Lithuania

In July 2009 a complaint about the planned Belarusian NPP was developed by the European ECO Forum legal team and submitted to the Implementation Committee of the Espoo Convention by Ecoclub, NGO (Ukraine).

The Committee of the Espoo Convention reviewed the provided information and agreed to gather further information on the proposed activity, and whether the Government of Belarus had taken the necessary measures to implement the provisions of the Convention. The Committee requested the Chair to write to the Government of Belarus seeking relevant information and asking for a reply.

The Committee also decided to contact affected Parties identified by the NGO (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine) to enquire into their experiences, if any, in the application of the Convention to the proposed activity. The Committee requested the secretariat to inform the NGO of the actions taken. The Belarusian Side agreed with Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine to conduct public hearings concerning the project.

After a public hearing in Vilnius on March 2, concerning the planned construction of the Belarusian NPP, several environmental initiatives – the Belarusian Green Party, the Russian group Ecodefense!, a movement called “Scientists for a Nuclear-Free Belarus,” and the non-governmental organisation Ecodom – prepared and distributed a document called “Critical notes on the ‘Statement on Potential Environmental Impact of the Belarusian NPP.’

The document includes a 23-item list elaborating the errors and oversights on the part of the official environmental evaluation statement’s authors. The main conclusion in the Critical Notes claims that the official statement downplays significantly the NPP’s anticipated impact on the surrounding environment and the health of the local population both as part of standard-mode operation and in case of an accident.

Since last September, however, neither the official environmental impact statement’s authors nor Belarusian authorities have offered any response to the criticism. On March 31 the third Public hearing took place in Kyiv (Ukraine) to evaluate the environmental impact (EIA) power plant construction project 2000MWt in Belarus.

During the hearing everyone had the opportunity to represent their respective positions. In the beginning Belarusian officials represented the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the planned Belarusian NPP.

Then members of different NGOs represented an alternative view on the project, for instance:
* The EIA was presented only as a brief non-technical overview and the full version oft the EIA is not accessible
* It did not become clear from the presented form of the EIA, how the Belarusian side means to deal with nuclear waste and spent fuel management
* There was no information on the decommissioning of the planned NPP
* In the event of a severe accident emissions will be higher than officially stated
* The EIA ignores the fact that the NPP could affect Ukrainian territory

In the official protocol the following conclusion is written:
* Environmental NGOs expressed concern about incomplete and poor quality of EIA preparation;
* arguments from the Belarusian side on environmental safety of planned nuclear power plant construction were considered insufficient;
* the design and construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant were opposed.

According to the Espoo Convention Belarussia has to take the comments they received into account. We will see if and how they do. 

The complaint on non-compliance by Belarus with its obligations under Espoo Convention in the course of construction of a nuclear power plant and submitted by the Ecoclub NGO (Ukraine) is available at: http://www.rac.org.ua/index.php?id=106&L=1

Source and contact: Andriy Martynyuk, Lukas Kubinski at Ecoclub, P.O. Box № 73, Rivne, Ukraine, 33023 Tel: +380 3 6237024 Email: Ecoclub@ukrwest.net WEB http://ecoclub.ukrwest.net/en

According to a survey by Prime Consulting for the Lithuanian magazine Veidas, 48% of Lithuanians may vote against the construction of the planned Visaginas nuclear power plant in a referendum in October, while 19% support the construction. The poll, conducted in the country’s largest cities among 500 people on July 16-17, didn’t provide a margin of error. 

Lithuania will hold the referendum on October 14 along with the general election (see In Brief, Nuclear Monitor 753, 3 August 2012) in which the ruling center-right coalition is widely expected to be ousted from office. Prime Consulting’s poll suggest that Lithuania’s Social Democrats – who originally called for the vote on Visaginas complaining that details on the project remain too scarce after earlier supporting the plan to build the plant – are most likely to lead the next government.

Andrei Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist and industry expert with Bellona in Russia pointed out that previous polls had indicated a 65 percent public opposition to the plant. A 50% plus one vote against the plant with a 50 percent voter turn out will be required to scuttle the plant, he said.

The figures from the polls suggest that Hitachi, the strategic investor on the Visaginas plant, may have a dark cloud cast over its plans to enter the construction phase: With the referendum coinciding with the general election, turn out is expected to be robust. But a statement released to Bellona by Hitachi in the European Union remained optimistic in an August 8, email interview with Bellona that the polls do not reflect Lithuanian public opinion. “We believe that all main political parties in Lithuania do not object to the nuclear power plant in Visaginas and that many Lithuanian people support the project. They understand that the nuclear power plant is necessary to ensure energy security of the region.”

The country’s lawmakers approved the July referendum proposal despite Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius calling for parliament to reject the initiative because it is “not necessary.” In June, Lithuanian parliament approved an agreement which provides the contractual frame-work for Visaginas. The government had planned to sign an agreement with strategic investor Hitachi to proceed with engineering and preparation work. “At this stage Hitachi wants to set up the project company as soon as possible and we expect this can be done before the referendum,” Hitachi’s statement to Bellona said. A final investment decision on whether or not to go ahead with the project is expected in 2015, NucNet reported, and the plant would be opera-tional by 2020-2022.

Visaginas is also failing to find a niche in a small region where two other nuclear power plants are planned –Belarusian NPP in the city of Ostrovets, and Baltic NPP, to be built in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between the Baltic state and mainland Russia. The site slated for the Visaginas plant is a mere 2.3 kilometers from the Belarusian border and water for the plants cooling systems is to come from Lake Drisvyaty, a water body that straddles the borders of both countries. In a rare union, both the Belarusian government and Bela-rusian environmental group are against the Visaginas plant. This is could ramp up yet more political tit for tat between Vilnius and Minsk: Lithuania has been vociferously opposed to Belarus NPP on the grounds that Minsk has submitted insufficient proof that its plant will be safe.

Source: Bellona, 8 August 2012

Nuclear activists jailed in Belarus for protesting deal with Russia.
One of the few remaining countries that claims the nuclear renaissance is real is Russia. The renaissance is not so real at home, where the number of planned nuclear power stations always looks impressive, but actual construction slows down. So, Russia looks to the outside world to push new reactors. On July 18 in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, the Russian and Belarusian officials signed a general contract on the joint project that envisions Russia’s Rosatom building a 2,400-MW nuclear power plant in the Belarusian town of Ostrovets in Grodno Region. The contract specified start of operation of Ostrovets unit 1 in November 2018 and unit 2 in  July 2020. A price tag of US$10 billion was put on the turnkey project to build the two NPP-2006 model VVER-1200 pressurized water reactors and all associated power plant  infrastructure.
Several journalists and environmentalists who are critical of the plan wanted to give him a petition. Even before they were on their way to the Russian Embassy in Minsk to deliver the petition, Russian nuclear physicist and journalist Andrey Ozharovsky and his Belarussian colleague and organizer of the petition Tatjana Novikova were arrested. Both were convicted that same day, Ozharovsky was given 10 days in jail and Novikova five days. They were accused of "hooliganism." The only witnesses called were the police people who arrested them. They said Ozharovsky and Novikova had screamed foul language that was audible further than 50 meters away. Well, "hooliganism" is the new magic word to persecute unwelcome political activism in current Belarus and Russia, just remember the members of punkgroup Pussy Riot who are facing a 7-year jail sentence for playing an anti-Putin song at the altar of one of Moscow's main cathedrals. Furthermore, new legislation in Russia oblige nongovernmental groups that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents" or risk heavy fines and jail time.
Bellona, 13 July 2012 / WNN, 19 July 2012 / Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace blog, 21 July 2012

Renewables to rescue Areva?
Areva's renewable energy division contributed positive operating cash flow for the first time in the first half of this year, highlighting the emerging importance of green energy to the French group as it looks to improve its cash position and pursue costcutting measures. Revenues from the Renewable Energies division hiked four-fold on the year to Eur253 million (US$308.7 million), on growth in offshore wind, solar and biomass sectors, helping drive up group revenues by 8.3% to Eur4.3 billion. "It's an encouraging sign because we know that renewable energy can contribute to the cash generation objective that we have in general for the group," Chief Financial Officer Pierre Aubouin said July 26 at the company's results presentation. The group has undergone a slim-lining program following costly delays for the construction of third-generation nuclear plants, while the Fukushima nuclear disaster has substantially dented the commercial prospects for nuclear reactor makers. "Ongoing efforts begun in late 2011 to reduce operating costs, with savings measures at the end of June 2012 implemented for nearly 20% of the objective set for the group through 2015, on an annual basis, another 45% of the objective being secured in addition," chief executive Luc Oursel said. The group, which also suffered from major write-downs on its uranium mining assets, still believes that nuclear is to remain a reliable source of energy on a long term, notably in Asia. 
Shares in Areva over the past 12 months have lost more than 55% of their value on the worries related to the impact of Fukushima on the group's outlook, as well as the massive write-down on the mining assets.
Areva, press release, 26 July 2012 / www.adr.com, 26 July 2012 / Platts, 27 July 2012 

Lithuania: Referendum on new nuclear power plant.
On July 16, Lithuanian Parliament decided that there will be a referendum about Visaginas Nuclear  Power Plant project. Text of the referendum will be: "I approve construction of the new nuclear power plant in Lithuania" Yes/No. Sixty-two lawmakers voted in favour of the opposition proposal to hold the referendum, which will not be binding, in tandem with the Baltic state's general election on October 14, while 39 were against and 18 abstained. "Visaginas nuclear power plant will be built on Lithuanian land, with increased danger, therefore we must ask the opinion of the Lithuanian people," said opposition Social Democrat Birute Vesaite. Lithuania's governing Conservatives opposed the referendum plan, accusing the opposition of simply seeking pre-election political gains. The government will not be bound by the results of the referendum, but the vote may add uncertainty to the already-sluggish nuclear project, which lacks strong support from opposition parties that lead the election polls.
At the end of 2009, Lithuania closed its only nuclear power plant, located near Visaginas in the northeast. The shutdown was one of the terms of Lithuania's 2004 admission to the European Union. A referendum on extending the old plant until a new one was ready was held alongside the last general election in 2008, but while 89 percent voted in favour, turnout was only 48 percent, rendering it invalid. 
Now a new wave of propaganda and information about nuclear power is expected. But it is impossible to speak of a level playing field for pro and anti-nuclear organizations, considering the differences in financial means.
AFP, 16 July 2012

Olkiluoto-3 delayed indefinitely.
Finnish electricity company TVO says the Olkiluoto 3 EPR nuclear reactor will not be ready by the latest deadline of 2014 and a new timetable has not yet been set. Olkiluoto 3, originally due to be ready by 2009, is being built by French nuclear company Areva and German  engineering giant Siemens. In a statement, TVO said it was "not pleased with the situation" although solutions to various problems were being found one by one and work was "progressing". It said it was waiting for a new launch date from Areva and Siemens. Work on the site in south-west Finland began in 2005 but has been hit by repeated delays and has run way over budget. TVO has disagreed with the Areva/Siemens consortium over who is responsible for the delays. On July 16, it cited delays in automation system engineering and installation works.
The International Chamber of Commerce's arbitration court is processing the dispute on cost overruns between the consortium and TVO.
A similar project in Flamanville in northern France is itself running four years behind schedule.
China looks set to be the first country to operate an EPR reactor with one due to enter service in 2013. China is building two such reactors at Taishan in the south-east of the country with the first due to enter service at the end of next year and the second a year later.
On August 11, people are going to block the roads to Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Eurajoki. Previous years have seen people blocking the roads using banners, drumming, performances and peaceful civil disobedience.
BBC, 16 July 2012 / Reuters, 16 July 2012 / Olkiluotoblockade2012.wordpress.com

Japan: founding Green Party shows strong anti-nuclear feeling.
While a second reactor (Ohi-4) was restarted and resumed supplying to the grid on July 20, anti- nuclear sentiment is still growing. Anti-nuclear campaigners in Japan have launched the country's first green party. Greens Japan, created by local politicians and activists, hopes to satisfy the legal requirements to become an officially recognised political party in time for the general election, which must be held by next summer but could come much earlier. The party said it would offer voters a viable alternative to the two main parties, the ruling Democratic party of Japan and the minority opposition Liberal democratic party [LDP] both supported the nuclear restart. Akira Miyabe, Greens Japan's deputy leader, said voters had been deprived of the chance to support a party that puts nuclear abolition and other green policies at the top of its agenda. "We need a party that puts the environment first," he said at a launch event in Tokyo. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear protest is continuing. The Friday evening demonstration in Tokyo usually attracts over 100.000 people and a human chain against the Diet building on Sunday July 29 again brought ten of thousands to the streets. In a rare move by a former Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama joined a anti-nuclear demonstration outside his old office on July 19, another sign that the ruling party he once led is fracturing over energy and other policies. Also in other Japanese cities regularly demonstration take place.
ReUters, 20 & 21 July 2012 / Guardian, 30 July 2012 / Website Metropolitans against nukes www.coalitionagainstnukes.jp 

Legal challenges against nuclear power projects in Slovakia and UK

Slovakia's nuclear watchdog violated the law when it issued a building permit for ENEL's 3.7 billion-euro nuclear reactor project, the Supreme Court has ruled. The Italian utility's local unit, Slovenske Elektrarne AS, began building two new reactors at the Mochovce nuclear power plant in 2009 after receiving a permit by the Office for Nuclear Supervision. The Supreme Court has directed the regulator to reopen the public consultation process.[1] The battle continues − the Slovak nuclear regulator UJD said it would order a new round of public consultation but that ENEL can continue with construction.

Greenpeace, along with Ireland's heritage group An Taisce (the National Trust for Ireland), have launched two independent legal challenges to the UK government plans for new nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point, Somerset. The reactor plan is being challenged on the basis of the EU's Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, which requires that affected EU members states are informed and consulted during the planning stage of infrastructure projects that "could have a significant impact on the environment". Irish people were not properly consulted on the proposals.[2]

In a separate case, Greenpeace is challenging the UK Government's decision to grant planning permission for the reactors because it hasn't found a site to store the new nuclear waste, following Cumbria's resounding rejection of a national nuclear waste site in the area.[2]

1] www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-21/enel-nuclear-building-permit-violated-...
[2] www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2006847/legal_challenges_to_new_...

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Greenland uranium ban may be lifted

The ban on uranium mining in the Danish realm is expected to be lifted in the Greenlandic parliament in the coming months. The first reading of the new uranium bill will be on October 1, the second on October 24 and the third in Spring 2014. The decision will then have to be confirmed in the Danish parliament. The Greenlandic government decision will be preceded by publication of two reports – one scientific and independent and one political – on the consequences of lifting the ban. The scientific report has already been written, but the government has so far refused to make it public, a fact that has caused outrage among the opposition parties.

The Greenlandic Minister of Industry and Labour has also stated that a comprehensive public debate on uranium mining is unnecessary, before the ban is lifted, because the government was given a clear mandate to do so during the recent elections.

Abolishment of the uranium zero tolerance policy is not only a hot topic in Greenland, but also in Denmark. Even though the Danish government has given notice that it favours the bill, it could still be voted down in the Parliament. The Danish government is a minority government and even within the government itself there is opposition to lifting the ban.

Avataq, the Danish Ecological Council and NOAH FoE Denmark have weighed in on the debate and last month they published a feature article in Politiken, one of the biggest Danish dailies. The article has been translated into English:
www.ecocouncil.dk/en/releases/articles-pressreleases/chemicals-and-clima...
 
− Niels Hooge

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Uranium smuggling arrest at JFK airport. Patrick Campbell of Sierra Leone was recently caught at Kennedy Airport with uranium hidden in his shoes and luggage. He was charged with plotting to sell 1,000 tons of uranium to an FBI agent posing as a broker for Iranian buyers. He had allegedly responded to an advertisement in May 2012 on the website Alibaba.com. Campbell claimed to represent a mining company in Sierra Leone that sold diamonds, gold and uranium, and is accused of seeking to arrange the export of uranium from Sierra Leone to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, packed in drums and disguised as the mineral chromite.

www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nuke_powder_terror_arrest_at_jfk_MvQxJcRf5oy...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23825972

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Plutonium and enriched uranium removed from nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. Working in top secret over a period of 17 years, Russian and US scientists collaborated to remove hundreds of pounds of plutonium and highly enriched uranium — enough to construct at least a dozen nuclear weapons — from a remote Soviet-era nuclear test site in Kazakhstan that had been overrun by impoverished metal scavengers, according to a report released in August by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The report sheds light on a mysterious US$150 million cleanup operation paid for in large part by the US, whose nuclear scientists feared that terrorists would discover the fissile material and use it to build a dirty bomb.

www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/a-secret-race-for-abandoned-nuclea...

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UK − Heysham shut down after electrical fault. Heysham 1 Power Station shut down both of its nuclear reactors after an electrical fault in a gas turbine generator. Firefighters were called to the plant on August 22. EDF Energy, which operates the plant, said it had been shut down as a precaution. In May, a reactor was shut down after smoke was seen coming from a turbine due to smouldering lagging on a turbine.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-23808744
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/uk-nuclear-idUKBRE97Q0LB20130827
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-22394359

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Lithuania opposes new reactor in Belarus. The Lithuanian government has made known its deep concerns about Belarus's nuclear power project near Ostroverts, and is demanding work be halted until safety issues are addressed and international treaties are complied with. Two diplomatic notes have been sent to Belarus over the past month to protest earth-moving and other initial work for the plant. "We have many concerns about safety and information we've asked for hasn't been provided," Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said. A UN committee said in April that Belarus wasn't abiding by the terms of the Espoo Convention on cross-border environmental issues.

www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2013/08/lithuania-express-concern-o...
ESPOO Convention: www.unece.org/env/eia/eia.html

Nigeria signs agreement with Rosatom. Last issue we made a funny remark about Nigeria’s announcement that it selected two sites for the construction of nuclear power reactors, but only a few days later the country signed a cooperation accord with Russia’s Rosatom towards the construction of its first nuclear power plant. Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko signed a memorandum of understanding with the chairman of the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission, Franklin Erepamo Osaisai. Its terms will see the two countries "prepare a comprehensive program of building nuclear power plants in Nigeria," including the development of infrastructure and a framework and system of regulation for nuclear and radiation safety.

Sergei Kiriyenko is quoted in Leadership newspaper to have said that  the contract would cover the building of nuclear power plant (1200MW) worth about US$4.5 billion (about N697 billion). In 2010 Nigeria said it aimed to have 1000 MW of nuclear generation in place by 2019 with another 4000 MW online by 2030. Although not all contracts Rosatom signed have materialized in the past, however, Nigeria is, one of the very few African countries pursuing a nuclear energy program.
World Nuclear News, 4 June 2012 / Leadership Newspapers (Nigeria), 13 June 2012

Fear nuclear safety is in stake in harsh competition for sales.
Nuclear-reactor makers are offering prices too low to cover costs to win orders abroad in a strategy that puts earnings at risk, according to Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of the French Autorite de Surete Nucleaire regulator. “Export contracts for nuclear plants are being obtained at pure dumping-level prices,” Lacoste fears that nuclear safety could be compromised in trying to win tenders. “Prices accepted by vendors and obtained by buyers are unsustainable,” he said. “There aren’t many tenders, which is why competitors are ripping each other off. It’s already a serious matter, and we need to make sure that there’s no dumping on safety on top of that.”
Bloomberg, 6 June 2012

Academic study on IAEA.
Just published: a new research report Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA, by Trevor Findlay. The report is the outcome of the two-and-a-half year research project on “Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA” conducted by the CCTC and CIGI. The project aimed to carry out a “root and branch” study of the Agency to examine its current strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for bolstering and, if necessary, reforming it. According to the preface this academic study of the Agency “is needed not just in the light of accumulating challenges to the IAEA’s future and the increasing demands made on it by its member states, but because the Agency itself is demanding more support and resources. At a time of financial stringencies, many of the countries that traditionally have offered such support seek proper justification for any increases.” Findlay concludes that the IAEA is irreplaceable: “like the United Nations itself, if it did not exist it would have to be invented”.

However, this report is a good source for general information about the Agency that was founded to “accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world,” while ensuring, “so far as it is able,” that this does not “further any military purpose”.
Unleashing the nuclear watchdog is available at: href="http://www.cigionline.org/iaea"www.cigionline.org/iaea

China: nuclear safety plan but no approval for new projects yet.
China has approved a nuclear safety plan and says its nuclear power plants meet the latest international safety standards, though some plants need to improve their ability to cope with flooding and earthquakes, state media said on May 31. But the government has not made any decision on when to start approving new nuclear plant projects.

China suspended approvals of new nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's nuclear crisis in March 2011 following a devastating tsunami, and ordered nationwide safety checks on existing plants and construction sites. It also pledged to review its nuclear power development plan. The State Council, China's Cabinet, now approved a nuclear safety plan for 2011-2015 in a meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. China also aims to enhance nuclear safety standards and lower the risks of nuclear radiation by 2020, the report said.

A nine-month safety inspection of China's 41 nuclear power plants, which are either operating or under construction, showed that most of China's nuclear power stations meet both Chinese and International Atomic Energy Agency standards, according to the report. However, some individual power plants need to improve their ability to prevent damage from serious accidents such as earthquakes, flooding or tsunami, it said.
Reuters, 31 May 2012

Switzerland: court rejects Mühleberg extension.
BKW, the operator of the Mühleberg nuclear power plant, must submit a full maintenance plan, or shut down the plant in June 2013. The Federal Supreme Court has rejected BKW’s request for an injunction, after earlier this year the Federal Administrative Court pulled Mühleberg’s right to an unlimited permit. Federal environment officials had reasoned BKW could have an indefinite operating permit so long as the Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate was monitoring site maintenance and safety issues. The court ruled BKW needed to submit maintenance and safety plans, especially with known concerns over the site’s cooling system, and cracks in the core shroud.
World Radio Switzerland, 29 May 2012

Lithuania opposes construction of N-plants close to its borders.
On May 28, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis blasted plans by Russia and Belarus to build nuclear power plants close to its borders, accusing both of lax safety and environmental standards and "bypassing international safety and environmental standards." "This is not just an issue for Lithuania... it should be a matter of concern to all countries in this region. We should do everything possible to make these two projects develop according to international standards. It is vital," Azubalis said, following talks in Riga with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics. Rinkevics offered a cautious endorsement of Azubalis' concerns.  Asked by AFP what proof Lithuania had concerning the safety of the Russian and Belarusian projects, Azubalis said he had yet to receive satisfactory responses to written requests for information through official channels including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Espoo Convention Committee. The Lithuanian foreign ministry provided AFP with a document dated May 4 expressing "deep concern" over an alleged recent accident at Russia's Leningrad NPP-2 nuclear facility, which is still under construction. "The incident in Leningrad NPP-2 raises a number of serious questions about the safety of this and two other planned (plants) near Lithuanian borders and the capital Vilnius which are projected to be based on the same technology and possibly the same means of construction," the document states.

Lithuania and Latvia, together with Estonia and Japanese company Hitachi, have putative plans of their own to construct a joint nuclear power plant at Visaginas in northern Lithuania to replace the Soviet-era Ignalina facility which was shut down in 2009.
AFP, 28 may 2012

Flying into trouble at Sellafield. 
Unusual pathways by which radioactivity routinely escapes the confines of nuclear sites are well documented with one recent example to hit the headlines being the 6000 mile transportation of radioactive contamination by bluefin tuna from the polluted waters around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant to the coasts of North America. An even more recent case has however turned up very much closer to home – at Sellafield.
No stranger to unusual pathways for radioactivity - as 2000 Cumbrian feral pigeons and a host of seagulls will know to their cost - the site’s latest victims have been identified as a number of swallows which, gorging on the mosquitos that flit over the waters of Sellafield’s radioactive storage ponds, have taken up residence in Sellafield’s transport section.  As confirmed by the Environment Agency last week to a meeting of the Environmental Health Sub-Committee of the West Cumbria Sites Stakeholder Group, the birds’ droppings from around their roost/nesting sites have been found to be radioactively contaminated. Whilst neither the contamination levels nor the number of swallows involved was provided, the Environment Agency told the Committee that measures were being taken by Sellafield Ltd to tackle the mosquito problem.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood commented; “These much-loved and now radioactive birds and their offspring will unwittingly be carrying a highly toxic message from Sellafield when they migrate back to Southern Africa at the end of the summer - a distance at least equivalent to that recently undertaken by the bluefin tuna.”
CORE press release, 6 June 2012

U.K.: Chernobyl restrictions sheep lifted after 26 years.
Twenty-six years after the April 26, 1986, explosion at Chernobyl reactor 4, restrictions remained on 334 farms in North Wales, and eight in Cumbria. But as of June 1, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) regulations on these farms were lifted. In the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when radioactive rain swept the UK, farmers saw their livelihoods and even their families threatened. Some 9,700 farms and four million sheep were placed under restriction as radioactive cesium- 137 seeped into the upland soils of England, Scotland and Wales.

Before June 1, any livestock for breeding or sale had to be assessed with gamma monitors by officials from Defra or the Welsh government. Sheep found to exceed the legal radiation dose (1,000 Becquerel per kilo) were moved to the lowlands before sale, and had the farmers wanted to move their flock, they had to seek permission.

The FSA said the restrictions had been lifted because “the current controls are no longer proportionate to the very low risk”. No sheep in Cumbria have failed the monitoring criteria for several years, and less than 0.5 per cent of the 75,000 sheep monitored annually in North Wales fail.  But not everyone agrees with lifting the restrictions. An anonymous farmer with a flock of 1,000 ewes, was quoted in the Independent saying: “The feeling I have is that it should still be in place. The food should be kept safe.”
Independent (UK), 1 June 2012

Australia: at last: Kakadu Koongarra victory.
The Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory is set to be expanded, with the inclusion of land previously earmarked land for uranium mining known as Koongarra. The Northern Land Council (NLC) has agreed for a 1,200 hectare parcel of land containing rich reserves of uranium to be incorporated in to the park. This looks like the final step in a long battle that Aboriginal traditional owner Jeffrey Lee has waged to protect his land from mining. The uranium-rich mining lease Koongarra was excised from Kakadu when the conservation area was established in the late 1970s. The lease is held by French company Areva, which wanted to mine the area for uranium. Two years ago, Mr Lee, the sole traditional owner of the land, called on the Federal Government to incorporate it in to Kakadu. The Government accepted the offer and referred the matter to the NLC. The NLC conducted consultations and its full council has agreed to endorse Mr Lee's wishes. The council and land trust will now move to enter an agreement with national parks to incorporate Koongarra into Kakadu. The Koongarra area includes the much-visited Nourlangie Rock (Burrunggui/Anbangbang) and is important in the Rainbow Serpent and Lightning Man stories.

In June 2011, the Koongarra site was added to the World Heritage List during a meeting of the Unesco World Heritage Committee in Paris. The French nuclear energy company Areva, had unsuccessfully asked the committee to remove Koongarra from its agenda.

It is not known if Areva will attempt to take any action over the decision to include Koongarra in the Kakadu national park
Nuclear Monitor, 1 July 2012 / ABC, 1 June 2012

Japan: Smartphone capable of measuring radiation.
On May 29, the Japanese company Softbank Mobile unveiled a smartphone capable of measuring radiation levels in a bid to respond to growing demand for dosimeters in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Users can measure radiation levels by pressing and holding a button on the phone, and the device can be set to a constant measurement mode or plot readings on a map, according to Softbank.

The Pantone 5 107SH, manufactured by Sharp Corp., is equipped with a sensor that can measure between 0.05 and 9.99 microsieverts per hour of gamma ray in the atmosphere. The product is aimed at ''alleviating as much as possible the concerns of mothers with children,'' the mobile operator said in a statement, adding it will go on sale sometime in mid-July or later.
Mainichi (Japan), 29 May 2012

Public acceptance – what holds back the nuclear industry?
“Multiple structural barriers inside the nuclear industry tend to prevent it from producing a united pro-nuclear front to the general public. Efforts to change public opinion worldwide must deal with these real-world constraints.” In an article called: Public acceptance – what holds back the nuclear industry? Steve Kidd (deputy director-general of the World Nuclear Association) is asking if “we have probably begun to reach some limits in employing a fact-based strategy to improve public acceptance of nuclear. Huge efforts have been made to inform people about nuclear by freely providing a lot of good information. But the message doesn’t seem to hit home with many.” He is explaining why and how to overcome this in an article in the May issue of Nuclear Engineering International.

In the next episode he will look at the possibilities of increasing public acceptance in more detail. 
The article is available at: www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=147&storyCode=2062367

Two possible suppliers left for Jordan's first.  Jordan's first nuclear power plant will be supplied by either AtomStroyExport of Russia or the Areva-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries joint venture, Atmea.
The past three years have seen the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) whittle down a list of seven offers from four reactor vendors to the two announced on April 30. Jordanian official news agency Petra reported that the JAEC has decided to continue discussions with AtomStroyExport and the Atmea consortium, describing them as the two suppliers "best qualified" with the technology to best meet Jordan's requirements and needs. Both reactors still under consideration are advanced pressurized water reactors (PWRs) offering enhanced active and passive safety systems. The 1150 MWe Atmea 1 represents an evolution of French standard designs, and received preliminary safety approval from French nuclear regulators earlier this year. The AES-92 is a version of the VVER-1000 with enhanced safety and seismic features. Two AES-92 units are under construction at Koodankulam in India, while the closely related AES-91 is under construction at Tianwan in China. The JAEC will now continue discussions with the two shortlisted suppliers to resolve outstanding technical issues including the site selection process.
World Nuclear News, 30 April 2012

Charges dropped against Vermont Yankee protesters.
Prosecutors in Vermont are dropping criminal trespassing charges against 136 protesters who were arrested March 22,  at the corporate offices of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The protesters were arrested at the Entergy Corp. offices in Brattleboro. They refused to leave the property while demonstrating on the first day of the Vermont Yankee plant's operation after the expiration of its 40-year state license. On April 26, Windham County State's Attorney Tracy Shriver decided against moving forward with the charges given the limited resources of her office and the courts. "Weighing the seriousness of the criminal offences committed by the protestors against the time and means necessary to proceed with these cases has led me to decide against moving forward with these cases."

The Vermont Yankee plant, located in Vernon, has a new permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate for 20 more years, but its state license is expired. Over a 1000 people took place in the March 22 protest. (see Nuclear Monitor 741: Showdown for Vermont Yankee).
Brattleboro Reformer, 26 April 2012

Jaitapur: commemoration of death protestor. 
In India, opposition to nuclear projects is large. Besides the more publicized, but still rather unknown struggle at Koodankulam, the struggle at Jaitapur is fierce. On 18 April 2012, it was exactly one year ago that the people’s expression of anger against the proposed 9900 MW Jaitapur nuclear power project at Madban village of Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra was on full display. People were continuously protesting from 2005 on when the land acquisition was set in motion and against environment clearance granted by the central government. A group of furious women ransacked and burnt papers and furniture at the Nate police station. The tension between the police and the people mounted which culminated in the police firing causing the death of Tarbej Sayekar, a 27 year youth.

The people in the Jaitapur locality observed the first death anniversary of martyr Tarbej Sayekar by observing a bandh (Bandh originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest. During a Bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike) and once again opposing the Jaitapur power project. On this occasion, between 3 to 5 in the afternoon, a crowd of about 3000 people gathered together and offered their tributes to martyr Tarbej Sayekar by reading the Koran.

Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project is a proposed 9900 MW power project of Nuclear Power

Corporation of India (NPCIL) at Madban village of Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra. On December 6, 2010 agreement was signed for the construction of first set of two third-generation European Pressurized Reactors and the supply of nuclear fuel for 25 years in the presence of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
South Asians Against Nukes (SAAN), 18 April 2012

South Africa: environmental campaigner resigns from regulator.
Long-time environmental campaigner Mariette Liefferink has resigned from the NNR (South Africa's National Nuclear Regulator) citing her frustration over the organization's failure to deal with vulnerable communities exposed to dangerous mining waste. In 2009, the Minister of Energy appointed Liefferink, the chief executive of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, to the board of the regulator to represent the concerns of communities affected by nuclear issues. But now she says: "I see no benefits to remaining on the board because I cannot raise the concerns of communities." "There are 1.6 million people living in informal settlements on or adjacent to radioactive waste... and there are no management plans in place." A number of 36 sites are identified as 'radiological hotspots' in the Wonderfonteinspruit area. These sites are radioactive because of the uraniferous nature of the ore, but "[T]here is still no physical evidence of rehabilitation."

"The communities living in radioactive mine residue areas are mostly informal settlements but no regulatory decisions have been take regarding their protection."

She ends her resignation-letter saying: "It has become evident that there is a fundamental anomaly between what I perceive as the duty of the Board and the NNR and the Board’s and the NNR’s understanding of their duties."
Mariette Lieferinks resignation letter to Energy Minister Peters, 16 April 2012 / Star newspaper, 21 April 2012

PE planned reactor project now decade delayed.
US: Progress Energy -not long ago considered to be in the forefront of the US's nuclear renaissance- said on May 1, it will delay building its planned Levy nuclear plant in Florida by another three years. The announcement sets back the twin reactor project to a 2025-26 time frame from the original planned date of 2015-17 for the reactors to come online and start generating electricity. The company also updated its cost estimate for the planned Florida reactors from US$17 billion. The new estimate is US$19 billion to US$24 billion. The estimates don't include the cost of debt interest, which would likely add hundreds of millions of dollars to the price tag.
The delay in Florida is also taking place in North Carolina. Progress had originally planned to add two reactors at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County by 2020-21. But now those proposed reactors are not in the company's 15-year plan, which means they would not be added until 2027 at the earliest, and possibly much later.
.biz (blogs.newsobserver.com/business), 1 May 2012

Lithuania: no case for compensation Hitachi before 2015. On May 9, Lithuania's government gave its final approval to several plans aimed at "reducing its dependency on Russian energy sources", including the 1,350 ABWR nuclear power plant which it said could cost up to 7 billion euros (US$9.1 billion).

Lithuania has already initialled an outline plan with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy with aim to build it by 2020-2022 for about 5 billion euros. However, the Finance Ministry said in a statement the end cost for the project could be 6.8 billion euros.

Around 4 billion euros would be borrowed and the rest would come from the countries backing the project, Lithuania (38%), Latvia (20%) and Estonia (22%), as well as Hitachi (20%). Poland was originally part of the project, but dropped out.

On April 16, Lithuanian Finance Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, said Lithuania has time until March 2015 to cancel the Visaginas plant without having to pay high compensation to the Japanese company Hitachi. "Based on the information that I have, in the initial design stage, before a final decision to invest and build a nuclear power plant, financial risks, which may be incurred by Lithuania is very limited", said Šimonytė.

According to the President of the Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, Kestutis Glaveckasa, however, Lithuania will be forced to pay billions in damages, if the government withdraws from the contract for the construction of nuclear power plant. But Šimonytė stresses that the Ministry of Finance is at the stage of analyzing the concession agreement, the Lithuanian government signed in late March with a Japanese corporation. Later, a draft agreement will be presented to Parliament.
www.cire.pl, 16 April 2012 / Reuters, 9 May 2012

Why the fuzz? Lauvergeon vs Lauvergeon.
Anne Lauvergeon, the former head of France's state-controlled nuclear group Areva accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of wanting to try to sell a nuclear reactor to  Muammar Gaddafi's Libya at least until the summer of 2010. In interview published on April 10, on the website of L'Express weekly Lauvergeon said that Sarkozy proposed in July 2007 to sell a nuclear reactor to the Gaddafi government to be used to desalinate ocean water. Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, was overthrown and killed in October by rebels backed by a NATO force in which French warplanes played a major role. Lauvergeon said she opposed the idea "vigorously". She said: "The state, which was supposed to be responsible, was supporting this folly. Imagine, if we'd done it, how it would look now!" Nothing new, one would imagine, but the interview received some resonance in the international press.

On July 2, 2007 Sarkozy signed an widely publicized global partnership agreement with Libya: the two countries "agree to enhance cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, possibly leading to a civilian nuclear power program". It paved the way for the potential export by Areva of an EPR reactor to Lybia. There are no documents showing Lauvergeon, at that time head of Areva, opposed such a deal then. Lauvergeon was fired June last year.

Sarkozy was defeated by socialist party candidate Francois Hollande in the presidential elections on May 6, 2012.
Yves Marignac, WISE Paris, 15 November 2007 / Reuters, 10 April 2012.

Metsamor operations officially extended.
The Armenian government formally decided on April 19 to extend operations at the Metsamor VVER 440/230 nuclear power reactor, apparently because there is a delay in its planned replacement by a new facility. "Taking into account possible time frames for the launch of the new atomic energy block in the Republic of Armenia and the need to maintain the country´s energy security and independence during that period, it is necessary to extend the exploitation period of the Power Block No. 2," Energy Minister Armen Movisian said at a cabinet meeting that approved the measure.

The government assigned the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources to draw up by May next year a program of measures to ensure Metsamor´s longer-than-planned operations and their safety. The program will have to be submitted to the government for approval by September 2013. The construction of the new reactor is currently planned in 2013.

Metsamor was due to be decommissioned by September 2016 in accordance with the 30-year design life span. Armenia and in particular the area where Metsamor is located is an extreme seismic active area.
Azatutyan, 19 April 2012

Korea, Republic of

Low and intermediate-level waste is stored at the sub-surface Gyeongju LILW repository at a depth of 80 meters. Korea dumped low-level waste in the Sea of Japan 5 times from 1968-1972.(*01) High-level waste is stored at the reactor sites, pending construction of a centralized interim storage facility (possibly by 2016). No date for operation of a final disposal facility has been established, although long-term, deep geological disposal is envisaged. Whether this is for used fuel as such or reprocessing wastes depends on national policy and will be decided later.(*02)

The Atomic Energy Act of 1988 established a 'polluter pays' principle under which nuclear power plant operators paid a fee into a national Nuclear Waste Management Fund. A revised waste program was drawn up by the Nuclear Environment Technology Institute and approved by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1998.(*03)

South Korea’s key national laws relating to spent fuel and radioactive waste management are the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and the Radioactive Waste Management Act (RWMA). The AEA provides for safety regulations and licensing for  construction and operation of radioactive-waste disposal facilities. The RWMA, which was announced in 2008, and enacted in March 2010, established the Korea Radioactive Waste Management Corporation (KRMC) and the Radioactive Waste Management Fund in which KHNP, the nuclear utility company, annually deposits funds for decommissioning its nuclear power plants, disposing of their LILW, and managing their spent fuel.(*04) KHNP now contributes a fee of 900,000 won (US$ 705) per kilogram of used fuel.(*05)

Reprocessing, either domestic or overseas, is not possible under constraints imposed by the country's cooperation agreement with the USA.(*06)  Reprocessing will be central at the renewal negotiations of the agreement in 2014. KHNP has considered offshore reprocessing to be too expensive, and recent figures based on Japanese contracts with Areva in France support this view, largely due to transport costs. (*07)

Low and intermediate level waste
South Korea’s attempts to site a central interim spent-fuel storage facility and repository for low and intermediate level waste (LILW) began in 1986. During the following decades, a number of failed attempts to acquire sites to host such facilities, due to fierce local opposition (*08) despite steadily growing incentive offers, (*09) were made.  In December 2004, therefore, the AEC decided to pursue separate sites for the LILW repository and the central interim spent-fuel storage facility, starting with the LILW site, which was seen as politically easier. In March 2005, a Special Act on Support for Areas Hosting Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility was passed that guaranteed a local government hosting the national LILW facility an exemption from hosting a spent-fuel storage facility. The central government required a local referendum on hosting the facility and offered more incentives.

Success was finally achieved. Four cities competed to host the facility and Gyeongju City won after 89.5 percent of its voters approved hosting the site in November 2005. (*10) Construction started in April 2008 and in December 2010 KRWM commenced operation of the facility, accepting the first 1000 drums of wastes, which will be held in outdoor storage until the underground repository itself is commissioned in 2012. (*11)

SF-storage, temporarily or interim?
Dry storage for spent fuel has already been built at the Wolsong site, and more is being built there. Some argue that this is illegal because the national low- and intermediate-level waste repository is adjacent to the Wolsong nuclear power plant and, according to the 2005 Special Act on Support for Areas Hosting Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility, the same community cannot be required to host both the national LILW repository and interim spent fuel storage facilities. The KRMC argues, however, that the on-site dry storage facilities at Wolsong are “temporary,” not the “interim” storage that is banned by the special Act.

A major reason for South Korea’s political failures in siting a central spent-fuel storage site was that its early site-selection process did not include consultation with local communities. Instead, the central government selected sites based on its own assessments, met strong opposition from the proposed host region, and gave up. (*12)

In April 2007, after the success in siting the LILW repository, a task force was established to design a process to achieve a public consensus on spent fuel management. Based on the task force’s report, in July 2009, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) established a committee to manage the process. A month later, however, the process was suspended and MKE announced that a legal framework and a solicitation of expert opinion were required first. An expert group composed of members of South Korea’s nuclear establishment was instructed to carry out a year-long research project during 2010 as a basis for the public consensus process.(*13)

If it is to be credible, however, such a public consensus process for spent fuel management will have to be open and transparent and involve local communities and independent experts. Whether or not the public consensus process will in fact be finally launched remains to be seen.

KURT
The R&D program on the disposal technology of high-level radioactive waste was initiated in 1997. After 10 years into the research program, a reference disposal system called the Korea Reference System (KRS) was formulated in 2006 on the basis of the results of the R&D program, which included performance and safety assessment, and studies on the geo-environmental conditions in Korea, an engineered barrier system, and the migration of radionuclides.

For the validation of the KRS, a project for constructing a generic underground research tunnel in a crystalline rock called the Korea Underground Research Tunnel (KURT) started in 2003. Following the site characterization study, the tunnel design, and the construction licensing, the construction of the KURT located at the KAERI site started in May 2005. Controlled drill and blasting techniques were applied to excavate a 6m wide, 6m high and 255m long horseshoe-shaped tunnel with a 10% downward slope. After the completion of this construction of the KURT in November 2006, various in-situ tests are being carried out for the validation of HLW disposal techniques. (*14) The third phase of R&D study ended in February 2007 and phase four is underway. The Korean reference disposal system to accommodate all kinds of wastes from the advanced fuel cycle will be developed. And key technologies developed in third phase will be verified.(*15)

The KURT facility will not need to use radioactive sources to validate HLW approaches which are strictly prohibited by law. Rather, the facility will conduct a series of experiments to investigate “groundwater flow and rock mass characteristics” which with the participation of the local population could help to build trust.(*16)

Lithuania

The last reactor at the nuclear power plant in Lithuania, Ignalina, was closed permanently on 31 December 2010. The shutdown of the two Soviet-designed RBMK reactors was a condition of the accession to the European Union. The EU has agreed to pay decommissioning costs for the two RBMK reactors and some compensation through to 2013. Unit 1 of the Ignalina plant was shut at the end of 2004. (*01) Currently Lithuania is actively pursuing the construction of a new nuclear power plant: Visaginas. This is expected to operate from 2020 and is to be built in collaboration with Estonia, Latvia and Poland. However, in December 2011, Poland withdrew from the project. (*02)

All spent fuel is stored on site of Ignalina. First storage pools near the reactor and interim dry storage in the detached facility, where the spent fuel is stored in the same casks it is transported. It was intended to store the fuel unloaded from the reactor for several years and then to transfer it for processing to Russia. According to the Law on Environmental Protection (1992, last amended 2003), the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is prohibited. After that a decision was made to build a dry type interim storage for spent nuclear fuel at INPP and store it for 50 years.

The 2008 revised Strategy on Radioactive Waste Management, includes the construction of a new spent fuel interim storage facility; the transfer of spent fuel to the dry storage facilities; and to analyze the possibilities to dispose spent fuel and long-lived radioactive waste in Lithuania or to reprocess or dispose it in other countries.

Future strategy
Initial studies on geological disposal possibilities of the spent fuel were performed. The main objective was to demonstrate that in principle it is possible to implement a direct disposal in a safe way. The objective does not imply that disposal of spent fuel will take place in Lithuania. Which option shall be used for the potential disposal of spent fuel is to a large extent a political decision, and this investigation will be an important input to such decision once required.(*03)

Lithuania should start selection of a site for geological repository in 2030, if international practice is the same and there is no new advanced technologies applicable. In addition, possibilities to prolong storagetime in the storage containers are to be investigated.(*04)

Mexico

In 1998 a Radioactive Waste Management Policy project was started, which "unfortunately has not been issued due to socio-political obstacles." Currently there is no formally established policy for radioactive waste management. (*01) No reprocessing takes place.

On site storage spent fuel
The Energy Ministry is beginning to take administrative and budgetary steps to create a national company to manage its radioactive waste. It is also planning to sign the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management

An engineered near-surface disposal site for low-level waste (LLW) operated at Piedrera between 1985 and 1987. A collection, treatment and storage centre for LLW has operated at Maquixco since 1972. (*02)

Pending final solution, spent fuel is stored on site in modified spent fuel pools, (*03) increasing drastically the maximum capacity, "providing the time to develop an integral long-term strategy". (*04) But even 20 years later in a January 2010 presentation atmitted no specific disposal plan was established. Javier Palacios, head of ININ (National Commission for Nuclear Safety and Security) named the strategy and action on nuclear waste: "Formulating a national policy for the management of radioactive waste generated in the country". (*05)

Netherlands

The Netherlands is searching for deep geological disposal in salt (and more recently in clay) since 1976. Spent fuel is reprocessed and interim storage of reprocessing waste takes place in a bunker at the Covra-facility in Vlissingen for about 100 years.(*01). The country dumped low and intermediate level waste in sea from 1967 to 1982.(*02) Since then all dutch LLW and ILW is stored at the Covra, first at Petten and since 1992 at Vlissingen.(*03)

The search for a suitable saltdome
On 18 June 1976 the government wrote a letter to the Executive Board of the provinces of Groningen and Drenthe. The letter stated that five salt domes are eligible for test drilling: Gasselte Schoonlo, Pieterburen, Onstwedde and Anloo.(*04) The government thought actual storage could begin around the year 2000. (*05) According to J. Hamstra, then the main government adviser on nuclear waste, the storage of nuclear waste in the German Asse salt dome was an important argument to investigate salt domes in the Netherlands.(*06) Action groups against the plans were created inmmediately everywhere in Groningen and Drenthe.(*07) In March 1980 the Dutch parliament rejected test drillings and decided to hold a Social Debate on Energy (MDE), although everyone called it the Broad Social Discussion (BMD in Dutch). It was decided to delay exploratory drilling until after the BMD.(*08)

In 1984, shortly after the BMD, plans for test drilling reappeared again with the Commission Storage at Land (OPLA),(*09) although no specific proposals were mentioned. But in an 1987 interim report, OPLA listed 34 salt domes and salt layers in five northern provinces.(*10) Again, this list led to many protests.

A new attempt to discuss the problem of nuclear waste, was when, in 1987, Environment minister Nijpels (VVD, Liberals), started a consultation process about criteria the storage must meet.(*11) But Nijpels made a false start publishing an almost unreadable paper for the participation process, leading to discussions and protests even at governmental level. (*12)

On May 14, 1993 the then Environment Minister Alders (PvdA, Social Democrats) wrote that underground storage will be allowed, when 'permanent retrievability' is assured. One should always be able to get to the nuclear waste, but salt domes are slowly silting up. Alders therefor called storage in salt "not very realistic", but wanted "further inquiry" into storage in salt and - a new possibility - in clay. (*13)

To study permanent retrievability, the Ministry of Economic Affairs inaugurated in 1995 the Commission Radioactive Waste Disposal (CORA), which published its report 'Retrievable storage, a accessible path? ' in February 2001. Exploratory drilling and further studies in salt domes or clay layers are to be postponed, but not canceled definetely. The nuclear waste remains above ground…. for the moment.

In the years that followed different governments voiced the same opinion. Former Environment Minister Cramer for instance wrote to parliament on June 30, 2009: "In the current state of science and technology only geological (deep underground) disposal of highly radioactive waste is a solution, which ensures the waste will, even after millions of years, remains outside the living space (biosphere) of humans." (*14)  According to the minister future policy will be "directed at retrievable final disposal of radioactive waste in deep underground." She also stated that the report about the preconditions for the construction of new nuclear power plants, which will be published in the spring of 2010, will discuss "possible future policy on radioactive waste."The government wants a discussion about nuclear power with "experts and stakeholders."

To prepare such a discussion the government commissioned a report from the Dutch Nuclear Research & Consultancy Group (NRG). The regional newspaper Nieuwsblad van het Noorden quoted from the still classified report on December 14, 2009. According to the report, which speaks of disposal in deep underground stable geological formations, the government should increase its efforts to convince authorities and public of the necessity of storage of nuclear waste, without questioning risks and dangers. As a precondition for the construction of a new nuclear reactor –in operation in 2020-  the reports states: “final disposal is an accepted idea in 2015.” “There must be a step-to-step scheme to realize acceptance of geological disposal”, according to NRG.

On January 8 2010, the Advice for guidelines for the Environmental Impact Report for the construction of a second nuclear power plant at Borssele was published by the ministry.(*15) In it it says: "Give attention to the possibilities of final disposal of radioactive waste". Meaning disposal in salt or clay. The Covra (the 100% state-owned organisation responsible for storing all radioactive waste) started a new research project on July 5, 2011: Research Program Final Disposal Radioactive Waste (in Dutch OPERA).(*16) "In the current state of science and technology only geological disposal of highly radioactive waste is a solution, which ensures the waste will, for the long term, remains outside the living space (biosphere) of humans." And: "The decision about a disposal facility for Dutch radioactive waste is a process with a very long time horizon (according to the current policy at least 100 years) that will be implemented gradually." … "International experience show this is at least a 20-25 year long process. The ultimate construction of the facility is expected to take another 5-10 years. This means final disposal in the Netherlands will not be in operation before 2130". (*17)

In 2011, Greenpeace commissioned T&A Survey to do a study about underground clay-layers in the Netherlands. Conclusion of the research is that the so-called Klei van Boom (Boom's clay)  meet the preconditions announced by the government for waste disposal in four area's.

Then Greenpeace started an intensive campaign against the disposal in these clay-layers. Early February 2012, over 80 concerned municipalities and all provinces made statements opposing underground disposal of radioactive waste on its territories. (*18)

References:

Korea, Republic of
*01- IAEA: Inventory of radioactive waste disposals at sea, IAEA-Tecdoc-1105, August 1999, p.40
*02- OECD: Radioactive waste management in Republic of Korea, 2010, p.10
*03- World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Power in South Korea, March 2012
*04- OECD, 2010, p.
*05- World Nuclear Association, March 2012
*06- South Korea’s nuclear energy development has been made possible by the ROK-U.S. Atomic Energy Agreement signed in 1972. The United States provided nuclear technologies and materials necessary for the peaceful use of nuclear energy; in return, South Korea was specifically prohibited from proliferation-related activities such as the reprocessing of spent fuel and uranium enrichment under the terms of the agreement. After three decades of successful bilateral nuclear cooperation, the two governments are due to renew the accord by 2014. See: Seongho Sheen: Nuclear Sovereignty versus Nuclear Security: Renewing the ROK-U.S. Atomic Energy Agreement, in The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 2, June 2011, 273–288
*07- Nuclear Fuel: Reprocessing cost might exceed KHNP’s spent fuel management fees, 13 July 2009, p. 1
*08- see for instance the case of Buan; Nuclear Monitor 591: Massive actions against proposed South Korean waste dump, 22 August 2003, p.5
*09- Seong-Kyung Cho and Jooho Whang, “Status and Challenges of Nuclear Power Program and Reflections of Radioactive Waste Management Policy in Korea,” 2009 Advanced Summer School of Radioactive Waste Disposal with Social-Scientific Literacy, Berkeley, CA, 3 — 10 August 2009        
*10- Korea Herald: Gyeongju wins vote for nuclear dump, 3 November 2005
*11- World Nuclear Association, March 2012
*12- Seong-Kyung Cho and Jooho Whang, August 2009
*13- This is based on several South Korean news items in 2009, quoted in: IPFM, Managing spent fuel from nuclear power reactors, 2011, p. 68
*14- Republic of Korea: Korean Third National Report under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, October 2008, p.91
*15- OECD, 2010, p.12
*16- Miles Pomper, Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, Stephanie Lieggi, and Lawrence Scheinman: Nuclear Power and Spent Fuel in East Asia: Balancing Energy, Politics and Nonproliferation, Asia-Pacific Journal: 21 June 2010

Lithuania
*01- World Nuclear News: Lithuania shuts Ignalina plant, 4 January 2011)
*02- World Nuclear News: Lithuanian project makes progress, 30 March 2012
*03- Lithuania: Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, Second National Report, 2008
*04- Algirdas Vaidotas: Radioactive waste management in Lithuania; implementation and strategies, Deputy Director Radioactive Waste Management Agency (RATA), 4 November 2011

Mexico
*01- IAEA: Country Profile Mexico
*02- World Nuclear Association: Nuclear Power in Mexico, March 2012
*03- OECD: Radioactive waste management programmes in OECD countries: Mexico, 2005.
*04- Augusto Vera: Laguna Verde Station approach to nuclear waste, Comision Federal de Electricidad, 1993
*05- Javier Palacios H.: Situación de los Desechos Radioactivos en México, presentation at OLADE, 25-27 February 2010.

Netherlands
*01- COVRA: Beleid (Policy), COVRA website http://www.covra.nl/over-covra/beleid.
*02- IAEA: Inventory of radioactive waste disposals at sea, IAEA-Tecdoc-1105, August 1999.
*03- Energie en Milieuspectrum: Radioactief afval een eeuw onderdak (Radioactive waste under a shelter for a century), March 1994
*04- Letter Minister Economic Affairs Lubbers and Minister of Public Health and Enviroment Vorrink to Gedeputeerde Staten (Executive Board) of Groningen and Drenthe, 18 June 1976. Reference 376/-II/1055/EEK.
*05- ICK-commissie; Subcommissie Radioactieve Afvalstoffen (RAS), Eerste interimrapport betreffende de mogelijkheden van opslag van radioactieve afvalstoffen in zoutvoorkomens in Nederland, (1977).(ICK-Commission Subcommission Radioactive Waste (RAS). First interimreport about possibilities for the disposal of radioactive waste substances in salt formations in the Netherlands.)
*06- Atoomenergie, July/August 1974, pp. 175-181.
*07- An anthology of press publications and comments on the disposal proposals can be found in: Meent van der Suis, Energie en milieu in de Nederlandse krant 1968-1993, (19933). (Energy and environment in the Dutch newspapers 1968-1993)
*08- Tweede Kamer, session 1979-1980, 15802, nrs. 11-12, p.160.
*09- Tweede Kamer, session 1984-1985, 18343, 6.
*10- Commissie Opberging te Land (OPLA): Onderzoek inzake geologische opberging van radioactief afval in Nederland, Tweede Tussenrapport over Fase 1 (January 1986-January 1987), 1987. (Commission Storage on Land. Research for geological disposal of radioactive waste in the Netherlands. Second Interim report on Phase 1)
*11- Ministerie of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment (VROM): Basisnotitie ten behoeve van de ontwikkeling van een toetsingscriterium voor de ondergrondse opberging van radioactief afval (TOR), (1987). (Basic notes for development of assessment criteria for the underground disposal of radioactive waste)
*12- Stichting Natuur en Milieu: Reactie namens de hele Nederlandse milieubeweging op de zogeheten TOR-nota (26 October 1987). (Reaction for the Dutch Environmental movement on the so-called TOR-notes)
*13- Tweede Kamer, session 1992-1993, 23163, nr 1.
*14-  Ministry of VROM, Reference RB/2009040895, 30 June 2009
*15- Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (EL&I): Advice for guidelines for the Environmental Impact Report for the construction of a second nuclear power plant at Borssele, 3 December 2009 / reportnumber: 2295-48
*16- COVRA press release: Start OPERA program, 5 July 2011
*17- OPERA: Mutiannual program OPERA, 5 July 2011.
*18- see picture (greenpeace brochure  -blz 5, of website)
*19- Greenpeace campaign website http://www.greenpeace.nl/Nieuwsoverzicht-2012/Actie-roept-minister-Verha..., (visited February 8, 2012)

In the frame of their European Union accession nego­tiations and in view of increasing nuclear safety, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia committed themselves to the early clo­sure and subsequent decommissioning of eight 'non-upgradeable' nuclear reactors. The European Court of Auditors found that progress has been slow, no comprehensive assessment of future needs exists, and available funding is plainly insufficient. The Court recommended making conditional any further support upon an evaluation of the EU added value.

The special report “EU Financial assistance for the decommissioning of nuclear plants in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia: Achievements and Future Challenges” by the European Court of Auditors, deals with the implementation of the decommissioning programmes from 1999 up to the end of 2010. The main objective of the Court’s audit was to "assess the effectiveness of the EU funded programs (1999–2010) in con­tributing towards the decommissioning of the nuclear reactors and addressing the consequences of their early closure." The EU provided financial assistance to the three country-programs: 2 850 million euro overall for the 1999-2013 period. The main vehicles for EU funding for decommissioning of the 8 reactors were the TACIS (providing technical assistance to the partner States in eastern Europe and central Asia) and the PHARE programs (supporting financial and technical cooperation with the candidate central and eastern European countries).

Meanwhile, Bulgaria (Kozloduy 1-4), Lithuania (Ignalina 1-2) and Slovakia (Bohunice V1 1-2) have closed the reactors between 2002 and 2008 in line with their commitment, the main process is still ahead and its finalisation faces a significant funding shortfall.

The conclusions are devastating:

(a) As a result of a relatively loose policy framework, the programmes do not benefit from a comprehensive needs assessment, prioritisation, the setting of specific objectives and results to be achieved. Responsibilities are diffused, in particular with regard to monitoring and the achievement of programme ob­jectives as a whole. The Commission’s supervision focuses on the budgetary execution and project implementation.

(b) There is no comprehensive assessment concerning the progress of the decom­missioning and mitigation process. De­lays and cost overruns were noted for key infrastructure projects.

(c) Although the reactors were shut-down between 2002 and 2009, the pro­grammes have not yet triggered the required organisational changes to al­low the operators to turn into effective decommissioning organisations.

(d) Currently available financial resources (including an EU contribution until 2013 worth 2,85 billion euro) will be insuf­ficient and the funding shortfall is sig­nificant (around 2,5 billion euro)!

The Court recommends that:

(a) The Commission should put in place the conditions for an effective, effi­cient and economical use of EU funds. It should establish a detailed needs as­sessment showing the progress of the programmes so far, the activities still to be performed and an overall financing plan identifying the funding sources. Before further spending takes place, the Commission should analyse the resourc­es available and the expected benefits. This should lead in turn to objectives being aligned with the budget made available and to the establishment of meaningful performance indicators which can subsequently be monitored and reported on as necessary.

(b) Should the EU decide, as proposed by the Commission, to provide further fi­nancial assistance in the next multi-annual financial framework, this sup­port should be made conditional upon an ex ante evaluation of the EU added value of such intervention, identifying the specific activities to be financed through the EU budget and taking ac­count of other funding facilities such as Structural Funds.

Delays and Cost-overruns
As at 31 December 2010, the programs had launched 101 projects which contributed towards the decommissioning of the eight reactors. The total value of these projects, which were almost exclusively funded by the EU, was 1 125 million euro.

An analysis of the infrastructure projects shows delays and cost overruns. In particular, key projects within the critical path of the decommissioning process are delayed, for example facilities for spent fuel and radioactive waste management (i.e spent fuel storage facili­ties and facilities for radioactive waste treatment, storage and final disposal).

In March 2011 the recipient Member States updated their de­commissioning cost estimates, to reach 5,3 billion euro. A comparison with the decommissioning funding currently avail­able at national and programme level suggests a shortfall of around 2,5 billion euro.

Slovakia has committed itself to topping up the funding need­ed for decommissioning and has created a specific funding mechanism (a tax on electricity transmission) to contribute towards reducing the funding shortfall. Lithuania and Bulgaria have not put in place any equivalent mechanism. The absence of sufficient funding arrangements puts the completion of the decommissioning processes at risk.

Sources: European Court of Auditors Special Report No 16/2011 “EU Financial assistance for the decommissioning of nuclear plants in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia: Achievements and Future Challenges”. Available at: http://eca.europa.eu/portal/pls/portal/docs/1/12036727.PDF

France: Thousands of activists take the streets to demand ending the nuclear age.
On October 15, some 25,000 people took part in several anti-nuclear rallies, organized by the Reseau Sortir du nucléaire (Nuclear phase-out) federation, the largest one in Rennes with almost 20.000 participants. The demonstrators called on the government to halt all its military and civilian nuclear activities, and criticized Paris for continuing its nuclear policy. The protesters particularly called for the closure of Bugey nuclear plant in eastern France, which they say is susceptible to high risks of earthquake and flood. They also held a minute of silence in honor of the victims of Fukushima nuclear disaster in eastern Japan, and urged the French government to take lessons from Japan's tragedy and turn to renewable energies.
Website: Reseau Sortir du nucleaire.

Lithuania Formally Submits Visaginas Plans To EC.
The Lithuanian government has formally notified the European Commission of plans for a new nuclear power plant at Visaginas to be developed with Estonia, Latvia and Poland. This means that the coordination of the Project with the EU institutions starts. The 1,350-megawatt advanced boiling water reactor is scheduled to begin commercial operation around 2020, Lithuania's energy ministry said. According to the ministry the Visaginas unit is intended to help replace generation from the two 1,300-MW Ignalina reactors that have been shut down as part of Lithuania's European Union membership agreement.

"Visaginas NPP project  is a strong step towards long term objectives of strengthening the security of supply and full integration of the Baltic States into European Energy market", according to the Visaginas press release. The information on Visaginas NPP was submitted according to European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) treaty (Article 41). This ensures that the developers of new nuclear facilities must notify the European Commission not later than three months before the first  contracts are concluded with the suppliers or, if the work is to be carried out by the undertaking  with its own resources, three months before the work begins.
NucNet, 14 October 2010 / Visaginas nuclear power plant project, press release, 10 October 2011

Indonesia: reactor plan delayed by Fukushima.
Indonesia’s National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) head Hudi Hastowo told journalists that the 11 March Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan had impacted government plans to construct the country’s first nuclear power plant in Tanjung Ular Muntok Cape region, West Bangka, stating, "After the major earthquake in Japan that hit Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused some radioactive leakage, the plan is now delayed whereas it was previously accepted by the public," Jakarta’s government-owned Antara news agency reported. Experts noted that the proposed Tanjung Ular Muntok nuclear power plant is situated in a seismically active region and that a repeat of the December 2004 tsunami that devastated the country could cause a catastrophic disaster. Indonesia currently has three nuclear research reactors – Kartini, Siwabessy and the Triga Mark II nuclear research facility. Plans for a nuclear power plant date back from the 1970s.
www.Oilprice.com, 18 October 2011

Atomic radiation is more harmful to women.
(October 20, 2011) Women as a group suffer significantly more from the impact of ionizing radiation than do men. Today Nuclear Information and Resource Service published a Briefing Paper that focuses on a dramatic fifty-percent greater incidence of cancer and fifty-percent greater rate of death from cancer among women, compared to the same radiation dose level to men. To be clear: males suffer cancer and cancer death from exposure to ionizing radiation; but gender difference in the level of harm has been to date under-reported.

The data leading to this conclusion originally was reported in the National Academy of Sciences 2006 report, "BEIR VII" which is the seventh report in a series on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. The greater vulnerability of females was not the focal point of that publication, and the concern has until now escaped notice.

NIRS is co-releasing the paper with activist groups in global "hot spots" including Japan (Green Action), Ukraine (Ecoclub) and Pennsylvania (Three Mile Island Alert). The paper is posted at: www.nirs.org/radiation/radhealth/radiationwomen.pdf
NIRS, 18 October 2011

Growth wind capacity vs nuclear.
2010 was a turning point in the global race to develop clean technology. It marked the first time that more new wind power generating capacity was installed in developing countries than in the rich world. China led the way, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), and now has the most wind generating capacity in the world, thanks to favorable government policies. A record capacity of 19 gigawatts (1 GW = 1000MW) was added in China last year, taking the total to more than 42GW. India also showed strong growth, in line with the government target of adding more than 10GW of new capacity by 2012, and there are industry estimates that 100GW is possible.

According to the IAEA PRIS reactor database in 2010 3720MW was connected and 130MW disconnected to the grid from nuclear reactors worldwide. So, just in China about 5times as much wind was connected to the grid as nuclear worldwide.
Guardian (UK), 18 October 2011 / PRIS: www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/

US: Crack in Davis Besse containment.
The Davis Besse nuclear plant was shut down years ago because of a hole discovered in a reactor. Now, a newly discovered 30-foot (about 9 meter) crack in the containment structure intended to protect the reactors from tornados and other potential threats raises new concerns about whether the reactor, now closed for maintenance, should ever be allowed to return to active status. “When a nuclear power plant that had a reactor with a hole in its head now has a 30 foot crack in its side, it is time to question whether the plant and the reactor are safe to operate,” said Rep. Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee and a senior member on the Energy and Commerce Committee. “This large crack in a critical containment structure is yet another chink in the armor for the nuclear industry’s sweeping claims of complete safety.”

The Davis Besse plant has experienced multiple problems during the last 20 years, including a close call in 2002 when a hole was discovered at the top of one reactor that nearly breached the pressurized reactor chamber. Problems with replacements to that reactor have caused subsequent shut-downs of the reactor. The crack in the containment dome was discovered during activities to replace the pressure chamber head.
Press release, Ed Markey, 14 October 2011, http://markey.house.gov/

After two years of fruitless talks with its eastern neighbor, Lithuania has finally brought its complaint over Belarus’s building a nuclear power plant right on its doorstep to the authority that enforces the Espoo Convention – an international agreement covering industrial projects that may potentially bring environmental harm across state borders. Both Lithuania and Belarus are Espoo signatories, but Belarus denies any violations and threatens a retaliatory complaint over Lithuania’s own nuclear project. With the two countries attacking one another’s project’s safety claims, at least one clear conclusion emerges from the conflict: What nuclear technologies are capable of generating besides power is serious safety concerns.

The UN’s Economic Commission for Europe’s Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context – or the Espoo Convention, called so because it was signed in the Finnish town of Espoo in 1991 – is the main international legal act serving as the basis for evaluations of transboundary ecological risks carried by this or that industrial project implemented in an individual country.

Using the provisions of this document, Lithuania was trying to negotiate with Belarus the best advisable location for Belarus’s controversial nuclear power plant project, a first that this Eastern European state is attempting to the dismay of many among its own population and criticism on the part of environmentalists and a number of European governments. Belarus intends to build its plant with Russia’s help in a town of Ostrovets, in Grodno Region – only a handful of kilometres away from the European border and Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

Fed up with two years of futile talks insisting that Belarus move its construction site away from the Lithuanian border and produce full and truthful information about the potential impact the plant may have on Lithuania’s environment and population health, Vilnius finally submitted a complaint to the Committee for the Implementation of the Espoo Convention. The complaint was sent on June 7.

Lithuania’s seven-page statement requests that the Implementation Committee and the Espoo Secretariat apply their mandate to convince Belarus to do two things, both of principal significance: Commission a new environmental impact assessment (EIA) study that could provide a more objective evaluation of the plant’s potential risks and dangers, and find another site for the NPP's construction.

Environmental risks
The existing EIA document, compiled by official Belarus, has been the subject of vigorous criticism by Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Russian environmentalists, who say the document downplays considerably the harm it could inflict on the region’s environment and population.

Stating its displeasure over Belarus’s choice of location, Lithuania forwards a number of hefty arguments. One is that Ostrovets is only 50 kilometres away from downtown Vilnius. In an official note sent to Belarus via diplomatic channels last autumn, Lithuania wrote that Belarus’s decision to build such a site in such close proximity to the Lithuanian capital undermined the very foundations of Lithuania’s national security: Should a severe accident occur at the new NPP, followed by a massive discharge of radioactive substances, Lithuania will be forced to evacuate all of its governing bodies and institutions.

Vilnius is also the largest Lithuanian city and the estimated toll that a forced evacuation would take on its inhabitants and the country may well be worth the concern.

The Lithuanians also cite in their complaint the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) fourth safety principle (see IAEA’s Fundamental Safety Principles, SF-1, 2006), which stipulates that “for facilities and activities to be considered justified, the benefits that they yield must outweigh the radiation risks to which they give rise.”

Lithuania also refers to the estimations done by researchers from its Institute of Physics (now, Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology) in their 2010 Expert Evaluation of the Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus (Annex 5), which show that an adverse event arising from a range of accident scenarios at the NPP would, under unfavourable circumstances, subject the health of the population of Vilnius and neighbouring territories to a real and unacceptable threat.

Another argument that Lithuania is using against the current choice of the future NPP's location is that the water the plant will be drawing to cool its reactors will be from the river Neris. The Neris, which is called Vilia in Belarus, is the second largest river in Lithuania and flows through Vilnius. Lithuania is understandably concerned over the potential environmental damage the river may be subjected to during the plant’s operation, including not just the thermal impact of the service water, but also what Belarus’s official EIA assessment refers to as radioactive and chemical contamination “within allowable limits.”

Procedural violations
But the major part of the Lithuanian complaint is focused on allegations that Belarus has committed a number of violations of the Espoo Convention while pursuing its Ostrovets NPP project. According to the Lithuanians, Belarus did not follow proper procedure when estimating the potential environmental impact of its future plant and has withheld key information about the project from its neighbour.

In particular, the complaint says, Lithuania has not received from Belarus the full version of the EIA study regarding the new station. The materials in question – some three and a half thousand pages – were submitted for a state environmental assessment in Belarus and were also in February 2010 made available, though with significant restrictions applied, to a public commission that sought to conduct an independent environmental evaluation of the project. But Lithuania is still waiting to see these documents, despite having notified Belarus of its wishes.

The Lithuanian complaint now states that by failing to produce the documents, Belarus is violating the Espoo Convention, which stipulates that when initiating an industrial project that may have cross-border impact, the country that starts it – so-called “Party of Origin” – must ensure that the communities of the states that become exposed to potential risks – so-called “Affected Parties” – are all afforded the same opportunities to receive information about and discuss the relevant environmental impact documentation.

According to Lithuania’s complaint, Belarus is actually yet to give a clear answer as to which of the many decisions regarding whether or not it will even build the plant has been chosen as the final one, which “causes various misunderstandings and misinterpretations.”

Belarus threatens retaliation
As it happens, Belarus has its own grievances to air with respect to its western neighbour’s own nuclear plans.

On the eve of 2010, Lithuania pulled the plug on Ignalina nuclear power plant in Visaginas, a Soviet-built station with two RBMK-1500 reactors that the European Union stipulated had to be to shut down as a prerequisite to this country’s ascension to the union. But Vilnius is looking to build new reactors at Visaginas to replace Ignalina, something that contributes to an ever tightening diplomatic tangle in a region now trapped in what environmentalists fear is fast becoming a deadly nuclear noose – with Belarus’ Ostrovets, Lithuania’s Visaginas, and Russia’s Baltic NPP, under construction in Kaliningrad Region, all pursued with unrelenting zeal.

And despite the fact that it has been several years since Lithuania completed its own environmental impact assessment procedure, the Visaginas project has, for Belarus, remained a sizable axe to grind – though one that it has only now chosen to make use of. Belarus, while not without grounds for a complaint over its neighbour’s EIA consultations, has kept its resentment to itself until the very moment the Lithuanians decided to take theirs to the Espoo authorities. It was only at the press conference on July 19 in Minsk that the Belarusian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection’s head of department for state environmental impact studies Alexander Andreyev announced Belarus would make sure that the Espoo Secretariat received a counter-complaint from Minsk over the project in Visaginas.

The new NPP, just like its predecessor Ignalina, would be built in the same town of Visaginas, if only at a different site than the old station. As such, it will be located near the Lithuanian-Belarusian border and, like Ignalina, will draw cooling water from Lake Drisviaty (Druksiai, in Lithuanian), which, like the Neris, is shared by the two countries. This, the potential damage that the nuclear power plant will do to Lake Drisviaty, is among the main of Belarus’s grievances.

According to Andreyev, Lithuania has yet to acknowledge any of Belarus’s repeated demands to make an assessment of the thermal impact on the lake as compared to those values that were obtained before the 1978 built Ignalina was put into operation.

Likewise, said Andreyev, Lithuania has still not provided information on the cumulative impact that the sites in Visaginas – both the old station and the new nuclear infrastructure – have effected on Belarus and, in particular, the area of Braslav Lakes, an erstwhile ecologically pristine recreational parts popular with the Belarusians.

Last but not least, Belarus is not happy over the fact that the three-kilometre-wide sanitary protection zone around the new plant is expected to overlap with Belarusian territory.

In a claim mirroring that of Lithuania, Andreyev says the EIA report for the new Lithuanian plant fails to provide the kind of key information that would be needed to evaluate its full potential impact on the environment and population health in Belarus. “The EIA report on the Visaginas nuclear power plant that Lithuania has made available to Belarus examines a number of reactors – the US-Japanese AP100, the French EPR-1660, the Canadian ACR-1000, as well as the Russian-made NPP-91/99, and other models, but no final choice has been made. How does one assess environmental impact without having chosen the reactor?” Andreyev said in comments to Bellona.

Besides, said Andreyev, the American-Japanese and French models mentioned in the Lithuanian EIA report have not yet been built anywhere in the world. Ironically, this is the same point of concern that both Russian and Belarusian environmentalists keep bringing up with respect to the Ostrovets project, where Russia’s new and yet untested in commercial operation NPP-2006 project is expected to be used.

As this dragged out dispute goes on, one thing is becoming clear – that today’s nuclear technologies are no more reassuring than old nuclear power plants, those in which the world that has seen Chernobyl and Fukushima may no longer have much confidence.

Both Lithuania and Belarus are well aware of the risks even as the arguments each side is using against the other’s project reflect concerns it would rather ignore while pursuing its own.

But the “golden principle” of NPP siting, for which much was argued in Soviet-time research institutes of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences – “farther away from me, closer to my neighbour” – is fast losing purchase in a modern reality where industrial practices are bound by international obligations and closely monitored by independent third parties.

Whether or not Belarus or Lithuania find support within the Espoo and Aarhus authorities to promote their own nuclear interests and block those of their neighbour, there is a third solution, one of which environmental organisations of Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia keep reminding their governments: Choose the non-nuclear path.

Source Bellona Foundation, 1 September 2011 Tatyana Novikova, translated by Maria Kaminskaya
Contact: Bellona Foundation, Oslo, Norway
Email: info@bellona.no
Web: www.bellona.org

Much of the nuclear renaissance talk of the last years was targeted at the EU new member states in Central Europe. The combination of centralized energy structures based on the pre-1989 planned economy, short links between politics and nuclear lobby and the need for re-powering because of the end of life-time of much of the current electricity generation capacity looked like the perfect backdrop for reviving old nuclear dreams.

Most of Central Europe, with the notable exception of Hungary and the Baltic States, survived the recent financial crisis quite well. Nevertheless, nuclear projects and plans are confronted increasingly with delays. Projects and plans in Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria faced important complications and delays in the first months of 2011.

Visaginas, Lithuania – the ghost of Russia
Rosatom from Russia announced the start of construction in 2011 of the Kaliningrad and Belarus nuclear power stations. Even though these projects will probably be hit with a recently announced cut-back in Russian nuclear expansion, this has pushed plans for the Visaginas nuclear power station in Lithuania further backwards. The Lithuanian government fiercely protested the quality of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of both neighboring projects but this has not helped wooing strategic investors for Visaginas after Korean KEPKO withdrew from the project on December 6, 2010.

Cernavoda, Romania – strategic investors withdraw, fate of EIA uncertain
On 24 January, CEZ, GdF-Suez / Electrabel, RWE and Iberdrola officially withdrew from the project during the shareholder meeting of ElectroNuclear, the holding company of the project. This leaves only Romanian state utility Nuclearelectrica, ENEL from Italy and the Romanian branch of steel-giant Arcelor Mittal involved.

Three consortia were accepted in the tender for construction of this project: one led by US / Canadian engineering giant Bechtel, the second led by SNC Lavalin, the Canadian engineering company practically taking over much of what Canadian state owned AECL was involved in, and a Russian consortium led by Atomtechnoprom. Given the problems Bechtel is currently facing with a high-way project in Romania and the lack of experience of the Russian consortium with both the CANDU design as with EU regulatory practices, this looks like a pre-determined tender for SNC Lavalin.

In the mean time, Romanian NGO Terra Mileniul III discovered that EnergoNuclear contracted several consultants for the development of parts for “an adequate Environmental Impact Assessment”. This sheds doubt over the fate of the EIA that started in 2006 and that still has not been approved.

Belene, Bulgaria – power games with Russia
On 6 February, a memo from the head of Atomstroyexport Sergej Kiriyenko leaked to the French daily La Tribune in which he advised Rosatom to withdraw from the Belene project. He argued that the 200 million Euro compensation payment would be larger than the 150 million Euro Rosatom was expected to profit. A day later, however, Atomstroyexport declared during a conference in Bulgaria that it expects to start poring concrete in September of this year and denied the relevance of the leaked document. Bulgarian Prime Minster Borissov announced that when Russia will not back down on the inflation correction it agreed with his predecessor, Bulgaria will not continue with Belene. Borissov asked journalists “Are we going to lose 200 M or 2.5 B – this is the question. What funds do we have left then for construction, for providing better life to Bulgarian citizens – money for pensions, education, increase of wages, infrastructure?”

Also resistance in Serbia is growing over participation in the Belene project.

Mochovce, Slovakia – construction continuing with invalid licenses
After a groundbreaking ruling of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee declared three permits for changes in the Mochovce 3,4 design in breach with the Aarhus Convention because the Slovak regulator UJD had not waited for the conclusion of the ongoing EIA (see Nuclear Monitor 722), Slovenske elektrarne and ENEL continue construction. The European Commission is investigating how the ACCC ruling should be implemented and Slovakia has taken the unprecedented step to send a complaint about the ruling to the UNECE – the secretariat of the Aarhus Convention. This means that it might seek to have the judgment overturned during June's Meeting of Parties to the Convention in Chisinau, Moldava. The involved NGOs, Greenpeace Slovakia, Za Matku Zem, Global2000 and Ökobüro Wien are currently contemplating legal steps to force a halt of construction of Mochovce 3,4 and a new public participation procedure.

Temelín, Czech Republic – Five years delay in planning
The Czech electricity giant CEZ announced a five year delay for the Temelin 3,4 project. Ladislav Kriz, spokesman for CEZ that operates Temelín, said it was rather an administrative measure and that CEZ expected the project to be completed earlier.

Nuclear Energy Program, Poland – SEA confronts nuclear government with reality
On 27 December, the Polish Ministry of Economy announced a three week public consultation on Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Polish Nuclear Energy Program, to start on the 30th of December. A fast intervention from Greenpeace, followed by other NGOs, made clear to the Polish Government, that three weeks was too little under the Aarhus Convention and the EU SEA Directive for proper public participation on the basis of the 1205 pages of documentation issued by the Ministry. It also pointed out a transboundary assessment had to be made. The Ministry not only had to extend the term for public input to three months (ending 31 March 2011), but also announced a transboundary procedure, though no time-line has been published for this so far.

The delivered environmental assessment fails among others to properly address alternatives, the issue of radioactive waste and is inadequate concerning the possible effects of large accidents and security, so that further delays can be expected.

The potential operation date for the first Polish nuclear power plant already has been postponed from 2020 to 2022.

Source and contact: Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace EU policy campaigner dirty energy expert on energy issues in Central Europe, Tel. +32 2 27419 21
Email: jan.haverkamp@greenpeace.org

Energy for the Future?

A new publication from the Heinrich Boell Stiftung, WISE Brno and Hnuti DUHA / FoE CZ describes the nuclear lobby and its influence on energy policies in Central Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria).

It is available for download at: http://www.boell.cz/navigation/65-962.html

The IPPNW World Congress in Basel, Switzerland,  (August 25 – August 30, 2010) to also talk about nuclear power.
Nuclear weapons and disarmament are still hitting media headlines. The signing of the new START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was an important step towards the reduction of global nuclear arsenals. European governments are pushing for a withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from European NATO member countries. Leading politicians of several countries are calling for active and far-reaching reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons in the interests of world security. It was hoped for that the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May in New York would bring further concrete measures. And although this did not happen the ‘Atomic Scientists’ decided to set back the Doomsday Clock one minute – from 5 minutes to 6 minutes to midnight.

On the other hand, some countries want to keep the prestige of being a nuclear power and some are becoming greatly interested in acquiring such power. Thousands of nuclear missiles still exist – decades after the end of the Cold War – on high alert, ready to be launched at a moment’s notice. Added to this, the interest of powerful companies in the military-industrial complex to continue building nuclear missiles is strongly influential. These companies put forward persuasive arguments for retaining the status quo through the use of intense political lobbying.

“Global Zero” is the desire of many millions of people and is also the vision of  the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Join them in sharing this vision in August at the 19th IPPNW World Congress in Basel, Switzerland. Traditionally the IPPNW only talks about nuclear weapons. This time their pre-conference programme also touches upon the issue of nuclear energy. Take this opportunity to discuss with them the important role ”civil” nuclear energy plays in increasing proliferation risks.
Check the programme at http://www.ippnw2010.org/

Italy: Regions have no say in siting nuclear reactors.
On June 30, Italy's highest court rejected an appeal by 10 Italian regions to have a say on the location of any nuclear power plants built.

Last July, the right wing majority in the Parliament adopted a law that gives extra power to the government in order to choose sites for new nuclear plants and provides the use of military forces to make its realization possible. On September 30, with the support of environmental organizations, 10 of 20 regions contested that law asking the intervention of the Constitutional Court. According to the regions the law violates the Italian Constitution by giving the government the power to decide without the consensus of local institutions. The June 30 ruling by the Constitutional Court effectively means the central government will have the final say on the site of the plants.

Nuclear power was abandoned in Italy nearly 25 years ago after a referendum in 1987. Enel and France's EDF would like to start building four nuclear power stations in Italy in 2013. Public opinion in Italy has been generally hostile to nuclear energy and local authorities had demanded a say in their approval.
Reuters, 23 June 2010 / Nuclear Monitor 702

On May 12, North Korea claimed its scientists succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction - a technology also necessary to manufacture a hydrogen bomb. South Korean experts doubted the North actually made such a breakthrough. On May 15, however, the atmospheric concentration of xenon - an inert gas released after a nuclear explosion or radioactive leakage from a nuclear power plant - on the South Korean side of the inter-Korean border was found to be eight times higher than normal.

Nuclear fusion as cause for the Xenon-measurement is very unlikely (to say the least). To start with: the alledged fusion breakthrough supposedly took place in mid-April and the half-lives of its radioisotopes are counted in hours or days. So a measurement almost a month  later is very unlike. But most important: a fusion reaction doesn’t produce fission products. Radioactive Xe isotopes, besides from a weapons test, can also be produced from operating a fission reactor with cracked fuel rods or from fission occurring in cooling water from released fuel. So possibly the higher levels could have been from built up Xe within a reactor containment vessel from an accident. A Science Ministry official said the wind was blowing from north to south when the xenon was detected and said it could have come from Russia or China, not necessarily from North Korea.
The Associated Press, 21 June 2010 / Armscontrolwonk.com, 21 June 2010

Nuclear projects in Baltic Region.
On June 16, antinuclear activists with protest banners greeted IAEA head Y.Amano and  Lithuanian Prime Minister A. Kubilius during their participation in the Roundtable discussion on "Regional nuclear energy projects" in Vilnius, Lithuania. Activists called to cancel development of the three nuclear energy projects in the Baltic region and to switch investments and cooperation to renewables and energy efficiency. Ostrovec nuclear power plant (Belarus), Baltic npp (Russia, Kaliningrad region) and the Visaginas nuclear power plant (Lithuania) are  primary targets for the criticism of environmentalists from Lithuania, Belarus and Russia. All these planned nuclear power plants face similar problems: safety, environmental, radioactive waste management, fake plans for investment.Later activists took part in the roundtable discussion as observers. Main issue there was that each country was convincing others how important their nuclear project is for the country and how good for the region. Lithuania was raising doubts about various aspects of Belarussian and Kaliningrad nuclear projects, promoting its own as "more transparent and safer".
Email: Lina Vainius, 17 June 2010

New name for GNEP: INFEC.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Steering Group met in Accra, Ghana on June 16-17, 2010 and approved unanimously several transformative changes. This to "reflect global developments that have occurred since the Partnership was established in 2007".  The transformation includes a new name - the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (INFEC)-- and the establishment of a new Statement of Mission. One of the main points of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), announced by the United States in 2004, was to limit spread of enrichment (as well as reprocessing) technology. At the core of the strategy was the idea that countries that don't have fuel cycle facilities would refrain from acquiring them and accept the status of "fuel customers". Fuel services would then be provided by "fuel suppliers", who already have the necessary technology. There were doubts about the viability of this strategy from the very beginning.

The IFNEC acronym brings back echoes of the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) program under the IAEA in the late 1970s. It too was set up on the initiative of the USA and worked on the "urgent need to meet the world's energy requirements," to make nuclear energy more widely available and "to minimize the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation without jeopardizing energy supplies or the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" all with special attention for the needs of developing countries. One interesting difference was the inclusion of Iran as co-chair of INFCE's group on uranium enrichment availability.

Last year in June, the US. Department of Energy (DoE) decided to cancel the GNEP programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) because it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial reprocessing, which was the primary focus of the prior administration's domestic GNEP program. That decision followed a change in government policy on commercial reprocessing since president Obama took over from Bush.

Jordan formally announced that it will host the next meeting of the International Framework's Executive Committee in the fall of 2010. Some 25 countries have joined the GNEP.
Press release US. Department of Energy, 18 June 2010 / World Nuclear News, 21 June 2010 / Nuclear Monitor 691, 16 July 2009

China bends international rules to sell reactors to Pakistan.
China has agreed to sell two nuclear reactors to Pakistan. Under the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s (NSG) guidelines, countries other than China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (the five recognized nuclear weapon states) are not eligible to receive nuclear exports from NSG members unless they agree to inspections known as full-scope safeguards. Pakistan currently does not open all of its nuclear facilities to international inspections.

The US government “has reiterated to the Chinese government that the United States expects Beijing to cooperate with Pakistan in ways consistent with Chinese nonproliferation obligations.” Given that the US has signed a major nuclear deal with India – like Pakistan, a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – the move smacks of hypocrisy. The US pushed the IAEA into conceding to country-specific safeguards for India’s reactors, then lobbied for country-specific concessions for India from the NSG. As a result, lucrative nuclear contracts are being signed by India and countries like France, Russia and the UK. As such, when experts cite the violation of the NPT’s international guidelines by the Pakistan-China civilian nuclear deal, the IAEA and NSG concessions to India give this posturing little credibility.

(More on the deal and its consequences: Nuclear Monitor 709, 12 May 2010: "China: US-India deal justification for selling reactors to Pakistan")
The Sunflower (eNewsletter of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation), issue 156, July 2010.

Brazil: Angra 3 To Cost US$ 550 million more.
The overall budget for the construction of the Angra 3 nuclear power plant in Brazil will be around R$ 9.9 billion (US$ 5.06 billion or 4.03 billion euro), according to the manager of Planning and Budgeting of Eletronuclear, Roberto Travassos. The increase of more than R$ 1 billion (US$ 550 million or 438 million euro) over the previous estimate (R$ 8.77 billion/ US$ 4.875 billion), is the result of contract  revisions and monetary correction of former estimates.
Global Energy (Brazil), 1 July 2010

Outgoing UN Inspector: dubious role on Iran.
Olli Heinonen, the Finnish nuclear engineer who resigned July 1, after five years as deputy director for safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was the driving force in turning that agency into a mechanism to support U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran. Heinonen was instrumental in making a collection of intelligence documents showing a purported Iranian nuclear weapons research program the central focus of the IAEA’s work on Iran. The result was to shift opinion among Western publics to the view that Iran had been pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program. But his embrace of the intelligence documents provoked a fierce political struggle within the Secretariat of the IAEA, because other officials believed the documents were fraudulent.

Heinonen took over the Safeguards Department in July 2005 – the same month that the George W. Bush administration first briefed top IAEA officials on the intelligence collection. The documents portrayed a purported nuclear weapons research program, originally called the "Green Salt" project, that included efforts to redesign the nosecone of the Shahab-3 missile, high explosives apparently for the purpose of triggering a nuclear weapon and designs for a uranium conversion facility. Later the IAEA referred to the purported Iranian activities simply as the "alleged studies." The Bush administration was pushing the IAEA to use the documents to accuse Iran of having had a covert nuclear weapons program The administration was determined to ensure that the IAEA Governing Board would support referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council for action on sanctions, as part of a larger strategy to force Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program.

Long-time IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei and other officials involved in investigating and reporting on Iran’s nuclear program were immediately skeptical about the authenticity of the documents. According to two Israeli authors, Yossi Melman and Meir Javadanfar, several IAEA officials told them in interviews in 2005 and 2006 that senior officials of the agency believed the documents had been "fabricated by a Western intelligence organizations." Heinonen, on the other hand, supported the strategy of exploiting the documents to put Iran on the defensive. His approach was not to claim that the documents’ authenticity had been proven but to shift the burden of proof to Iran, demanding that it provide concrete evidence that it had not carried out the activities portrayed in the documents.
Gareth Porter at Antiwar.com, 2 July 2010

U.K.: Waste costs 'not acceptable' for industry.
The nuclear industry has been heavily lobbying to change proposed charges for managing wastes from nuclear reactors. Papers released under Freedom of Information show how the French company EDF pressed the previous government to change the proposed 'high fixed cost' for managing wastes and the timetable for handing the management of wastes to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The previous government made significant changes to the way it initially proposed charging companies for managing their wastes. It also agreed that responsibility for wastes should pass to the NDA after 60 years instead of the original 110 years. This would reduce the financial liabilities and costs for companies.

EDF told the government the original proposals were "non-acceptable" and made it uneconomic to develop new reactors.
N-Base Briefing 665, 9 June 2010

Germany; coalition lost majority in Bundesrat.
After the May 9, elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition may have trouble pushing through planned nuclear lifetime extensions. Both Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Free Democrat (FDP) allies lost heavily and were left short of their previous state majority, leaving the make-up of the next government unclear.

Merkel, whose coalition has a majority in parliament's Bundestag lower house, could now be blocked on many issues in the Bundesrat upper house, which represents the states. "The nuclear extension has become politically more difficult because the

majority in the Bundesrat has been lost," said an analyst at Merck Finck. If the nuclear life extension plan can go ahead without needing approval by the Bundesrat, Merkel's government could in theory ignore the North Rhine-Westphalia result and grant longer life cycles for the reactors. But a panel of legal experts advising the Bundestag said the upper house has to approve any agreement to extend the lifetime of nuclear plants. Opponents to this view say the original nuclear phase-out law did not need Bundesrat approval.
Reuters, 10 May 2010

India: Nuclear liability legislation introduced to parliament.
On May 7, the "Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill" was introduced to parliament after the Indian Government deferred the introduction at the last minute at March 15.
The legislation faces tough opposition in the Indian parliament, and it may not pass. Communist parties and the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who could not prevent the government from going ahead with the nuclear agreement in 2008, are vehemently opposing this bill, and together with some other parties have the numerical strength in the parliament to obstruct its passage. "This is an opposition for the sake of opposition," Arundhati Ghose, India's former permanent representative to the United Nations told World Nuclear News, "People who are opposing this bill are those who oppose nuclear energy all together." (So…?) The critics of the bill also allege that the government is putting a low price tag on human lives.

The bill is crucial to the operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Critics say Inia is under no obligation to pass the bill, which , in reality, attempts to convert the liability of a foreign supplier to be paid by the Idian taxpayer. (More on the legislation in Nuclear Monitor 706, 26 March 2010; 'India: Profits for foreign investors, risks for taxpayers')
World Nuclear News, 7 May 2010 / Nuclear Monitor 607, 26 March 2010

Lithuania says official, decisive “no” to Belarusian nuclear power plant. The government of Lithuania expressed its official disapproval of a plan pushed by the neighbouring Belarus to build a nuclear power plant in the Belarusian town of Ostrovets, just 55 kilometres away from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The former Soviet republic’s concerns were stated in an official note that was prepared by the Ministry of Environment and will be extended to Minsk, said the Lithuanian news agency DELFI.lt on May 8. Lithuania’s note of concern states, in particular, that Minsk has yet to deliver a comprehensive environmental impact evaluation report on the future NPP and asks that Belarusian officials hold a new hearing in Lithuania where such information may be made available to the public.

Both Lithuania and Belarus, two neighbouring nations that used to be part of the Soviet Union, are parties to the 1991 Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context – or the Espoo Convention, called so because it was signed in the Finnish town of Espoo. Since the new NPP is projected to be built just 23 kilometres off

the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, any harmful potential impact it may have will also affect the environment and well-being of the population of Lithuania. A bilateral discussion of the issue is thus a requisite procedure.
Bellona, 9 May 2010

Bulgaria halts nuclear plant project.
‘Prime Minister Boyko Borisov says Bulgaria has put on hold construction of its second nuclear power plant until it finds a new investor and funds to complete the project. "The country has no money for an atomic power plant," the DPA news agency cited Borisov as saying in the May 4 edition of the 24Casa newspaper. "We will build it when investors come." The Russian company Atomstroiexport had originally been commissioned to build the planned 2,000-megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River - 180 kilometers (about 112 miles) northeast of the capital Sofia - for 4 billion euros. The contract had been signed between the Russian firm and previous Socialist-led Bulgarian government. When new center-right government swept power in July elections, Borisov's conservative GERB party put the Belene under review due to rising costs. It recently announced a tender for a new consultant after German utility RWE walked out of the project due to funding problems and Sofia decided to redesign it to attract new investors.’
Nuclear Reaction, 5 May 2010

Greenpeace, the Lithuanian environmental organisation Atgaja, the Latvian Green Movement and CEE Bankwatch were in court September 30, challenging the environmental impact assessment for the proposed nuclear power station near the towns of Visaginas and Ignalina in Lithuania.

The groups maintain that the assessment is fundamentally flawed because it does not evaluate the full impact of the proposed nuclear power plant, including the effects of radioactive waste, and does not compare the environmental impact of possible alternatives, such as renewable energy. 

The Lithuanian Ministry of Environment argued that the assessment was complete and that future generations would be able to cope with nuclear waste thanks to technologies that are still to be developed. A final decision on the challenge to the environmental impact assessment will take place at a hearing of the Vilnius District Administrative Court on 12 October 2009. 

Greenpeace EU nuclear expert Jan Haverkamp said: "The environmental impact assessment is deeply flawed and fails to consider issues such as the impact of nuclear waste and the cost of decommissioning. It contains so many omissions that it is impossible to determine whether building a nuclear power station can be justified on environmental grounds." 

Saulius Piksrys of the Lithuanan organisation Atgaja said: "The environmental impact assessment tells us nothing about the costs that our grandchildren might have to bear to manage the storage of nuclear waste. The bill could be much higher than investors have predicted. Without an idea of what the full costs would amount to, Lithuanian authorities are taking a huge gamble at the taxpayers expense." 

The proposed nuclear reactors would be built next to the town of Visaginas, in north-eastern Lithuania on the border with Latvia and Belarus, near the Chernobyl-era reactors of the Ignalina nuclear power station. The Ignalina nuclear power station was partly closed down in 2004. It will definitively come off-line later this year. If authorised, the new Visaginas plant would come on-line in 2018 and should have a capacity of around 3000 MW. 

Alda Ozola from the Latvian Green Movement criticised the lack of data on the possible impact resulting from a substantial nuclear accident: "How can the environmental impact assessment be complete if it doesn t even consider the impact of a Chernobyl-style nuclear accident on nearby European countries?" 

Source: Press release, Greenpeace, Bankwatch, Atgaja and Latvian Green Movement, 30 September 2009
Contact: Saulius Piksrys - CEE Bankwatch, Atgaja
Tel: +370 6879 2486
Email: saulius@atgaja.lt