exactly known. The commission also found that radioactivity from the site is leaking into the environment. It however concluded that dismantling and reconditioning the waste would cost too much and might generate a significant risk to the workers involved.(*02)

ANDRA is currently operating two disposal facilities: one for short-lived low-level and intermediate-level waste (CSFMA) and the other for very-low-level waste (CSTFA), both situated in the Aube district.(*03)

The 2006 Planning Act calls for the commissioning by 2013 of a storage facility for low-level long-lived wastes. The opening of this new sub-surface (15 m to 100 m depth) facility has been seriously delayed, to at least 2019, by massive protests in the areas considered as possible sites. ANDRA launched a public call to 3,115 communities in 2008 for volunteers to host the facility. Forty-one applied for consideration and, in June 2009, the government selected two small villages both in the Aube department that already houses the two operating disposal facilities for short-lived wastes. But both communities withdrew “under the pressure of the opponents.”(*04) Currently, the project is suspended and ANDRA and the government are looking for a new approach. Pending the creation of a suitable disposal facility, existing LLW-LL waste is stored at the production sites or in facilities which have traditionally used radioactive applications.

ILW-LL and HLW
Pending the commissioning of a deep repository, intermediate-level, long-lived waste (ILW-LL) and high-level waste is stored at their production sites, mainly La Hague, Marcoule and Cadarache.

In 1979, the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency ANDRA was established to manage and provide storage of nuclear waste. From 1987 to 1990 field study was conducted but protest against four test drilling forced the government to stop research and develop new policy.(*05) In 1991 parliament passed the Nuclear Waste Act, which regulated the new policy. The law is meant as a legal instrument for the creation of underground research laboratories, where studies will be conducted in potential host formations, at least at two locations and a best site will be chosen in 2006. It clearly prohibits the actual storage of nuclear waste in these laboratories. For this a new law had to be adopted after 2006.(*06)

Shortly thereafter ANDRA began with research in three new locations, which met fierce resistance. The French government stopped the investigation and wanted to consult the population. The government contracted for this reference Christian Bataille, then a member of parliament and undisguised supporter of nuclear power.(*07) In his search for a department that wanted to host an underground laboratory he spoke with people from different locations, elected officials and associations, but that did not lead to a broad support. Sometimes the disposal plans caused big splits in small local communities. In 1994, this disagreement was the reason why the mayor Michel Faudry from the potential host community Chatain in the department of Vienne committed suicide.(*08)

On January 6 1994, after the consultations Bataille chose three candidate departments for the underground high-level waste laboratories: Meuse, Gard, Haute-Marne and Vienne. Whether that laboratory is converted into a HLW-repository is a choice that will be made later. If a permit for the construction of an underground lab is given, the host community receives a compensation of €10 million per year during construction and operation of the laboratory.(*09)

Local groups were very dissatisfied with the state of affairs. In December 1997, the Conseil d'Etat rejected a complaint laid down in 1994 by residents of Meuse and Vienne on the Bataille mission. They stated that there had never been a real involvement of the affected population, as required by law. With this decision the Conseil d'Etat did not follow the advice of the so-called government commissioner, who agreed with the plaintiffs.(*10) Elected officials near Bure organized a nation-wide committee of elected officials opposed to underground labs.(*11) Associations of winegrowers in several area's (Cotes-du-Rhone and Roussillon) fear that their sales market will collapse if a nuclear waste repository is constructed in their neighborhood.(*12)

In 1997, in response to the protests, the French government decided to commission the National Assessment Commission (CNE) to study retrievability.(*13) CNE, a group that reviews progress on HLW management for government and parliament, published its report 'Thoughts on retrievability' in June 1998. CNE proposes retrievable storage (for TRU waste: non-heat-generating transuranic wastes) be licensed for relatively short periods – 50 years - to ensure that a decision must be taken on a regular base on whether or not the facility should be kept open. It also recommends long-term interim storage for spent fuel on the grounds that the fuel contains valuable energy products.(*14) In August 1999, the government authorized ANDRA to start work on an underground waste lab in a clay formation in Bure and to begin the process of finding a second site in granite. The Bure license would expire at 31 December 2006 by which time the parliament has to decide whether to transform the Bure site into a repository.(*15)

In December 1998 the departments Gard en Vienne were considered unsuitable because of geological reasons. The French government okay'd the waste lab at Bure in clay, but called for a new granite site.(*16)

Before the end of 2006 the government had to find a way out of a tough situation. The Nuclear Waste Act from 1991 required that at least two research laboratories should have been established, from which - following similar research - a choice had to be made. But there is only one underground laboratory: Bure.

Many environmental groups think that the government and ANDRA therefor do not comply with the law. In a December 2009 email Markus Pflüger of the anti-nuclear group Stop Bure in Trier (Germany) emphasized that again.(*17) But he also points at the fact that geological fault lines in the subsurface of Bure are denied by ANDRA: and, according to Pflüger, these fault lines are definitely a safety risk.

In June 2006 Planning Act was published.(*18) Besides 'optimizing repository concepts' and complete experimental program with technological demonstrations, it states that all operators of nuclear installations must estimate the future costs for the management of their spent fuel, decommissioning operations and the management of radioactive waste, and must allocate “the required assets to the coverage of those provisions.”

Commercial reprocessing, although originally introduced to obtain plutonium fuel for starting up fast-neutron reactors, is now clearly established as the national policy for spent-fuel management. A disposal facility for long-lived intermediate and high-level wastes is required to be in operation by 2025. No license shall be granted, however, “if the reversibility of such a facility is not guaranteed.” While the conditions of reversibility will be defined in a subsequent law, its minimum duration is one hundred years.

The license for the underground research laboratory in Bure (officially called LSMHM URL, often Bure is not even referred to) was initially until the end of 2006, but was extended on 23 December 2006 by the Government until the end of 2011. Therefore ANDRA has filed an application to renew it until 2030. The public inquiry was held from October 26 to November 30 and the licensing decree was granted on December 20, 2011.(*19) By making retrievability compulsory and to commission longer research, the French Government is circumventing the 1991 Nuclear Waste Act.

In early 2012 ANDRA signed a six-year contract with Gaiya as main contractor to project manage the conceptual and front-end phases of the Centre Industriel de Stockage Géologique project, dubbed “Cigeo”. The first conceptual study phase is to be conducted in 2012 and will lead on to a public consultation that will take place in 2013. The storage facility will be developed on a depth of 500 meters, and will exploit the properties of the Bure clay formation as a “geologic barrier to prevent any potential spread of radioactivity”. Although Cigeo will be designed to accommodate the wastes permanently, French law requires that storage can be reversible for at least 100 years.(*20)

References:

China
*01- World Nuclear Association: China's Nuclear Fuel Cycle, March 2012
*02- Hui Zhang: On China’s Commercial Reprocessing Policy, paper presented at the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management 50th Annual Meeting, Tucson, Arizona, July 12-16, 2009
*03- Nucleonics Week: EDF, AREVA Finalize Joint Ventures with Chinese Nuclear Companies, 24 December 2009
*04- People's Republic of China: National Report for Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, September, 2008, p.13
*05- World Nuclear Association, March 2012
*06- Yun Zhou: China spent fuel management and reprocessing, Working paper, March 2011
*07- Qiang Wang, China Needing a Cautious Approach to Nuclear Power Strategy, Energy Policy, Vol. 37 (2009)
*08- Nuclear Fuel: CNNC Favors Remote Site for Future Reprocessing Plant, 7 April 2008
*09- Ju Wang: High-level radioactive waste disposal in China, update 2010, Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. 2010, 2 (1): 1–11
*10- Zheng Hualing and Ye Guo’an: The Status and Prospect of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Back–End in China, paper presented at the Atalante 2000 Conference on Scientific Research on the Back-End of the Fuel Cycle for the 21st Century, October 2000. p.9
*11- People's Republic of China, September, 2008, p.34-38

Czech Republic
*01- RAWRA: Basic Information, Company website
*02- Wolfgang Neumann, Nuclear Waste Management in the EU, October 2010, p. 38-40
*03- Wolfgang Neumann, October 2010
*04- Czech Republic: National Report under the Joint Convention on Safety in Spent Fuel Management and Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, March 2011, p.90
*05 -RAWRA: Government moratorium ends; RAWRA intends to resume repository siting research, Press release 17 December 2009
*06- RAWRA: Working Group for Transparency of the Site Selection Process of a Deep Geological Repository was established in the Czech Republic, Press release 26 November 2010
*07- Czech Republic, March 2011, p.91
*08- World Nuclear Association: Nuclear Power in Czech Republic, March 2012

Finland
*01- Nuclear Monitor, Russian import of spent fuel imports stalled, 16 July 2004
*02- Posiva Oy: company website, visited 6 April 2012
*03- Posiva Oy Selecting the Site: the Final Disposal at Olkiluoto, company website, April 2012
*04- Mark Elam en Göran Sundqvist: The Swedish KBS project: a last word in nuclear fuel safety prepares to conquer the world?, In: Journal of Risk Research, Volume 12 Issue 7 & 8 2009, December 2009, p. 969–988
*05- Posiva Oy, General Time Schedule for Final Disposal, website, April 2012
*06- NEA/OECD, Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning in Finland, 2011
*07- YLE (Finnish TV), 19 April 2010 and 25 May 2010.
*08- YLE: Posiva: No room for Fennovoima waste in nuclear cave, 4 October 2011
*09- World Nuclear News: No room at the repository, 9 March 2012. www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-No_room_at_the_repository-0903127.html
*10-  Swahn quoted in: House of Commons: Memorandum submitted by the Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates to UK Parliament, January 2010
*11- Mainpost: Endlager in Bergstollen statt unter der Erde (Repository in mountain tunnels, in stead of underground), 25 February 2011
*12- YLE: Posiva: No room for Fennovoima waste in nuclear cave, 4 October 2011
*13- IceNews: Finland set to become long-term nuclear waste dump, 29 August 2009

France
*01- IAEA: Inventory of radioactive waste disposals at sea, IAEA-Tecdoc-1105, August 1999
*02- Greenpeace: Nuclear Waste Management: The lesson from the CSM disposal site, 30 May 2006
*03- ANDRA: The French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency, May 2010, p.3
*04- International Panel on Fissile Materials: Managing spent fuel from nuclear reactors, 2011, p.38
*05- Yannick Barthe: Framing nuclear waste as a political issue in France, in: Journal of Risk Research, Volume 12 Issue 7 & 8 2009, p.941 – 954, December 2009.  *06- Republique Francaise: Law no.91-1318 of December 30, 1991 on Radioactive Waste Management, 30 December 1991, French version and English translation.
*07- Nuclear Fuel: French waste negotiator takes up Pilgrim's staff, 18 January 1993, p.14-15
*08- Nuclear Fuel, Citing pressure, Mayor of potential HLW laboratory site commits suicide, 31 January 1994, p 5 en 6.
*09- Nuclear Fuel: France okays work on HLW lab sites, ending four year stay, 17 January 1994, p 15-16
*10- Nuclear Fuel: French court rejects request aimed at halting search for waste labs, 29 December 1997, p.9-10
*11- Nuclear Fuel: Eastern Mayors fight to keep ANDRA from building waste labs, 22 September 1997, p.10
*12- Nucleonics Week: French localities' vote vary on nuclear waste lab siting, 24 April 1997, p. 13-14
*13- Nuclear Fuel: French government gives itself a year to decide on waste labs, 22 September 1997, p. 8-9
*14- Nuclear Fuel: French committee signals shift in approach to long-term storage, 13 July 1998, p. 11-12
*15- Nuclear Fuel: ANDRA gets license for waste lab, court challenge from Greens, 23 August 1999, p.14-15
*16- Nuclear Fuel: French ministers okay waste lab at Bure but call for new granite site, 14 December 1998, p.3-4
*17- Email Markus Pflüger to Herman Damveld, 5 December 2009.
*18- Republique Francaise: The 2006 Programme Act on the Sustainable Management of Radioactive Materials and Wastes, 28 June 2006
*19- ANDRA, ASN, CEA, IRSN: Radioactive Waste Management Programmes in OECD/NEA Countries: France, March 2012, p.16
*20- World Nuclear News, Next phase for French geological disposal, 5 January 2012

The Canadian government of Stephen Harper has chosen to override the qualms of the government's non-proliferation experts to permit a multibillion-dollar business in exports of Saskatchewan uranium to China's nuclear industry. A deal the Prime Minister announced in China on February 9, a protocol amending Canada's nuclear co-operation agreement with China to allow the export of uranium concentrate, seals far closer ties with Beijing than ever seemed possible in Mr. Harper's early days in power.

Canada may be seen as playing an important role in undermining the precarious nuclear non-proliferation regime -- one that has been in danger of coming unraveled for decades because of the hypocritical double standard that is at the heart of the regime. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) makes a sharp distinction between "Nuclear Weapons States" and "Non-Nuclear Weapons States".  The Treaty is frankly discriminatory and imposes different obligations on the two "types" of nations. The "nuclear have-nots" are required to submit to international inspections of all their nuclear facilities and must promise never to use nuclear technology or nuclear materials for weapons purposes.  These requirements do not apply to the official "nuclear have" nations designated as only five in number: the USA, Russia, Britain, France, and China.

However, Article 6 of the NPT requires that Nuclear Weapons States act in good faith to eliminate their nuclear arsenals as soon as possible. This obligation has been upheld by the World Court as a legal requirement that is binding on the Nuclear Weapons States. Yet they continue to ignore it.

Any country that acquires nuclear weapons in the absence of or in defiance of the NPT -- Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, for example -- are not supposed to exist.  And they are not supposed to receive nuclear assistance, nuclear facilities, or nuclear materials from nations who have signed the NPT. But Canada has resumed nuclear cooperation and trade with India despite the fact that India developed nuclear weapons using Canadian technology initially and has not signed the NPT. And Canada is now willing to sell uranium to Nuclear Weapons States like China.

The deal with Beijing has raised concerns in Ottawa, because it includes less stringent accounting for how the uranium is used than Canada typically demands, sources said. When Australia made a similar deal with China in 2008 that included less accountability, it faced criticism from other uranium suppliers, including Canada. China insisted on getting the same sort of accounting requirements for Canadian exports that it got from Australia. As well as using uranium for other purposes, it also has military nuclear programs, which are not subject to accounting or inspection.

The message seems to be that business concerns are, for the self-styled "Harper government", far more important than nuclear non-proliferation objectives. If Canada were determined to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, she would refuse to sell uranium to any nation that maintains a nuclear arsenal unless that nation formally renounces nuclear weapons and works overtly for the total elimination of such weapons of mass destruction. For even if Canadian uranium is only used for civilian purposes, it surely frees up other uranium so it that can be used in nuclear weapons -- uranium that would otherwise have to be used as fuel for nuclear reactors.

Source: Globe & Mail, 10 February 2012 / Gordon Edwards, email 11 February 2012
Contact: Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. c.p. 236, Station Snowdon, Montréal QC, H3X 3T4 Canada
Email: ccnr[at]web.net
Web: www.ccnr.org

China denies nuclear accident reports.
China has denied reports that it was forced to shut down its newest nuclear reactor last year after an incident. A report from Japan's Atomic Energy Agency said the China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) stopped generating electricity in October following an accident. The incident sparked alarm in Japan and South Korea over the prospect of radiation leaking from the CEFR. According to a Tokyo newspaper, which cited the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency's investigation, those fears were intensified by Beijing's failure to report the accident or release details of what happened. But Wan Gang, the director of the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE), denied there had been an accident or any cover-up and also refuted the allegations of poor safety. "CEFR hasn't been operating since July last year so reports that an accident occurred in the autumn are extremely inconsistent with the facts," Gang told Chinese media. But that again, is not in line with reports sofar. On July 21, 2011, exactly one year after achieving first criticality, the head of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Sun Qin, declared that the unit had successfully achieved grid connection.

CEFR is a fourth-generation reactor and China's first fast reactor. The sodium-cooled, pool-type fast reactor has been constructed with some Russian assistance at the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIEA), near Beijing, which undertakes fundamental research on nuclear science and technology. The reactor has a thermal capacity of 65 MW and can produce 20 MW in electrical power.
World Nuclear News, 21 July 2011 / Telegraph (UK), 27 January 2012 / NewsTrackIndia.com, 28 January 2012

Germany: site selection HLW repository after 2019. 
Under a new plan, agreed on by the national government and federal states, the Gorleben salt dome in Lower Saxony would be a reference site for the site selection of a spent fuel disposal facility. The plan does not rule out using Gorleben but also says no decision has been made to use the site. The scientific study of the site, Germany’s only existing candidate for a high-level nuclear waste repository, was halted under a moratorium 2000. The moratorium was lifted 2010 years after the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, or Bfs, filed an application to resume studies and prolong Gorleben’s operating license through September 2020.

Under the new plan, the first step will be the development of the legal and regulatory framework which is scheduled to be completed in mid-2012. The plan calls for development of safety requirements and determination of what types of geologic formations might be used for waste disposal, between mid-2012 and mid-2013. They could include salt domes and mines, clay and crystalline rock, according to the plan. Hydrological parameters will also be set. By mid-2013, the German parliament is scheduled to put the criteria into a federal law governing repository development. The authorities involved in site selection will have until mid-2014 to identify potential sites and until the end of 2014 to select candidate sites. Surface studies are planned through the end of 2019. After that, underground studies will be done and a site will be chosen, although the plan does not specify a date for that decision. Construction and commissioning approvals are to be issued after 2019.
Nuclear Fuel, 26 December 2012

Africans and the Global Uranium Trade.
A new book to be published early March 2012 and written by Gabrielle Hecht: Being Nuclear: Africans and the global uranium trade. Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2002, George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" (later specified as the infamous "yellowcake from Niger"). Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? In this book, Gabrielle Hecht lucidly probes the question of what it means for something--a state, an object, an industry, a workplace--to be "nuclear."

Hecht shows that questions about being nuclear--a state that she calls "nuclearity"--lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between "developing nations" (often former colonies) and "nuclear powers" (often former colonizers). Nuclearity, she says, is not a straightforward scientific classification but a contested technopolitical one.

Hecht follows uranium's path out of Africa and describes the invention of the global uranium market. She then enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? With this book, Hecht is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa. Doing so, she remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.

Gabrielle Hecht is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II and editor of Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War, both published by the MIT Press. Hardcover: 440 pages, published by MIT Press (expected on 2 March, 2012). ISBN: 978-0262017268

'Worst scenario' on Fukushima crisis kept under wraps.
Japan's nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono has said ‘the worst scenario’ on development of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima complex, which was compiled two weeks after the crisis began, was shared only by a few lawmakers, including then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, due to fears it might cause confusion among the public. "The scenario was not a possibility in fact. If it had been made public at that time, it was likely that no one would have remained in Tokyo," Hosono was quoted as saying by Kyodo News. "It would have caused trouble regarding the government's handling of the nuclear crisis," he said.
Asian Age, 30 January 2012

Finland’s English-language news desk, YLE , has obtained evidence of problems in the construction of a nuclear power plant being built in China by Areva. The French company is building a reactor of the same model as Finland's Olkiluoto, which has experienced similar shortcomings. Meanwhile, costs of Olkiluoto are now estimated at 6.6 billion euro. The price mentioned (and decided on) in Finnish Parliament was 2,5 billion euro, the initial contract for Olkiluoto 3 was 3 billion euro.

The first two European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) construction projects at Olkiluoto and in Flamanville, France, have been plagued by problems. Now it turns out that there have been similar setbacks with another EPR project, a double reactor in Taishan, southern China, near Hong Kong. YLE has obtained inspection reports from China's National Nuclear Safety Administration based on visits in 2009, as construction was beginning there. The results are familiar to observers of the Finnish and French ventures.

When building work began on the new, third reactor at Olkiluoto, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) detected quality-control shortcomings in areas such as concrete pouring. In 2005 and 2006, it also found that some subcontractors were inexperienced, documentation was incomplete and that there were linguistic difficulties among the workforce, 80 percent of whom are foreigners. Four years later, the list of problems at Taishan is very similar: concrete quality problems, unqualified or inexperienced subcontractors, shortcomings in documentation and language problems.

Areva has not learned from its mistakes, according to Greenpeace. "There seem to be serious ongoing problems in the company's safety culture," says Greenpeace energy specialist Jehki Härkönen. "This is their third such project, and exactly the same mistakes are being made as in the past."

STUK, the Finnish nuclear safety watchdog, declines to draw conclusions about Areva based on the Chinese report, as Areva is just a subcontractor in Taishan. However when STUK was shown the report by YLE, it immediately requested further details from the Chinese. STUK Director Petteri Tiippana says that the allegations are serious. "If there are insufficient language skills, there can be problems," he told YLE. "If builders are not qualified, it can lead to shortcomings in quality. The Chinese authorities are drawing attention to exactly the right issues."The success of Areva's projects is a crucial question in Finland, as it is one of the main contenders to build the planned Fennovoima reactor in Pyhäjoki.

Further delays Olkiluoto
Finnish nuclear company Teollisuuden voima (TVO) announced officially that the Olkiluoto 3 EPR cannot achieve grid connection before 2014. At that point, OL3 would be five years late from the original four year planned construction time and it would have taken twelve years years from gaining license to operation. However, further delays are still possible.

TVO cites problems with the I&C system as the main reason and delays with wiring and piping as secondary reasons.

Areva has yet to comment on the issue. On October 10 CEO Luc Oursel was still boasting his plan to build new nukes in Finland. TVO has asked Areva to come up with new timeline for finishing the project. The delay announcements are usually followed by increased cost estimates, which currently is at 5.9 billion euros. And indeed, on October 12, the French daily Les Echos was citing a report stating the costs for Areva are expected to 6.6 billion euro (US$ 9.1 billion).

But this number can still be an underestimation of the real price considering the evidence that cheap labour is being employed at the construction site. At worst, some Polish workers are paid less than two euros an hour. The roughly 250 euro monthly salary is printed on pay slips obtained by YLE. The Finnish Electrical Workers' Union says this is not an isolated case, but TVO says it has no evidence of pay irregularities. But it plans to look into its subcontractors. The Finnish Construction Trade Union previously voiced concerns regarding subcontracting chains at Olkiluoto that are difficult to trace.

Areva appealed to the Finnish utility firm TVO for "intense cooperation and mutual commitment" during the testing phase for Okliuoto 3. In a statement it said that commissioning the reactor would require "significant efforts from all parties" after TVO earlier on the same day (Oct. 12) blamed Areva for further delays to the construction of the nuclear plant.

Source: YLE (www.yle.fi), 23 September & 11 October 2011 / Jehki Härkönen, climate & energy campaigner Greenpeace Nordic, Helsinki, Finland, 12 October 2011 / Reuters, 12 October 2011
Contact: Jehki Harkonen, Greenpeace Finland.
Email: jehki.harkonen[at]greenpeace.org

Philippines may rechannel its nuclear budget.
The Philippines government is considering rechannelling the US$100 million budget allotted to its nuclear energy development programme in the light of the Fukushima disaster. "Since the budget has been approved, the Department of Energy is currently studying what to do next. Whether we push through or delay or use the budget for more urgent matters. We are in discussion internally," Energy undersecretary Jay Layug has been quoted as saying. He noted that at this stage the country doesn't have any plans for nuclear other than to study it as an option. At the moment, he said, the DoE would be focusing on renewable energy development. "Renewable energy is the priority right now and not nuclear, we're looking at additional capacities through coal and natural gas plants," he said.

Nuclear Engineering International, News 22 July 2011

Chinese experimental fast reactor connected to grid.
On July 21, exactly one year after achieving first criticality, the head of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), declared that the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor's (CEFR's) had successfully achieved grid connection. The sodium-cooled, pool-type fast reactor has been constructed with some Russian assistance at the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIEA), near Beijing, which undertakes fundamental research on nuclear science and technology. The reactor has a thermal capacity of 65 MW and can produce 20 MW in electrical power. The CEFR was built by Russia's OKBM Afrikantov in collaboration with OKB Gidropress, NIKIET and Kurchatov Institute. The unit was connected to the grid at 40% capacity.

Beyond the pilot plant, China once planned a 600 MWe commercial scale version by 2020 and a 1500 MWe version in 2030 but these ambitious ideas have been overtaken by the import of ready-developed Russian designs. In October 2009, an agreement was signed by CIAE and China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) with AtomStroyExport to start pre-project and design works for a commercial nuclear power plant with two BN-800 reactors with construction to start in August 2011, probably at a coastal site (well, if they don't know that by now, the chance of starting constructing next month –August- is not that high).

In April 2010, a joint venture company was established for the construction of China's first commercial-scale fast neutron reactor, near the inland city of Sanming in Fujian province. The joint venture - Sanming Nuclear Power Co Ltd - was established by CNNC, Fujian Investment and Development Corp and the municipal government of Sanming city. CNNC holds a majority stake in the venture.

World Nuclear News, 21 July 2011

U.S.–India: quarrel on liability law.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recommended that India "engage" with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure the nation's civilian atomic liability law "fully conforms" with international accords, The Hindu newspaper reported July 19. Indian government sources said they would reject any hint that the domestic rule must be modified on the recommendation of the IAEA. The Vienna, Austria-based organization does not have the authority to make such recommendations, they said. India holds that its nuclear liability regulations are in compliance with the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, though the United States contends the law allows a scope of actions that the convention does not.

New Delhi's law limits nuclear reactor operator financial culpability following an atomic accident to roughly US$320 million and allows lawsuits against suppliers of nuclear materials, technology and services. Officials in New Delhi insist the international convention cannot prohibit Indian courts from permitting private lawsuits to be filed by individuals injured in a nuclear incident.

The liability law has led a number of U.S. nuclear firms to reconsider their initial enthusiasm for engaging in atomic commerce with energy-hungry India following the signing of a 2008 agreement between Washington and New Delhi. The Indian government wants to see its liability law enacted before the end of 2011.
Global Security Newswire, 20 July 2011

Canada, Saskatchewan: 820 km walk to ban nuclear waste storage.
Native / First Nations people in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, one of the big uranium mining areas of the world, are organizing a 820-km-march from the small Northern community of Pinehouse to the capital of the province, Regina, beginning on July 27, 2011.

They are, besides raising awareness about the issue of nuclear waste and its dangers, collecting signatures for a petition to the Provincial Government to ban nuclear waste and its transportation in the province. This petition can only be signed by Saskatchewan residents (thus, it is not attached).

The First Nations and Metis / Native People are working together with environmentalist groups etc. from Southern Saskatchewan, i.e. Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan; there, you can find all details and documents re: the March, the petition etc.:  www.cleangreensask.ca

Contact: Committee for Future Generations, P.O. Box 155, Beauval, Saskatchewan, S0M 0G0 Canada
Email: committeeforfuturegenerations@gmail.com

Walk away from uranium mining. Footprints for Peace, an international grassroots group that organises walks, bike rides and runs around the world, invites families and people of all ages, background and cultures to come and support traditional owners in their opposition to uranium mining in Western Australia by taking part in the “Walk away from uranium mining” that begins in Wiluna on August 19 and finishes in Perth on October 28. "We will demonstrate that we have the choice to walk away from this costly, toxic industry — which produces radioactive waste and weapons usable material — in favour of renewable energy options." Footprints for Peace are working together with the Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA) to organise this grassroots awareness-raising and action-based campaign. Everyone is welcome to join the walk for a few hours, a day, a few weeks or the whole way. Even if you cannot walk we still require financial assistance, drivers, kitchen crew members, media liaison volunteers, video operators and photographers, musicians, artists, singers and general support for daily events, such as camp set up and pack up, food shopping and water collection. The walkers will cover a distance of 20 to 25 kilometres a day, with a rest day every five days……… The walk’s conclusion in Perth will coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. There we will deliver our well-supported and strong message that it is time to shut down the nuclear industry’s plans to expand in Western Australia and the rest of Australia.

For more information please visit: http://nuclearfreefuture.com/
GreenLeft (Aus.) 23 July 2011

New EU rules for nuclear waste open the door to dumping in Russia.
On July 19, European countries agreed to develop plans to address the ever-growing problem of nuclear waste. However, the EU also agreed to continue the dangerous practice of transporting radioactive material across great distances to storage plants outside EU borders.

EU ministers rubber stamped new rules obliging governments to publish plans by 2015 detailing their preferred options to store or reprocess radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. Some countries that generate nuclear waste, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Spain, had so far been reluctant to put together comprehensive plans.

Despite pressure from the European Commission to block exports, the new rules will allow Hungary and Bulgaria, countries that currently have agreements for the export of nuclear waste to Russia, to continue transferring radioactive material.

Greenpeace EU nuclear policy adviser Jan Haverkamp said: “European governments have adopted an out of sight, out of mind approach to radioactive waste, but all they are doing is dumping the long-term problem on someone else and putting Europeans at risk by allowing dangerous waste convoys. Only countries that face the unsolvable problem of radioactive waste head-on by ending their reliance on nuclear power can stop the vicious circle of waste that shifts responsibility to the next generations.”
Greenpeace press release, 19 July 2011

Sellafield: No prosecutions for organ harvesting.
Recent correspondence has revealed that no one will be prosecuted over the body hacking scandal carried out by the nuclear industry for over 40 years in collusion with government, hospitals, coroners and doctors.

From 1960 to 1991, body parts were taken without consent from 64 former Sellafield workers and 12 workers from nuclear sites in Springfields, Capenhurst, Dounreay and Aldermaston. The liver was removed in all cases and one or both lungs in all but one incident. Vertebrae, sternum, ribs, lymph nodes, spleen, kidneys and fermur were also stripped in the majority of cases. Brains, tongues, hearts and testes were also taken on the advice of the medical officer at Sellafield.

Correspondence from Cumbria Constabulary has been seen which says that despite the findings of the Redfern Inquiry (into the scandal; see Nuclear Monitor 721, 17 December 2010)  that the relationship between the nuclear industry and fellow bodysnatching conspirators was "too close" no one will be prosecuted as it is not "in the public interest".

Extract from a letter sent by ‘Special Operations’ - Cumbria Constabulary: "the issues you raise which I have listed below;
1. That specific people and institutions have breached the Human Tissue Act and that this should be investigated.
2. That an investigation into whether there was any unlawful corruption of the coronial processes had taken place
3. The stipends made to mortuary attendants are also of particular concern.
This was a Government led review which involved both the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Ministry of Justice. As such any requirement on the police to investigate identified breaches as outlined above would be made by the Government. No such request has been made". (end quotation Cumbria Constabulary correspondence)
Well, surprise, surprise: No such request is likely to be made.
http://101-uses-for-a-nuclear-power-station.blogspot.com/2011/07/dodgy-h...

The Fukushima nuclear crisis has had an enormous impact on China. Given its geographical proximity to Japan and with a large Chinese population living and working in Japan, the Chinese government and a great many Chinese citizens have been keeping a close watch on the unfolding events.

On March 16, the Chinese government held a high level State Council meeting to discuss the Japan nuclear crisis and to consider China's own nuclear planning.  At the meeting, the government made three major decisions on nuclear power. Firstly, the government decided to halt its plan to build new nuclear power plants. Secondly, it ordered a re-examination of the safety risks of nuclear power stations currently under construction. Any safety faults discovered will lead to construction being stopped. Thirdly a decision was made to enhance the management of safety aspects of nuclear power stations currently in operation in China.

In a rare stand, the Chinese government indicated that the utmost priority should be attached to nuclear safety. China will also step up its process of drafting nuclear safety planning and adjust its middle and long term nuclear development plan. Any new nuclear plan will be shelved, including preliminary work.

Chinese media nuclear frenzy
Due to the fact that this is a nuclear crisis in Japan, Chinese media were allowed to report freely. Such a rare media freedom for coverage of nuclear issues offers a rare opportunity for Chinese media to introduce concerns over nuclear power and its related hazards and risks. Though some nuclear specialists, indeed most of them, are supportive of nuclear power, were invited to give comments on television programs; as a result, mounting concerns amongst the general public have emerged, largely making clear that they would rather not have nuclear power at all. Other scholars indicated this is a golden opportunity to popularize the issue and to increase knowledge amongst the public on nuclear radiation and safety measures.

The Chinese language newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily also published a map outlining names and locations of all proposed Chinese nuclear plants, plants under construction, and those in operation. This is the first publicly released information on China's nuclear industry and planning. For the first time the Chinese public is able to know about many of these new nuclear plants and their locations. These revelations will surely generate a huge outcry and opposition from the public.

China Dialogue, a bilingual website featuring China environmental and development issues, also published a special series on China's nuclear power, titled China's Nuclear Future.

Caijing magazine also published a special edition on China's nuclear development and reexamined China's nuclear policies and management challenges.

NGO Reactions.
Chinese environmental group Green Earth Volunteers organized a journalist salon which included a briefing from a nuclear safety official Zhao Yamin on China's nuclear development on March 16, 2011. The event drew a large audience. Many journalists and attendants raised sharp questions over China's nuclear power plan and safety measures.

On March 25, the Heinrich Böll Foundation organized a seminar in Beijing, aiming at briefing Chinese journalists on nuclear safety issues.

On April 26, upon the 25 year anniversary of Chernobyl disaster, a local NGO Blue Dalian organized nuclear awareness activities at different campuses in Dalian and an evening candle visual activity to commemorate the tragedy. The activities have drawn official attention from Liaoning provincial government and subsequently, a number of student activists have been interrogated by their respective university authorities on their motivation and social links.

Chinese netizens have also been active in highlighting potential risks of nuclear power plants under construction or planned. For example, netizens in Dalian discovered Hongyanhe nuclear power plant in Liaoning province is built on Tan-Lu fault line. Such facts have not been mentioned before in official documents or public media. (A Netizen -from internet and citizen- or cybercitizen is a person actively involved in online communities).

Internal politics.
While most power companies are state owned, debates on nuclear power exist within Chinese government. Hydropower lobbyist and the like have criticized China nuclear power sector as "falling into a trap of American nuclear sales". They are quick in using Fukushima crisis as new reasoning for more state investment and favorable policies on hydropower sector. 

While investments in nuclear construction are high, local governments in China are strong advocate for their nuclear power projects and often use tactics of hijacking -- that is to ask for more funds, either bank loans or governmental investments, by threatening the loss of initial investment; or to force government to approve their nuclear plans by claiming potential financial loss of preliminary investment.

Source and contact: Wen Bo.
Wen Bo is China advisor of Global Greengrants Fund
Email: wenbo@greengrants.org.cn

Nuclear energy is regarded by Chinese government as an important way to meet the country's growing appetite for energy and as a way to reduce emission of climate change gases. At local level, provincial government officials also believe nuclear energy projects would stimulate local economy.

Wen Bo - One important nuclear development in China is more and more inland nuclear power plants are being planned. Traditionally, the nuclear power plants are being constructed in coastal provinces where energy needs are greater. As Beijing government starts to focus more on economic growth of inland provinces, nuclear industry has been welcomed by local governments. Among these inland provinces with nuclear plant planned, Hunan and Jiangxi are two important uranium-producing provinces.

Nuclear Safety Concerns
Below are a few documented and reported nuclear-related accidents in China:

• Factory No. 404 in Gansu, January 7th, 1969, China's first nuclear reactor, about 70 people exposed to excessive radiation.
• The 300 megawatt Qinshan 1 plant in Zhejiang province was shut down in July, 1998 and left crippled for over 12 month, (source: BBC news report.) According to an interview with a nuclear official, the problem caused bolts holding guide pipes to the main body of the reactor to fall off under strong water pressure.
• On April 6, 2002, Urunima mine No. 794 under China National Nuclear Corporation at Lantian County, Shaanxi province, 12 people died of poisonous gas.
• 274 kg Depleted uranium waste material was illegally smuggled from Kyrgyzstan to Akesu of Xinjiang by three metal waste dealers who were not aware what it was.
• Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station on May 23, 2010, occurred a small leakage at a fuel rod at Unit 2 reactor. A fuel rod leaked traces of radioactive iodine into the surrounding cooling fluid.

Though China has a self-claimed sound nuclear waste storage facility in Northwest Gansu province, nuclear waste transportation over vast Chinese territory still poses potential safety threats. Safety problems over nuclear waste transportation are still being overlooked and the public has no information on these nuclear waste transfers and potential hazardous leaks and impacts.

China Nuclear Safety Bureau Chief Li Ganjie pointed out that China nuclear power development still face problems with lack of qualified experts and technicians, lax operation management and equipment manufacturing. In the light of rapid nuclear power expansion, this would turn into a severe threat towards quality and safety of nuclear power plants.

In China's building construction sector, it was reported that many builders cheated and used less rebar. China nuclear power plant construction is not totally immune to such widespread cheating in building sector. It was reported by apparently individual staff that at Hongheyan Nuclear Power Plant in Liaoning province, after nuclear island foundation excavation, it was discovered in June, 2008, that lowest cemented layer was short of rebar. Local residents near Hongheyan Nuclear Power Plant also reported that some rebars and metals were stolen from the plant's construction site.

Anti-nuclear efforts in China
Victory over Rushan Nuclear Power Plant

Rushan Hongshiding Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong province was first proposed in 2003. At the time, the location for the plant was a remote and sparsely populated coastal region dotted by villages. The place is also adjacent to a beautiful coastal resort called Silver Beach. In the past few years, large number of housing compounds and villas have been constructed. They were mostly purchased by city dwellers around the North China in search of a cheap summer homes or retirement haven, with little or no knowledge of proposed Rushan nuclear power station.

Since 2006, many of these home owners became strong advocates against the proposed project and in 2007, they joined a Beijing-based environmental group Ocean Commune in submitting a petition to State Environmental Protection Agency (now known as Ministry of Environmental Protection) and State Oceanographic Administration. Their argument was to protect the famous Silver Beach from potential destruction and that the area was a more populated community. In addition, they argued the three planned nuclear power stations in Shandong province were too close to each other and investment would be wasted. Due to their persistent efforts, the State Environmental Protection Agency and National Development and Reform Commission did not approve the Rushan project.

While the nuclear power industry is booming, in all the regions where either a nuclear power plant is being built or proposed, local anti-nuclear voices have been raised on websites and internet bulletin boards. However, most of these concerned citizens lack organizations and concrete actions beyond cyberspace.

Corruption in nuclear sector
Kang Rixin, former head of China National Nuclear Corporation was sentenced for life imprisonment in late November. He was charged with accepting bribes of several million dollars from Areva, a French nuclear engineering company for winning bidding of two Guangdong Taishan nuclear reactors in 2007.

Chinese media has widely publicized the arrest of Kang Rixin and subsequent charges and final sentence. Many believe such high profile scandal rocked China's nuclear industry as Kang Rixin was also a member of top level anti-corruption department with Chinese Communist Party.

Though public concern over such high level corruption case has been high, it was viewed as a regular case of governmental anti-corruption drive. Due to the secrecy of the nuclear power plans and deals, the public has yet to relate this case with nuclear safety and potential quality problems.

Road Ahead
Anti-nuclear campaigns are getting momentum and increased media attention in China.

Anti-nuclear campaigns are more likely to succeed if the communities are not limited to nimbyism. There is need to establish a board support base, not limited to one region, against a proposed nuclear power project.

Anti-nuclear efforts need coordination and persistency. Outcries over Internet and media outlets would not generate continuous pressure for possible change of a nuclear power plan. Organized and coordinated actions would provide important opportunities for decision makers who might not be in favor of a nuclear power project and looking for an excuse at the right moment to veto or cancel a nuclear power project.

Though concerns over nuclear safety failure and radiation are legitimate, this concern alone can also easily be bullied aside by repeated assurance from nuclear industries and officials. There is a need to have arguments such as damage to natural and cultural heritage, maintenance of an ecosystem and agricultural production etc.

A nuclear power project would be more likely to be vetoed by decision makers, not due to safety concerns, but over financial security concern. More often, the financial burden and economic bankruptcy become decisive factors for cancellation of a nuclear power project. Thus, anti-nuclear activists need to present a sound and reasonable argument in economical and financial terms.

There is need for broad and basic education on potential nuclear crisis among general public. And a vocal and active campaign to promote renewable energy to replace nuclear power investment are also urgently needed.

Source and contact: Wen Bo, China Coordinator of Global Greengrants Fund
Email: savechinaseas@163.com

Opposition mounting against refitting Gentilly-2.
More than 250 Quebec municipalities and regional municipal governments have banded together to demand the province shut the door on nuclear energy by mothballing Hydro-Quebec's Gentilly-2 nuclear reactor instead of rebuilding it. Copies of a resolution thus far adopted by 255 municipal bodies were presented to three opposition members of the Quebec legislature on September 10 by Mayor Gaetan Ruest of Amqui, Que., who has been spearheading a campaign launched in 2009. The thick stack of identically worded resolutions will be introduced in the full legislature after the assembly reconvenes Sept. 21. Public opinion polls show almost two-thirds of Quebecers are opposed to a plan by Hydro-Quebec to rebuild Gentilly-2.
Ottawa Citizen, 11 September 2010

China: people largely distrustful of the nuclear industry.
It is not any longer a European and North-American problem: now there is a shortage in nuclear professionals for their rapid expansion of nuclear power in China too. According to senior government officials, China's nuclear power industry is demanding more professionals than the country can produce, a potential threat to safety. China has six leading universities that train nuclear specialists. Neither Zhang or Li gave specific figures for the shortage, but an official with the China Nuclear Society estimated the country would need 5,000 to 6,000 professionals annually in the next decade or so, versus a yearly supply now of about 2,000. Li also stressed that "public education was critical because people were largely distrustful of the industry." A lack of professionals has often been identified as a reason that a rapid expansion of nuclear power is unrealistic.
Reuters, 20 September 2010

The Kvanefjeld deposit is eight kilometres inland from the coastal town of Narsaq, near the southern tip of the country. It has a deep water port. Uranium comprises about 20% of the value of minerals able to be produced from Kvanefjeld.
World Nuclear News, 13 September 2010

India: Further delay Kudankulam.
The commissioning of the first unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power project has been put off by a further three months from the previously revised scheduled date of completion. According to Nuclear Power Corporation of India, the first unit is expected to be commissioned in March 2011. Previously, it had mentioned December 2010 as the expected date of commercial operation. The 2,000 MW, two units of 1,000 MW each, nuclear project that is coming up at Kudankuklam, southern Tamil Nadu with Russian technology, reactors and fuel, has suffered a huge delay in commissioning.
The first of the two units was originally supposed to begin commercial operations in December 2007 which means, the project has already slipped by three years and three months. The second unit, initially scheduled to start commercial operations in December 2008, is now expected to go on stream in December 2011.
www.Steelguru.com, 5 September 2010

Spain: blockades after rumors decision waste storage. Spain delays the decision on nuclear storage site after news that the temporary dry-storage facility for high-level radioactive waste would be built in Valencia region revived long term opposition to the plan. According to a spokeswoman for the Valencia autonomous government, Spain's industry ministry announced on September 17 that the facility would be located in Zarra, a municipality in region. But the government was later forced to say it was not a final decision because of strong public opposition, according o statements to the Europe's environmental news and information service ENDS. The industry ministry rejects this interpretation, saying it only informed the regional government that Zarra was "well placed" to house the facility and that the decision would be "discussed" at the September 17 meeting of Spain's council of ministers. A spokesman said the government "hopes to have a decision soon".

Local residents and environmentalists responded to the news by blocking the Valencia-Madrid motorway on Sunday. The Spanish government has been trying to find a site since years. The search has become increasingly urgent since existing localized storage capacity is insufficient for the high-level waste produced in the country.
ENDS, 20 September 2010

U.A.E.: Raising debt to finance nuclear project.
Abu Dhabi is expected to raise debt to finance more than half the cost of its initial US$20 billion nuclear project, defying a warning by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that lenders could shy away from nuclear development. Yukiya Amano, the IAEA director general, said international lenders were “reluctant to support nuclear power projects”, amid a surge of interest in nuclear development by new countries.  Credit Suisse Group AG has been appointed as financial adviser for the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power program, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp. announced. So far no other banks have been appointed as advisers for the project, according to a report in Bloomberg. HSBC Holdings Plc may also be selected to advise state-run Emirates Nuclear Energy, although the bank is yet to be formally appointed for the role, which includes securing debt commitments for the project, Meed.com ('Middle East bussines intelligence since 1957') reported on its website September 15.

No firm plan for the financing exists yet but Abu Dhabi has already accessed debt markets to pay for energy infrastructure such as power plants and pipelines.  But the Abu Dhabi financing could be raised by a combination of export credit, syndicated loans and government bonds, depending on the appetite of global investors after the global recession. Credit Suisse will help develop a financing structure advantageous to Abu Dhabi.

Another way to subsidize nuclear power are export credit agencies. Those agencies from countries supplying the materials and parts are also expected to shoulder part of the financing. This would ease the pressure on Abu Dhabi’s government financing, which is already being funnelled into civic and industrial diversification projects, with a budget deficit forecast this year. Government guarantees on the loans, by contrast, can be a crucial ingredient to a 'successful financing'.
The Nation (UAE), 21 September 2010 / Bloomberg and Meed.com, 15 September 2010

U.K.: The end of the towel controversy. Sellafield's towels controversy is over after a change of heart by management over plans to stop issuing and washing towels used by workers in the 'active' areas of the nuclear site. There had been protests by the site unions who feared contamination could be left on clothing and carried off the site. Sellafield Ltd wanted workers to help cut costs by bringing in their own towels and taking them back home for washing. Towels amount to more than half the site laundry wash load. Management still thinks too many towels are being used but is ready to talk to the unions about other cost-cutting options.
Whitehaven News, 8 September 2010

Bulgaria: beach contaminated by uranium mining.
The sand from the Bulgarian Black coast bay "Vromos" is radioactive and "harmful for beach goers", according to experts from the Environment and Health Ministries. A letter, send to the Governor of the Region of Burgas, Konstantin Grebenarov, asks local authorities to make people aware of the results and place signs warning visitors to not use the beach. The radiation level is twice as high than the norm for the southern Black Sea coast, but the danger is not in the air, rather in the sand which contains uranium and radium. The contamination is coming from the now-closed nearby mine which deposited large amounts of radioactive waste in the bay between 1954 and 1977. The increase of radiation levels in the area over the last three years is attributed to some radioactive waste that has not been completely removed.

In the beginning of August, Grebenarov, already issued an order banning the use of the beach located between the municipalities of the city of Burgas and the town of Sozopol, near the town of Chernomorets. At the time Grebenarov said he made the decision after consulting with experts from the Health Ministry and the Environmental Agency.

The order triggered large-scale protests among hotel and land owners around the bay, saying the order serves business interests and aims at lowering property prices in the area. The Governor says the warning signs, placed at "Vromos," and removed by local owners, but will be mounted again.

During a visit early August to Sozopol, Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, promised the owners to make sure there would be a second measurement, and if it proves the radiation is within the norm, the ban would be lifted. But now it turns out that a separate measurement, done by the Executive Environmental Agency in mid-August, had the same results.
Sofia News Agency, 2 September 2010

Four years ago, the EU, Russia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the US picked Cadarache in the south of France as the location for the experimental nuclear fusion reactor, Iter. But since the science of how to achieve this type of fusion hasn't been settled (to put it mildly), the plans for the Iter project have been the subject of several revisions in recent years, each one leading to an increased price tag. Even opponents from within the scientific world are becoming more vocal to end the project.

Delegates at an extraordinary meeting of the Iter Council on July 28 also agreed a timeline that would see the first plasma experiments in 2019, with a fusion reactor generating significantly more power than it consumed (for a few minutes) by March 2027. But the Iter organisation was encouraged to explore ways to bring this deuterium-tritium operation forward to 2026. After research and development at Iter it should be possible to build a demonstration fusion power plant around 2030.

Coupled with the increases in costs for raw materials like steel and cement, the budget for the project has spiralled from around 5 billion euros to about 16 billion euros.

Delegates agreed that the overall costs of the project will be almost US$21 billion (16 billion euros), some three times the original price. Europe is paying 45% of the construction costs, while the other participants (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are paying 9% each.

Additional construction funds will have to come from within the EU's budget. The extra 1.4 billion euros will cover a shortfall in building costs in 2012-13. The EU has agreed to meet a critical short term shortfall of those 1.4 billion euros by using money that has been allocated to other research programmes. But the EU has said it will cap its overall contribution to Iter at 6.6 billion euros, leaving the fusion project to find cuts in costs of around 600 million euros.

In Europe, some scientists are unhappy with the EU proposal to take funds from unspent budgets to bail Iter out. In France, a group of physicists - including Nobel prize winner Georges Charpak - have written a letter to the press calling Iter a catastrophe and arguing that it should be shut down. They suggest that making up the shortfall in Iter's budget is costing France alone the equivalent of 20 years investment in physics and biology. According to one of the signatories, Professor Jacques Treiner from Paris University, it was time to call a halt to Iter before any more money was spent. "At a certain point especially when they say they will take money from other fields to fund this one you have to say, really a clear answer and the answer is no, don't do that."

More on the technical problems of  nuclear fusion: Fusion Illusions, Nuclear Monitor 698, 27 November 2009

Sources: BBC, 28 July 2010 / World Nuclear News, 29 July 2010

Flamanville-3 two years behind schedule. The construction of the second EPR at Flamville (France) faces the  same problems as the first in Olkiluoto (Finland). Flamanville-3 is now two years behind schedule and at least 1 billion euro (US$ 1.3 billion) over budget, EDF Group announced on 30 July. The company said “the target for beginning marketable output” from the French utility’s first Areva EPR “is now set at 2014, with construction costs now re-estimated at around 5 billion euro. The original date for operation was June 2012 and the most recent cost estimate was 4 billion euro, although the original estimate was 3.3 billion euro.

The delay at Flamanville-3 was confirmed as part of the release of information on EDF’s first-half 2010 financial results. EDF reported that first-half net income of 1.659 billion euro was down 46.9% from 3.123 billion the same time last year. First-half 2010 earnings before interest and taxes were 5.289 billion euro, down from 6.784 billion in first-half 2009, although revenues rose, EDF said.
Nucleonics Week, 5 August 2010

Canada: contaminated turbines to Sweden? Bruce Power plans to ship 16 radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Sweden, later this year. Each generator weighs 110 metric tons and contains over 50 trillion becquerels of long-lived man-made radioactive materials, including five isotopes of plutonium. In Sweden, Studsvik plans to melt up to 90 percent of the radiation-laced metal and sell it as 'clean' scrap intended for unrestricted use. In this way, some of the radioactivity will be dispersed into the air (atmospheric emissions), some will be dispersed into the Baltic Sea (liquid effluents), and some will be incorporated into consumer products of all kinds -- razor blades, hair dryers, paper clips, you name it. The remaining 10 percent will be shipped back to Bruce Power for storage as radioactive waste.

Bowing to public pressure, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission recently agreed to a one-day public hearing in Ottawa on September 29 on this issue.
Gordon Edwards, CCNR, 6 August 2010 / Press release Great Lakes United, 18 August 2010

China: Criticality for fast reactor. The Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) achieved sustained fission for the first time on July 21, according to the owner the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIEA). The reactor will go on to reach a thermal capacity of 60 MW and produce 20 MW in electrical power for the grid. The first sodium-cooled fast reactor in the country, it was built by Russia's OKBM Afrikantov in collaboration with OKB Gidropress, NIKIET and Kurchatov Institute.

Beyond this pilot plant, China once planned a 600 MWe commercial scale version by 2020 and a 1500 MWe version in 2030 but these ambitious ideas have been overtaken by the import of ready-developed Russian designs. In October last year an agreement was signed by CIAE and China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) with AtomStroyExport to start pre-project and design works for a commercial nuclear power plant with two BN-800 reactors with construction to start in August 2011, probably at a coastal site.
World Nuclear News, 22 July 2010

Funny. Or not…? From a local Cumbrian (U.K.) newspaper: "The issue of councilors declaring an interest during debates about the nuclear industry is again causing concern due to the amount of time it takes. At August 17th full council meeting at Millom, numerous members of Copeland Council were obliged to stand and declare a prejudicial interest in an agenda item about nuclear new builds. Coun Henry Wormstrup, who has become increasingly frustrated by the practice, said the current system needed reform due to the number of councilors employed by or linked to the industry."
Whitehaven News, 18 August 2010

Danger of tritium underestimated. The health risks of tritium may be undervalued because its possible damage to DNA may lead to genetic mutations, says an expert who participated in a White Paper published by the French Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Monitoring (IRSN) on nuclear safety. This radioactive isotope of hydrogen was released in the past by atmospheric testing of atomic weapons and is now produced by nuclear reactors and the reprocessing of nuclear fuels. Its radiotoxicity is low and the impact of its waste, gaseous or liquid, is considered unimportant. However, the IRSN is calling for "further studies" including on "possible hereditary effects". The IRSN added that further research was necessary which was "representative of the actual conditions of exposure."
Le Monde (Fra.) 8 July 2010

Any plutonium in the basement? In Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet Republic Georgia, a container with plutonium was found at a depot of the now defunct Isotope Institute. The plutonium had not been registered with any state entity. Employees of the former institute told the Georgian Public Broadcaster that they had no idea that plutonium was stored at the depot. The plutonium-beryllium was discovered inside a “special container stored in wax and lead, which was quite safe and presented no danger for the environment,” according to Giorgi Nabakhtiani, a nuclear expert with Georgia's Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ministry.

"Georgia plans to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency about the unregistered plutonium." Not mentioned is how many plutonium is in the container, although Nabakhtiani said that the laboratory did not contain enough plutonium-beryllium for use in a radiological "dirty bomb."
http://en.trend.az/news/politics/foreign/1728373.html; 30 July 2010 / Bloomberg, 2 August 2010

Energy Solutions opts not to store Italian nuclear waste in Utah, US. U.S. company Energy Solutions will no longer pursue agreements to dispose of Italian nuclear waste in the state of Utah. The Salt Lake City based company told Utah US Representatives of their plans not to store the imported material at the Clive Facility, 75 miles west of metropolitan Salt Lake City in the Tooele Valley. The company maintains it is not bowing to public pressure, but is making a solid business decision. Environmentalists are calling this a huge victory for the people of Utah.

Energy Solutions was hoping to import 20,000 tons of low level waste from Italy that would have been processed in Tennessee, and then the remaining 1,600 tons would have been held in storage in Utah. The company is hoping to consult with Italian nuclear power authorities to reach an agreement on opening a facility in Italy instead.
Fox13News, Salt Lake Tribune, Associated Press, 14 July 2010

Dangerous censorship. Russian authorities removed information on forest fires in radioactive contaminated regions from internet. Removing of important information may help officials to escape from responsibilities, but can not help to improve situation with forest fire.

On Augusts 13, the head of Russian Emergency Ministry Sergey Shoigu publicly demanded to stop the rumours about radiation danger as a result of forest fires in the region of Bryansk. Immediately after this statement, the governmental organization "Roslesozaschita", responsible for protecting forests, removed information about forest fire in radioactively contaminated zones in the west of Russia from its website. A week earlier, on August 6, "Roslesozaschita" officially announced that since June it registered 507 forest fires in regions partly radioactive contaminated. Moreover, the organization strongly recommended the authorities to inform local population about radiation danger. Also, "Roslesozaschita" it published a list of radioactively contaminated forests on fire (for instance 401 fires in the Chelyabinsk region)

"The Emergency Ministry and "Rosalesozaschita" are acting against Russian Constitution when removing information on fires in radioactively contaminated zones from public use. It is very well known that many fires already happened there and that radiation could be re-distributed into new areas. Instead of censorship, authorities must fully inform Russian citizens and other countries about radioactive danger in Chelyabinsk, Bryansk and other regions," said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for the Russian environmental group Ecodefense.
Press-release Ecodefense, 14 August 2010

Sutyagin Freed in "Spy" Swap. After serving more than ten years of a 15 year sentence for espionage, Russian arms researcher Igor Sutyagin was freed on July 9 in what is being reported as the largest spy swap between the United States and Russia since the end of the Cold War. Sutyagin was not a spy, but reportedly shared sensitive information about Russian nuclear weapons from public sources with a London firm. His research drew the unwelcome attention of the FSB, Russia¹s secret police successor to the Soviet KGB. His case was taken up by human rights organizations, and the U.S. State Department declared he was a political prisoner. As part of the deal for his release, Sutyagin signed a confession. The Guardian (UK) reports that "Sutyagin's family said he maintained his innocence but agreed to the deal rather than face another four and half years in the 'harsh regime' of the penal colony at Kholmogory near Arkhangelsk." Sutyagin, a father of two girls, had been in prison since in arrest on October 27, 1999.
Nuclear Resister, 9 July 2010

Global Day of Action on Radioactive Waste.
US groups are calling for a radioactive waste action day on September 29, and would like it to be an international day of action! Aim is to push-back on new proposals that would expand radioactive waste production in both the civilian and military sectors

September 29 is the anniversary date for the worst radioactive waste accident (that we know of). In 1957 a tank of liquid, highly radioactive waste left from reprocessing nuclear fuel, exploded in a region of the Soviet Union called Kyshtym in the Ural Mountains of Siberia. The accident was kept secret for several decades, but we now know that it was at a secret nuclear reprocessing site called Mayak. This accident resulted in a regional disaster and a radioactive cloud that contaminated more than 300  square miles…many people received very high radiation exposures, some suffered acute radiation syndrome. Because of secrecy in the nuclear establishment it is not clear what exactly happened but estimates are at least 200 people died of “excess” cancer and scores of villages and towns were permanently abandoned due to the sever radioactive contamination.

Please sign up if you plan to participate so we can have a “master list” of coordinated action – and we can send you any materials we generate…

Contact: Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service Southeast Office, PO Box 7586, Asheville, North Carolina  28802  USA.
Mail: maryo@nirs.org  
Or: Kevin Kamps. Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Beyond Nuclear. 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400, Takoma Park, Maryland 20912, USA
Mail: kevin@beyondnuclear.org

Contrary to guidelines adopted in 1992 by nuclear equipment supplier states in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China is poised to export two power reactors to Pakistan. In April, Chinese officials said that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.–India deal and the Nuclear Suppliers Groups exemption for India. This transaction is about to happen at a time when China's increasingly ambitious nuclear energy program is becoming more autonomous.

Guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), representing 46 Non-Proliferation Treaty states, call on parties to the NPT not to supply nuclear equipment to non-nuclear-weapon states without comprehensive IAEA safeguards, including Pakistan. China joined the NSG in 2004.

The United States and other NSG states may object to the pending transaction but they cannot prevent China from exporting the reactors. Senior officials in NSG states friendly to the United States said in April they expect that President Barack Obama will not openly criticize the Chinese export because Washington, in the context of a bilateral security dialogue with Islamabad, may be sensitive to Pakistan's desire for civilian nuclear cooperation in the wake of the sweeping U.S.-India nuclear deal which entered into force in 2008 after considerable arm-twisting of NSG states by the United States, France, and Russia. The United States may also tolerate China's new nuclear deal with Pakistan because Obama wants China's support for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran this spring.

After years of bilateral disputes over nonproliferation issues, in 1998 the U.S. Congress allowed a 1985 Sino-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement to enter into force. After that, U.S. nuclear cooperation with China dramatically increased, culminating in China's 2006 selection of a consortium of companies led by Westinghouse to build four AP1000 power reactors in China. Westinghouse bested bidders from France and Russia in a competition set up by China to determine which of the three would provide the technology blueprint for the future standardized development of China's nuclear power industry.

China chose Westinghouse after it agreed to transfer to China ownership of the technology for the new and untried 1,000-MW reactor. China then awarded contracts to Westinghouse and its partners to build four AP1000s in China. The first two are scheduled to be finished in 2013. Westinghouse scored another coup when in 2008 China selected AP1000 for China's first raft of inland power reactors.

Westinghouse's apparent emergence as first among foreign reactor vendors in China in 2006 was linked to the fortunes of the State Nuclear Power Technology Co. (Snptc). It was set up by China's State Council of Ministers to take charge of technology selection and transfer for China's future nuclear power program, after two decades during which China organized a handful of "boutique" reactor projects in cooperation with Canada, France, Japan, and Russia.

Shortly after China selected Westinghouse to shape its nuclear future, rival Areva made a separate deal with China to build two of its new EPR reactors in Guangdong Province in China's southeast, where French nuclear firms have been engaged since the late 1980s. Unlike Westinghouse, Areva also offered China a suite of fuel cycle technology options, and French officials hoped that a mammoth fuel cycle deal would coax China to continue building the EPR.

In the meantime, the ambitious construction schedule for the U.S.-designed reactors in China has come under heavy pressure. In part out of Chinese concern to keep construction on track, China's nuclear regulator, the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), will not agree to a proposal, favored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Westinghouse, to modify the design of the containment structure of the AP1000 to provide improved protection against an air crash. In the United States, NRC, after a design review prompted by post-9/11 concernsabout terrorist threats, asked Westinghouse to change the design of a shield building which is part of the containment and to use stronger materials. Westinghouse then urged China to also follow that advice.

China will not do that, Beijing officials said after consultations with Westinghouse and U.S. regulators. "China will build Revision 15," the AP1000 design version originally approved for construction in both the United States and in China, one official said. "It will not approve Revision 17," which incorporates the changes sought by NRC and Westinghouse, he said.

Changing the AP1000 design now would require construction in China to be halted and delayed. China also does not share NRC's view that a terrorist attack on reactors, using a hijacked passenger aircraft as a weapon, is a realistic enough scenario to warrant modifying the design.

The Westinghouse project has encountered other challenges which, so far, have not caused schedule delays. Last year, a key firm which is part of the technology transfer program, China First Heavy Industries (CFHI), failed to produce forgings to the required quality standard for the AP1000. Project executives said CFHI had difficulty handling the demanding steel material called for in critical components. The schedule was not set back because a Westinghouse partner in Korea, Doosan, had a stock of prototype forgings it had made earlier. The AP1000 has also encountered problems in main coolant pumps, which are of a unique design. Chinese officials said last year that further deployment of the AP1000 would depend on successful demonstration of these pumps, which were a critical feature of the passive cooling system billed as one of the key advantages of this reactor model. According to diplomats there have also been some Chinese bureaucratic delays for certain AP1000 project approvals.

Snptc also wants Westinghouse to increase the power of the reactor to 1,400 MW and then to 1,700 MW, matching the EPR. According to Snptc the 1,400-MW design will be ready for construction by 2013. Many foreign executives are skeptical that schedule will hold up.

Two years ago, China set up a brand new organization to take command of China's energy policy, including nuclear policy, the National Energy Administration (NEA). It is headed by Zhang Guobao, who strongly favors nuclear power development and who is also Vice-Chairman of China's leading planning agency, the National Development and Reform Council (NDRC).

NEA-which is staffed by about 170 experts, including fewer than 20 responsible for nuclear matters--cooperates with NDRC on setting planning targets, but NEA decides which reactors will be built, at what sites, and which state-owned enterprises will get contracts. It, Chinese officials said last month, will favor construction of more CPRs, and will also support China's biggest nuclear SOE, the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) with a total payroll of over 100,000, in exporting more reactors to Pakistan.

China has long assisted Pakistan's nuclear energy program. In 1991 CNNC contracted with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to build Chashma-1, a 325 MW power reactor. It was finished and began operating in 2000.

In 2004, China joined the NSG. China then explained to the NSG that a longstanding framework agreement with Pakistan committed China to provide a second reactor, Chashma-2, more research reactors, plus supply of all the fuel in perpetuity for these units. Chashma-2 construction began in 2005. Chashma-2 is scheduled to be finished in 2011. To keep CNNC at work in Pakistan thereafter, CNNC and PAEC negotiated terms for two 650-MW reactors, Chashma-3 and -4.

In 2006 Pakistan urged China to approve the new project but China was not keen to do so. Pakistan diplomats said then China was holding back because it was not clear that the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal would be approved by both governments and by the NSG.

After the U.S.-India deal was approved and India's NSG exemption entered into force without any Chinese objections in 2008, China's policy evolved to support demands by Pakistan for compensation, but China did not expressly advocate awarding Pakistan a broad exemption from NSG trade sanctions matching India's.

NSG country representatives said in late April they expect that the Obama administration will accept a limited amount of additional Chinese nuclear commerce with Pakistan as a price for getting Chinese support on UN Security Council sanctions against Iran in weeks ahead. Some suggested that the United States would also enlist China in this regard to persuade Pakistan to drop its opposition to negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which Pakistan has said it could not accept because the U.S.-India deal had tilted the nuclear balance in South Asia in India's favor.

As long as Pakistan resists outside initiatives which would limit the autonomy of its strategic nuclear program, and because China is believed to be hiding behind Pakistan in avoiding making a firm FMCT commitment in light of China's strategic dilemmas with the United States, it is doubtful whether China would have effective influence on Pakistani decisions to halt fissile material production.

Senior NSG diplomats said this month that they expect that soon after China has completed political and contractual arrangements for the reactor sale to Pakistan, China will inform the NSG of its planned transaction. The matter could then be taken up by the NSG as an agenda item or point of business at a future NSG meeting. So far no NSG meetings are scheduled in 2010 prior to an annual plenary meeting in New Zealand in late June.

The U.S. State Department, in line with its response to a 1998 reactor export from Russia to India, continues to hold that a new reactor export by China to Pakistan would be contrary to both NSG and U.S. policy, but whether the United States would record an objection at the NSG or encourage other NSG states to do so would be up to President Obama following interagency discussions and consultation with foreign governments including Pakistan and China.

Chinese officials said in April that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.-India deal and the NSG exemption for India.

Source: The GovMonitor.com and Carnegie Endowment For International Peace

Chernobyl still contaminating British sheep.

It exploded 23 years ago today more than 2,250 km away, but Chernobyl is still contaminating sheep in the United Kingdom. According to the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA), the number of farms and animals still under movement restrictions in the UK has hardly changed over the past year. New figures given in the House of Commons late April show there are still 190,000 sheep subject to restriction orders on 369 farms or holdings. The details are: Wales 355 farms 180,000 sheep; England 9 farms 3,000 sheep; Scotland 5 farms and 3,000 sheep.

Peat and grass in upland areas were polluted with radioactive caesium-137 released by the accident and brought to ground by rain. This is eaten by sheep and has persisted much longer than originally anticipated. The restrictions apply where concentrations of caesium-137 in sheep exceed 1,000 Becquerel of radioactivity per kilogram. Farmers have to mark the radioactive animals with indelible paint, and can't have them slaughtered for food until they fall below the limit.

N-Base briefing 611, 29 April 2009 / Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

FirstEnergy finds hole in containment wall at rusty Pennsylvania reactor.

During a recent visual inspection inside the Beaver Valley Unit 1 reactor containment building, a rusty discolored bubble was discovered under the protective paint coating on the inside wall of the steel liner to the thick concrete containment. When the unbroken paint bubble was removed for further inspection, First Energy Nuclear Corporation (FENOC) found a corrosion hole had eaten through from the outside of the 3/8 inch (0.95 cm) thick steel containment liner wall. Inspectors could see the concrete wall on the other side. The containment's steel liner is a principle safety barrier designed to be leak tight to contain the radioactive gas generated under normal operations and accident conditions. FENOC says that a small piece of wet wood, trapped during the original construction and left in contact with the outside steel liner wall, was the cause of the severe corrosion. The plan is to weld a steel patch over the hole. With the reactor nearing approval of an unchallenged 20-year license extension application, the severity of the previously unnoticed corrosion caught Nuclear Regulatory Commission and company officials by surprise. The Beaver Valley reactor is located northwest of Pittsburgh.

Considering all the other debris pitched into the containment's concrete pours there is very likely more corrosion than can be found with visual inspection. Beyond Nuclear expects that NRC will issue a detailed information notice but fall short of its regulatory responsibility by not requiring industry action. In fact, NRC should require a prompt and thorough technical assessment of Beaver Valley's containment integrity in order to rule out the likely possibility that more unseen corrosion is still eating its way into the containment structure. Using state-of-the-art ultrasonic testing equipment, this could be done before the plant goes back on line and certainly before the agency approves the reactor's 20-year extension. Similarly, since debris was likely thrown into many more containment pours around the country, NRC should require an industry-wide scan of all the aging containment liners. Remember, FirstEnergy is the same company that operated its corroded Davis-Besse reactor with the hole in the head. And NRC is the same agency with its head in a hole that favored getting Davis-Besse back on line quickly despite graphic photos of severe corrosion that warned otherwise. In both cases, the NRC gambling of safety margins for production margins corrodes public confidence and increases the risks from nuclear accidents.

Beyond Nuclear Bulletin, 1 may 2009

UK: Wind farm demolished for nuclear power plant?

One of the oldest and most efficient wind farms in Britain is to be dismantled and replaced by a nuclear power station under plans drawn up by the German-owned power group RWE. The site at Kirksanton in Cumbria – home to the Haverigg turbines - has just been approved by the government for potential atomic newbuild in a move that has infuriated the wind power industry. Colin Palmer, founder of the Windcluster company, which owns part of the Haverigg wind farm, said he was horrified that such a plan could be considered at a time when Britain risks missing its green energy targets and after reassurance from ministers that nuclear and renewables were not incompatible.

The Haverigg site, on the fringes of the Lake District, was commissioned in 1992 and is believed to be one of only two of its type in this country. The scheme has been praised by Friends of the Lake District as a fine example of appropriate wind energy development and the turbines were financed by a pioneering group of ethical investors (now called the Triodos Bank). The site was subsequently expanded to a total of eight turbines. Haverigg was still one of the most efficient wind farms with a 35% "capacity factor" - or efficiency - compared with an average of 30%, said Palmer. It is a historically important wind farm for the UK, which played a key role in inspiring others.  

Meanwhile, a new report by the independent think-tank, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), has found that the UK Government's "obsession" with nuclear power is hindering development of sustainable energy alternatives which were better and cheaper. The report, 'The British Nuclear Industry - Status and Prospects', written by Dr. Ian Davis, states: "The Government's obsession with nuclear power is undermining and marginalizing more efficient and safer technologies - the real energy solutions." Renewable energy, greater energy efficient and other technologies could fill the gap when existing reactors became redundant.

The Guardian (UK), 28 April 2009 / N-Base Briefing, 29 April 2009

Kazakhstan: proposal to host fuel-bank sparks anti-nuclear protest.

On April 14, police in Almaty the capital of Kazakhstan, have prevented a small protest by opponents of a Kazak government proposal to host a “nuclear fuel bank” that would provide a secure supply to power stations across the world. It was never going to be a big demonstration, just 30 or so like-minded representatives of non-government groups involved in human rights and similar areas. But it did not even get off the ground. As they were setting out from their office for Almaty’s main square, three activists from the human rights group Ar.Ruh.Hak were detained by police. Seven members of the opposition party Azat and two journalists were picked up separately. All 12 were taken to a police station and released after making statements. In a statement, the seven NGOs which planned the protest meeting said the lack of government transparency on issues like the nuclear one should raise concerns. For opponents of the plan, the legacy of Semipalatinsk (a testing ground where over 450 atom bombs were set off by the Soviet authorities between 1949 and 1989) plus the risk that the fuel bank will not be secure, constitute serious objections. Kazakhstan is a major producer of uranium – it has about 20 per cent of the world's ore reserves.

The Fuel-Bank, which would be supervised by the IAEA would provide ‘a secure and controlled source of fissile material for peaceful use’ as the Agency likes to put it. Countries would no longer have ‘an excuse’ to develop uranium enrichment programs, which carry the risk of being uses for ‘non-peaceful meanings’. Countries would simply buy fuel from the bank when they needed it. After the IAEA first came up with the idea in 2005, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement with the agency to look at setting up a storage facility in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which has a uranium enrichment plant. Now Kazakhstan has offered its own facilities. President Nursultan Nazarbaev revealed the proposal when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the capital Astana on April 6 that prompted Kazak NGOs into action.

Institute For War And Peace Reporting,  17 April 2009

Nuclear safety in Canada.

Unlike the governments of other developed nations, the Canadian government and Parliament can now directly control the start-up and operation of nuclear reactors. This is the result of a recent Federal Court ruling that allows the government to remove the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) without cause. Unless the Supreme Court overturns this decision or parliamentarians pass legislation to remove this power from the government, protection from nuclear mishaps in Canada could depend on the political whims of sitting governments and Parliament.

The Federal Court ruled earlier in April that the Harper government had the right to remove without cause the then-president of the CNSC, Linda Keen. This means that the CNSC head serves at the pleasure of the government rather than until the end of an appointed term, subject only to good behavior. The incident that precipitated the court case was Keen's refusal, despite pressure from the Prime Minister and natural resources minister, to restart a reactor to alleviate a shortage of medical isotopes. Keen said the reactor did not met its licensing requirements. The government removed Keen as head of the CNSC, and Parliament voted to restart the reactor.

Toronto Star (Canada), 21 April 2009

IAEA Inspectors Asked to Leave DPRK.

On April 14, IAEA issued a statement on the situation in North-Korea: "The Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation with the IAEA. It has requested the removal of all containment and surveillance equipment, following which, IAEA inspectors will no longer be provided access to the facility. The inspectors have also been asked to leave the DPRK at the earliest possible time.
The DPRK also informed the IAEA that it has decided to reactivate all facilities and go ahead with the reprocessing of spent fuel." IAEA inspectors removed all IAEA seals and switched off surveillance cameras on April 15. They left the country the following day.

IAEA inspectors returned to monitor and verify the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities in the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea, after a report outlining the modalities reached between the Agency and the DPRK were approved by the IAEA on 9 July 2007.

The latest move by DPRK is a reaction on an April 13 statement by the United Nations' Security Council denouncing the North’s rocket launching as a violation of a resolution after the North’s first nuclear test in 2006 that banned the country from nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The Council called for tightening sanctions.

On April 29, North Korea said that it would start a uranium enrichment program, declaring for the first time that it intended to pursue a second project unless the United Nations lifted sanctions.

IAEA Press Release, 14 April 2009 / New York Times, 29 April 2009/  IAEA Staff report, 9 July 2007

Trouble for UAE-US nuclear agreement.

The president of the U.S.-UAE Business Council, Danny Sebright, expected U.S. president Barack Obama to issue a presidential determination that the nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates, signed in January, in the last days of the administration of former President George W. Bush, is in the best interests of the United States.  That would set the stage for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to formally notify Congress of the United States' intention to enter into the nuclear energy cooperation deal with one of Iran's neighbors, giving lawmakers 90 days to vote down the pact if they choose.

Under the "123 deal," similar to the one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation (the world's third largest oil exporter in 2007) promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs. The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.

Lobby for the project is ongoing: a May 5, report on the economic benefits of US-UAE 123 Agreement said the UAE nuclear program would generate contracts worth more than US$41billion benefiting American companies that could participate as suppliers or as central leaders in consortiums bidding on projects. The sky is the limit.

However, opposition about the deal is growing rapidly after footage was made public in the U.S. On the tape, an Afghan grain dealer is seen being tortured by a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE's seven emirates. The ratification of the deal has been postponed.

Meanwhile, the UAE last year surpassed Israel as the United States' largest export market in the Middle East. Furthermore, the small country has become the third-biggest arms importer worldwide, SIPRI announced earlier in April. The figures from the UAE reflected what the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) described as a "worrying" regional trend of increased arms imports into the Middle East. The country accounted for 6.0 percent of the world's arms imports between 2004 and 2008, according to the new report from the (SIPRI) -- the same proportion as South Korea. Only China with 11 percent and India with 7.0 percent, had a larger share of the market, said the report. The UAE's position was all the more striking because in the previous study, covering the period 1999-2003, the UAE was only the 16th biggest importer of military equipment worldwide.

Middle East Online, 17 April 2009 / Reuters, 29 April 2009 / CNN, 29 April 2009 / Business24-7.ae, 5 May 2009

‘Near Miss’ at Sellafield’s High Level Waste Storage Tank Complex.

On April 2, an incident at Sellafield’s High Level Waste (HLW) Storage Tank Complex occurred, involving a loss of coolant water to all the storage tanks following the incorrect re-instatement of one of a number of control valves that had been isolated for maintenance. Because some of the storage tanks have a higher heat loading (the liquid HLW is physically hot as well as being highly radioactive) than others, efforts to re-instate the cooling water supply were directed first at the three tanks with the highest heat loading. Cooling was restored to the first of these after 75 minutes, and to all three tanks after 3 hours. Reporting today on the incident, Sellafield’s in-house Newsletter states that cooling was restored to all tanks within 8 hours. This is perilously close to the timescale of 10.5 hours catered for in the Sellafield site’s emergency plan (REPPIR).

Since the closure of Sellafield’s Calder Hall reactors in 2003, an accident involving the loss of coolant to the HLW tanks is designated as the ‘Reference Accident’ (worst credible accident) for Sellafield’s Emergency Plans under the Radiation and Emergency Preparedness and Public Information Regulations (REPPIR). The Reference Accident is described as being ‘a failure of the entire cooling water distribution system to the High Level Radioactive Waste Store following a single flange failure or leak from a length of pipe. The accident scenario assumes a failure to reinstate the cooling system within a period of 10.5 hours and that it has not been possible to isolate the failed section of pipe’.

The existing tanks, holding a significantly larger inventory of radioactive materials than were released during the Chernobyl accident, were commissioned between 1955 and 1990. They have long been subject of concern by the NII through the increasing failure of cooling components. Plans to construct and install new, smaller tanks are currently being assessed by Sellafield and the regulators.`

CORE Press release, 9 April 2009

IAEA: Still no successor for ElBaradei.

A total of five candidates have put themselves foward to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The five come from Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Japan and South Africa. The Japanese Ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, Yukiya Amano, as well as South Africa's representative, Abdul Samad Minty, have reentered the contest after failing to win a majority in a first voting session among IAEA governing board members in March. The other three are:

* Jean-Pol Poncelet, a former Belgian Deputy Prime Minister who currently serves as a senior vice president at the French nuclear group Areva (responsible for sustainable development and the improvement of quality processes).

* Spanish nuclear expert Luis Echavarri, the head of the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

* The fifth potential successor is the Slovenian Ernest Petric, a former ambassador in Vienna who currently serves as a judge on his country's constitutional court.

In a first session of voting among the 35 countries on the IAEA board, Amano narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority, while Minty had the support of only 15 countries.

The U.S. and European countries supported Amano, as they saw him as a nuclear-policy expert who is considered to be less politically outspoken than Minty or ElBaradei.

A new date for voting at the IAEA board has yet to be fixed. IAEA Board Chairperson Ms. Feroukhi is soon to initiate informal consultations on the nominations receive.

Dr. ElBaradei, who is to retire on November 30, is the IAEA´s fourth Director General since 1957. He was first appointed to the office effective December 1997. He follows Hans Blix, IAEA Director General from 1981 to 1997; Sigvard Eklund, IAEA Director General from 1961 to 1981; and Sterling Cole, IAEA Director General from 1957 to 1961.

EarthTimes, 27 April 2009 / IAEA Staff Report, 29 April 2009

China: warnings from within.

According to China's director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, Li Ganjie, the quick expansion of China's nuclear energy production is far outpacing the regulation of its nuclear reactors. "At the current stage, if we are not fully aware of the sector's over-rapid expansions, it will threaten construction quality and operation safety of nuclear power plants," Li Ganjie told an International Ministerial Conference on nuclear energy.

The Communist Party newspaper Renmin Ribao on April 21 reported Ganjie saying in unusually strong terms that China has insufficient capacity to handle nuclear waste. Li said the storage of past nuclear waste was 'not entirely under control'. In a report presented to the IAEA-sponsored international conference on the future of nuclear power Li stated that nuclear safeguards in China are weak and insufficient to keep up with the country's need to develop nuclear energy and technology: there is a dearth of personnel, technical equipment, financing and investment.

Planetark, 21 April 2009 / www.monsterandcritics.com, 21 April 2009

U.K.: Faslane leaks.

The revelation that there have been a series of radioactive leaks into the Firth of Clyde from the Ministry of Defence's Faslane nuclear submarine base has once again focused attention on the lack of regulation for military facilities. Documents released to Channel 4 News under Freedom of Information show there have been over 40 leaks in the last three decades and at least eight in the past 10 years. Military facilities have immunity from regulation and operate under 'letters of agreement' with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and their equivalent regulators in England and Wales.

SEPA is so concerned at the leaks and general waste management at Faslane that it would have considered closing the facility down if it had the power. A Ministry of Defence report said failure to abide by safety procedures at Faslane was a "recurring theme" and was a cultural issue that must be addressed. The report also accepted Faslane failed to use the 'best practicable means' to control waste, there was poor design of holding tanks, weld defects in piping, a lack of accurate drawings of the plant and low staffing levels.

N-Base Briefing, 29 April 2009

Crisis? What crisis!

A uranium supply crunch could be around the corner due to industry-wide cuts to development projects, rising demand, and uncertainty about Russia's plans for its decommissioned nuclear arsenal, Jerry Grandey, CEO of uranium company Cameco Corp, said on March 11. Grandey expects a situation where uranium will be in high demand because of cuts among miners left under funded due to tight credit conditions. "I think the financial crisis is clearly impacting the ability of every supplier to raise capital," he said. "When you see project cancellations, you see expansion derail, you see some projects that will just go slower. That is just simply taking away future supply and sowing the seeds of the next spike in the uranium price."

He said global mined output is 115 million pounds a year, compared with consumption of about 180 million pounds that he expects to grow at between 2 and 3 percent per year. (1 pound –lbs- is 0.45 kg) The shortfall has been made up by stockpiles, as well as annual sales of about 24 million pounds of uranium from decommissioned Russian nuclear weapons, which Cameco manages along with two partners under a 1999 commercial agreement. That deal expires in 2013, and Grandey said questions linger about how much uranium Russia may sell past that date, and how much may have degraded past the point where it can be sold. He said many expect Russian sales could fall by half.

Reuters, 11 March 2009

EDF: Slash renewables target to protect nuclear.

EDF and E.ON have warned the U.K. government they may be forced to drop plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants unless the government scales back its targets for wind power. The demand – contained in submissions to the government's renewable energy consultation – reinforces the worries of wind developers that the two sectors cannot thrive simultaneously. Électricité de France (EDF) is calling on the government to lower its proposed renewable electricity target from 35% of supply in 2020 to just 20%. The company says building the wind capacity needed to hit a 35% target is “not realistic or indeed desirable” due to the problem of intermittency. EDF’s views were revealed early March when the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published a summary of responses to its consultation on its renewables strategy. EDF’s response says that at times of high wind, output from wind and nuclear could exceed demand. “As a result… plant will need to be curtailed i.e. instructed not to generate.” In reality, only nuclear will be curtailed, it says, as wind generation is subsidised so operators will pay to continue generating. The UK will also need wind farms to operate to meet its EU renewable energy target. If nuclear plants have to be regularly turned off, this “damages the economics of these projects, meaning that less will be built.”

ENDS report, 12 March 2009 / Guardian, 16 March 2009

UK: Sellafield clean-up bill.

Why did the U.K. government use an emergency procedure over the Sellafield clean-up bill? The dispute over whether the government followed the rules in telling parliament that it would land the taxpayer with an unlimited bill in the event of a nuclear accident at Sellafield has taken a further twist. Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West, has tabled an early day motion asking whether the indemnity covering the private owners of Sellafield is valid.

Flynn has pursued two successive energy ministers, Malcolm Wicks and then Mike O'Brien, since the government used emergency procedures last summer to inform parliament that the taxpayer would foot an unlimited bill following a nuclear leak or explosion at the plant.

Wicks and O'Brien said the government had to do this because the matter was urgent. Both admit errors in not placing the details of the change in the House of Commons library so that any MP who wanted to object could raise this in parliament. They said that if they had not done this the contracts allowing a big US-led consortium to run Sellafield could not go ahead.

But when a parliamentary researcher, David Lowry, tabled a freedom of information request it was revealed that civil servants knew months before they applied for an indemnity that they would have to do so – suggesting the emergency procedure was not necessary in the first place. (See also NM 682, 'In brief' and 675; 'Consortium selected for Sellafield').

Guardian (UK) blog by David Hencke, 10 March 2009

IAEA: vote for new Director General in March.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors will vote on March 26 for a new director in a closed session. There are two nominations to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei: Japan's ambassador to the agency, Yukiya Amano, backed mainly by industrialized countries, and South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty, with core support among developing nations. In order to be appointed, a candidate must secure a two-thirds vote of the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors by secret balloting.

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, who shared the Nobel peace prize with his agency in 2005, leaves office in November after 12 years. Industrialized nations want an IAEA chief less politically outspoken than ElBaradei, sticking more to executing the IAEA's technical mandate, whose priority they see as preventing diversions of nuclear energy to bomb making.

They believe the low-key Amano would depoliticise the agency better than Minty, a former anti-apartheid activist identified with developing nation positions on disarmament. But developing nations see Amano as too close to Western powers.

Reuters, 5 March 2009 / IAEA Staff Report, 12 March 2009

Construction means delays and cost overruns, always and everywhere.

Taiwan: on March 9, Taipower chairman Chen Kuei-ming told the legislature an additional NT$40 billion (US$1.15 billion) to NT$50 billion would be needed if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is to reach a stage where its two generator units can begin operations in 2011 and 2012. The additional funding would bring the construction costs at the Gongliao, Taipei County, plant to between NT$270 billion and NT$280 billion, Chen said. On the same day, Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming said it was unlikely that the plant would be completed tin 2009 as scheduled. “It will probably take two more years,” he said.

Taipei Times, 10 March 2009

Australia: The battle for Indigenous hearts and mines.

The Australian Uranium Association has launched a new strategy in an attempt to outflank continuing concern from many Indigenous Australians over the environmental and social impacts of uranium mining. The AUA is the industry’s main lobby group and is comprised of many of Australia’s uranium producers and explorers including resource giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. It is attempting to reposition the uranium industry as a solution to widespread Indigenous poverty in remote and regional Australia and in February launched its Indigenous Dialogue Group – a twice-yearly forum of executives from five uranium companies and five Aboriginal representatives. The move has attracted sharp criticism from many Indigenous people who rearranged the acronym to spell DIG – the industry’s real agenda. The Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, a network of Indigenous, environment and public health individuals and organisations formed in 1997, has condemned the move as an industry PR exercise. ANFA committee member and 2008 Nuclear Free Future Award winner Jillian Marsh stated, “It is cynical for the uranium industry to act as if it can deliver for Aboriginal people. The main lasting effect of uranium mining for Aboriginal people is radioactive waste on their country and no resources to clean up the mess left by miners.”

....and more Australia: 

French nuclear giant Areva has a setback to its plans to develop the Koongarra uranium deposit inside Kakadu national park in the Northern Territory with traditional Aboriginal owners strongly rejecting a company application for development consent. Koongarra is fully surrounded by but not technically part of the World heritage listed Kakadu, Australia’s largest national park. At a meeting in February traditional owners heard from the company and discussed the potential impacts of a large scale uranium operation near the highly visited and culturally significant Nourlangie Rock before rejecting the Areva plan and calling for the long term protection of the Koongarra region. Under the provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act the decision means that there will be a five-year moratorium before Areva can again seek development consent.

Dave Sweeney, e-mail 17 March 2009

U.S. Department of Energy cannot account for nuclear materials at 15 locations.

A number of U.S. institutions with licenses to hold nuclear material reported to the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2004 that the amount of material they held were less than agency records indicated. But rather than investigating the discrepancies, Energy officials wrote off significant quantities of nuclear material from the department's inventory records. That's just one of the findings of a report released February 23 by Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman that concluded "the department cannot properly account for and effectively manage its nuclear materials maintained by domestic licensees and may be unable to detect lost or stolen material."

Auditors found that Energy could not accurately account for the quantities and locations of nuclear material at 15 out of 40, or 37 percent, of facilities reviewed. The materials written off included 20,580 grams of enriched uranium, 45 grams of plutonium, 5,001 kilograms of normal uranium and 189,139 kilograms of depleted uranium.

"Considering the potential health risks associated with these materials and the potential for misuse should they fall into the wrong hands, the quantities written off were significant," the report says. "Even in small quantities normally held by individual domestic licensees, special nuclear materials such as enriched uranium and plutonium, if not properly handled, potentially pose serious health hazards."

Auditors also found that waste-processing facilities could not locate or explain the whereabouts of significant quantities of uranium and other nuclear material that Energy Department records showed they held. In another case, Energy officials had no record of the fact that one academic institution had loaned a 32-gram plutonium- beryllium source to another institution.

Global Security Newswire, 24 February 2009

Chinese expert warns of nuclear talents vacuum.

Even China, supposedly the country with the largest nuclear power expansion program acknowledges its limitations. The country is in great need of nuclear science talents from the young generation, a nuclear physicist said in Beijing early March. Zhu Zhiyuan, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Branch, said China must step up efforts to attract and cultivate more young nuclear talents, in order to meet the demand of the country's future development.

China has already strengthened nuclear science education in recent years. However, according to Zhu Zhiyuan, these efforts could not at once make up for the lack of nuclear specialist education in the country caused by previous insufficient attention towards the field for more than a decade. "Many young people at the time were simply afraid of nuclear technologies, while others assumed the prospect of nuclear power as unpromising," Zhu said. Even now, few of the students enrolled in nuclear physics departments of Chinese universities or research institutes chose the field as their top choice.

Xinhua, 3 March 2009

Philippines: Protest against re-commissioning Bataan increases.

It seems as the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) intensifies its protest over House Bill 4631 authored by Rep. Mark Cojuangco mandating the rehabilitation, re-commissioning and commercial use of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). In a March 5 protest action in front of the House of Representatives and coinciding with a Committee on Appropriations hearing on the BNPP, FDC advocates wore eyeball replicas with the retina part covered with a radiation symbol to symbolize the people’s vigilant watch over attempts to revive the contentious nuclear facility in Morong, Bataan through a legislative measure. “From now on, the public and the broad social movement against the revival of BNPP will keep tabs on each legislator’s position, action and/or inaction on the said issue. However, special attention will be given to the 184 legislators who have rendered their support to the said bill,” FDC said in a statement.

FDC said legislators should be wary of their constituents’ perception concerning their support for the opening of BNPP.  Through a sustained information and education campaign, their constituents are being made aware of the dangers of the BNPP and its enormous weight on the economic life of the people should the bill be passed into law. The group also warned legislators vying for re-election in 2010 that support for the BNPP revival bill, without first understanding the dangers of the nuclear power plant from reliable scientific study could be a “kiss of death” come election day.

For more on the anti-Bataan campaign: http://notobnpp.wordpress.com/

Press release Free from Debt Coalition, 5 March 2009

EDF in antitrust spotlight.

On March 11, investigators from the European Commission raided the offices of Électricité de France (EDF) seeking evidence of price-fixing in the French electricity market.

Commission officials were joined by inspectors from the French Competition Authority in a raid on the utility's headquarters in Paris. The Commission said that it suspected that EDF was engaged in activity that abused its dominant position in the market. "The suspected illegal conduct may include actions to raise prices on the French wholesale electricity market," it said.

The state-controlled company generates and supplies most of the electricity used in France, while also controlling the transmission grid operator RTE. The primary sources for EDF’ s electricity is a fleet of 58 nuclear reactors, while other sources include hydro and gas. A "true internal energy market" is a main goal of European energy policy, as is a minimum of 10% interconnection between national grids and further separation of power generation and transmission.

The Times, 12 March 2009 / WNN, 12 March 2009

Germany wide protest against RWE and Belene.

From 1 to 8 March, protests took place in 54 German towns against the construction of the nuclear power station Belene in North Bulgaria. The protests focus on RWE, because Germany's second largest energy company wants to invest over 1,5 Billion Euros into the nuclear power plant on the shores of the Danube. With the week of protest, environmental groups want to commemorate the large 1977 earthquake in the Belene region. During that quake, only several kilometres from the planned nuclear site blocks of flats collapsed and over 120 people were killed. "Nuclear power stations have no place in an earthquake zone," comments Schuecking and points out that the European Seismological Commission predicts medium to heavy earthquakes for the Belene region. According to estimates of the environmental organisation, Belene is one of the most dangerous nuclear power stations currently planned in Europe.

Protest actions took place against RWE and some of their important shareholders. In the Ruhr region and  Westphalia protesters picketed in front of RWE client centres. In

municipalities that are shareholders of RWE and whose mayors have a seat in the RWE board, protests were held in front of town halls. In Southern and Northern German, protests concentrated on the Allianz insurance company, which is with almost 5% the single largest German shareholder in RWE.

Urgewald, press release, 3 March 2009 / www.ausgestrahlt.de

(December 15, 2006) Since 1998 the Nuclear-Free Future Award, the "world's most prestigious anti-nuclear prize", has annually honoured the visionaries and architects of a nuclear-free world. The Awards were presented on December 1, 2006, in Window Rock, Arizona USA, during the Indigenous World Uranium Summit. Among the 2006 winners of the Awards were: Gordon Edwards (Canada), Ed Grothus (USA) and Phil Harrison (Navajo Nation). The special Award for Resistance went to Sun Xiaodi, China, for his moral courage to petition for an end to the toxic mismanagement corrupting Chinese uranium mining and milling.

(650.5770) Nuclear Free Future Award - The Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China's Gansu Province, once a region of green fields and pristine waters, its woodlands thriving with wildlife, is rich with uranium reserves. One of the largest uranium mining and milling installations to operate there was Project 792. Opened in 1967, Project 792, run by the military, annually milled between 140 and 180 tons of uranium-bearing rock until it was officially shut down in 2002 as bankrupt owing to 'ore exhaustion and obsolete equipment.' Secretly rising from its radioactive ashes was a private mine operated by Longjiang Nuclear Ltd. - its shareholders a brotherhood of politicians and members of the nuclear ministry.

Today, large sweeps of Gansu Province - dotted with sacred sites - appear to have succumbed to an overdose of chemotherapy. The Chinese have taken no preventative measures to protect local human and animal life from uranium contamination. Tibetan medical workers report that an assortment of radioactivity-related cancers and immune system diseases account for nearly half of the deaths in the region - a statistic that goes unrecorded because patient histories are routinely manipulated in order to safeguard 'state secrets.'

Tensin Tsultrim, spokesman of the Central Tibetan Administration exiled in India, explains that, "Tibetans from the region complain about their helplessness to stop the uranium mining". He adds that, "Tibetans have no say on such projects, since natural resources are the property of the State and protests relating to environmental issues by Tibetans have led to persecution".

One man who has constantly spoken out despite state repression is Sun Xiaodi, a former Project 792 worker. Since 1988 this whistleblower has repeatedly traveled to Beijing to petition the government to end the corruption that saturates China's nuclear industry. In answer, public officials stripped Sun Xiaodi of his job and subjected him, his wife and daughter to a host of indignities. But Sun continued his petitioning.

Last year on April 28th, Sun met with foreign journalists and told them about the frequent discharges of radioactive waste into Gansu waterways. He also told them about the Tibetan hitchhikers who climb up on trucks transporting uranium ore, happy to get a ride. He also told them about the contaminated machinery and equipment from Project 792 that had not been - as proscribed by state regulation - encased in lead, covered in concrete to a thickness of fifty centimeters, and then buried two to three meters beneath the earth, but merely hosed down and sold to naïve buyers from Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Zhejiang, Hunan and Hubei. "These officials have blood on their hands", Sun said.

The next day plainclothes police officers bundled Sun into an unmarked car, and 'disappeared' him. Sun was not heard from for months. Mounting international pressure finally forced his release from Lanzhou Prison on December 27, 2005. On March 20th, under the condition that Sun not leave his home village, the state security officer posted outside his house was finally removed.

Days later Sun was back in Beijing, petitioning. In a radio interview conducted at the end of March or beginning of April, Sun spoke of the bribes nuclear industry officials had taken, pocketing for themselves some 12.5 million dollars allocated by the central government to relocate mine workers. Asked whether uranium ore is yet mined and milled at the Project 792 site, and to whom it is sold, Sun Xiaodi replied: "I will tell you about the bankruptcy of the 792 Uranium Mine. All of the written reports are false. They simply changed a military enterprise into a civilian enterprise, and continued with large-scale mining. They are still mining the uranium on a large scale.... Who is their trading partner? Who do they sell the uranium to? ...Was it used to promote peace or violence?" These were all questions Sun Xiaodi could not answer.

Sun was detained again in April 2006. He was released soon afterward, but remains under constant police surveillance, and is now forbidden even to talk on the telephone, much less leave China to attend an award ceremony. Sun sent a short recorded message to the ceremony, in which he says: "Breaking through fear to fight for a nuclear-free environment requires a person to take a path full of hardship, bloodshed and tears, which could end up in either life or death. However, I firmly believe that if all people who are peace-loving and concerned with human destiny and upholding justice can come together and take action as soon as possible, a nuclear-free tomorrow can become a reality."

Source: Nuclear-Free future Award at nuclear www.free.com and website of Human Rights in China, www.hric.org
Contact: Craig Reishus at the Nuclear-Free Future Award, Ganghoferstr. 52, München D-80339 Germany.
Tel.: +49 (0)89 28 65 97 14 . Fax: +49 (0)89 28 65 97 15
Email: cb@nuclear-free.com
Web: www.nuclear-free.com