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Russia to build npp in Bangladesh - attempt # ??

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#737
6198
28/11/2011
WISE Amsterdam
Article

Russia is to build Bangladesh's first nuclear power plant at Rooppur under an intergovernmental cooperation agreement signed in Dhaka on November 2. The agreement was signed by Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, and Yafesh Osman, Bangladesh's minister of state for science, information and communication technologies. Rooppur is designated as the location for a nuclear reactor since 1963.

The signing ceremony was attended by dignitaries including Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Under the agreement, Russia will construct two 1000 MWe reactors at Rooppur, in Pabna district, about 200 km from the capital, Dhaka. It specifies that Rosatom's AtomStroyExport division will act as the contractor, while the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission will be the customer. Russia will also support Bangladesh in developing the necessary infrastructure for the proposed plant. The agreement calls for Russia to provide fuel for the plant on a long-term basis, as well as taking back the used fuel for long-term management and permanent disposal. Russia will also train workers to operate the plant. A separate agreement will be signed for Russia to provide the necessary financing for the Rooppur plant’s construction. The Government of Bangladesh is considering either a Government-owned turnkey project or a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) contract.

Kiriyenko said that the proposed reactors "will meet all the international post-Fukushima requirements." He noted that the plant will feature double containment, a passive heat removal system, hydrogen recombiners, a core catcher, as well as other safety features. According to a Reuters report, Osman said that construction of the reactors at Rooppur would begin by 2013 and will take five years to complete.

Russia, China and South Korea had earlier offered financial and technical help to establish nuclear power in Bangladesh. In March 2009, Russia made a formal proposal to construct a nuclear power plant in the country. The Bangladeshi government approved this proposal the following month. The latest agreement between the two countries follows the signing of an intergovernmental agreement in May 2010 on cooperation in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. That agreement provided a legal framework for cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.

Plans to built a nuclear reactor at Rooppur were first drawn up in 1963 and after Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan after a war in December 1971 the plans were revived and an Atomic Energy Commission was set up. In April 1974 it signed a deal with India for information exchange about the "peaceful uses of nuclear energy" (less than a month later, on May 18, India exploded its first nuclear device code named Operation Smiling Buddha). On August 29, 1980, the government singed an agreement with France to provide technological and financial aid for the construction of a 300 MW nuclear power plant. The Saudi Arabia agreed to provide two-thirds of the finance, but Bangladesh was unable to find the rest of the money. In September 1981 it signed an Agreement for Coorperation Concerning the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy with the US and in December 1984 Russia offered to finance and supply a 440 MW reactor, supply and take back the fuel for an estimated price fo US$600 million. But again it did not materialize.

Then, in September 2007 after announcing the construction of 2 reactors in Rooppur for the xth-time, Bangladesh asked the IAEA for 'technical assistance and support'. Russia won a state-to-state-deal for ten construction. In a November 21 2011 report, the IAEA announced Bangladesh has "achieved notable progress in its nuclear infrastructure development of nuclear power". An Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission concluded that Bangladesh has "mostly met the conditions for knowledgeable decision-making and is actively preparing for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project."

Sources: New Scientist, 13 December 1984 / Financial Express (Bangladesh), 3 February 2010 / World Nuclear News, 2 November 2011 / IAEA, November 21 2011 / Laka files on Bangladesh

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WISE

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#735
21/10/2011
Shorts

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/

India: people's power vs. nuke power

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#735
6185
21/10/2011
Praful Bidway
Article

If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to insult the people agitating against the Koodankulam nuclear reactors at India’s southern tip, he could have found no better way than agreeing to meet their delegation on October 7— only to have Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Secretary Srikumar Banerjee lecture them on the virtues of nuclear power.

The meeting was held to respond to the grassroots demand for scrapping the project. The demand’s moral force, expressed in a 12-day hunger strike by over 100 people, impelled the Tamil Nadu cabinet to ask that project construction be halted.

The delegates had to suffer Mr. Banerjee, who recently disgraced India’s scientific community. Just as the Fukushima disaster turned nasty with the March 12-14 hydrogen explosions, he dismissed its gravity. He said the explosions — which indicated severe core damage and aggravated it — were "a purely chemical reaction, not a nuclear emergency!" Nothing could have been more delusional.

Dr. Singh promised to halt work on two Russian-made reactors at Koodankulam, but immediately went back on his word. The protestors started another fast and 10,000 people besieged the plant site.

The protestors shouldn’t be treated like ignorant and misguided children to be coached and disciplined by a nanny state. Their leaders are well-informed professionals, including S.P. Udayakumar, who has taught at a US university, M. Pushparayan, a lawyer, and Tuticorin’s Bishop.

Their case is compelling. The two 1,000 MW reactors under construction were never subjected to an Environment Impact Assessment. They were cleared by the environment ministry five years before the EIA process started — without considering the intrinsic hazards of nuclear reactors

The reactors will daily draw in millions of liters of freshwater, and release it at a high temperature into the sea, affecting the fish catch on which lakhs of livelihoods depend. They are being built within a one-kilometer radius of major population-centres, violating the 1.6-km "nil-population" zone stipulation.

The reactors will routinely release effluents and emissions containing radioactivity, a poison you can’t see, touch or smell. Scientific studies covering 136 nuclear sites in seven countries show abnormally high leukemia rates among children, and higher incidence of cancers, congenital deformities, and immunity and organ damage.

All nuclear activities produce wastes, which remain hazardous for thousands of years. Science hasn’t yet found a safe way of storing wastes. Catastrophic accidents are possible in every nuclear reactor in the world, including a Chernobyl or Fukushima-style core meltdown. Twenty-five years on, 300,000 people cannot go back home because of radioactive contamination around Chernobyl. The Fukushima disaster still hasn’t ended, but the station operator is already paying out US$50 billion in damages.

A reactor is a barely controlled nuclear bomb, where a runaway chain reaction is prevented by circulating water and some safety devices. But these can fail. Lack of cooling can produce a catastrophe as the fuel gets relentlessly heated. That’s what happened at Fukushima. The reactors couldn’t withstand the Magnitude 9 earthquake, belying the operator’s claim. The tsunami knocked out the backup, precipitating a station blackout, causing a loss-of-coolant accident and meltdown.

A station blackout can occur because of any number of factors in any reactor, with unpredictable but uncontrollable consequences, including a meltdown.

PMANE activists understand this hazard. They probably know a lot more about the problems of Russian reactors than DAE bureaucrats who have failed to master nuclear technology.

Bellona, a Norwegian group has revealed a special report by Russian nuclear safety experts in June, which says  Russian reactors are grievously under-prepared for disasters. (see Checks of Russian nuclear reactors fail safety hopes - and worse, leaked report reveals: bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/rosatom_report).

These disclosures are damning. Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko hasn’t denied them, but merely claimed that more money would fix the flaws. The report contradicts the official Russian statement that a Fukushima-type meltdown could never happen in Russia. The DAE makes identical claims about India — as baselessly. Confronted with an informed opposition, it has stooped to maligning the broad-based multi-religious PMANE as a Church-dominated group.

The DAE also sees "the foreign hand" behind the movement. This is a bit rich coming from a department whose very survival now depends on the "foreign hand": importing reactors from Russia, France and the US — without scrutiny.

Similarly, in Jaitapur in Maharashtra, the DAE is slinging mud at the opposition, while telling people "radiation is your friend." The French-designed European Pressurised Reactors to be installed there are as problem-ridden as and even more expensive than Koodankulam’s VVERs.

It would be suicidal for India to build such nuclear projects. They will bankrupt the electricity sector and impose terrible health risks. There are perfectly sound, safe, cost-competitive renewable energy alternatives to nuclear power. That’s where the future lies.

Source: Praful Bidway is an eminent Indian columnist. Published on the South Asian Citizens Web on October 18, 2011: www.sacw.net
Contact: S.P. Udayakumar at WISE India.

EPR construction in China: same problems

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#735
6179
21/10/2011
WISE Amsterdam
Article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About: 
WISEOlkiluoto-3

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#734
07/10/2011
Shorts

Oppose Nigeria's nuclear plans.
On September 15, President Goodluck Jonathan formally inaugurated Nigeria's Atomic Energy Commission and urged its members headed by Erepamo Osaisai to quickly evolve implementable plans and timelines for the delivery of atomic energy for peaceful purposes in the country. We recall that the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1976 to investigate the development of nuclear energy but little progress was made. It was reactivated in 2006 and President Jonathan appointed a new team this year.

Nigeria has the world's seventh-largest natural gas reserves, yet the nation is blighted by persistent electricity outages which force businesses and individuals who can afford them to rely on generators. Much of this vast gas reserves sit untouched under the ground or are flared into the sky. Despite being Africa's biggest crude oil exporter, decades of corruption and mismanagement mean Nigeria has never built the infrastructure to farm its huge oil and gas resources for much-needed domestic use.

Deficits in our existing institutions remain a defining albatross on the path to meaningful development. Cut to the bone, this scenario suggests that Nigeria currently lacks the indigenous capacity, supporting infrastructure, discipline and security wherewithal to build and manage an atomic power plant. It simply is another way of courting disaster - one we cannot manage.

Let us explore and exploit other safer, rational options. These include solar, gas, hydro, wind and coal options. Nigeria has these resources in stupendous quantities. A presidential directive requesting timelines for the generation of electricity through these options is far better than the timelines he recently demanded from the newly-inaugurated Atomic Energy Commission. Our scientist-president should think again.
Editorial Leadership newspaper (Nigeria), AllAfrica.com, 3 October, 2011


Belene construction agreement extended.
Russia's AtomStroyExport (ASE) and Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEK) have signed a supplement to their agreement on the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant, extending it until the end of March 2012. Under an earlier extension, the agreement - originally signed in 2006 - was extended until 30 September. According to ASE, the extension 'confirms the parties' interest in the continuation of the project.' NEK said that during the next six months, the two companies will continue their activities related to completing a market study, clarifying the financial model and studying the project finance proposal submitted by financial advisor HSBC. It added that the extra time will allow Bulgaria to conduct an analysis of the results and recommendations of stress tests being performed at nuclear power plants across the European Union. ASE said that work on the foundation pit for the first reactor at Belene has now been completed. It said that a concrete plant at the site has already been put into operation and that water treatment plants have been built.
World Nuclear News, 03 October 2011


UAE: Construction first unit will start mid-2012.
According to the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec), a government establishment created last year to oversee the ambitious nuclear construction project, said it would launch construction work for the infrastructure of four planned nuclear power plants in Barrakah in the western region in mid 2012 to pave the way for their operation in 2017. The UAE will award a contract in early 2012 for the supply of nuclear fuel to run its four nuclear reactors which the country is planning to construct as part of an ambitious nuclear power program.

Under the agreement to built 4 nuclear reactors, inked on December 27, the state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp (Kepco) and is partners in the consortium will design, build and run the reactors that will produce 5,600 MW of electricity. The contract to build the reactors is worth about US$20 billion (15bn euro).

The UAE has said the project is intended to diversify its energy supply sources and meet its rapid growing electricity demand, which is projected to surge to around 40,000 MW in 2020 from nearly 15,000 MW in 2009. The nuclear project will provide nearly 25 per cent of the UAE’s total energy needs of nearly 40,000 MW in 2020. Around seven per cent will be generated through renewable energy and the rest through conventional means.
Emirates 24/7, 25 September 2011


Pyhäjoki location for Finland's sixth reactor.
Fennovoima has chosen Pyhäjoki as the site for its nuclear power plant. Pyhäjoki municipality is located in North Ostrobothnia and the nuclear power plant will be constructed on Hanhikivi peninsula on the coast of Bothnian Bay. For the basis of the site selection, assessments were carried out during some four years. In the beginning of Fennovoima project in summer 2007, the company had almost 40 alternative sites. The number of alternatives was decreased gradually based on assessments and in December 2009 Fennovoima ended up having two alternatives, both located in Northern Finland: Pyhäjoki and Simo municipalities. In the final site decision, safety, technical feasibility, environmental matters, construction costs and schedule were the main factors examined as well as the ability of the site region to support a project that will bring thousands of people to work and use services there.

Fennovoima continues now the planning work together with the municipality, authorities and the plant suppliers and prepares applying for various licences and permits. For example, more detailed bedrock, environmental and water studies will be carried out on the Hanhikivi peninsula. Simultaneously, other preparations for the future phases of the project are carried out together with Pyhäjoki and Raahe region. First preparatory works on Hanhikivi will be started in the end of 2012 at earliest. The construction schedule will be elaborated after the plant supplier has been selected. Fennovoima sent bid invitations for Areva and Toshiba in July 2011 and the plant supplier will be chosen in 2012-2013.

Fennovoima has two owners: Voimaosakeyhtiö SF and E.ON Kärnkraft Finland. Voimaosakeyhtiö SF owns 66 percent of Fennovoima and nuclear expert E.ON Kärnkraft Finland 34 percent. Altogether Fennovoima has 70 shareholders. Voimaosakeyhtiö SF is owned by 69 finnish regional and local energy companies as well as companies in trade and industry.

Finland has 4 reactors in operation (two at Lovisa and two at Olkiluoto). The fifth (Olkiluoto-3) in under construction; over budget and over time.
Press release Fennovoima, 5 October 2011 / IAEA Reactor database.


Health effects radiation suppressed by tobacco companies.
Tobacco companies knew that cigarette smoke contained radioactive alpha particles for more than four decades and developed "deep and intimate" knowledge of these particles' cancer-causing potential; however, they deliberately kept their findings from the public. The study, published online in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, adds to a growing body of research detailing the industry's knowledge of cigarette smoke radioactivity and its efforts to suppress that information. The UCLA researchers analysed  dozens of previously unexamined internal tobacco industry documents, made available in 1998 as the result of a legal settlement.

“The documents show that the industry was well aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959; furthermore, the industry was not only cognizant of the potential 'cancerous growth' in the lungs of regular smokers but also did quantitative radiobiological calculations to estimate the long-term lung radiation absorption dose of ionizing alpha particles emitted from cigarette smoke." The study’s first author, Hrayr S. Karagueuzian, a professor of cardiology who conducts research at UCLA's Cardiovascular Research Laboratory, said: ‘We show here that the industry used misleading statements to obfuscate the hazard of ionizing alpha particles to the lungs of smokers and, more importantly, banned any and all publication on tobacco smoke radioactivity.” 

The radioactive substance, which the UCLA study shows was first brought to the attention of the tobacco industry in 1959, was identified in 1964 as the isotope polonium-210, which emits carcinogenic alpha radiation. Polonium-210 can be found in all commercially available domestic and foreign cigarette brands, Karagueuzian said, and is absorbed by tobacco leaves through naturally occurring radon gas in the atmosphere and through high-phosphate chemical fertilizers used by tobacco growers. The substance is eventually inhaled by smokers into the lungs.
LA Examiner, 28 September 2011


Dounreay: Belgium waste to be returned.
Dounreay has announced the return of reprocessing wastes from the BR2 research reactor in Belgium. The BR2 reactor in Mol was a good customer for Dounreay over the years, receiving new enriched uranium fuel from the reprocessed spent fuel. It planned to send considerably more spent fuel to Dounreay but the reprocessing plant was closed by a leak and never reopened. Wastes have already been returned to France and Spain. One Dounreay reprocessing customer has requested the substitution of vitrified high-level wastes for the intermediate level wastes at Dounreay (a consultation on this was held in 2010). However, Belgium wants to take back the intermediate level waste, as required by the original contract with Dounreay. Dounreay also had contracts with Australia, Germany and for Italian-owned fuel from Denmark.

There are 153 tons of BR2 reprocessing wastes cemented into 500-liter drums and this will involve an estimated 21 shipments over four years, starting this autumn. The shipments will be from Scrabster and will probably involve the former roll-on/roll-off ferry, the Atlantic Osprey.
N-Base Briefing 689, October 2011


IAEA Inspector exposed to radiation.
On October 5, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that one of its nuclear inspectors had been exposed to radiation during a 4 October inspection of the Belgoprocess nuclear waste facility in Dessel, Belgium. The inspector, along with an inspector from Euratom and a Belgoprocess employee, apparently received a dose of radiation after a vial or flask of plutonium accidentally fell on the floor, according to releases from the company and the Belgian Federal Nuclear Control Agency (AFCN). Plutonium is dangerous if ingested, but the amount received by the inspectors was less than the legal limit, the AFCN says. No radiation has been released beyond the site.
Nature.com, 5 October 2011


Atucha II, Argentina's third nuclear power plant.
President Cristina Kirchner inaugurated Atucha II, Argentina's third nuclear power plant on September 28. The German-designed reactor is expected to be fully operational in six to eight months after engineers run a series of tests. Construction of the plant began in July 1981, but work soon stopped and did not resume until 2006, when then-president Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007), the current leader's late husband, ordered the plant to be completed.

Argentina's other nuclear plants are Atucha I (335 megawatts) and the Embalse plant (600 megawatts). Once Atucha II is online 10 percent of Argentina's electricity will be produced by nuclear power. Plans are on the drawing board for Atucha III plant as well as an overhaul of the Embalse plant to add 30 years to its operational life, said Planning Minister Julio de Vido. Embalse was connected to the grid in 1983. Atucha II is located on the banks of the Parana river in the town of Zarate, some 100 kilometers north of the capital Buenos Aires. It was built at a cost of more than 2.4 billion dollars.
AFP, 29 September 2011


Another USEC deadline for DOE loan guarantee.
On September 30, USEC, announced morning it will reduce its spending on the American Centrifuge Project (ACP) in Piketon by 30 percent over the next month. It will also send out notices to its 450 employees Ohio, Tennessee and Maryland that layoffs are possible if the company doesn’t receive a loan guarantee before October 31. USEC has invested approximately US$2 billion in the ACP but needs significant additional financing to complete the plant. In 2008, USEC applied for a US$2 billion loan guarantee from Department of Energy for construction of the ACP. USEC significantly demobilized construction and machine manufacturing activities in 2009 due to delays in obtaining financing through DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program. Since then, many 'final' deadlines were set by USEC (three in the past half year: June 30, Sept. 30 and now Oct, 31) to obtain the loan guarantee.

In a call with investors, USEC President and CEO John Welch said the company must see a loan guarantee during the next month or risk the end of the project. USEC expects October “to be a month of intense interaction with the DOE,” in hopes of securing the loan guarantee.

The company had faced a September 30 deadline with two investors — Toshiba America Nuclear Energy Corporation and Babcock & Wilcox Investment Company — to receive a US$2 billion loan guarantee. They agreed September 30 to extend that deadline to October 31. If USEC receives the loan guarantee, the companies have promised US$50 million to support the project.

In a statement, DOE Spokesman Damien LaVera said, “The Department of Energy has been working closely with USEC as the company has continued to test and validate its innovative technology, obtain private financing and meet other benchmarks that would be required for a successful loan guarantee application. We are strongly committed to developing effective, domestic nuclear enrichment capabilities and are looking at all options on a path forward.”

The ACP will utilize USEC’s AC100 centrifuge machine, which has been developed, engineered and assembled in the US. The AC100 design is a disciplined evolution of classified U.S. centrifuge technology originally developed by DOE. DOE invested already US$3 billion over 10 years to develop the centrifuge technology.
Dayton Daily News, 1 October 2011 /  ACP website: www.americancentrifuge.com


Taiwan: nuclear accident compensation increased.
On September 30, the Taiwanese Cabinet approved an amendment to the Nuclear Damage Compensation Act that imposes heavier compensation liability on nuclear power operators in the event of natural disasters such as an earthquake or a typhoon. Under the amendment, the maximum amount of compensation for losses caused by a nuclear accident was increased from NT$4.2 billion (US$138 million or 103 million euro) to NT$15 billion (US$5 mln or 3.7 mln euro) and the allowed period for compensation claims was extended from 10 to 30 years.

The amendment came after the Atomic Energy Council reviewed the act, which had not been amended since it was first enacted in 1997, in the wake of the nuclear accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin said the amendment fell short of her expectations as she had suggested further lifting the ceiling on compensation liability.
Tapei Times, 30 September 2011


36 year old construction permit extended. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has extended the construction permit for the unfinished Bellefonte unit 1 in Alabama.
The construction permit was originally granted in 1974. It was suspended in 1988, when Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) decided to halt work on the project, but the NRC agreed in 2009 to reinstate the permit. With the reinstated permit due to expire on 1 October 2011, TVA lodged an application for an extension in October 2010. The NRC has now agreed to that extension, meaning that the construction permit will remain valid until 1 October 2020. (see more in Nuclear Monitor 732, 9 September 2011)
World Nuclear News, 03 October 2011


Swiss parliament, no new reactors.
On September 28, the Council of States has followed the government’s lead by voting not to replace the country’s five nuclear power stations  and boost renewable energy resources. Switzerland currently has five nuclear power plants that will gradually come off the power grid at the end of their 50 year (!) lifespan: the first one in 2019 and the last one in 2034. The Senate followed the House of Representatives in calling on the government to ban new nuclear plants but keep parliament "informed about innovations in the field."

The clear result of the September 28 vote - with a three to one majority - came after a parliamentary committee prepared a compromise formula, promoted by the centre-right Christian Democratic Party, which will give parliament another chance to have a say at a later stage. “Even if we were to ban nuclear power plants now our successors in parliament could still one day decide on building on new reactors,” a Christian Democratic Senator, Filippo Lombardi from Ticino, said on behalf of the committee. Discussions on nuclear power are due to continue in the new parliament which is due to convene for the first time in December following general elections next month.

The Social Democrats, the Greens as well as the Christian Democratic Party hailed the Senate decision as an important step towards a new energy policy amid calls for further measures to switch to more renewable energy sources.

The government called for a withdrawal from nuclear energy in May – a proposal backed by the House of Representatives a month later.
Swissinfo.ch 28 September 2011


Hinkley Blockaded: No New Nuclear Power!
More than 300 people (even up to 400, according to a BBC-report), successfully sealed off the main entrance to Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset for nine hours on 3 October in opposition to EDF Energy's plans to build two new mega-reactors on the site. EDF said of 500 employees at the plant, only essential staff had been called in and had arrived by bus at dawn.

Blockaders were joined by a theatrical troupe who enacted a nuclear disaster scenario, while Seize the Day provided a musical backdrop to the event. 206 helium balloons were released to represent the number of days since the Fukushima meltdown. The balloons will be tracked, to show which areas of the West Country would be worst affected by a nuclear disaster at Hinkley.
Indymedia.uk; www.stopnewnuclear.org.uk; BBC, 3 October 2011

The troubled recent history of nuclear power in South Africa

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#733
6168
23/09/2011
Greenpeace South Africa
Article

Six days after the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima in Japan in March 2011, South Africa’s Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters declared her country’s intention to add 9,600 MW of nuclear electricity - or six new nuclear reactors. On September 15 she said she had signed off on a proposal for new nuclear power plants and said it would be presented to cabinet soon. Peters said she expects the cabinet to decide on the plan by the end of this year and the bid process to start early in 2012. The last attempt to build a nuclear plant, led by state-owned power utility Eskom, was scratched on funding woes.

Speaking at the second regional conference on energy and nuclear power in Africa in Cape Town on May 30 this year, Ms Peters went even further, trumpeting the development of a nuclear-export market to the rest of Africa, supported by both the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the African Union.

South Africa spent 13 years pursuing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, wasting billions of rands in the process (R9-billion was spent on research and development and another R22-billion would have been needed to complete a demonstration model) as investors across the world shied away from having anything to do with it. Eventually the state cancelled the project and wrote off the monies it had spent. The government and its wholly owned power utility Eskom remain hell bent on securing what it believes will be a cheap and sustainable nuclear solution for its energy supply crisis.

By 2006, South Africa was beginning to run short of power generation capacity. It was clear that the PBMR would not be available to order for a long time. Eskom began to talk about ordering ‘conventional’ nuclear power plants. First in line were the EPR supplied by the French company, Areva and the AP1000 supplied by the Japanese owned company, Westinghouse. Eskom’s implication was that such designs were well proven. In fact, at that point, only one order had been placed for an EPR and none for the AP1000. By 2011, there were four orders for EPRs, two for China, one for France and one for Finland and four for AP1000s, all for China. None of these orders were in service by 2011 and the two EPR orders for France and Finland were seriously over budget and late.

In 2006, the South African government forecast that a new unit could be on-line between 2010 and 2012. By mid-2007, Eskom was targeting construction of 20,000 MW of new nuclear capacity by 2025, although completion of the first unit had slipped to 2014. It expected an overnight construction cost of US$2,500/kW. (Overnight cost is the cost of a construction project if no interest was incurred during construction, as if the project was completed "overnight.")

In January 2008, Eskom received two bids in reply to its call for tenders from November of the previous year for 3,200-3,400 MW of new nuclear capacity in the near term and up to 20,000 MW by 2025. One bid was from Areva for two EPRs (plus 10 more for the long-term) and the other from Westinghouse for the three AP1000s (plus 17 more in the long term).

It was later reported that the bids were for around US$6,000/kW (overnight) – more than double the expected price. It was therefore no surprise when Eskom abandoned the tender in December 2008 on the grounds that the magnitude of the investment was too much for it to handle. This was despite the willingness of Coface, the French government’s loan guarantee body, to offer export credit guarantees and despite Areva’s claims that it could have arranged 85% of the financing.

Eskom in crisis
Three weeks into January 2008, Eskom had hit a brick wall. It could no longer meet all the country’s electricity demands without melting the national grid. Eskom turned to the bulk users, and appealed to them to ration their demand. Even so, for some months the country faced a series of electricity outages (euphemistically called “load shedding”). Not only was this a blow to businesses, agriculture, schools, hospitals and households, but it coincided with global recession.

Eskom had also run out of money and its credit ratings were reduced. Eskom could no longer afford to invest in new infrastructure, without massive extra income. It would take three years before it could make new orders, and until then the board was saying no to new investments. The biggest blow to the nuclear industry was the decision to scrap the tender process for Nuclear-1, the first of a number of new large-scale reactors. The government had to inform vendors Areva and (Toshiba-owned) Westinghouse that their bids would not be considered for the meantime. The policy was not being suspended, but the orders were temporarily shelved.

Newly appointed CEO Brian Dames tried to rebuild Eskom’s reputation and finances. A big hurdle was the steady loss in Eskom’s credit ratings. Eskom hoped to raise electricity tariffs substantially, despite this being opposed by the trade union movement and other sections of civil society. The National Energy Regulator reduced Eskom’s application for 35% increases for three years to 25%, amounting to a doubling of tariffs over the same period, hitting poor and middle-class households, who objected strongly to the sweetheart commercial deals which Eskom had made in the past with smelters and other large users to be charged minimal tariffs.

The government then guaranteed Eskom’s massive investment in two giant coal-fired power stations. Medupi, the first of the two to be built, will be funded by the World Bank despite the enormous carbon emissions the 4,800 MW plant will produce. The loan of US$3,75 billion, was strongly opposed by local NGOs, and even caused countries like the Netherlands, Britain, the US, Norway and Italy to abstain from voting at the bank’s decision making committee.

To help Eskom get funding for its future nuclear power stations, companies like Areva have said they will help to intercede with the French government to release development finance. The potential Chinese bidders for Nuclear-1 (China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) have linked up with the Standard Bank of South Africa, 20% owned by a Chinese bank (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China), in order to assist Eskom to purchase future reactors.

As a result, Eskom’s financial woes are less of an obstacle to re-launching the bids for Nuclear-1.

2010 onwards
The South African government seemed to assume that cheap reactors can be found, if only they could be identified. This led it to look at a design offered by Korea, which had won four orders for the Unityed Arab Emirates (UAE) with a bid worth about US$4,000/kW (overnight costs), well below the levels offered by Areva and Westinghouse, but 60% above the level assumed by the South African government in 2006.

Despite the precariousness of the Korean option, the South African government has had discussions with the Korean government about the supply of such reactors.

The other design being considered by South Africa is the one that makes up the majority of Chinese orders. China dominates the world market for nuclear power plants accounting for 25 out of 38 of the reactors on which construction has started since January 2008. Of the 25, 19 are supplied by Chinese companies and this CPR-1000 design is based on the design China imported from France in the 1980s. This is the same design as is already installed at Koeberg. Some updating will have taken place, for example taking advantage of better IT equipment, but it is clear that it is fundamentally a 40 year old design. The South African government has also been talking to the Chinese government about importing such reactors.

However, a number of assumptions seem to underlie this attempt:
• That the reactors would be much cheaper than more modern designs, partly because they are older and partly because they would be manufactured in China;
• That China has the spare component manufacturing capacity to export plants; and,
• That the NNR would be comfortable licensing a design that fell well short of the requirements of Western regulators, for example on protection against impact by aircraft.

Eskom seems remote from this process and it is not clear whether it supports the idea of importing older technology. As with its reservations with the PBMR, Eskom could be uncomfortable raising any concerns about South African government policy.

The lessons from the Fukushima disaster in March 2011 have yet to be fully identified, but there does seem to be a strong probability that older designs will be seen, worldwide, not just in the West, as inadequate for new orders. In particular, designs with a greater level of ‘passive’ safety – ones that in an emergency situation do not require the operation of engineered safety systems to bring them to a safe condition – will be required. Even the French EPR does not incorporate strong passive safety features and the Chinese and Korean designs certainly do not have passive safety.

The new call for nuclear tenders
The call for tenders expected for 2012 is based on the Integrated Resource Plan 2010. The rationale for the integrated resource planning process is that it should identify the lowest cost way to meet electricity demand by considering all resources including energy efficiency measures. The plan includes 9,600 MW of new nuclear capacity to be completed between 2023 and 2030. Whether this nuclear capacity really represents the least cost way of meeting demand depends on the accuracy of the assumptions made on the cost.

The IRP 2010 bases its assumptions on a report commissioned from the US Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI, 2010), a US research organisation funded primarily by US electric utilities. Nuclear power costs are dominated by the costs associated with the construction of the plants, the overnight cost of construction and the cost of borrowing, which is related to the discount rate. For the construction cost, the EPRI report gives an overnight cost of R28,375/kW for an Areva EPR and R33,235/kW for a Westinghouse AP1000. If we assume an exchange rate of US$1=R6.75, this equates to about US$4,200/kW and US$4,900/kW. It is hard to understand why the South African government should assume costs that are only 70-80% of the prices bid two years earlier. There is certainly no evidence that estimated nuclear costs have gone down since then.

The discount rate of 8% adopted by the South African government also appears too low. For example, the UK government assumed a discount rate of 10% in 2008 when it assessed the economics of nuclear power. The discount rate is effectively a tool to allocate the limited quantity of capital available as profitably as possible. It should ensure that only projects that achieve the given rate of return on capital – the discount rate – are pursued. If nuclear power is assessed using too low a discount rate, it is likely that relatively unprofitable projects will be pursued at the expense of more profitable projects. The use of too low a discount rate is particularly serious because one of the key reasons the previous tender failed appears to have been because affordable finance was not available. Cape Times reported that Rob Adam, CEO of Necsa, has said:

‘The country’s nuclear programme had been canned in 2008 because “we couldn’t get a bank to lend the money for long enough. Commercial banks’ time frames are too short. So now the vendor must come with a bank or financial institution”, and South Africa would repay this over time.’

It appears the South African government did not learn from the previous tender when it assumed far too low a construction cost and proceeded with a call for tenders that had to be abandoned because the prices bid could not be financed. The government also seems heavily involved with the process, with ministers and sometimes the president conducting negotiations and signing agreements with governments of potential suppliers. These efforts have been particularly intense with France with whom an undertaking to explore an intergovernmental agreement on spent-fuel management, co-operation between the countries’ nuclear safety authorities, and implementation of the agreement on nuclear R&D between the Necsa and its French counterpart have been agreed.

Sources: This article (except the lead) is reprinted from a new Greenpeace South Africa report, called 'The true costs of nuclear power in South Africa'. It is available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/News/news/The-True-Cost-of-Nuclear-E...
Contact: Greenpeace South Africa, 10A and 10B Clamart House, Clamart Road, Richmond, Johannesburg, South Africa
Email: iafrica@greenpeace.org
Web: www.greenpeaceafrica.org

Lithuania and Belarus attacking nuclear projects

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#733
6167
23/09/2011
Bellona
Article

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

US: completion of construction of 1970's reactors

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#732
6165
09/09/2011
LAKA Foundation
Article

On August 18, the US Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve the completion of construction of the Bellefonte Unit 1. To finance construction, the Watts Bar 2 reactor (also under construction) will be completed and sold, and then be leased back to TVA. Construction on Bellefonte would not begin until after fuel loading at Watts Bar 2 is complete (not before 2013). Currently TVA has a debt of 24 billion USdollars.

(732.) Laka Foundation - Construction of the two-unit Bellefonte nuclear plant began in 1974 (exactly the same year as Busher in Iran), but work was suspended in 1988 in response to declining demand. Unit 1 was the furthest along, considered about 90% complete when work halted in 1988. Today it is considered about 55% complete due to the transfer or sale of many components and the need to upgrade or replace others. Completion of the Bellefonte Unit 1 reactor is expected to cost another US$4.9 billion, which is in addition to the estimated US$1.9 billion in value already existing at the plant. Unit 1 should be in operation by 2020. TVA obtained its construction permit for the plant in the early '70s and that permit is still active today. But TVA must get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an operating permit before starting up the plant. A "future decision" on the potential completion of Bellefonte 2 will not come until at least mid-way through work on unit 1.

From 1992 to 2002, the TVA considered various proposals for Bellefonte, including completion as a combined-cycle natural gas plant, a coal gasification plant, a tritium production plant for the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons program, or a nuclear plant partnered with a private investor. In 2009 the NRC granted the TVA’s request to reinstate Bellefonte’s original construction permits so the TVA could evaluate the engineering and economic feasibility of completing Units 1 and 2.

The TVA decided to complete construction of the Watts Bar 2 project in August 2007 to help meet its growing demand for power (expected completion costs US$2.5 billion). The 1,180-MW Unit 2 will be the first new reactor to achieve commercial operations in the USA since Watts Bar 1 was completed in 1996. According to the World Nuclear Association “reactor details page” of Watt Bar 2, construction started on January 12, 1972. Remember 1972? In that year , as part of US-president Nixon's re-election effort, a massive campaign of political spying and 'dirty tricks' was initiated against Democrats, leading to the Watergate break-in to plant bugs inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee. Later that year, in November, Nixon won the presidential elections; McGovern lost. Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan and was recognized by the United Nations in 1972 and the German writer Heinrich Böll won the Nobel Prize for Literature. That long ago.

Well, if we are into history: When the Tennessee Valley Authority was established in 1933, at the height of the great depression, it rapidly became one of the controversial instruments of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Designed, in Roosevelt's own words, for the "reclamation of land and human beings", the creation of TVA was a unique federal attempt to attack the grinding poverty of an entire region "by developing and conserving" its natural resources.

In the nineteenseventees TVA had the countries' most ambitious nuclear power program: the construction of 17 reactors before mid 1980's. But already on August 25, 1982, the Board of Directors decided to cancel four units (Phipps Bend 1 & 2 and Hartsville B1 & B2) under construction and in the following 3 years four more units followed. Original start-up date of the Watts Bar reactors was 1977.

On December 12, 1994, TVA announced it would halt work on three of the last four nuclear power stations under construction in the United States: Bellefonte Units 1 and 2 and Watts Bar 2: leaving only Watts Bar 1 to be finished. (as said, it was the last reactor finished in the US –1996)

According to an editorial in the Dec. 13 edition International Herald Tribune  the decision "is the symbolic death notice for the current generation of reactors in the US". The article in the WISE Nuclear Monitor devoted to this ended with the warning: "Although the end of the first generation reactors is welcome news, folks should be reminded that the US industry is already seeking federal certification for the next generation". While history may repeat itself, it is not always obvious in which way…..

Thirty-nine years after the first start of construction, in early August 2011, TVA has announced that construction of the US$2.5 billion Watts Bar 2 nuclear reactor is even behind the 2007 schedule and the project will not meet its sixty month timetable. The 1,180 MW Bar 2 nuclear reactor was expected (in 2007) to be operational sometime in late 2012, but the project is now expected to wrap up in early 2013 instead. The TVA’s Chief Operating Officer Bill McCollum said that the project’s schedule is being revised as a result of construction delays as well as lost time due to licensing delays.

Kim Greene, TVA group president of strategy and external relations, said that the utility expects to raise up to US$2.5 billion on the sale of the "new" Watts Bar reactor, which would then be leased back to TVA. "There have been sale/lease-backs of nuclear units in the past, and I do believe the closer we are to completion of construction, the easier it will be [to sell the reactor]," she said. "At this point, we have indications from the market that there would be an appropriate amount of interest in the Watts Bar Unit 2 facility."

So, on August 18 the TVA Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve the completion of construction of the Bellefonte Unit 1. But even with that approval, TVA officials say construction on the reactor would not resume for at least two years because of the planning and regulatory approval process that will still have to take place.

In fact, the board members amended the resolution to say that construction on Bellefonte would not begin until after the fuel loading at Watts Bar 2 is complete.  Which is projected to finish up by December of 2012.  After that, TVA would issue a 120-day notice of plans to begin construction at Bellefonte.
 


No zombies allowed…
TVA had a message for opponents of its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant at the Board of Directors meeting on August 18: No costumes. A month after zombie-costumed protesters paraded in Chattanooga to oppose TVA's plans to revive what they described as a "corpse of a power plant" in northeast Alabama, the nation's largest public utility installed a new ban on costumes at its board meeting on August 18. A TVA spokesman said the no-costume rule was intended to avoid any "disruption" at the meeting in Knoxville.

Despite the warning, several protestors turned up: one man was dressed as "corporate zombie," another as Santa Claus and yet another as Ben Franklin. Even as the protestors claimed a First Amendment right violation, security would not let them enter the meeting.


 

Sources: www.timesfreepress.com, 24 August 2011 / www.PowerMag.com, 24 August 2011 / www. Wbir.com, 16 August 2011 / www.constructiondigital.com, 9 August 2011 / WNA Reactor Details / WISE News Communique 424, 19 December 1994 / Int. Herald Tribune, 18 August 1985 / Atomic Energy Clearing House, 6 September 1982 / Nature, 26 August 1976
Contact: NIRS

 

 

About: 
Belleville-1Watts Bar 2Laka

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#731
29/07/2011
Article

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

Nuclear Engineering International, News 22 July 2011


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

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

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

World Nuclear News, 21 July 2011


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#730
15/07/2011
Shorts

Centrifuge crash report allegedly delayed until after financing deadline. SONG (the Southern Ohio Neighbors Group) disclosed on July 6 that a power outage and centrifuge crash happened at USEC's project site near Piketon, Ohio. As reported in that newsrelease, Osiris Siurano, the NRC project manager for USEC's centrifuge project license, told SONG in an interview on July 5 that USEC had notified NRC and DOE "within 24-hours as required." According to NRC's "Event Notification Report" of that day, July 5, however, NRC was not actually notified of the situation until July 1.

July 1 just happened to be one day after USEC's original financing deadline of June 30, by which time USEC needed to secure a "conditional commitment" for a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. That is, there is now evidence that USEC waited nineteen days before reporting a serious safety incident to NRC, in hopes that DOE would provide the "conditional commitment" before the incident became known. Silence from USEC, from DOE, and from USEC's two financing agents in the United States Senate, as the June 30 deadline neared, is now explained. In nuclear industry lingo, Mr. Siurano's statement that the 24-hour notification requirement had been met could be characterized as having "suboptimal veracity."

There is no decision yet on the Department of Energy's US$2 billion loan guarantee for USEC Inc. to complete the American Centrifuge Project at Piketon. USEC says it is now “most likely” looking at further cutbacks and a reduction of future investment in its planned American Centrifuge Project at Piketon. “We are reaching a critical point regarding continued funding for the American Centrifuge Project. We need to obtain a conditional commitment for the loan guarantee from DOE,“ the company said already in May.
Portsmouth Daily Times, 1 & 13 July 2011 / HuntingtonNews.net, 8 July 2011


Germany’s phase-out by 2022 sealed (again). On July 8, Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, passed the amendment to the atomic energy bill sealing Germany's exit from nuclear power by 2022. Ten days before, on June 30, the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, approved with an overwhelming majority plans to phase-out nuclear power by 2022. The nuclear phase-out bill cleared the lower house with only the far-left voting against, while the opposition Social-Democrats and Green party both supported the bill.
Germany's new energy strategy reverses the extension of nuclear run-times, which became law earlier this year. Seven reactors built before 1980 as well as the Kruemmel reactor, which has not been online since 2007, will remain shut permanently, according to the bill. The nine remaining  reactors will be gradually phased-out between 2015 and 2022.

Germany's E.ON feels no pressure to replace nuclear power plants with alternatives after the  policy shift. "There is no strategy to replace lost nuclear capacity one-to-one. As an entrepreneur I always ask myself is my investment profitable?," Chief Executive Johannes Teyssen said on June 30. It is one of the four utilities with German nuclear power plants.

E.ON, which in an outcry earlier in June had demanded damages from the government for the closures, was holding on to the legal pursuits but had in the meantime adopted a more conciliatory stance, Teyssen said. But the group will now respect the change in policy towards renewables.
Reuters, 30 June 2011 / Platts, 30 June and 8 July 2011


Finland: inviting bids for construction npp. Finnish company Fennovoima has invited Areva and Toshiba to bid for the construction of a new nuclear power plant, which will be built at one of its greenfield sites Pyhäjoki or Simo, in northern Finland. Bids will be for the delivery and construction of the reactor and turbine islands. Infrastructure work during the first phase of construction and preparatory work such as earthmoving and excavation are excluded from the bid.

Fennovoima has already selected three alternatives for the plant design: Areva’s 1700 MW EPR, its advanced boiling water reactor the 1250 MW Kerena and the 1600 MW ABWR by Toshiba Corporation. The plant supplier and the model of delivery is due to be decided in 2012-2013. Fennovoima is planning to select the site for its nuclear power plant in 2011 and preparatory work could start by the end of 2012.
Nuclear Engineering International, news 5 July 2011


Citygroup: nuclear “uninvestable for public equity markets”. According to Peter Atherton, Citygroup’s head of European utilities research, Britain's nuclear strategy is "uninvestable" for private clients, who are only likely to put money into new plants if the government shoulders more of the risks involved. He says the investment environment is "dire." "Investors are demanding more of their returns up front in cash rather than dividends, indicating they don't trust the capital growth of the sector. "As we stand today, is (new nuclear) an investable option for Centrica, RWE? Simply put, no. The cost of capital based on those risks would be way too high to give you an electricity price which is affordable. "You would be looking at a project cost of capital of at least 15 percent. That would require a power price of about 150-200 pounds per megawatt hour (based on 2017 money) to make that project work," Atherton said, which is three to four times as much as current UK spot power prices.

"If we want (plants) built, the state will have to take on the risks," he added, saying the government could do this through direct subsidies, taxes or building new plants itself. Shares in the European utility sector have fallen about 30 percent since February 2009, according to Citigroup, as EU utilities have been more exposed to commodity price rises than in Asia or the U.S., and, most recently, due to the impact Japan's nuclear crisis.
Reuters, 6 July 2011


U.S.: Reactor proponents are batting 0-6 in state legislatures in 2011. Deep-pocketed nuclear power lobbyists may pack a big punch in Washington, D.C., but they are getting knocked out altogether at the state legislative level. So far in 2011, the nuclear power industry has a record of zero wins and six losses in Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. The nuclear power industry’s dismal track record is in keeping with its history of state legislative failures in 2010 (when it went 0-8) and 2009 (0-6).

The nuclear power industry’s 2011 state legislative failures:
* Minnesota – A heavily lobbied bill to overturn the state’s moratorium on additional reactors died in conference committee.
* Wisconsin – A push to reintroduce a bill to overturn the Badger State’s moratorium on new reactors failed.
* Kentucky – A bill to overturn the state’s moratorium on new reactors died in the House.
* Missouri – Despite a major industry push, a bill to charge utility customers in advance to pay for an “Early Site Permit” for the proposed new Callaway reactor died.
* North Carolina – A “Super Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)” bill to eliminate prudence review of CWIP expenses was proposed but never introduced due to strong on-the-ground opposition.
* Iowa – A bill pushed by MidAmerican to charge utility customers in advance for “small modular reactors” as well as potentially larger reactors stalled in the state Senate and cannot be taken up again until 2012.

In 2010, nuclear power lobbyists failed in legislative pushes in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Vermont and West Virginia and Wisconsin. In 2009, the industry enjoyed no success whatsoever in its lobbying efforts in Kentucky, Minnesota, Hawaii, Illinois, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Safe Energy Program at Physicians for Social Responsibility, www.NuclearBailout.org, 6 July 2011


Khan: North Korea paid Pakistan for nuclear secrets. In a letter released by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced nuclear scientist and ‘godfather of Pakistan's atomic bomb’, the North Korean ruling party appears to confirm that it paid more than US$3.5m (2.5m euro) to the serving army chief and at least one other senior general for transferring nuclear weapons technology to North Korea. The 1998 letter, was released as part of an attempt by Khan to establish that he was not working on his own when nuclear secrets were passed on to Iran, North Korea and Libya before his fall from grace. The two generals named in the letter fiercely denied the allegation, and denounced the letter as a forgery.

But opinion is divided not just over the authenticity of the documents, but also whether they establish that Khan was not acting alone. The Washington Post quoted unnamed US officials as saying that the letter's contents were "consistent with our knowledge" of the events described. But David Albright, a nuclear proliferation expert with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, disputes Khan's claims that top military officials were complicit. "[The letter] shows that Khan was a rogue agent and he colluded to provide centrifuge components to North Korea without Pakistani official approval," the AP quoted him as saying. More on Khan at www.laka.org/info/publicaties/Khan/Khan.pdf
Independent (UK), 8 July 2011

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#721
17/12/2010
Shorts

IAEA-DG: less watchdog, more lobby.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano presenting his first report to the UN General Assembly on November 8, said that he aims to change the widespread perception of the agency as the world's "nuclear watchdog." The label "does not do justice to our extensive activities in other areas, especially in nuclear energy, nuclear science and applications, and technical cooperation." Established by the UN in 1957 as the "Atoms for Peace" organization, the Vienna-based IAEA gained its reputation as the world's nuclear watchdog from its nuclear verification activities and reports of "non-compliance" by states that have failed to abide by the safeguards imposed by the agency. As countries consider introducing nuclear energy and expanding their nuclear power, the IAEA will need to cement its role in assisting such developments. "When countries express an interest in introducing nuclear power, we offer advice in many areas, including on how to put the appropriate legal and regulatory framework in place and how to ensure the highest standards of safety and security, without increasing proliferation risks," he said.  Amano added that "access to nuclear power should not be limited to developed countries but should be available to developing countries as well."

The IAEA chief encouraged international lending institutions to place greater consideration in funding nuclear power projects, as he drew the Assembly's attention to practical applications of nuclear energy. Meanwhile, cables leaked by Wikileaks show cosy US relationship with IAEA chief. When Yukiya Amano took over as the head of the UN nuclear watchdog last year, American diplomats described him as "director general of all states, but in agreement with us"

Source: Statement to the Sixty-Fifth Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, 8 November 2010 at www.iaea.org / Guardian (UK), 30 November 2010


News in the nuclear age: rabbits and mice trapped and killed.

 A radioactive rabbit was trapped on the Hanford nuclear reservation (USA), and Washington state health workers have been searching for contaminated rabbit droppings. The Tri-City Herald reports that officials suspect the rabbit sipped some water left from the recent demolition of a Cold War-era building used in the production of nuclear weapons. The rabbit was trapped in the past week and was highly contaminated with radioactive cesium. It was killed and disposed of as radioactive waste.

Only one rabbit sipped from that water? No because a few weeks later, radioactive mouse-droppings were found. It has been difficult to find mice in the current cold and snowy weather. Sixty mouse traps were set, but the two mice reported trapping and killing the holiday were not contaminated. Now PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is asking to stop killing mice in search for contaminated ones. “Live traps should be used to catch mice and then they can be released or humanely euthanized as appropriate after they are checked for radioactivity,” PETA writes. Hanford currently is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. Last year, 33 contaminated animals or animal materials such as droppings were found on the site.

Source:The Associated Press, 5 November 2010 / Xinhua, 6 November 2010 / TriCityHerald, 25 November 2010


US: Vermont elects Governor that wants Vermont Yankee closed.

In an extremely close race on the November 2 House of Representatives elections, Peter Shumlin (D) defeated Brain Dubie (R) and will be the next Governor of the state of Vermont. Shumlin is an avowed opponent of extending the license of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon past its expiration in 2012, citing the plant's leaks and other problems and its owners' poor record in dealing with state officials. Dubie was open to granting the plant an extension to operate and wanted decisions about the Vermont Yankee’s future made by "experts" at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Vermont Public Service Board.
In February, in a 26 to 4 vote, the Vermont Senate decided that the continued operation of the 38-year-old nuclear reactor was not in the best interest of Vermonters. Entergy, which owns the decrepit 38 year old reactor, has vowed to challenge the state and attempt to relicense the reactor.When Entergy bought the reactor, the corporation agreed that the State of Vermont would decide whether splitting atoms beyond the 40 year license was in the best interest of Vermonters.
Within hours of the election of Peter Shumlin as the next Governor of Vermont, Entergy put the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear plant up for sale. According to Entergy, dumping the aged reactor from their books would benefit their stockholders. But Entergy's announcement has everyone wondering, who in their right mind would buy this rust bucket of a reactor?

Just days after the announced sale, Vermont Yankee was forced into an emergency shutdown due to radioactive leaks, this time inside the nuclear plant. Entergy should behave like a responsible corporate citizen and begin preparations to permanently shut down Vermont Yankee as scheduled.

Source: Blogs at www.greenpeace.org/usa; 3 and 8 November 2010


First victory for Finnish campaign on nuclear investors.

Early November, Greenpeace started a campaign aimed at a group of investors in the E.ON/Fennovoima nuclear project. One of them, with a 3% share, is Finland's largest retail & service chain called S-Ryhmä ("S Group"). On November 25, two of their regional subsidiaries, including the Helsinki area one with most weight, have pulled out. This is a very quick result, quicker than expected. The pulling out is financially small but psychologically very important. There was a major feeling of apathy and inevitability and a lot of people thought there is no more fight to be fought. With at least a year to go to the investment decision, with the cost doubled from 4 to 8 billion euro and timetable pushed back by a couple of years, there is a good chance of splitting the investor coalition. This result will show the movement and the local groups that nothing is cemented and the investors can be swayed. The first, ongoing campaign push is aimed at Christmas sales so the timing could not be better to energize the movement.

Source: Lauri Myllyvirta – Greenpeace, 25 November 2010


Czech Republic: CEZ to pay its regulator?

The Czech Green Party has voiced its alarm at government proposals to change the law so that nuclear companies - principally the semi-state owned energy giant CEZ - would directly finance the budget of the state watchdog responsible for regulating their activities. The plans to amend the Atomic Act, which are still in the draft stage but could become  government policy within months, envisage saving 500 million Czech Koruna (Kc) (US$27.9  million or 25.1 million euro) from public spending over the next decade by asking nuclear firms to finance the State Office of Nuclear Safety (SUJB). Under the proposal, for example, the cost of the three permits needed to open a nuclear reactor would be increased to a total of 250 million Kc, with an annual operating fee of 30 million Kc thereafter. The opening and operation of new uranium mining facilities would also face additional fees, as would the storage of spent nuclear fuel.

The Green Party (SZ) has strongly criticized the proposals, saying the nuclear company should not be allowed to directly fund its own regulation and arguing the state is already being governed by CEZ rather than the other way round. "If it is the case that direct funding of SUJB would be moved under CEZ, that is obviously alarming," SZ spokesman Tomáš Průša said to the ‘The Prague Post’. CEZ and other semi-state firms should be taxed like private companies, he said it was important to maintain a system of indirect funding under which "the state collects fees that then become part of state budget revenue." "An independent regulator can never be under the direct financial influence of the regulated." The Greens believe that CEZ, the country's largest energy firm, was already under-regulated even before this proposed change.

Source: The Prague Post, 14 November 2010


Germany: higher cancer rates near Asse radwaste dump.

Newly published figures from the Lower Saxony state cancer registry show that in the area around Asse, the site of the controversial nuclear waste dump Asse, some cancer rates are higher than normal. Between 2002 and 2009 there were 12 cases of leukemia in the greater Asse region. The area had twice the rate expected for men. While there was no significant  increase in leukemia for women, their rate of thyroid cancer was three times as high as normal. The government has not yet determined if the increase is related to the proximity to the nuclear waste site. A working group of representatives from Lower Saxony’s environment, social, and health ministries as well as the federal agency for radiation protection is set to meet to take a closer look at the data. Asse was originally a salt mine. Between 1967 and 1978 around 126,000 drums of low- and intermediate level waste were stored in the facility. More recently it's been declared unstable because of a danger of collapse and water leaks and is due to be emptied out and shut down.

Source: Deutsche Welle, 24 November 2010


Kenya (Kenya?) seeks sites for nuclear power plant.

The government of Kenya has formed a committee to help identify sites for the construction of a nuclear power plant along its coast, and ensure that all terms and conditions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) necessary for the approval of a nuclear power plant are met. "Prepare and endorse a detailed road map for the realisation of these terms and conditions indicating the milestones and time lines for approval by the IAEA," Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi said in the notice, outlining the mandate of the 13-member committee. Earlier this year, Kenya's National Economic and Social Council (NESC) recommended that east Africa's biggest economy embark on a program to start generating nuclear energy by 2020 to meet its growing demand for electricity. Kenya relies on hydropower to generate about 65 percent of its electricity but has began channelling investments towards geothermal plants and wind farms to diversify energy sources.

Kenya's main electricity producer, KenGen, is already hunting for a partner to produce nuclear power by 2022 to help match-up rising demand and diversify from hydropower. The power producer projects that Kenya as a whole could produce some 4,200 megawatts (MW) using nuclear by 2022.

Source: Reuters, 26 November 2010


Court greenlights lawsuit seeking to open Yucca.

A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit seeking to relaunch plans for a Yucca Mountain nuclear dump can go forward. The lawsuits had been on hold while the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals waited for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether DOE had the authority to withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain. In June, an NRC legal panel ruled that DOE must move forward with the license, but the NRC commissioners have not issued a required decision since then. The Department of Energy has until Jan. 3 to file a brief defending its authority to shut down the site. The states of Washington and South Carolina and the National Association of Utility Regulators filed the suit that insists only Congress can decide Yucca Mountain's fate. The plans were to bury at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Source: AP, 10 December 2010 / News Tribune 12th Dec 2010


Quote of the Day                                

It is like in a zombie movie, where you shoot off its arms and then its head and it still comes after you. USA: Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects head Bruce Breslow, describing other states' efforts to sustain a one-time federal plan to build a massive underground nuclear-waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain.

Source: Global Security Newswire 13 December 2010


RWE wins ‘Worst EU Lobbyists 2010’ Award!

RWE (npower), Goldman Sachs and derivatives lobby group ISDA have been given the  dubious honour of being named the Worst EU Lobbyists of 2010. The results of the dual climate and finance categories of the Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2010 were revealed on November 2, during a ceremony outside the ISDA office in Brussels. Citizens across Europe participated in an online public vote for the most deserving of the climate and finance nominees.

In the climate category, German energy giant RWE’s subsidiary npower, nominated for claiming to be green while lobbying to keep its dirty coal- and oil-fired power plants open, won with 58% of the total vote. BusinessEurope, nominated for its aggressive lobbying to block effective climate action in the EU while claiming to support action to protect the climate, took second place with 24% of the total votes and Arcelor-Mittal, the steel Industry “fat cat”, came in third with 18% of the total votes. Nina Katzemich, speaking for the organisers of the 2010 Worst EU Lobbying Awards, said: "These awards show that people around Europe are fed up with deceptive lobbying practices used by big business when it comes to climate regulation. RWE claims to be green but has pulled out all the stops to keep its dirty power plants open, promoting their profits over public interests. If the European Commission is serious about tackling climate change, it must stop listening one-sidedly to corporations.

Source: http://www.worstlobby.eu/


Another location for Indonesia’s first nuclear power reactor.

The Indonesian government hopes to relocate the planned site of the country’s first nuclear power plant to Bangka island in Bangka Belitung province from Muria, Jepara, Central Java due to strong opposition from the local people. Public resistance has long been the main constraint for the government to build nuclear power plants. The previous plan to build a nuclear power plant in Muria, Jepara, Central Java, faced strong opposition from the local people and non-governmental institutions. Most people, particularly those living near planned nuclear power plant sites, have deep suspicion and distrust concerning the issues of the plant's operational safety.

National Atomic Energy Agency’s spokesman, Ferhat Aziz, said that people's rejection most likely came from negative opinions disseminated by anti-nuclear groups that prompted people to remember the nuclear reactor accidents on Three Mile Island, the United States, in 1979 and in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1985 (uh, again?). To address the public's negative perception of nuclear technology, he continued, his agency had to assist people to understand the urgency and benefits of having such technology for future electricity supply in the country.

Source: Jakarta Post, 2 December 2010


Israel stops Mordechai Vanunu getting Carl von Ossietsky Prize in Berlin.

Israel has barred Mordechai Vanunu, who spent 18 years in jail for revealing secrets of the country's nuclear program, from going to Germany to accept a prize, organisers said on December 10. Accoding to a spokesman for the International League for Human Rights Vanunu was to be awarded the Carl von Ossietsky Prize in Berlin two days later, for his work promoting disarmament but has not received permission to leave Israel. The League decided to cancel the ceremony and held a protest rally on behalf of the 56-year-old former nuclear technician instead. The group had previously appealed to Israeli leaders to allow Vanunu to come to Berlin. The medal, which the League has bestowed annually since 1962, is named after a German pacifist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 and died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1938. Vanunu served time for disclosing the inner workings of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986. He was kidnapped and sentenced, released in 2004 but was banned from travel or contact with foreigners without prior permission.

Source: Middle East online, 10 December 2010


Research report "The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy".

In late October, the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) has released a new research report ‘The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy’. The report provides an overview of the status of nuclear power worldwide, with country studies for China, India, Japan, South Korea, the United States and Western Europe. It discusses why the International Atomic Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency project nuclear power as approximately maintaining but not greatly increasing during the next two to four decades its 14% of global electric power generation in 2009. The reasons include the currently very limited capacity to build nuclear power plants, high capital costs in North America and Western Europe, the perception by the private sector that nuclear power plants are risky investments, and continuing public mistrust of the nuclear industry despite the passage of two and a half decades since the Chernobyl accident. Frank von Hippel is the editor and lead author of the report, which includes contributions by Matthew Bunn, Anatoli Diakov, Tadahiro Katsuta, Charles McCombie, M.V. Ramana, Ming Ding, Yu Suyuan, Tatsujiro Suzuki, and Susan Voss.

Source: The report can be found at: http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/rr09.pdf

Nukespeak: subsidies not allowed? Let's call it 'take on financial risks' then

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#718
6096
29/10/2010
Article

On October 18, the U.K. listed eight potential sites in England and Wales for new nuclear power stations that should be operational by 2025, the first in 2018. And Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne was repeating his mantra: "There will be no public subsidy for new nuclear power."

But 'no public subsidy for nuclear power' is problematic if you actually do want to support new-build, not only political but also financial. So he decided to no longer call it subsidies. Now the text-to-be-explained is as follows, “the U.K. is not ruling out action to take on financial risks or liabilities of nuclear operators for which they (the government) are appropriately compensated or for which there are corresponding benefits” Huhn said. The Lib.Dem. minister campaigned against new nuclear power stations during the election.

The new-nuke-speak provoked several questions by MP’s in the British Parliament. The questions are interesting but the answers are even much more interesting. 

1. “What estimate the Minister has made of the maximum compensation payable to the Government for taking on financial risks or liabilities; and what mechanism he proposes to use to

(a) define and

(b) measure benefits arising from taking on such risks or liabilities ?

Minister of State Charles Hendry, second in line after Huhn: "As the 18 October 2010 statement on 'no subsidy for new nuclear power' made clear, we are not ruling out action by the Government to take on financial risks or liabilities for which they are appropriately compensated or for which there are corresponding benefits. The Government would consider any potential measures in this area on a case-by-case basis, in line with the policy as set out in the statement."

2. “How much support

(a) the Department and its predecessor and

(b) non-departmental public bodies for which the Department is responsible

have provided to the nuclear industry in the form of

(i) full-time equivalent staff,

(ii) facilities, and

(iii) research and development expenditures

in each of the last 10 financial years; and if the Department will indicate in each such case which costs

(A) arise from the UK’s nuclear legacy and

(B) are associated with possible new nuclear power stations.

Charles Hendry: "The Department of Energy and Climate Change does not hold the information requested centrally and providing a breakdown of the support referred to would result in a disproportionate cost."

3. “What information the Department holds for benchmarking purposes on the level of private insurance cover available to operators of nuclear installations in other countries”?

Charles Hendry: "We do not hold any specific information on the level of private insurance cover available to nuclear operators in other countries."

Time for action.
Several groups and individuals in the UK have come together to initiate a more coordinated campaign against new-build. One of the results of these gatherings is theNo Money for Nuclear” (NM4N) campaign-group which believes that the level of support received by the nuclear industry in the UK is unjustified and a serious drain on public finance, especially at a time when the weak and vulnerable are suffering from significant cuts in public expenditure. In addition, the way waste disposal and decommissioning costs of new nuclear power stations are gathered poses a serious risk to the public purse in the future.

The government claims that nuclear power and renewable energy can exist together in a competitive market place. However, the nature of nuclear power is that much of the costs, those for waste disposal and decommissioning, do not materialise until the end of the working life, even though these costs become inevitable once the power station starts operating. The flat rate nuclear levy will act as a substantial subsidy to these capital costs. NM4N believe that it is possible to move to a much more sustainable energy economy without the need for nuclear power.

NM4N spokesperson, Pete Rowberry said “The coalition government has promised that nuclear power stations would not be built if they needed public subsidy. However, they have not changed any of the significant public support which the industry already receives. It also seems that they are determined that support for the nuclear industry will be extended further by allowing it to benefits of the carbon pricing and emissions trading regimes, in spite of the fact that nuclear power is significantly higher producer of CO2 than any renewable source. It continues to cover the industry’s liability in the case of a nuclear accident, in spite of the statement by Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change that this subsidy would be ended, yet another example of the coalition’s broken promises."

Sources:  Bloomberg, 18 October 2010 / Press release NM4N, 25 October 2010 / email D. Lowry, 27 October 2010

About: 
WISE

Two year delay for Rokkasho plant

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#716
6087
24/09/2010
Article

The annual announcement of further delay in the start-up of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant might become a biannual announcement from now on. On November 18, 2005 Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL) announced that start-up of Rokkasho would be pushed back to July 2007. Just before that date, in May 2007, JNFL suspended the receipt of spent fuel at the plant after it was revealed that incorrect data had been used to calculate design standards for some shearing and fuel handling equipment in the event of an earthquake. In November 2008 a delay was announced as it was in September 2009.

On September 10, this year Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd (JNFL) announced that the commencement of commercial operations of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant would be delayed by two years from October this year to October 2012. This is the eighteenth time the start date has been delayed. The reason for the delay is a series of problems and accidents during testing of the process of vitrifying high-level radioactive liquid waste. All the other tests have been completed, but unless the two vitrification furnaces can achieve a production capacity of 1,000 glass canisters per year, the plant cannot begin commercial operations.

JNFL says that the first 18 months of the extension period will be spent on activities including fitting thermometers to the vitrification furnaces and comparing operational data from a mock up facility (KMOC) in Tokai Village which is conducting experiments vitrifying an imitation of the radioactive liquid waste produced at the Rokkasho plant.

So far all the vitrification tests at Rokkasho have used Vitrification Furnace A, but glass and other material have become stuck in the furnace. JNFL now wants to begin testing Vitrification Furnace B and conduct "hot tests" (using real high-level liquid waste) in both furnaces from April 2012.

However, it is completely unclear when it will be possible to resume testing of the Vitrification Facility. No matter how well comparison of the KMOC data goes, since KMOC is not using the strong heat and radiation generating highly radioactive liquid waste produced at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, the problems involved are not the same. JNFL's attempts to gather new data from KMOC since testing of the Rokkasho plant came to a standstill are bound to fail. They only go to show that the development of the vitrification furnaces was a total failure in the first place. JNFL needs to reconsider the fundamental design and development of the vitrification furnaces.

Testing of the vitrification furnaces has been a vicious circle in which one problem has led to another. Due to its lack of technical ability, JNFL has only been able to respond to problems in a haphazard fashion. To deal with the sedimentation of platinum group elements at the bottom of the vitrification furnace it inserted a stirring rod, but the stirring rod bent and in the ensuing confusion a brick was dislodged from the ceiling of the furnace. As attempts were being made to overcome the problem, about 150 liters of highly radioactive liquid waste leaked and evaporated within the cell. No doubt there will be more problems in future and JNFL will end up chasing its tail as it tries to respond to them, while the real tests are pushed further and further into the future.

It is hard to read any technical logic into the two-year period of the delay. Rather, it seems to have more to do with the fact that the spent fuel pools at Japan's nuclear power plants can just manage to get by without sending spent fuel to Rokkasho for a period of two years. Rokkasho's spent fuel storage pools are almost full. As at September, 2,776 tons of spent fuel was already stored in the pools, which have a total capacity of 3,000 tons.

The two-year delay will have a severe impact on the finances of Rokkasho Village. Rokkasho Village expects to receive about 2 billion yen (US$ 23 million or 17.5 million euro) in fixed assets taxes in the first year the plant begins commercial operations. The figure will gradually decrease thereafter. It is four and a half years since active testing of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant began on March 31, 2006 and almost three years have passed since testing of the Vitrification Facility began on November 5, 2007. Now completion of the tests has been pushed back another two years. This small village made all sorts of plans on the assumption that it would receive huge taxation income from the reprocessing plant, but now it is forced to reconsider its finances.

At the same time as announcing the delay, JNFL announced that it was making third-party allocations of new stocks worth a total of 400 billion yen (US$ 4.68 billion or 3.5 billion euro). The thirteen recipients are the nine electric power companies that operate nuclear power plants, plus Japan Atomic Power Company, Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. A September 14 article published on the English web site of The Denki Shimbun (The Electric Daily News) made the following comment:

"As of March 31 this year, JNFL's equity ratio was about 7.5%. Its financial position was weak for an enterprise executing the nuclear fuel cycle as a matter of national policy, and was viewed with concern by the electric power companies and other shareholders. Once the new third-party allocations are made, JNFL's equity ratio will top 20%...."

The stock issue shows that JNFL is experiencing financial difficulties, but a question that remains unanswered is the impact that this and previous delays will have on the total cost of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. After so many delays, it is inconceivable that construction costs will not exceed the official figure of 2.14 trillion yen (US$ 25 billion or 19 billion euro).

1982: Rokkasho finished in 1991.
One of the first articles in the Laka archive-file on the Rokkasho reprocessing plant is a Mainichi Daily News clipping of January 8, 1982. Although a site was not definitive chosen, the plans to construct a reprocessing plant, and related facilities (a plutonium-conversion plant, a fission products vitrification plant, spent fuel storage, a "specialized ship designed to carry used nuclear fuel" a pier and other port facilities) were announced. The company, Japan Nuclear Fuel Services, plans to complete the reprocessing plant and related facilities "by the end of fiscal year1 1990 (March 31, 1991) at an estimated cost of  690 billion Yen in 19979 terms (which works out  to about US$ 3.15 billion at present rates)."
Mainichi Daily News, 8 January 1982.

Sources: Nuke Info Tokyo 138, Sept/Oct 2010 / NucNet, 3 December 2008
Contact:  Masako Sawai, CNIC (Citizens' Nuclear Information Center) Akebonobashi Co-op 2F-B, 8-5, Sumiyoshi-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0065, Japan
Tel:  +81-3-3357-3800
Email: cnic@nifty.om
Web: http://cnic.jp/english

 

In brief

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#715
03/09/2010
Shorts

No Nukes Asia Forum in Taiwan
Activist from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and India wil hold their (almost) annual meeting in Taipei, from September 18- 22.

NNAF began in 1993 and unites Asian based antinuclear organizations. The forum always combines education and exchange with direct action and media outreach. This year the international delegation will travel to Taiwan’s nuclear power station no. 1 and 2 at the northeast coast and nuclear power plant no. 3 at the southeast coast. At the University of the capital Taipei a two-day program will discuss the danger of  nuclear power plants in earthquake prone areas, the debate on climate change and the role of nuclear power and the situation in the different countries.
Contact and more information: hsiujung.lee@gmail.com


Doctors against uranium.
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on September 1 adopted a resolution at its International Council meeting in Basel, Switzerland, calling for a ban on uranium mining and the production of yellowcake (uranium oxide). The resolution described both processes as “irresponsible” and “a grave threat to health and to the environment”.
The resolution also describes uranium mining and yellowcake production as a “violation of human rights”. The right to life, liberty and security, to physical integrity, self-determination, the protection of human dignity, the right to clean water are just some of the rights that are afflicted by uranium mining and its processes, say the doctors. IPPNW calls for appropriate measures to ban uranium mining worldwide
Although many national branches of the IPPNW network have been campaigning against uranium mining and nuclear energy for many years already it is seen as a major breakthrough that now the international federation has taken a firm position and has committed itself to support campaigns against uranium mining.
Source and contact: IPPNW, Anne Tritschler, Tel.: +49 (0) 30-698074-14, tritschler@ippnw.de


Iran: Busher reactor finished after 36 years!
On August 21, Russia started loading fuel into the reactor at Iran's first nuclear power station Bushehr. The Bushehr plant is on the Gulf coast of southwest Iran. It is Iran's first nuclear power plant. Construction of two pressurized water nuclear reactors began in 1974 with the help of German contractor Siemens and French scientists. The Bushehr I reactor was 85 percent complete and the Bushehr II reactor was partially complete prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the fall of the Shah. The project was halted and the site was then damaged during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and equipment was looted.

The project was later revived with Russian help but construction ran into repeated delays blamed by Russia on problems with receiving payment from Iran. Current plans are for one reactor to be launched. Bushehr will have an operating capacity of 1,000 MW.
Reuters, 21 August 2010


Sudan: 4 reactors in 2030.
Well, if you think you read it all…. Sudan plans to build a four-reactor nuclear power plant to "fill a gap in the energy needs" of Africa's largest country by 2030, Mohamed Ahmed Hassan el-Tayeb, head of Sudan's atomic energy agency, said on August 24. He also said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would help to build a research reactor and power plant for Sudan by providing expert training for staff, fellowships and feasibility studies.

He said Sudan was hoping for "a medium size four-unit power plant with each reactor producing between 300-600 MW per year". El-Tayeb said bidding for equipment and technology could begin in five years time and a further 10 years for construction of the plant, so it could be completed by 2030, costing between US$3-6 billion.

Currently 20% of the population has access to electricity.
Reuters, 24 August 2010


Nuclear power: Goal or means?
Vice President Boediono of Indonesia said on August 20, that a proposal to build a nuclear power plant in Indonesia was still on the table although he could not say when or where it may be built. “We will continue trying. Someday, somewhere we will build the nuclear power plant.”

More often than not it seems that nuclear power is rather a goal than a means to boil water (because that’s all there is to it, or not…?).
Jakarta Post, 20 August 2010


Radioactive boars on the rise in Germany.
Almost a quarter century after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, its fallout is still a hot topic in some German regions, where thousands of boars shot by hunters still turn up with excessive levels of radioactivity and considered potentially dangerous for consumption. In fact, the numbers are higher than ever before. The total compensation the German government paid last year for the discarded contaminated meat shot up to a record sum of  425,000 euro (US$558,000), from only about 25,000 euro ten years ago, according to the Federal Environment Ministry in Berlin. "The reason is that there are more and more boars in Germany, and more are being shot and hunted, that is why more contaminated meat turns up," spokesman Thomas Hagbeck told The Associated Press. Boars are among the species most susceptible to long-term consequences of the nuclear catastrophe 24 years ago. Unlike other wild game, boars often feed on mushrooms and truffles which tend to store radioactivity and they plow through the contaminated soil with their snouts, experts say.

However, boars are actually the beneficiaries of another ecological crisis — climate change. Central Europe is turning into a land of plenty for the animals, as warmer weather causes beech and oak trees to overproduce seeds and farmers to grow more crops the boars like to feast on such as corn or rape, said Torsten Reinwald of the German Hunting Federation.

"The impact of the Chernobyl fallout in Germany, in general, has decreased," said Florian Emrich, spokesman of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. For example, radiation has ceased to be a problem on fields cultivated with commercial crops, he said. But forest soil in specific regions that were hit hardest after Chernobyl — parts of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg in southern Germany — still harbors high amounts of radioactive Cesium-137 which has a half life of roughly 30 years, Emrich said. In fact, the Cesium from the Chernobyl fallout is moving further into the ground and has now reached exactly the layer where the boars' favorite truffles grow. Therefore, the season for such truffles — a variety not eaten by humans — usually means a rising number of radioactive boars.
AP, 18 August 2010


Russian reactor too expensive for Belarus?
Alyaksandr Lukashenko said that Belarus might abandon plans to have its nuclear power plant project built by Russia and financed with a Russian loan, according to BelaPAN. The Belarusian leader said that the signing of an interstate agreement on the project had been postponed once again, and that the government did not reject the possibility of the plant being built by a contractor other than Russia s Atomstroiexport. Belarus chose Russia on the basis of "what they promised to us," Mr. Lukashenko noted. "They urgently demanded from us that they build this plant and then they started putting pressure on us for, I believe, purely subjective reasons. You know what the reasons are," he said.

Russia wanted Belarus to pay "in fact a double price," but Minsk refused, saying that there had been an agreement that the price would be "the same as in Russia," he said, adding that Belarus had agreed to pay the price at which the last nuclear power plant was built in Russia.
www.naviny.by, 16 August 2010

Haunted by history: nuclear new build in Britain

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#714
6072
20/08/2010
East Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Article

Part I: Shaping the Deal

In January 2008, Gordon Brown’s cabinet formally decided to permit private businesses to build new nuclear power stations in England and Wales, the Scottish executive having already refused permission. Politically, there was nothing surprising about the news. Key decisions had been made well before 2008. Tony Blair, as Prime Minster, had declared for new nuclear as early as July 2004, trailing the Bush administration by two years. Brown himself had come out decisively in favor of new nuclear to the Confederation of British Industries in November 2007 and also to the G8.

Institutionally a key turning point was the Energy Review, initiated by Blair in 2005 and issued by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2006. The Review revised the findings of the Department of the Environment’s Energy White Paper of 2003, which had been critical of nuclear economics and concerned about the waste issue. The 2006 Review argued that new nuclear had a role to play in the future ‘energy mix’ in the light of the imperatives of climate change and energy security. It must, however, be run by the private sector, without subsidy, and with companies bearing the cost of decommissioning and ‘their full share of long-term waste management costs’. Government, however, would provide a framework: planning procedures would be simplified and speeded up and regulative and other issues extensively consulted upon.

The Review also noted ‘solutions’ to the problems of inherited nuclear waste. In April 2005 after a series of scandals at the reprocessing and storage complex at Sellafield in West Cumbria and the near bankruptcy of the main nuclear generator British Electric, a new public non-departmental body was created – the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA). The NDA took temporary charge of 19 nuclear sites, including Sellafield, the first generation Magnox power stations and Dounreay a failed experimental fast-breeder reactor in the north of Scotland. In 2003, the government also set up a Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) to make recommendations on the best way to manage high-level waste. Its interim recommendations had already argued for ‘deep geological disposal’.

This review set the guidelines of government policy right up to the present:

  • private enterprise (implying further privatization)
  • dependence on corporate decision-making and financial markets for commencing nuclear new build (and even deciding its extent)
  • eagerness to ease the way of the industry by changing planning laws and by other forms of support as long as they could evade the label - ‘subsidy’

Within this framework corporations and government could negotiate the details, which, of course, were critical.

It seems likely that by January 2008, after a particularly intense period of industry lobbying, a more specific agreement was reached with leading energy companies. This included the possible underpinning of the price of carbon, financially supporting decommissioning and waste storage, and minimizing company liability in case of accidents. Also included was a plan to offer local communities public compensation, bribing them that is, for hosting waste storage facilities - and also perhaps for accepting new nuclear power stations. The actual work of decommissioning, managing the Sellafield complex and existing waste sites was to be undertaken by private consortia, who would bid to the NDA for limited term contracts, three years in the first instance. In some versions it would be the NDA that would run the waste facilities where companies could then lease space, a device that may eventually be used for the long-promised storage facility for high level wastes.

Although its supporters complained of delays, around January 2008 events were moving quickly. In May 2007 the government had issued its Planning White Paper, which after a rapid consultation, led to a new Planning Act in November 2008. The Act created a new procedure for major infrastructural projects - like nuclear power stations and waste depositories – that centralized decision-making and limited the scope of local planning objections. A parallel Act required providers of new nuclear plants to submit a definite technical and financial plan for decommissioning. In December 2007, the Conservative Party had withdrawn its ‘only in the last resort’ qualifications about new nuclear, a necessary political assurance for companies and investors. The Liberal Democrats, their future coalition partners, remained opposed to new nuclear up to the May 2010 General Election. In April 2009 11 sites were officially designated for new power stations. All but two were old nuclear sites, the remaining two being in the already concentrated nuclear complex – the so-called ‘Energy Coast’ - of West Cumbria. As Irish press and politicians pointed out, most were on the coast of the Irish Sea, an environment already threatened by emissions from Sellafield. In December the Labour leadership of Cumbria County Council expressed interest in hosting a high-level nuclear waste dump (and in receiving compensation).

2008 saw much trading in nuclear assets as companies jockeyed for competitive positions in the newly-created market. The NDA announced the leasing to ‘parent companies’ or subcontractors of all the Sellafield sites, plus the sale of the government’s third-share in British Energy, and even of existing stocks of plutonium and enriched uranium. In April it awarded the contract for the Drigg (Cumbria) repository for low and intermediate level waste to a multinational consortium consisting of URS Washington Division (USA), Areva (France), Studsvik (Sweden) and Serco Assurance (UK) as the ‘UK Nuclear Waste Management Ltd’. In July it gave the Sellafield Licence to ‘Nuclear Management Partners’, an overlapping consortium of URS, Areva and Amec (UK/Canada), a deal which included a surreptitious waiver of even limited liability for accidents, a decision not properly laid before the House of Commons. The deal included the Capenhurst uranium enrichment plant in Cheshire. In May Electricité de France (EDF) made its first bid for British Energy’s power stations and, importantly, its existing sites. A deal was finally signed in September for £12.5 billion (US$ 19.5 billion or 15.1 billion euro), with EDF planning four new reactors and selling off some sites and a 25% stake to Centrica, the parent company of British Gas. This Anglo-French deal, with the French state-owned company clearly in dominance, was foreshadowed by the signing of a grand ‘nuclear alliance’ between Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy during his state visit to Britain in March 2008. After Sarkozy’s visit and the EDF’s success, Gordon Brown could at last declare “new nuclear is becoming a reality’ and even, despite a massive expatriation of assets, ‘good value for the taxpayer’. The selling and buying ended with RWE planning three new reactors in Anglesey and then entering a partnership with another German energy company E.On to build on two other sites. In October 2009 a consortium of Iberdola (Spanish owners of Scottish Power), the giant French utility company GdF, and the hitherto anti-nuclear Scottish and Southern put in a bid for a new site near Sellafield. In the last months of the Labour government Lord Mandelson as Business Secretary unveiled a major loan to Sheffield Forgemasters to aid the production of large-scale castings for nuclear plants and the funding of a nuclear research and development centre in south Yorkshire, involving Rolls Royce and Westinghouse/Toshiba.

A Pause for Thought
This movement towards new nuclear in Britain has often appeared like a juggernaut, powered by government, a business-oriented civil service, and powerful energy companies committed to the nuclear route. It has seemed unstoppable by ordinary citizens, who, except in communities which hope to benefit economically, have often remained sceptical at best. This sense of powerless was even shared by many anti-nuclear campaigners, at least until the last year or two.

The confident tone and ‘unstoppable’ momentum are, however, misleading. In Part 2 of this outline (See Nuclear Monitor 715) it will be argued that launching new nuclear in Britain is haunted by the ill-success of past civil nuclear enterprises and by their material, economic and ideological legacies. ‘Haunted’ is appropriate here, for there is a constant effort to keep these negative stories out of public hearing and perhaps out of pro-nuclear consciousness. There is therefore a persistent misfit between the optimistic rhetoric and grand designs on one side and persistent ‘bad news’ on the other. Except in critical media, these stories are often split off and labelled ‘legacy’ (e.g. ‘legacy waste’) as though they have nothing to do with the present. History cannot be allowed to enter into official memory or future calculations, let alone seed a process of growth or learning. Actually, material and economic legacies actively impede the new project and undermine its credibility while also teaching salutary lessons about how not to manage our vital energy needs. This poses the question, addressed below, how was it possible for nuclear revival (however fantastic) to be pursued at all?

The Fall and Rise of Nuclear Power: Some Key Conditions
We can date the nadir of the nuclear industries to the later 1980s and 1990s. After peaks in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, global start-ups of nuclear reactors declined rapidly to pre-boom levels by the 1990s. The suppression of knowledge about the Chernobyl disaster of April/May 1986 did not prevent the widespread growth of anti-nuclear public sentiment and a refusal by local citizens to tolerate new nuclear installations on their doorstep. Independent scientific research into long-term exposure to ionizing radiation was, and remains, very important here. At the same time the privatization of electricity generation, including nuclear, has had contradictory effects. On one side it has helped to create a powerful international corporate interest in favor of new nuclear, which can include state-owned companies (like EdF) operating in countries other than their own. Under neo-liberal globalization, privatization is often expatriation and threatens domestic political accountability. These effects are accentuated in the case of nuclear energy: once governments are committed to this very expensive project, urgent concerns for safety, carbon reduction and energy supply make them especially susceptible to corporate pressure.

At the same time, as Schneider et al. argued in 2009, privatization rendered more evident a key truth about nuclear: that it never was economically freestanding and always relied on complex and hidden forms of subsidy. As we shall see in Part 2 there is plenty of evidence in the British case for this, often a cause for scandal. Under public ownership such profligacy can be covered by explicit subsidy or disguised by ‘creative accountancy’. New nuclear now faces its sternest test – can it in fact be financed? Meanwhile, the government’s bluff is called – how can subsidy be avoided?

So why did going nuclear become a major political project for New Labour politicians around 2004, only a year after being ‘an unattractive option for new carbon-free generating capacity’? (2003 Energy White Paper) The new urgency of man-made climate change, together with concerns about the rising costs and unreliable supply of oil and gas have been levers for the pro-nuclear interest. In arguing their case, many pro-nuclear companies have turned very vividly green. It has become possible once more to split the ‘good atom’ (nuclear power saves the world!) from the ‘bad atom’ (1945 and the proliferation of nuclear weapons) despite their many linkages. It may also be that carbon trading and the likely long-term rise in fossil fuel prices has significantly adjusted the economic prospects of nuclear. However, given the difficulties of accurate prediction, much hangs on political conditions and what governments actually do.

New (as opposed to Old) Labour has made much of its changed relation to business. In policy terms this has meant adopting a version of neo-liberalism. New Labour’s version is not quite ‘Thatcherism’ but Labour leaders have nurtured a governing circle uncritically accessible to people and ideas from big business. Neo-liberal theory systematically blurs the distinctions between private and public interest and provides ethical validation for what others see as corruption. New Labour was neo-liberal but also in its own way authoritarian, minutely regulative of social life, preferring centralised direction and ‘big ideas’ in science and management. These features come together in a political modus operandi in which spin is preferred to sincerity, cosy consultations to genuine accountability, and where even parliament is bypassed. Although a House of Commons vote on new nuclear was promised in May 2008, no such vote – on the principle of new nuclear- was ever allowed.

This political setting enhanced the power of the nuclear interest that has always thrived on secrecy. There is evidence for intensive lobbying to secure the initial pro-nuclear decision and the enabling conditions. The energy companies and their public relations firms have led the lobbying. Industry bodies have also been important: the Nuclear Industry Association, representing, it says, 195 companies, and the Transatlantic Nuclear Energy Forum run by a former Labour MEP, who, in a not untypical career, left parliament in 2005 to become a director of AMEC (an international company carrying out high-value consultancy, engineering and project management services for the world's natural resources, nuclear, clean energy, water and environmental sectors). Trade unions with members in the industry and communities living next to existing power stations have played a part. In the weeks around January 2008 at least nine secret meetings were held at Downing Street with energy company executives. March 2008 saw a formidable spin operation launched in favour of the new deal: ministerial announcements, the Anglo-French summit, union meetings, warnings by industry leaders on the need for further easing and for haste.

The direction of policy shows clearly the effect of this influence. Those of us who were involved in the promised ‘consultations’ can testify to the weight of industry voices and the exclusion of critical questions. Beside, while we ‘consulted’ or objected, the companies often took action in advance of decisions. As early as November 2007, for instance, British Energy had applied for additional connections to the national energy grid for four of its existing nuclear sites. Similarly, by May 2007 consultants had already suggested nine sites for possible new stations, prompting purchases of neighboring land by some companies. In December 2007, despite an adverse legal judgment on the first part of the consultation process, a forced re-run and many complaints from experts and campaigners, the minister responsible could confidently announce ‘we have taken account of everything they said.’ The question is who were ‘they’?

It has taken time for the anti-nuclear forces to mobilize and for the tangled threads of the climate change and energy debates to be unpicked a little. 2009-2010 saw the growth of more organized opposition to new nuclear, the May general election and the defeat of New Labour. It remains to be seen what kind of bargain the industry can strike with a somewhat more sceptical and probably more business-savvy coalition, dominated as it is by public school boys and millionaires. In Part II we will look more closely at the destabilizing issues: decommissioning and waste storage, financing large and indeterminate capital costs without subsidy, and the serious health questions issues posed by developments in radiation science.

Sources (a selection): Newspapers: The Guardian, Independent on Sunday, Daily Telegraph; BBC Radio and TV News; UK Government White Papers and Departmental Reviews on Energy (Environment 2003, Trade and Industry 2006) on Nuclear Waste Management (2002) on Planning (2007); Hansard Parliamentary Debates; Paul Brown, Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance : A Research Paper (London: Friends of the Earth n.d. [2008]); Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom 24 May 2010 www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf84.html accessed 24/7/2010; Mycle Schneider, Steve Thomas, Antony Froggatt, Doug Koplow, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report with particular emphasis on economics 2009 www.bmu.de/files/english/pdf/application/pdf/welt_statusbericht_atomindu... accessed 24/7/2010.
Contact: Richard Johnson, Chair East Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

 

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