report

A report stunning in its candor prepared for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by the county’s state nuclear monopoly in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster reveals that Russia’s atomic reactors are grievously under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters ranging from floods to fires to earthquakes or plain negligence.

The report of the first round of stress tests on Russia’s nuclear reactors, prepared by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, was obtained by Bellona Web and other environmental groups and distributed to Norwegian and Russian media. In the report, 31 serious flaws that make Russia’s nuclear industry extremely vulnerable to natural disasters are catalogued.

As such, the report is one of the few documents to surface in recent history that actually flatly contradicts Russia’s own rosy assessment that its reactors are safe – a propaganda campaign that was kicked into high gear by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Medvedev after the March 11 quake and tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi, causing three meltdowns.

Bellona nuclear physicist Nils Bøhmer called the Rosatom report “shocking.” “It makes for dramatic reading with a view to the fact that the report comes from the owner of the nuclear plants,” he said, describing it as “the most serious description of the status of Russian nuclear plants I have ever seen from Rosatom.”

Report confirms long-held fears
The two Russian nuclear power plants that are closest to Finland and Norway – Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and Kola NPP, respectively – are of the most concern to the international community. Both are in close proximity to Western Europe.

“The report reveals deficiencies which have never before been mentioned publicly, nor reported internationally,” chief engineer Ole Reistad of the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFI) told Norway’s NRK television.

Of particular concern at the Leningrad NPP (LNPP) is its use of the fatally flawed Chernobyl-type RMBK-1000 reactors. LNPP operates four RMBK-1000s, while the Kola NPP runs four aged VVER-440 reactors, two of which received engineering life span extensions in 2003 and 2004.

The Rosatom report, stating what many have asserted since Chernobyl, detailed “flaws and defects” in the design of the RMBK-1000 series that could lead to severe accidents - specifically, problems with control rod mechanisms, which are necessary to keep the nuclear reaction in the reactor under control.

The report’s revelations have alarmed the government of Norway. Norwegian State Secretary Erik Lahnstein of the Foreign Ministry, who received an overview of the report, told Aftenposten he wanted a full copy of the report sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying “this confirms what Norwegian authorities have claimed for a long time.”

He stressed that Russia should shut down its oldest reactors. The Rosatom document said four reactors have been in shutdown mode for 20 years, and no decommissioning plans have yet been set in motion. This would arguably present difficulties in decommissioning other aged reactors in Russia.

Ole Harbitz, head of the crisis commission for the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, said of the report that it showed Russia was rethinking the vulnerability of its nuclear reactors to natural phenomena in the post-Fukushima era.

The dangers have been proven before: In the 1990s a severe storm knocked out primary and back-up power supplies to Kola NPP and Norway had to deliver enormous power generators to keep coolant flowing. In 2006, another power outage threatened coolant systems at the plutonium reactor at the Mayak Chemical Combine.

In Finland, Keijo Valtonen, an official at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland (STUK) somewhat soft-pedalled the dangers posed by Russia’s reactors, particularly those at Kola and Leningrad nuclear power plants.

Valtonen told Helsingen Sanomat that most of Russia’s nuclear plants meet Western safety standards, but that new threats might arise in inspections made after the catastrophe at Fukushima.

But Valtonen has an agenda of his own: By some estimates, some 30 to 40 percent of power produced at Leningrad NPP is exported to Finland, and annual inspections of the plant by representatives of STUK consistently give it high marks, despite environmental dangers that are regularly revealed and confirmed there.

What the report said
Among the more critical safety failings relayed to Medvedev in the report, Rosatom found that Russia’s plants do not have relevant regulations in place for personnel to know how to deal with large-scale natural disasters or other serious contingencies; protective shelter for workers would not accommodate the largest teams on any given shift in the event of an accident, and Rosatom does not keep records of previous accidents, meaning workers do not have the benefit of learning from previous mistakes or improving remedial measures, among other shortcomings.

Elsewhere in the report, Rosatom points out that electrical and safety-significant systems do not receive the attention they need, resulting in a lack of required protection.

The Rosatom document also questioned the capability of reactors to remain safe for extended periods of time if cooling systems fail. There is no guarantee that power backup systems will be effective should this happen - the primary difficulty that beset Fukushima Daiichi when the quake and tsunami hit.

Additionally, key equipment involved in the cooling process suffers from metal fatigue and welding flaws – yet another problem that was ignored at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor No 1 when regulators there agreed to give it a 10-year operational life span extension – which contributed to a total failure of cooling at the reactor.

Hydrogen control systems also do not correspond to regulations, meaning Russian reactors are vulnerable to the kinds of hydrogen explosions that tore through three reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi.

Most importantly, in light of the Fukushima disaster, the report also said that the risk of earthquakes has not been considered as a safety factor for Russian nuclear facilities. Furthermore, not all of Russia’s reactors have automatic shutdown mechanisms like the Fukushima Daiichi plant, should an earthquake occur.

Nor are there currently clear guidelines or sufficient infrastructure for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management, leading to fears of SNF leaks during a disaster – as also happened in Japan. With respect to Russia’s RBMK-1000 reactors, spent fuel is simply allowed to accrue in onsite storage because of lack of space to store it and because no technologies have been developed to reprocess it. Solid and liquid waste facilities across Russia are filled to at least 60 percent, and these facilities at Leningrad, Kursk and Smolensk NPPs – all of which run RBMK 100 reactors – are filled to 85 percent capacity.

Reactor buildings at many of Russia’s nuclear power plants are also aged and susceptible to structural failure - meaning the buildings could collapse without the help of mother nature.

Further, the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear oversight, or Rostekhnadzor – Russia’s nuclear industry watchdog – lacks safety inspectors, and there is a shortage of qualified maintenance workers at NPPs across the country.

Rosatom Chief Sergei Kiriyenko was quick to comment on the report once Norwegian news outlets and Russian environmentalists had publicized its findings, saying it was just a matter of money to fix Russia’s shortcomings in the area of back-up power and coolant system deficiencies.

In the Vedomosti business daily, he cited a figure of 5 billion rubles (US$986 million) to bring Russia’s reactors up to specifications by enhancing their back-up power and coolant systems. To counter cost overruns, Kiryenko told the paper, Rosatom would rely on the government.

---

No stress test for Russia. According to Kirill Kormarov, deputy general director for global business development at Russian state energy corporation Rosatom, Russia has no plans to submit its nuclear reactors directly to EU-style safety stress tests. "We've done tests already", he said. The EU agreed common criteria in May for safety tests to be carried out on all 143 EU reactors starting June 1 (see Nuclear Monitor 728, June 17, 2011: 'Little Stress With Stress Test').

The European Commission has also pushed for the EU's neighbors to agree to a similar nuclear safety review, but currently there is only a "joint declaration to contribute to transparency and to participate in the peer review [a review of national safety reports at an EU level by the European nuclear regulators' group Ensreg]." The declaration was signed on June 23 by the EC and Armenia, Belarus, Croatia, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.
Platts, 28 June 2011

---

Source and contact: Charles Digges and Maria Kaminskaya, Bellona Foundation, 21 June 2011.
Web: www.bellona.org

Uranium mining operations in Africa are being monitored actively by a wide range of organisations worldwide. After the last international uranium mining conference in Tanzania, November 2010, several reports have been published on the topic by various organisations.

A February 2011 study on financial benefits from uranium mining to African host states, Radioactive Revenues (Nuclear Monitor 727, May 27, 2011) published by the Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, SOMO, in collaboration with WISE Amsterdam, is now followed by a more extensive study on mitigation of social and environmental impacts. The new report analyses what mitigation measures are taken by companies and governments in the Central African Republic, South Africa, and Namibia, and compares these practices and results with the situation in Canada and Australia. The report, entitled Uranium From Africa. Mitigation of Uranium Mining Impacts on Society and Environment by Industry and Governments, will be published July 1, 2011

Reason for this study to be undertaken was the observation that the sudden increase in uranium prices in 2005/2006 has led to an augmentation of uranium mining activities in Africa. This uranium rush followed a uranium price increase, which developed after secondary uranium stocks - from superfluous Cold War nuclear weapons – started to decrease and the nuclear industry hoped to begin their often-mentioned but never-realized ‘Nuclear Renaissance’. The uranium rush has had its effects worldwide: hundreds of uranium prospection and exploitation companies were quickly established by speculators, who all have put claims on uranium deposits. However, with the most attractive deposits already claimed by the large players, and unfavorable conditions in some countries (Australia, rich in uranium, has several provinces which have put moratoria on uranium mining), Africa has received much attention from the industry. The lack of strict regulations and the absence of pressure on companies to be accountable for the effects of their operations in Africa are likely to influence Africa’s popularity.

Uranium mines are notorious for their impacts on environment and health. Processing of the radioactive uranium ores to produce a marketable product, uranium ore concentrate, inevitably leads to a release of uranium and its toxic and radioactive decay products, as well as other heavy metals, into the environment. In the best case, only soils become contaminated. In reality, radioactive contamination of ground and surface water, soils, and air, is commonly measured near uranium mines worldwide. Inhalation and ingestion of toxic and radioactive elements can lead to various diseases in humans.

In the study, behavior of companies and governments was analyzed by use of a questionnaire on the mining operations. The questionnaire was sent to NGOs, governments, and the industry. Topics that were treated in the questionnaire were:

* General policies, which concern agreements with host governments, documentation, certification, stakeholder engagement, grievance mechanisms, closure planning;
* Economy on the economic impacts and revenue transparency. The economic part on revenues and revenue transparency was used for the report Radioactive Revenues, the joint SOMO/WISE publication published in February 2011.
* Environment, impacts from mining in general, and uranium mining specifically. Special attention wass given to tailings, the mining waste. Piles of waste rock and ponds of tailings are toxic and radioactive and need to be handled with special care. Isolation from the environment is required. Questions were asked about energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, biodiversity, radiological surveys in the region.
* Labour rights on issues such as number of workforce, ethnicity and gender, discrimination, strikes, lock-outs, wages, occupational health and safety, and radiation protection for workers.
* Society considered participation of indigenous peoples and communities; Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, forced resettlements, security forces, public policy, corruption and compliance.

A selection of operations was analyzed: in the Central African Republic, Areva’s Bakouma mine; in South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti’s Vaal River operations, as well as First Uranium’s Ezulwini mine and MWS tailings reprocessing operation; and in Namibia, Areva’s Trekkopje mine, Paladin’s Langer Heinrich mine, and Rio Tinto’s Rössing mine.

In all operations, problems were paramount. Ranging from irresponsibly high water consumption in the desert, to hiding the deaths of workers, to absolute non-communication and denial of the public to the right to participate in decision-making processes; many worrying situations were observed.

The report concludes: ‘The question ‘What do industries and governments do to mitigate the negative impacts caused by uranium mining?’ cannot always be answered properly for every mining operation. Lack of transparency and accountability keep important information shielded from the public eye. This is a worrying signal. It has been widely recognised that accountability and transparency are crucial factors in whether or not populations can benefit from their natural resources. The lack of accountability and transparency observed in the Central African Republic, South Africa, and Namibia, can and does lead to mismanagement, and possibly also to corruption.

Company behaviour and Corporate Social Responsibility performance are highly variable. Environmental and social impacts remain significant; but addressing these issues can help prevent the worst case scenarios. Rio Tinto’s prior poor performance is improving by the use of extensive Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility programmes. AngloGold Ashanti seems to be following the same strategy. Both companies do address their negative impacts and have installed structures and projects to mitigate these. Areva is still highly centralised and is giving little attention to local issues such as stakeholder communication and public participation. Mitigation measures which were described by the company were minimal, which is surprising for a large nuclear energy company, rich in resources and experience. First Uranium performs poorly, especially on public participation and transparency. Claims of good corporate behaviour are not based on disclosed evidence, and are weakened even more by the company’s refusal to communicate openly and acknowledge real concerns of affected populations. Paladin Energy is not giving any proof of active and effective mitigation of their negative impacts.

The negative consequences from uranium mining were known before the writing of this report. Yet the current mitigation (or ‘greenwashing’) behavior of industry and responsible governments had so far not been described. The current report will therefore be helpful to point the nuclear industry as well as Northern and Southern governments at the underperformance of the uranium miners, and provide African NGOs with accurate information on relevant processes and issues in their countries. It can be used as a tool to inform stakeholders, to put pressure on companies, and to enhance awareness on the negative impacts of  nuclear energy consumption. Public concern about nuclear energy in the EU is generally not focused on uranium mines in Africa, but it can become a main topic if the public is well-informed about the current situation and behaviour of mining companies they are familiar with.The study was undertaken by WISE Amsterdam in collaboration with SOMO and can freely be obtained by sending an email to wiseuranium@antenna.nl

The February 2011 study Radioactive Revenues, on financial benefits from uranium mining operations for African host states, can still be downloaded from http://somo.nl/publications-en/Publication_3629/

U-mining in DR Congo; a radiant business
Another new June 2011 study, by the Ecumenical Network Central Africa (ENCA), entitled Uranium Mining in the DR Congo. A Radiant Business for European Nuclear Companies? Focuses on AREVA’s practices in the Katanga mining province in the DRC and makes the connection with Siemens and German banks. It can be downloaded from
http://www.oenz.de/fileadmin/users/oenz/PDF/Studie/Uranium_Mining_in_the_DRC_OENZ_June_2011.pdf

A Cameroonian network of organisations has recently published an information brochure with practical information on uranium in Cameroon. Among others, the Center for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network of Struggle against Hunger (RELUFA) have worked on the brochure – both Cameroonian organisations which give much attention to the topic of uranium mining. The brochure contains some general information on the advantages and drawbacks of uranium mining, and poses some fundamental questions to the government. According to the brochure, the Cameroonian government needs to ‘consider the exploitation of this resource with much discernment in order to take a decision which will meet the interests of the population in the best possible way.’  The brochure concludes with the questions ‘When comparing the possible advantages of a uranium project with the negative impacts, is the risk of an imbalance in favor of negative impacts not too important? In the current context, do we need to exploit this resource, or should we leave it in the ground?’

The brochure can be found at http://www.relufa.org/documents/BrochureURANIUMCameroun.pdf

Source and contact: Fleur Scheele at WISE Amsterdam

For African countries, the revenue derived from the uranium mining operations of multinational corporations is -despite the high price of uranium- minimal, uncertain and volatile. The financial agreements that these countries make with the uranium producers regarding their share in the profits are the primary reason for this state of affairs. This is the conclusion of a new report from WISE and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO): Radioactive Revenues: Financial Flows between Uranium Mining Companies and African Governments.

The report Radioactive Revenues analyses the financial aspects of uranium mining in the main African uranium producing countries -Namibia, Niger, Malawi and South Africa- and examines the activities of the four largest multinational uranium mining companies in Africa: the French AREVA group, the English-Australian Rio Tinto, the Australian Paladin Energy and the South-Africa-based AngloGold Ashanti.

Currently, one-fifth of all uranium worldwide is mined in Africa, and production is expected to double in the next two years. Nevertheless, uranium mining remains an uncertain source of revenue for African countries given the unstable price of uranium and the dependence on corporate profits.

The predictability of revenues
The most important revenues for host states from uranium mining in Africa are corporate income taxes, selling rights, mining royalties and, to a lesser extent, employment taxes, but there is a great deal of difference between the predictability and stability of these sources of revenue. Selling rights and royalties are generally more stable than corporate income tax as they do not depend directly on the profits of the mining companies, which can be highly volatile. The revenues from mining royalties depend primarily on uranium prices on the world market, but also on agreed prices and quantities in long-term contracts signed with customers.

Of all of the potential sources of revenues, those related to corporate earnings are the most volatile. These sources include corporate income tax (a percentage of taxable profits), taxes on dividends, and benefits from holding a stake in the mining company (dividend, retained earnings). These revenues are affected by uranium prices, production costs and by companies being able to reduce their corporate income tax liability through mechanisms that compensate them for losses in earlier periods and/or through the accelerated depreciation of investments.

In general, corporate income taxes may be further reduced by multinational corporations through the use of intra-group transactions that move their costs and earnings to jurisdictions where the corporate income tax rate is most favourable to the company. This study does not investigate the use of such (legal or illegal) tax avoidance/evasion mechanisms, but the frequent use of these mechanisms by multinational corporations in general likely reduces the contribution of corporate income tax as a source of revenue for host states and contributes to its unpredictability.

Niger’s right to sell a percentage of the uranium produced directly on the global market uranium provides an additional and somewhat stable source of revenue for the Nigerien government. This revenue stream is of course dependent on the market price.

Uranium prices
Many of the sources of revenue for host states depend heavily on the price of uranium on the world market. The period 2007–2009 was somewhat unique in this respect. During the period 1990- 2003, prices were much lower. Beginning in 2004, prices rose sharply, peaked in 2007, and have been slowly decreasing since then, although 2010 saw prices rise again slightly over 2009 levels.

The high prices during the 2007–2009 period caused earnings and profits of mining companies to rise as well. As a result, revenues for the host states from mining royalties and corporate income taxes increased as well. However, there is no guarantee that prices will not fall back to the low levels seen during 1990–2003, which would mean a significant reduction in revenues from royalties and corporate income taxes.

Changing regulations on revenues for host states
The study finds that some African host states have recently moved to strengthen their financial regulations on uranium mining in order to receive greater revenues from these operations. In 2007, Namibia decided that uranium mining companies should pay royalties of 3% of sales. In 2010, South Africa introduced mining royalties of 1.75% of gross sales when profits are 10% of gross sales.

However, the move that has been the most remarkable in generating additional revenues for the host state has been Niger’s acquisition of uranium selling rights, first negotiated with AREVA in 2007. During the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 the revenues received by the Nigerien government from this revenue stream amounted to Euro 9.1 million, Euro 27.5 million and Euro 20.9 million respectively. From 2013/2014 onwards, the Imouraren mine, with AREVA as the main shareholder, will enter into production. The government of Niger will have the right to sell 33.35% of the uranium produced, which is estimated to reach 5,000 tons annually. Also, for the existing mining operations by SOMAÏR and COMINAK, since 2010 Niger has the right to sell uranium according to its stake in the mining company (i.e. 36.6% and 31%, respectively).

Comparison of taxes and other contributions
Per kilogram of uranium sold, the study finds that Paladin in Malawi and AngloGold Ashanti in South Africa pay less taxes and other financial contributions than Rio Tinto in Namibia and AREVA in Niger. With a relatively low percentage of mining royalties to be paid and many opportunities for Paladin to reduce its corporate income tax in the early years of operations, Malawi is not expected to obtain much revenue from Paladin’s uranium mining operations if uranium prices decline. However, given the physical and operational differences between mines (e.g. uranium ore grade, capacity, production costs, lifetime, etc.), it is difficult to make a judgement about the regulations relating to revenues for the host states with regard to each mining operation.

In the period 2005 – 2009, the revenues received by Niger from the AREVA-owned mining operations amounted to Euro 225 million. In the same period, Namibia received Euro 181 million in revenue from the Rio Tinto-owned mining operations. A notable difference is the royalty rate, which is 3% in Namibia and 5.5% in Niger. In the period 2005 – 2007, Namibia received more revenue than Niger from corporate profits, but Niger has been catching up through the acquisition of selling rights.

Transparency of companies
Of the four companies reviewed in the study, Paladin appears to be the least transparent. It is the only company in the research that does not support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and was the only company unwilling to answer requests for information for this study. Payments such as employment taxes and customs duties could not be found in its annual reports, while payments of corporate income taxes and royalties were not listed on a country-by-country basis.

Rio Tinto is transparent with regard to taxes and other contributions to the Namibian government by its majority owned company Rössing Uranium. Rio Tinto, along with AngloGold Ashanti, reports its tax payments on a country-by-country basis. AREVA cooperates in the EITI-related process of comparing company payments and government revenues in Niger. Among the four countries examined in this report, Niger is the only one that participates in the EITI.

The agreements (investment contracts) that uranium mining companies sign with host states can have a law-making function and often include tax exemptions and stabilization clauses. Such mining agreements are generally not made public. Paladin has signed a mining agreement with the government of Malawi, including tax exemptions and a clause which guarantees that the company will not face any increase in taxes or other contributions in the coming ten years. The fiscal details of this mining agreement have been made public. For Niger, most fiscal details of such agreements could be found without gaining access to the mining agreements themselves. The agreements between AngloGold Ashanti and South Africa and Rio Tinto and Namibia did not seem to contain specific clauses on taxes and other contributions that differ from national laws.

Source: Radioactive Revenues. Financial Flows between Uranium Mining Companies and African Governments by Albert ten Kate & Joseph Wilde-Ramsing. SOMO, WISE 2011.
The report can be downloaded at: http://somo.nl/publications-nl/Publication_3629-nl/

The April 1986, Chernobyl catastrophe changed the world. Millions of people were made victims overnight. Huge stretches of land were made uninhabitable. The radioactive cloud spread all over the world. An understanding of the dangers of the use of nuclear energy grew in countless numbers of minds. The April 2011 report 'Health effects of Chernobyl' published by the German affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and the Gesellschaft fur Strahlenschutz (GFS – Society for Radiation Protection) evaluates scientific studies that contain plausible indications of causal relationships between radiation following the Chernobyl catastrophe and greatly differing diseases and fatalities.

The authors of this paper attach importance to methodically accurate and comprehensible analyses. We have tried not to lose sight of the immense uncertainty inherent in every estimation in this field. We have taken published papers into consideration, but believe a general rejection of papers that have not been published in peer-reviewed journals is unjustified – Galileo Galilei and Albert Einstein would have had no chance of having their papers accepted by a peer-reviewed journal.

The loss of the Chernobyl nuclear power station meant first and foremost a huge direct economic loss. Radiation from Chernobyl fallout rendered large areas of land agriculturally unusable. Large and small businesses were given up, towns and villages abandoned, some were flattened by bulldozers. Millions of people were affected by radiation and lost all they had; apartments, houses, homes and social security. Many lost their jobs and were unable to find new ones, families split up because they could not tolerate being irradiated or ostracized because of their proximity to Chernobyl.

The quarrel about the number of victims of Chernobyl is as stupid as it is cynical. It is a well known fact that the frequently quoted death toll of 31 is long past being valid. Even the number of ‘less than 50’ quoted in Vienna in September 2005 cannot possibly be true. It is an unacceptable sophistry only to recognize those who died of acute radiation disease, cancer or leukaemia as Chernobyl deaths. Following Chernobyl there was an obvious if not drastic increase of illness rates, but - typically - experts judging from a distance, without ever having treated any of the victims, do not generally accept these rates as having resulted from Chernobyl.

We refuse to haggle over whether a liquidator (clean-up worker) who received a high radiation dose, who has been an invalid for years, whose wife has left him, whose daughter is unable to find a boyfriend because of her father’s history, who suffers from diverse illnesses, the treatment of which has been given up by doctors, and who commits suicide, counts as a Chernobyl death or not.

In this way, the search for reliable data on the dead of Chernobyl has become an impossible task - in any case there are many, far too many. There is no comprehensive picture of the consequences of Chernobyl, not yet. The following overview aims at reminding you of all you  already knew, aims at getting you to study carefully and critically the simplified and minimized accounts given by the large organizations and to be attentive to their large uncertainties and blank spaces.

None of the governments in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine are interested in a comprehensive survey of the consequences of Chernobyl. They prefer to close the case, gradually re-cultivate and resettle lost territory and pay as little as possible to the victims. They are not interested in discussions about the mistakes that have been made. There is a tendency amongst the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Scientific Committee for the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) to support this position. Independent scientific studies in this area are not being financed and are being obstructed or prevented. Stochastic radiation damage is difficult to prove. Large epidemiological studies are expensive and reference to necessary data requires access that is only possible with state assistance.

The paper evaluates studies that contain plausible indications of health damage caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The authors of this paper attach importance to the selection of methodically accurate and comprehensible analyses. Due to the already mentioned methodical difficulties, it is not our aim to present the “right” statistics in contrast to the obviously wrong ones given by the IAEA, since these can never be found. They can only supply us with indications as to the diversity and extent of the health effects we should be dealing with when we talk about the health effects of Chernobyl.

Note on the unreliability of official data published by WHO and IAEA
At the “Chernobyl Forum of the United Nations” organized in September 2005 by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation, the presentation of the results of work on the effects of Chernobyl showed serious inconsistencies. For example: the press release of the WHO and IAEA stated that in the future, at most, 4000 surplus fatalities due to cancer and leukaemia amongst the most severely affected groups of people might be expected. In the WHO report on which this was based however, the actual number of deaths is given as 8,930. These deaths were not mentioned in any newspaper articles. When one examines the source quoted in the WHO report, one arrives at a number between 10,000 and 25,000 additional fatalities due to cancer and leukaemia.

Given this it can be rationally concluded that the official statements of the IAEA and the WHO have manipulated their own data. Their representation of the effects of Chernobyl has little to do with reality.

The Chernobyl Forum also does not take into account that even UNSCEAR has estimated that the collective dose (the usual measurement for radiation damage) for Europe outside the region of the former Soviet Union is higher than the corresponding data for the Chernobyl region. The collective dose from the catastrophe was distributed to 53% throughout Europe, 36% throughout the affected regions in the Soviet Union, 8% in Asia, 2 % in Africa and 0.3% in America.

Up until now neither the Chernobyl Forum, IAEA nor the WHO have deemed it necessary to let the public know that, on the basis of their own analysis, a two to five-fold higher number of deaths due to cancer and leukaemia are to be expected as the figures they have published.

Even in 2011 – some 5 years on - no official UN organization has as yet corrected these figures. The latest UNSCEAR publication on the health effects of Chernobyl does not take into account any of the numerous results of research into the effects of Chernobyl from the three countries affected. Only one figure – that of 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer among children and juveniles, and leukaemia and cataracts in liquidators – was included in their recent information to the media. Thus, in 2011 the UNSCEAR committee declared: On the basis of studies carried out during the last 20 years, as well as of previous UNSCEAR reports, UNSCEAR has come to the conclusion that the large majority of the population has no reason to fear that serious health risks will arise from the Chernobyl accident. The only exception applies to those exposed to radio-iodine during childhood or youth and to liquidators who were exposed to a high dose of radiation and therefore had to reckon with a higher radiation induced risk.

Source: The report 'Health effects of Chernobyl' can be downloaded at: http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/chernobyl-health-effects-2011-english.pdf
Contact: IPPNW, Körtestraße 10, 10967 Berlin,Germany.
Tel:+49-30-69 80 74-0
Email: ippnw@ippnw.de

In 'Battle of the Grids' a report released on January 18 by Greenpeace, researchers claim that solar energy in Europe's south and wind energy from the north could supply 68 percent of the 27-nation EU's electricity needs in 2030 and 99.5 percent by the middle of the century. However, that would require governments to change policy tack and favor investments in green energy to the tune of 70 billion euros (94 billion US$) by 2030 and another 28 billion euros over the following decade. "It's a question of choice."

Europe’s electricity grid is characterised by big, polluting power stations pumping out constant energy, regardless of consumer need. Climate policy and consumer demand are hurtling us towards a smarter, more efficient Europe-wide grid opening up vast new technological, business and consumer opportunities. Taken with Greenpeace's 2010 Energy [R]evolution report, Battle of the Grids builds on Greenpeace's earlier Renewables 24/7 study. It is a manual for the kind of system we need to deliver 68 percent renewable energy by 2030 and nearly 100 percent by 2050

Battle of the Grids: what’s the big barrier?
Power from some renewable plants, such as wind and solar, varies during the day and week. Some see this as an insurmountable problem, because up until now we have relied on coal or nuclear to provide a fixed amount of power at all times.  The title of this report refers to the struggle to determine which type of infrastructure or management we choose and which energy mix to favour as we move away from a polluting, carbon intensive energy system.

Some important facts include:
• electricity demand fluctuates in a predictable way.
• smart management can work with big electricity users, so their peak demand moves to a different part of the day, evening out the load on the overall system.
• electricity from renewable sources can be stored and ‘dispatched’ to where it is needed in a number of ways, using advanced grid technologies.

Wind-rich countries in Europe are already experiencing conflict between renewable and conventional power. In Spain, where a lot of wind and solar is now connected to the grid, gas power is stepping in to bridge the gap between demand and supply. This is because gas plants can be switched off or run at reduced power, for example when there is low electricity demand or high wind production. As we move to a mostly renewable electricity sector, gas plants will be needed as backup for times of high demand and low renewable production.

Effectively, a kWh from a wind turbine effectively displaces a kWh from a gas plant, avoiding carbon dioxide emissions. Renewable electricity sources such as thermal solar plants (CSP), geothermal, hydro, biomass and biogas can gradually phase out the need for natural gas. The gas plants and pipelines would then progressively be converted for transporting biogas.

Baseload blocks progress
Generally, coal and nuclear plants run as so-called baseload, meaning they work most of the time at maximum capacity regardless of how much electricity consumers need. When demand is low the power is wasted. When demand is high additional gas is needed as a backup. Coal and nuclear cannot be turned down on windy days. Instead, wind turbines will get switched off to prevent overloading the system. The fall in electricity demand that accompanied the recent global economic crisis revealed system conflict between inflexible baseload power, especially nuclear, and variable renewable sources, especially wind power, with wind operators told to  shut off their generators. In Northern Spain and Germany, this uncomfortable mix is already exposing the limits of the grid capacity. If Europe continues to support nuclear and coal power alongside a growth in renewables, clashes will occur more and more, creating a bloated, inefficient grid.

Despite the disadvantages stacked against renewables, they have begun to challenge the profitability of older plants. After construction costs, a wind turbine is generating electricity almost for free and without burning any fuel. Meanwhile, coal and nuclear plants use expensive and highly polluting fuels. Even where nuclear plants are kept running and wind turbines are switched off, conventional energy providers are concerned. like any commodity, oversupply reduces price across the market. In energy markets, this affects nuclear and coal too. We can expect more intense conflicts over access to the grids over the coming years. One example is the tension in Germany over whether to extend the lifetime of nuclear reactors by 8-14 years. The German renewable energy federation (BEE) has warned its government that this would seriously damage the further expansion of renewable energy. It predicts that renewable energy could provide half of Germany’s supply by 2020, but this would only make economic sense if half the nuclear and coal plants were phase-out by that date.

This explains why conventional utilities are growing increasingly critical of a continued and stable growth of renewables beyond 2020.

Planned phase out of nuclear and coal
If we want to reap the benefits of a continued and speedy growth of renewable energy technologies, they need priority access to the grid and we urgently have to phase out inflexible nuclear.

The Energy [R]evolution is a detailed market analysis which shows that we can reach 68 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and almost 100 percent by 2050. It also lays out a future scenario where electricity demand keeps growing, even with large-scale efficiency, because of electric vehicles displacing cars. This 2030 renewables target requires:
• an almost entire (90 percent) phaseout of coal and nuclear power by 2030.
• continued use of gas plants, which emit about half the CO2 per kWh compared to a coal plant.

The result: CO2 emissions in the electricity sector can fall by 65 percent in 2030 compared to 2007 levels. Between 2030 and 2050 gas can be phased out and we reach an almost 100 percent renewable and CO2-free electricity supply.

Six steps to build the grid for renewable Europe 24/7

1- More lines to deliver renewable electricity where it is needed:
The first step in our methodology to develop a 100 percent renewable electricity system is to add more electricity lines to the base-line of the existing high-voltage grid of 2010. lines will be needed especially from areas with overproduction, e.g. south of Europe in the summer, to areas with a high demand like Germany. This allows a  more efficient use of the installed solar power. In winter months, the opposite could happen, when a large oversupply of wind power is transported from the north of Europe south to population centres. It is common for both wind speeds and solar radiation to vary across Europe concurrently, so interconnecting the variable  renewables in effect ‘smoothes out’ the variations at any one location. Adding more grid infrastructure increases security of supply and makes better use of renewable energy sources. It also means backup capacity in Europe can be used more economically because biomass, hydro or gas plants in one region can be transferred to another region. In this first step, lines are added to a point that is called the Base Model, electricity supply is secured in the whole of Europe 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Long distance transport to stop energy loss

The Base Model focuses only on securing the supply of electricity around the clock. Our model revealed the unexpected problem that very large amounts of variable renewable sources cannot always be delivered because of bottlenecks in the grid. This problem occurs when periods of high wind or sun combine with low demand locally. Because this oversupply cannot be used in the same region, wind turbines or solar plants have to be shut down. In the Base Model, renewable losses total 346TWh per year, or 12 percent of what these energy sources could have produced without any constraints in the grid. This represents economic losses of 34.6bn€/year.

However, renewable losses can be reduced by transporting electricity over longer distances in Europe from areas of oversupply to those with a net demand for electricity. The illustration below shows a large oversupply of renewable sources at an Italian node, while there is an undersupply in the UK over the same period. Electricity transmission from the Italian node to the UK will smooth the differences and make better economic use of the installed renewable sources.

2- Priority for renewable energy on the European grid to reduce losses
The Base Model assumes a clear priority access for renewable energy at each of the nodes. This reflects the situation in many European countries which give some level of priority at the national level. However, there are no clear priority rules at the European level, including on the interconnections between countries. For example, wind turbines in Germany currently do not have a priority over nuclear power plants in France in providing energy to the European grid. This study also examines the effect of changing the rules to give priority to renewable sources throughout Europe, including on all interconnections, which does not require any additional investment. Under this scenario, the use of renewable sources would increase dramatically and constraining losses would be massively reduced. Just by improving regulation this way, without putting security of supply at risk, renewable losses can be reduced from 12 to 4 percent, which would mean an annual saving of 248TWh of

electricity or 24.8bn€/year.

Under such a new dispatch method, energy production from solar PV and wind would increase by 10 percent and 32 percent in 2030 over the base scenario without priority dispatch. And with increased generation from clean sources, generation from fossil-fuel sources will drop even more. This is particularly noticeable for power generated by gas, which would be 5 percent lower than in the Base Scenario. For a 100 percent renewable 2050, priority rules are needed between renewable sources. Variable renewables such as wind and solar PV will get priority over dispatchable renewables such as stored hydro or biomass, which will serve as back-up.

3- Additional lines to allow renewable energy through the bottlenecks
Even with a clear priority dispatch of renewable sources at the European level, there is still a significant level of renewable losses, especially for offshore wind which loses 17 percent of what could be produced without any bottlenecks in the grid. For all renewable sources this loss represents 98TWh, 4 percent of total, and an economic loss of almost 10bn€ per year. To channel these oversupplies out of their regions would require further grid extension, in particular strengthening lines between the north and the south of Europe. There is also a need for more lines between large cities, such as London, and the offshore wind grid. To deal with this effect, Energynautics studied what level grids should be upgraded to in order to limit the losses of renewable electricity production due to bottlenecks. By 2030, an upgrade of 28bn€, assuming the most expensive option) would reduce the losses from 4 to 1 percent, or a net saving of 66TWh per year or 6.5bn€ per year. This level of additional investment in the grid would be recovered in just a few years. Offshore wind losses would be most significantly reduced, from 17 percent to only 4 percent. A similar approach is followed for 2050. Total investment required would be around 98bn€ up to 2030 and an additional 74bn€ or 581bn€ up to 2050 under the low and High Grid scenarios. This allow for the more expensive approach of underground lines and new technologies such as high-voltage direct current. Infrastructure like this has a 40 year lifetime, so for 2030 this investment equates to less than 1 percent of the total electricity cost.

4- Demand management and smart grids to reduce transmission losses (2030 only)
Demand management and storage (step 5) have a very similar impact on the electricity system. Demand-management shifts some demand from periods with a low supply of variable renewables to periods with a higher supply, while storage can store electricity from oversupply of variable renewables to be used during periods with an undersupply. Also referred to as demand-side management (DSM), this approach makes use of the range of technology in a smart grid. Demand management is already common practice in many areas of industry, but could be further extended to households through grids management technologies. For example, it is possible to communicate with refrigerators so they don’t run compressors during the typical peak demand of 6pm. Across whole districts this can make a difference to the demand or load curve. Demand-side management also helps to limit the losses in transporting electricity over long distances (which escapes as heat). Demand management simulations in this study are only done for 2030. For 2050, storage simulations are used to study different levels of demand management. Given the similarities between simulations for demand-management and storage, this simplification is legitimate.

5- Adding storage in the system (2030 and 2050)
Another essential way to even supply and demand is to add storage capacity, for example through pumped hydro plants, batteries from electric vehicles or molten salt storage for concentrating solar power. While storage is relatively expensive, this study optimised the cost balance between investing in storage and extending the grids. There needs be a balance between extending the grid and adding more storage. This study used cost optimisation to determine that point. As mentioned under step four, storage simulations are also used to study the impact of demand-management in 2050. Storage is factored at the European level, thus oversupply at one node can be stored at another, and this stored electricity can then be used as backup at any node in the European grid, a long as transport capacity is available. Storage and demand-management combined have a rather limited impact on the 2030 high-voltage grid. We can assume some impact at the distribution level (the more local grid), but this is not studied in this report. This relatively low impact by 2030 is a consequence of the 98bn€ investment in grids, as modelled in this report, which allows the smooth integration of up to 68 percent renewables, as long as 90 percent of ‘baseload’ coal and nuclear are phased out. However for 2050, integration of close to 100 percent renewable power is far more challenging for the electricity system than 68 percent in 2030, and storage and demand-management play a substantial role in balancing supply and demand. Especially in the low Grid scenario, which emphases a high regional production close to demand centres, storage and demand-management can decrease the curtailment of renewable electricity from 13 percent to 6 percent. We assume that by 2050, it will be possible to use a significant part of this curtailed electricity either for storage or other electricity use.

6- Security of supply: electricity 24/7 even if the wind doesn’t blow
Adding lines, storage and demand management all increase security of supply because even under an extreme weather event of low wind combined with low solar during winter, excess wind power from another region can be imported. To test the modelled system, the most extreme weather events over the last 30 years were identified and applied to the calculation. This is typically a winter period with low wind, when solar radiation is also low and demand is typically high. The model can then tell if the optimal system can withstand the test or if more electricity lines would have to be added. For the 2030 and 2050 models, the simulations prove that the optimised model is robust enough to withstand even the most extreme climatic events.

Spanish case study
The Spanish renewable electricity sector has grown impressively in recent years. Wind power capacity more than doubled in four years from 8.7GW in 2005 to 18.7GW by the end of 2009. Wind produced 16% in 2010, and all renewables together produced more electricity (35%) than nuclear power (21%) and coal (8%) together. It is projected that if renewable sources continue this growth rate, they would supply 50 percent by 2020.

However, while the market still showed a very dynamic growth over 2005 and 2006 with around 3GW of wind power installed each year, growth since has slowed down. For 2010, it is expected to remain at around 1GW. A combination of government caps on new installations and high uncertainty of regulation is to blame.

The actions of the Spanish government to slow the growth of renewables came after criticism from the large utilities. These companies have experienced a drop in profits of their coal and gas plants through a combination of a decreasing electricity demand due to the economic crisis, growth of new renewable supply and an inflexible nuclear baseload production. While gas plants capacity increased by 6 percent in 2009, their annual output was reduced by 14 percent, thereby lowering their average load factor to 38 percent.

The inflexibility of nuclear power output is clearly illustrated by the Nov. 9th 2010 event with a record-high wind production reaching almost 15GW of power and covering almost half of all Spanish electricity demand. As can be seen in the graph representing the electricity production of that day, the strong increase of renewable energy production was confronted with an inflexible (unchanged) nuclear baseload production which forced gas plants to constrain almost all of their energy output. Repeating similar events over the last two years, wind turbines had to be stopped, not because of grid limitations to transport wind power to demand centres, but because of oversupply caused by the ‘must run’ status of Spain’s nuclear plants. It is estimated that for 2010, some 200GWh of wind electricity will be curtailed by giving priority to nuclear power.

This problem caused by the inflexibility of nuclear plants will inevitably increase over the next years with the further growth of wind and solar power. As demonstrated in our simulations for 2030 in the report, a swift phase out of baseload power is needed to avoid economic losses in the electricity system. If this does not happen, it is the free, clean renewable electricity which has to be constrained.

The report Batle of the grids, is written by Jan Van De Putte and Rebecca Short. It is available at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Battle-o...

Much has been written in the Nuclear Monitor in the past few years about the European Pressurised water Reactor. Now a new study by Professor Steve Thomas (Business School, University of Greenwich, London) describes the history, failure, and outlook of this reactortype: 'The EPR in Crisis', published November 10. An important report, since the EPR is one of the most mentioned reactor types in the hype of the nuclear renaissance and is planned to be built in a number of countries. With kind permission of the Steve Thomas, we publish the entire report. Please note that this report is copyright material.

Content:
Introduction
The roots of the EPR design
Marketing of the EPR
USA
Future prospects
UK
Italy
India
Other markets
Construction experience
Olkiluoto
Flamanville
Taishan
Safety assessment
Instrumentation and Control
Core catchers
Economic issues
The Roussely Report
Conclusions
Annex 1: Letter STUK to Areva
Endnotes

The European Pressurised water Reactor or EPR (*1) was to have been the demonstration of a new generation of nuclear reactors, so-called Generation III+, first talked about in the late 1990s. The difference between ‘III+’ and the earlier ‘III’ designs is that III+ designs are said to rely more on ‘passive’ rather than ‘engineered’ systems.(*2)

Introduction
The rationale for the Generation III+ plants was that they would be an evolution of existing designs but would be designed from the start with the lessons from the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents fully incorporated. They would rely more on natural processes rather than engineered systems for their safety – so-called passive safety. As well as being safer, they would also be more ‘buildable’, cheaper to build and operate, and easier to decommission. In short, they would address the issues that had led to ordering of earlier designs to a near halt from about 1990 onwards.

The Olkiluoto order, placed in 2003, should have been on-line in 2009 and should have been a demonstration of the qualities of Generation III+ designs in general and the EPR in particular. However, by 2010, the EPR appeared to be in crisis. The two orders on which significant construction work had been completed had gone seriously wrong, obtaining safety approval from regulators in Europe and the USA was proving far more difficult than had been expected, estimated construction costs had increased by a factor of at least four in the past decade and the EPR had failed to win orders in bids for tender for nuclear capacity. Relations between the two state-controlled French companies at the heart of the development of the EPR, Areva, the vendor and Electricité de France (EDF), the utility appeared at breaking point. EDF was reportedly contemplating designing two new reactors in competition with those offered by Areva.(*3)

In this report, we examine the roots of the design, existing and potential orders for the reactor, experience with construction of the EPR, issues arising from the safety assessment of the design, and economic issues. We examine the report by the Roussely Commission, a report commissioned by the French government and headed by a former Chief Executive of the French utility, Electricité de France (EDF), and its implications for the EPR.

The roots of the EPR design
In 1989, Siemens, the main German nuclear vendor and Framatome, the French nuclear vendor formed a joint venture company, Nuclear Power International (NPI) to design a new Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR). Siemens and Framatome had both been licensees of Westinghouse for their PWR technology. Design work was partly funded by German utilities and Electricité de France. This design would be based on Siemens’ and Framatome's most recent PWR designs, the ‘Konvoi’ design and the N4 respectively. By 1992, NPI was claiming that the conceptual design of the EPR was nearly complete, (*4) although the conceptual design was not actually completed until 1994. The EPR would have a thermal output of 4250MW giving an electrical output of about 1450MW. The containment was drawn mainly from the N4 design, while instrumentation was expected to be drawn from the Konvoi. A particular feature of the design was the inclusion of a ‘core catcher’ so that in the event of a core melt, the core would be retained within the containment. There was some uncertainty about what type of external hazards would be guarded against, with the French requiring protection only against a light aircraft, such as a Cessna, while the Germans required a military jet, like a Phantom.

In March 1995, the basic design phase was started with the expectation that EDF would order the first unit before 2000 and have it in service by 2006. However, there was then already so much nuclear capacity in France that EDF had more than enough nuclear power capacity to meet base-load. This meant that ‘series’ ordering, that is ordering at a predictable rate of several units per year, would not be needed before 2005.(*5) The French programme had always been premised on an assumption that a nuclear power programme only made sense if series ordering was expected. The issue of aircraft protection was not fully resolved but the French containment was approved by both the German and French regulators. By November 1995, there were concerns, especially amongst EDF officials, about the cost of the design, then expected to be more than US$2000/kW. (*6) The basic design work was not completed on time and in August 1997, after further concern about costs, the output of the plant was increased to 1800MW. (*7)

In September 1999, the head of DSIN (the French safety regulatory body later renamed DGSNR), Andre-Claude Lacoste, stated he expected to issue an interim safety verdict on the EPR within ‘a few weeks to a few months’ with a final design certification, reported to be equivalent to NRC’s design certification for advanced reactors. (*8) The output of the reactor had been reduced back down to about 1500MW. However, by 2003, the final certification had not been issued and Andre-Claude Lacoste, the head of the French regulatory body,, stated the process carried out up till then did not correspond to US design certification and that to achieve this would take 2-3 years more. (*9)

In August 2000, Framatome and Siemens agreed to a new joint venture formally merging their nuclear activities into a new company called Framatome ANP, subsequently renamed Areva NP. Framatome would hold 66 per cent of the stock and Siemens the rest.(*10)

Marketing of the EPR
Continued delays to EDF’s order led Areva NP to switch to Finland as the focus for its marketing. In May 2002, the Finnish Parliament approved the construction of a fifth nuclear unit in Finland. Three designs were short-listed from a list of seven for an order to be placed by the Finnish utility, Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO). The Finnish safety regulator, STUK, had already stated that it saw no difficulties in principle in licensing any of the seven initial candidates. (*11) The three short-listed reactors were the EPR, a Russian design and a Boiling Water Reactor design also offered by Areva NP. TVO was widely reported to be looking for a ‘turnkey’ (fixed price) contract. Westinghouse chose not to bid overtly on the grounds that a turnkey offer would not be profitable. (*12) However, there were also claims by Areva that Westinghouse’s AP1000 would not have met the requirements on aircraft protection because its containment was not strong enough. (*13) The AP1000 does not have a core-catcher and the head of STUK, Jukka Laaksonen has stated that on these grounds, the AP1000 would not have been acceptable in Finland. (*14)

In December 2003, TVO signed a turnkey deal with Areva NP for a 1600MW EPR at a cost, including interest during construction and two fuel charges of €3bn. The Finnish regulator was by then in close contact with the French regulator, DGSNR, which was expecting that an order for France would be placed in 2004. STUK expected to complete its review of the design within a year of the placing of the order.

By December, STUK and DGSNR had agreed to opt for different approaches so that construction in Finland did not have to wait until demonstrations of safety features that were expected to reduce costs had been carried out.(*15) In January 2005, STUK approved construction of Olkiluoto 3. (*16). In September 2004, DGSNR completed its review of the EPR and in October, the French government issued design approval for it, claimed to be equivalent to NRC design certification.(*17) In December 2004, Areva NP wrote to the US NRC asking it to begin a review of the EPR design for the US market. (*18) It expected completion of the review in 2008.

Approval by the French regulator came just after the opening of a call for tender from China in October 2004 and with further delays in ordering in France, Areva NP’s marketing efforts switched to China. China’s decision on the tender was delayed several times and it was not until December 2006 that it was announced that it had been won by Toshiba/Westinghouse’s offer of four AP1000s. One of the factors behind Areva NP’s failure to win the initial tender was reported to be its reluctance to transfer the technology as quickly and as fully as the Chinese wanted. (*19) China wanted quickly to be in a position to be able to build reactors of the design it chose without any input from the original vendor and in 2010, it was planning to start placing orders for plants of the AP1000 design without major involvement from Westinghouse. (*20) There were reports that Areva NP had failed to match Westinghouse’s offer to ‘sell the Chinese the blueprints.' (*21) However, reportedly in the interests of relations with France, China subsequently ordered two EPRs in November 2007 for the Taishan site in a deal reportedly worth €8bn. It is not clear what the terms of the contract were or what it covered so it is difficult to compare this deal with others. EDF took a 30 per cent stake in the company, Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (GNPC), building the reactors.

In the meantime, EDF finally ordered its first EPR to be built at its Flamanville site in 2005. At that time, EDF expected the reactor to cost €3.3bn, although the reactor would produce 1700MW, 100MW more than the Olkiluoto order. Construction of the reactor (first structural concrete) did not start until December 2007 and it was expected to take five years to build, a year more than Olkiluoto. Unlike Olkiluoto where Areva NP carried out the architect engineering, EDF itself carried out the architect engineering, as it has done with the 58 previous reactors it had bought from Framatome.

The next tender was for South Africa launched in January 2008 calling for 3200-3600MW of new capacity from Areva NP and Toshiba Westinghouse. The tender was in two parts: the first with specific proposals for the 3200-3600MW of capacity and the second the development of a 20,000MW nuclear fleet to be in place by 2025.. The first part of the bid would require either two EPRs of 1600MW or three AP1000s each about 1200MW. (*22) It was reported that the bids were in the order US$6000/kW (*23) and in November 2008, it was reported that Areva had won the contest, although the scale of 20,000MW programme was to be scaled back.(*24)However, in December 2008, Eskom cancelled the tender citing ‘the magnitude of the investment.'(*25)

In February 2009, Areva NP bid for two reactors to be constructed in Ontario.(*26) Other bidders were Toshiba-Westinghouse (AP1000) and the Canadian vendor, AECL offering a new Candu design.(*27) The commissioning body was Infrastructure Ontario a state-owned agency. In June 2009, the Ontario government suspended the tender citing concerns about pricing. It was reported that Areva NP’s bid for one EPR was US$21bn. This was denied by Areva NP but they did not reveal the actual figure.(*28)

In February 2009, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began the assessment of bids for 5000MW of new nuclear capacity. In addition to a bid from Areva NP for three EPRs, it was reported that there were bids from General Electric-Hitachi and Toshiba/Westinghouse. (*29) The EPR bid initially involved Areva NP, GDF Suez, Bechtel and Total. Subsequently, at the request of the French government, EDF was persuaded to join the EPR bid. In July, three bids were selected for assessment including a bid from GE-Hitachi for a boiling water reactor (BWR) and one from a Korean group offering its Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), the APR-1400. (*30) In December 2009, it was announced that the tender had been awarded to the Korean consortium for four APR-1400 units at a price of US$20bn. According to Korean media reports, the Korean bid was almost 30 per cent lower per kW than the EPR bid, while the GE Hitachi offer was said to be higher than the French bid. The failure to win this bid led to much criticism of the French nuclear industry, in particular the lack of unity in the French bid. EDF, which has acted as architect engineer for all the PWRs built in France, had been unwilling to act as architect engineer for foreign bids and had only been persuaded by the French government in December to lead the bid as the UAE utility, ENEC, had requested. (*31)

USA
The USA is potentially the largest nuclear market (along with China) in the world and Areva and EDF have made a major financial commitment to open up this market. EPR is one of five designs being assessed by the US safety authorities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and is a candidate for Federal subsidies including Federal loan guarantees. Subsidies for new nuclear reactors were first mooted in 2002, when President Bush launched an initiative aimed at re-starting commercial ordering for nuclear reactors using the Generation III+ design in the USA, the Nuclear Power 2010 programme: no reactor order, not subsequently cancelled, had been placed since 1974 in the USA. The Bush government believed that nuclear technology was competitive and that a handful of subsidised demonstration plants were needed to show that the new designs had overcome the problems of earlier designs.(*32) The publicity for the programme claimed: ‘New Generation III+ designs ... have the advantage of combining technology familiar to operators of current plants with vastly improved safety features and significant simplification is expected to result in lower and more predictable construction and operating costs.'(*33)

This programme has evolved considerably since it was first announced and although nominally Nuclear Power 2010 is due to end at the end of fiscal year 2010, the effort by the Federal government to re-start nuclear reactor ordering will almost certainly continue. Nuclear Power 2010 originally had the goal of having new reactors online by 2010. Time-scales have slipped substantially – the first unit is unlikely to be on-line before about 2018 if there are no more delays.

The programme was to take advantage of new licensing procedures, already passed into law in the 1992 Energy Policy Act, so that a combined Construction and Operating License (COL) license would replace the existing procedure of separate construction and operating licenses. The proposed Energy Policy Act of 2003 (EPACT 2003) offered the prospect of Federal loan guarantees for new reactors covering up to 50 per cent of the cost of the projects. When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)(*34)looked at the cost implications of this bill, it assumed that loan guarantees would be offered for six reactors. The CBO assumed that the reactors would be of 1100MW, each costing US$2.5bn (US$2300/kW) and that they would be financed by 50 per cent debt and 50 per cent equity. This meant that the guarantees required would be worth about US$7.5bn. It asserted the risk of default would be ‘well above 50 percent’ but that over the plant’s expected operating lifetime, its creditors (which could be the federal government) could expect to recover a significant portion of the plant’s construction loan so the net cost to taxpayers would be about 25 per cent of the sum guaranteed.

EPACT 2003 was not passed, but a successor bill, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005) was passed and contained much more generous levels of support for new nuclear reactors. EPACT 2005 included provisions to cover cost overruns due to regulatory delays,(*35) and a production tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 6,000 megawatt-hours from new nuclear reactors for the first eight years of their operation, subject to a $125 million annual limit.(*36)

However, the biggest incentive was the provision of loan guarantees under Title XVII of that bill. While the loan guarantees would only be available for technologies that were not ‘commercial’, the number of units that would be eligible was not precisely specified. The US Department of Energy stated: ‘DOE has defined “commercial technologies,” which are not eligible for loan guarantees under this program, as “in general use if it has been installed in and is being used in three or more commercial projects in the United States in the same general application as in the proposed project, and has been in operation in each such commercial project for a period of at least five years.” Given that new reactors will take at least five to ten years to build, a large amount of loan guarantees for the same design could be offered before the design is considered “commercial”.(*37)

The potential scale of the loan guarantees programme has escalated dramatically since 2003. Let us assume that these were now available for only three units of each of the five designs being assessed by the US NRC and for up to 80 per cent of the total cost. Since the CBO made its estimate in 2003, the estimated cost of new reactors has increased to at least US$6000/kW and their average size has increased to 1200-1600MW making the cost (without finance costs) of an EPR nearly US$10bn.

Under these assumptions the programme would be able to provide loan guarantees worth more than US$100bn. In July 2008, the US DOE announced it was ready to accept applications for loan guarantees, but Congress authorized only up to US$18.5bn.(*38) Congress believed this might be sufficient to cover four projects (seven to eight reactors), but using more realistic cost assumptions, this seemed likely to be able to only allow three or four reactors at most. The Obama Administration asked for an additional US$36bn in loan guarantees in February 2010 , but the appropriations process was held up by election-year politics, so by November 2010, it was not clear how much the additional funds would be. There is also the issue of the fee that should be charged to borrowers for the loan guarantees. This should be an economic fee, in other words, one that reflects the risk involved. . The fees are assessed by the federal Office of Management and Budget and are supposed to reflect the risk of default for that project. As has become clear with the Calvert Cliffs project, discussed below, if the risk of a loan is assessed to be high, the fee could be more than the developers are prepared to pay.

The subsidies on offer under EPACT 2005 did stimulate utilities to announce plans for more than 30 new reactors, seven of which were for EPRs. However, a significant proportion of these never got beyond the early planning stage and by June 2010, only 27 had made applications to the NRC for COLs. Four of these were for EPRs (see Table 1) including two to be built by UniStar, a 50-50 joint venture created in 2005 between EDF and the US utility, Constellation. UniStar is a partner in the other two projects with PPL for the Bell Bend project and with Ameren UE for the Callaway reactor. By June 2010, of these 27 reactors, one application had been withdrawn and the owners of four others, two of which were for EPRs, had asked for the process to be suspended. Of the remaining 22, two were EPRs and the developer of one of these, PPL, stated that it was still ‘several years from a final decision on whether to build Bell Bend.'(*39) The future of the EPR therefore seemed highly dependent on the one EPR project still being actively pursued, the UniStar Calvert Cliffs project.

Table 1 EPR’s proposed in USA

Plant	Owner	COL application	Loan Guarantee
Calvert Cliffs 3	UniStar	COL 3/08	Shortlist
Callaway 2	AmerenUE	Suspended 4/09	Applied
Nine Mile Pt 3	UniStar	Suspended 1/09	Applied
Bell Bend	PPL	COL 10/08	Applied

Source: Author’s research

The presence of EDF in the UniStar joint venture, with its vast experience of building and operating PWRs supplied by Areva – 58 units in service in France – was seen as a major advantage. Constellation owns about 3.9GW of existing nuclear power plants at three sites (Calvert Cliffs, Nine Mile Point and Ginna).(*40) In September 2008, EDF tried to take over Constellation but were outbid by MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a private company controlled by Warren Buffet. It was reported that the rival bid for Constellation could derail EDF’s nuclear ambitions in the USA if MidAmerican did not support new nuclear build. In December 2008, EDF announced an agreement with Constellation to take a 49.99% holding in Constellation’s nuclear subsidiary, Constellation Energy Nuclear Group. The deal was done through the EDF subsidiary, EDF Development Inc, and cost US$4.5bn.(*41) Mid American Holdings amicably withdrew its offer. The UniStar joint venture remains separate from this deal.

Whether the purchase of the stake in Constellation’s nuclear assets made any sense without the new build reactors is far from clear. However, it is apparent that EDF regards it as part of its bid to build new reactors and expand the scope of its operations into plant design and construction. Nucleonics Week reported: “EDF Chairman/CEO Pierre Gadonneix defended the decision to buy what some in France are calling ‘old’ US nuclear plants as a ticket to what will be ‘the world's largest nuclear market tomorrow’."(*42) In summer 2009, Gadonneix was replaced by Henri Proglio, who has been reportedly much less enthusiastic about EDF’s nuclear expansion outside France.

The Calvert Cliffs reactor was forecast to cost US$7.2bn in 2008. (*43) UniStar ordered forgings and other long lead-time reactor components for Calvert Cliffs in 2006 and 2007. A partial construction and operating license application (COLA), mainly the environmental report, was submitted in July 2007 and was docketed by the NRC in January 2008. The remainder of the COLA was submitted in March 2008 and was docketed on June 4, 2008. As of November 2010, there was no schedule for issue of the COL because of the problems with certifying the design. (*44) Part 1 of the application for federal loan guarantees was submitted in September 2008 and Part 2 in December 2008. In 2009, the US Department of Energy short-listed four projects for loan guarantees, including Calvert Cliffs. The first loan guarantee was offered to another project in February 2010 and an offer to Calvert Cliffs was widely expected to follow soon after. However, by August 2010, no commitment had been made and Constellation began to cut back drastically on expenditure on the Calvert Cliffs project. How far this was due to the delays in granting loan guarantees and how far it was due to deterioration in the economics of the new reactor is not clear.

The CEO of Constellation stated: ‘market signals to build a baseload plant of any kind, let alone nuclear, have suffered significantly since we started the project four years ago.’ He said Constellation will abandon the project if it does not receive a conditional loan guarantee for the project. The poor market signals included low natural gas prices and the short- and long-term power price outlooks.(*45) EDF, in its report for the first half of 2010 published in July 2010, made a provision of €1.06bn (about US$1.45bn) related to financing delays on nuclear projects in the United States.(*46)

By September, signs of strain between EDF and Constellation were clear. A particular issue was that under the terms of the purchase of the stake in Constellation’s nuclear assets, Constellation could require EDF to US$2bn worth of Constellation’s natural gas, coal and hydropower plants by end 2010.(*47) There was speculation in September 2010 that these problems could lead to EDF selling its stake in the nuclear assets and dissolving the UniStar joint venture.(*48) In October 2010, Constellation unilaterally withdrew from negotiations with the US Department of Energy for loan guarantees for the Calvert Cliffs project. It was reported that the fee to provide loan guarantees for 80 per cent of the forecast cost of the plant (US$9.6bn) was initially proposed at US$880m, or 11.6 per cent of the amount borrowed.(*49) When Constellation rejected that offer, DOE proposed a 5 per cent fee, but with conditions including that Constellation fully guarantee construction and commit to sell 75 per cent of the power through a Purchase Power Agreement (PPA), presumably through its subsidiary Baltimore Gas & Electric. The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) would have had to approve a PPA.

Subsequently Constellation sold its 50 per cent stake in UniStar to EDF for US$140m. In addition, Constellation transferred to UniStar potential new nuclear sites at Nine Mile Point and R.E. Ginna in New York as well as Calvert Cliffs. The agreement requires EDF to transfer 3.5 million of the shares it owns in Constellation and to give up its seat on Constellation's board and in exchange, Constellation gave up the option to require EDF to buy Constellation’s fossil fuel capacity.(*50)

EDF was reported to be keen to proceed with the Calvert Cliffs project but US law does not allow US nuclear reactors to be owned, controlled or dominated by foreign companies or governments, so EDF would need to find a new partner to proceed. It is not clear whether loan guarantees could be offered to UniStar in advance of a new US partner being agreed and whether the fee would be the same.

While the political wrangling about how much Congress will be prepared to allow the US DOE to offer in loan guarantees, the deteriorating prospective economics for new nuclear reactors and the economic risk they pose to their owners may mean that relatively few loan guarantees are granted. The projects most likely to go ahead are those with the ‘belt and braces’ of Federal loan guarantees and a state regulatory body that commits to allowing the utility to recover its costs from consumers. Calvert Cliffs and Bell Bend would be exposed to the PJM electricity market and therefore could expect no support from the state regulator. If the Calvert Cliffs project does collapse and an existing project, such as Bell Bend cannot be brought in to replace it, it is hard to see how the EPR could survive in the USA. This would be a severe blow to EDF and Areva, both of which have invested a large amount of cash and their credibility in opening up the US market to the EPR.

Future prospects
The EPR is competing in a number of other markets where Areva NP hopes it will be the basis for series ordering, in particular the UK and Italy.

UK
The UK government’s program is based on very different underlying assumptions than that of the United States. The UK government did not claim that nuclear power would be directly competitive with fossil fuels, but if a carbon price of €36/tonne was assumed, it would be competitive. Both the Labour government up to May 2010 and the successor Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition seem heavily committed to reviving nuclear ordering in the United Kingdom. However, all three parties have stated that orders should only be placed if they do not involve public subsidies. Ordering would therefore take place without subsidy, provided a few non-financial enabling decisions were taken, particularly on planning processes and certification of designs. In 2008, when the government revisited nuclear economics, it assumed the construction cost was £1,250/kW ($2,000/kW).

The government’s nuclear regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), started to examine four separate designs in 2007 including the Areva NP EPR and the Toshiba/Westinghouse AP1000. The rationale was that up to three designs would be finally certificated, thus giving utilities a choice of designs. In fact, the other two designs were quickly withdrawn leaving just the EPR and AP1000.

Three utilities have made significant commitments to UK ordering: EDF, RWE, and E.ON – the latter two in a consortium called Horizon. EDF took over the UK nuclear generation company, British Energy, for about €15 billion in 2008, while RWE/E.ON have purchased sites in 2009 adjacent to existing nuclear power plants for several hundred million Euros. Both EDF and the RWE/E.ON consortium expect to order 4 units, for a total of 10 to 12 GW of capacity. EDF is expected to order the EPR, while the RWE/E.ON consortium has yet to choose its supplier.

EDF heavily committed itself to nuclear ordering in the United Kingdom with its purchase in 2009 of British Energy. The price seemed far above the value of the assets being acquired and only has any logic if new nuclear orders are placed. British Energy went bankrupt in 2002 because its operating costs, then about £16/MWh, were marginally higher than the price it received for electricity. Since then, operating costs have grown every year and by 2008/09, the operating costs had risen to £41.3/MWh. British Energy only remained solvent because of the extremely high wholesale electricity prices that prevailed in that period – British Energy received £47/MWh in that period. If operating costs continue to rise and/or wholesale electricity prices fall (by the end of 2009, they were well below the 2008 peak), British Energy will be at risk of collapse again.

The RWE/E.ON consortium had invested a few hundred million pounds in options to buy sites, but if it did not take up these options, it could walk away from a British nuclear program at little cost. By the start of 2010, the UK was still 3-4 years from completing safety assessment of the design and getting planning permission for specific sites – the point when a firm order could be placed.

Italy
In 1987, a referendum led to the closure of the four operating nuclear power plants in Italy and the abandonment of work on construction of another nuclear station. The Berlusconi government has introduced legislation that would pave the way for the reintroduction of nuclear power in Italy. Four 1650 MW EPRs could be built, with construction starting as early as 2013, under an agreement signed in February 2009 by the French utility, EDF, and the largest Italian utility, ENEL. ENEL has not selected the sites for these units yet. It has said the cost would be about €4-4.5 billion each or $3,600-4,000/kW.(*51) There has been speculation about other competing bids to build nuclear power plants – for example, a consortium led by A2A, the Milan-based utility offering AP1000s – but these projects are much less advanced than those of ENEL. (*52)

India
It has been reported that a memorandum of understanding (MOU), including the intention to build two EPRs, would be signed in February 2009 between Areva and the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.(*53) Even if this MOU is signed, it is far from being a firm order and many MOUs come to nothing, for example, if financing cannot be arranged.

Other markets
President Sarkozy has announced that a second EPR in France will be ordered in 2011 for the Penly site. It is unlikely there will be scope for many further orders for France given that France already has more baseload electricity capacity than it can readily use and with plans to operate existing reactors for up to 60 years instead of the earlier expectations of 40 years, it will not be till after 2035 when the existing reactors begin to be retired. The Penly plant was to be built by EDF, which would have a 50 per cent stake in it, with the other stakes being held by the other major French utility, GDF Suez (25 per cent) and ENEL (the main Italian utility), E.ON (a large German utility and the oil company, Total, each with 8.33 per cent. However, in September 2010, GDF Suez, which was disappointed not to have been given the job of building the plant, announced their withdrawal from the project.(*54) There were reports that GDF Suez was hoping to lead construction of a reactor at another site, using the Areva ‘Atmea’ design (see below).(*55)

The Finnish Parliament has voted to allow construction of two additional nuclear reactors by two different consortia. Both consortia have named the EPR as one of three or four options they might choose. It is far from certain whether these orders will be placed, and if they are, whether the EPR will be chosen, especially given the poor performance of the EPR at the Olkiluoto site. In July 2010 in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, Areva, the New Brunswick government and New Brunswick Power announced that they would examine the feasibility of building a light-water nuclear reactor in the province by 2020. However, in September 2010, the incoming Premier for the province announced the agreement would go on the back-burner.(*56)

Construction experience
While utilities and governments will be interested in the theoretical attractions of new designs, it will be actual experience of building and operating these new designs that will be crucial in determining their success. By October 2010, no EPR was yet in service but four were under construction, one in Finland (Olkiluoto), one in France (Flamanville) and two in China (Taishan).

Olkiluoto
The Olkiluoto-3 reactor order of December 2003 was the first nuclear order in Western Europe and North America since the 1993 Civaux-2 order in France and the first order outside the Pacific Rim for a Generation III/III+ design. The Finnish electricity industry had been trying to get Parliamentary approval for a new nuclear unit since 1992. This was finally granted in 2002. The Olkiluoto-3 order was a huge boost for the nuclear industry in general and Areva NP in particular. Industry anticipated that, once complete, the plant would provide a demonstration and reference for other prospective buyers of the EPR.

The contract price for Olkiluoto-3 was reported in 2004 to be €3bn for a 1600 MW reactor.(*57) Subsequently, the price was reported to be €3.2bn(*58) or €3.3bn.(*59) Safety approval was given by the Finnish regulator, STUK, in March 2005 and substantive work on-site started in August 2005. At the time the contract was signed, the value was equivalent to about US$3.6-4.0bn (depending on the contract price) or about $2250-2475/kW (€1=US$1.2). This cost included financing and two reactor cores, so the cost per kW in overnight terms would have been somewhat lower, although given the very low rate of interest charged (2.6%), finance costs would be low.

Although the total cost was well above the nuclear industry‘s target of US$1000/kW of only a few years previously, it was still regarded by many critics as a ‘loss-leader’. Areva NP had been trying to persuade either EDF or one of the German utilities to place an order for an EPR since the late 1990s(*60) and there were fears that if an order for the EPR was not placed soon, AREVA NP would start to lose key staff(*61) and the design would become obsolete.(*62) Areva NP also needed a ‘shop window’ for EPR technology and Olkiluoto-3 would serve as a reference plant for other orders. As an additional incentive and at the request of the customer, Areva NP offered the plant on ‘turnkey’ or fixed price terms. It also took responsibility for the management of the site and for the architect engineering, not just the supply of the ‘nuclear island’. This was not a role it was accustomed to. For the 58 PWRs Areva NP’s predecessor, Framatome, had supplied for France, as well as for the foreign projects including those in China and South-Africa, it was EDF that had provided these services.

The Olkiluoto project has gone seriously wrong since construction started. By August 2010, Areva NP acknowledged that the estimated cost had reached €5.7bn (an additional €367m was acknowledged in the 2009 accounts), which at the prevailing exchange rate of €1=US$1.35 represented a cost of US$4800/kW.(*63) The contract is also the subject of an acrimonious dispute between Areva NP and the customer, Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO). Areva NP claims compensation of about €1bn for alleged failures of TVO. TVO, in a January 2009 counterclaim, is demanding €2.4bn in compensation from Areva NP for delays in the project.(*64)

Table 2 Timetable of problems at Olkiluoto 3

Date	Event
4/04	STUK: ‘We are getting the documents late. They (Areva) aren’t reserving enough time for our review and they don’t have all the information required by our guides.'(*65)
10/05	Pouring of base slab delayed by concerns about strength of concrete. Manufacturing of reactor pressure vessel and steam generators "a few weeks" behind the original schedule(*66)
2/06	Problems with qualifying pressure vessel welds and delays in detailed engineering design put construction more than six months behind schedule(*67)
3/06	STUK opened an investigation into manufacturing and construction problems(*68)
5/06	Despite measures including two shifts on site and three shifts at Areva's component manufacturing plant, work is eight to nine months behind schedule(*69)
7/06	TVO acknowledges delay now 1 year. STUK investigation: An extremely tight budget and timetable, supplier inexperience, poor subcontractor control and regulators’ difficulty in assessing information have caused confusion and quality control problems that have delayed the Olkiluoto-3 project(*70)
10/06	Areva takes provision of ca €300m for Olkiluoto project71 3 out of 4 ‘hot legs’ not made to specification. 72 Project manager replaced(*73)
12/06	Delay estimated at 18 months(*74)
1/07	Areva NP: Areva-Siemens cannot accept 100 % compensation responsibility, because the project is one of vast co-operation. The building site is joint so we absolutely deny 100 % compensation principle’ TVO: ‘I don’t believe that Areva says this. The site is in the contractor’s hands at the moment. Of course, in the end, TVO is responsible of what happens at the site. But the realisation of the project is Areva’s responsibility'(*75)
5/07	TVO and Areva agree design not complete enough when contract signed. STUK: ‘a complete design would be the ideal. But I don't think there's a vendor in the world who would do that before knowing they would get a contract. That's real life(*76)
8/07	Problems meeting requirements to withstand an airplane crash mean delay 2 years(*77)
9/07	Steel containment liner repaired in 12 places to fix deformations and weld problems(*78) Areva acknowledges further financial provisions for losses but does not quantify them. Independent estimate €500-700m(*79)
6/08	TVO site manager replaced(*80)
10/08	Delay now estimated at 3 years.(*81) Manufacturer of containment liner failed to obey an order to stop welding after a STUK-TVO inspection discovered that an incorrect welding procedure was being used.(*82) Areva initiates arbitration proceedings in Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce over ‘a technical issue'(*83)
12/08	Areva announces further loss provisions. Independent estimates €1.3bn(*84)
12/08	Letter from STUK Director General top CEO Areva: ‘I cannot see real progress being made in the design of the control and protection systems.’ ‘This would mean that the construction will come to a halt and it is not possible to start commissioning tests.’ ‘the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons who speak in the expert meetings on behalf of that organisation prevent to make progress in resolving the concerns'(*85)
1/09	Delay acknowledged to be 3.5 years.(*86) Siemens announces withdrawal from Areva NP.(*87) Areva-Siemens file a second arbitration proceeding against TVO.(*88) Areva asking for €1bn in compensation. TVO counterclaiming for €2.4bn for ‘gross negligence’.(*89) TVO expects arbitration to take several years(*90)
3/09	Areva admits cost over-run now €1.7bn(*91)
06/10	TVO reports further delay till 2013 to completion of the plant.(*92) Delay confirmed by Areva NP(*93)
07/10	Areva booked €367m in new charges on expected losses with Olkiluoto.(*94)

Sources: As per endnotes

It seems unlikely that all the problems that have contributed to the delays and cost-overruns have been solved (see Table 2); the final cost could be significantly higher. The result of the claim and counter-claim arbitration between Areva NP and TVO will determine how the cost over-run will be apportioned. It is far from clear that TVO could survive financially if it had to shoulder a significant proportion of these costs. Even Areva, despite it being controlled by the French government had its credit rating reduced to BBB+, partly because of these problems(*95) and it would hardly be good for business if its customer was put out of business by the purchase of an EPR.

Flamanville
EDF finally ordered an EPR reactor in January 2007, to be located at their Flamanville site. This reactor was rated at 1630 MW(*96) and construction commenced in December 2007.(*97) In May 2006, EDF estimated the cost would be €3.3bn.(*98) At that time (€1=US$1.28), this was equivalent to US$2590/kW. This cost however did not include the first fuel or finance costs, so the overnight cost, which conventionally includes fuel but not finance costs would have been somewhat higher.

EDF did not seek a turnkey contract and chose to manage the contracting, for example, letting contracts for the turbine generator and the architect engineering. How far these decisions were influenced by the poor experience at Olkiluoto and how far they were influenced by the need EDF saw to maintain in-house skills is not clear.

In May 2008, the French safety regulatory authorities temporarily halted construction at Flamanville because of quality issues in pouring the concrete base mat.(*99)Delays had led the vendor, Areva NP to forecast the reactor would not be completed until 2013, a year late, but in November 2008, EDF claimed the delays could be made up and the reactor finished by the original schedule of 2012.(*100) EDF did admit that the expected construction costs for Flamanville had increased from €3.3 billion to €4 billion.(*101) This was then equivalent to US$3,265/kW (€1=US$1.33), substantially more than the Olkiluoto contract price, but far below the levels being quoted in the USA and the current cost of Olkiluoto. An Areva official suggested that the cost of an EPR will now be at least €4.5bn, although it was not specified whether this was an overnight cost.(*102) In January 2010, French unions reported that the project was then running at least two years behind schedule.(*103) These reports, originally denied by EDF, were confirmed by them in July 2010, when it also acknowledged that costs were by then running at €1.7bn over the original €3.3bn budget.(*104) In October 2010, Le Figaro reported a further delay of a year at Flamanville citing ‘several’ sources. EDF have denied this report. (*105)

Table 3 Timetable of problems at Flamanville 3

Date	Event
5/06	EDF decides to proceed with Flamanville 3(*106)
7/06	Site work commenced. Target construction time 54 months, construction cost €3.3bn excluding finance and fuel(*107) (*108)
1/07	NSSS ordered from Areva NP(*109)
4/07	French government issues construction license(*110)
12/07	First concrete poured(*111)
3/08	ASN asks EDF to improve work in several areas involving in particular quality control and organization.(*112) Inspection had revealed several problems in the civil construction work, including errors in installation of steel reinforcing bar in the concrete and "inconsistency" between rebar blueprints and the concrete pouring plan. organization for preparing concrete pouring was "insufficient"(*113)
5/08	ASN requires EDF to stop concrete pouring on May 26 (ban lifted June 17). Problems ‘show insufficient discipline on the part of the licensee and insufficient project organization’. Welding anomalies found in one of the four bottom pieces of the steel liner of the containment building (*114)
10/08	ASN told Areva to improve its oversight of forgings after procedures used by Italian subcontractor Societe della Fucine were found not to conform to standards(*115)
12/08	EDF acknowledges cost had increased to €4bn due mainly to inflation, and technical & regulatory changes.(*116) Construction schedule claimed still to be achievable
01/10	Unions claim construction is at least 2 years behind schedule(*117)
07/10	EDF confirms delay and announces expected costs are €1.7bn over budget(*118)
08/10	ASN asks EDF to modify the architecture of the non-safety instrumentation and control system(*119)
10/10	Le Figaro reports a further year delay(*120)

Sources: As per endnotes. Note: ASN = Autorité de sûreté nucléaire

Taishan
Under the terms of the contract Areva NP won to supply two EPRs to China, the company is only supplying the nuclear island and the contract is not turnkey. EDF is involved in the management of this project and has an equity stake in the reactors.(*121) Little reliable, independent information comes out of China on nuclear construction. The IAEA reported that work started on the first Taishan unit in November 2009 and on the second unit in April 2010. In July 2010, the South China Morning Post reported that work on the ‘second phase’ the Taishan units would not start in the third quarter of 2011 as expected.(*122) No reason for the delay was given by the plant owners, but there has been speculation that China was not comfortable with the fact that delays at Olkiluoto and Flamanville meant that the Taishan units would probably be the first EPRs to enter service.

Safety assessment
As mentioned previously, there was some confusion about the level of assessment of the EPR that had been carried out by the Finnish and the French regulators when construction started at the Olkiluoto and Flamanville plants respectively. It is now clear that neither had carried out a comprehensive generic safety review.

In August 2007, the UK safety regulator, the HSE launched its Generic Design Assessment (GDA) for the EPR (and three other designs). The timetable called for completion of the generic review in June 2011. There are three possible conclusions to this process: (*123) (1) if the regulators are fully content, they will issue an HSE Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC); (2) if they are largely content, they will issue an HSE Interim Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) or Environment Agency Interim Statement of Design Acceptability and identify the unresolved GDA Issues; and (3) if the regulators are not content no Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) or Statement of Design Acceptability will be issued. By August 2010, the HSE had acknowledged the first and third outcomes were implausible.(*124) In the case of the second outcome, the proposer would have to submit a Resolution Plan. However, once an interim DAC has been given, issues not covered by the Resolution Plan would not be considered. The HSE has recognised that it will probably be the first regulator to complete a generic assessment of the EPR and this would leave it in an invidious position if its requirements are seen as less stringent than those of other regulators. The HSE stated in July 2010:(*125)

‘We had originally hoped that the safety assessment of AP1000 and EPR by their ‘home’ regulators would be complete well before we completed GDA Step 4 in June 2011 so that we could fully consider their conclusions during our own assessment. However, we now understand that there is significant ongoing safety assessment by the home regulators for both AP1000 and EPR. This is a significant regulatory process concern for us, the implications of which are being considered at present, together with ways of ensuring the best possible international cooperation on and harmonisation of assessment outcomes.’

The HSE claims it will complete the GDA in June 2011, but ‘interim’ approvals, which would not suffice for construction of the reactors to begin in the UK, appear at the moment to be ‘more likely’ than final approvals for both designs for the June 2011 timeline.(*126)

Areva submitted a Standard Design Certification Application to the NRC in December 2007 more than 3 years after Areva NP began discussions with the NRC. At that time, Areva expected that the NRC would complete its technical review in two years, and finish the rulemaking that certifies the design the following year, 2010.(*127) This proved over-optimistic and in March 2010, after a number of delays, the NRC stated the final certification would not be before June 2012.(*128)

Instrumentation and Control
Table 2 shows that there were conflicts between Areva and STUK, the Finnish regulator even before construction started. The extent of these was illustrated by a leaked letter from the head of STUK, Jukka Laaksonen, to the CEO of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon in December 2008 (see Annex 1). In April 2009, the HSE classified Instrumentation & Control (I&C) as a ‘Regulatory Issue’, a particular feature of the design that might not meet UK regulatory standards.(*129) In July 2010, the I&C issue remained a Regulatory Issue and while HSE stated in July 2010 that it anticipated that an acceptable solution could be found, it had not received details of the modification proposed. The specific issue raised here, the level of redundancy in the I&C systems was subsequently taken up in a joint statement by the UK, French and Finnish regulators in November 2009.(*130) In August 2010, the HSE reported that while they believe that an ‘acceptable position can be reached for GDA’, this would depend ‘on timely and quality responses from EDF and AREVA and we have already noted difficulties with delivery on other C&I issues.’(*131)

The US and Chinese regulators were not party to this process, but in July 2010, it was reported that the US NRC had found that the I&C was too complex and interconnected to meet US regulations. The issue was described by an NRC spokesman as being ‘a critical path issue that is going to have to be resolved’.(*132) Whether this resolution would delay completion of the review beyond June 2012 is not clear. However, the I&C systems for UK, France, Finland and the USA will now all differ from each other because it is too late to make some changes to the French and Finnish designs.(*133)

Core catchers
A particular bone of contention has been the need of a ‘core-catcher’. In the event of a failure of the emergency core cooling system, this would ‘catch’ the core if it breached the reactor pressure vessel. There is no international agreement on the need for this feature: it is widely seen as essential for mainland Europe, but not the USA and other countries like Korea. However, this is an expensive system and Anne Lauvergeon blamed the extra cost of this as one of the factors behind the loss of the contract for UAE to a Korean design that does not have a core-catcher.(*134) Lauvergeon claimed that safety enhancements designed to prevent any offsite radiological impact — like the core catcher and the reinforced containment made the EPR 15 per cent more expensive than a Generation II PWR.(*135)

Economic issues
When a ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ was first mooted, a key element was the use of so-called Generation III+ designs, which would be safer, simpler, cheaper and easier to build than earlier designs. This, it was claimed, would overcome the problems that had led to the dramatic reduction in ordering from the mid-80s onwards. Particularly strong claims were made on costs with vendors claiming their new designs could be built for US$1000/kW. As noted above, cost was a particular issue from the start with the EPR and cost claims for it were not as aggressive as for some of the other designs. Nevertheless, in 1998, NPI claimed reactors could be built for US$1415/kW.(*136) In 2001, A US executive of Framatome claimed the EPR could be built in the USA for US$1320/kW.(*137)

In 2003, TVO’s studies for Olkiluoto envisaged that it would be able to buy a nuclear reactor for US$1800/kW or less. EDF’s studies from the same year assumed a cost of €1275/kW, then about US$1450,(*138) while the French government was even more optimistic in September of that year, assuming €1043/kW.(*139) These forecasts were revealed to be hopelessly unrealistic when it emerged that the winning bid for Olkiluoto was actually €3bn equivalent to €1875/kW or US$2300/kW.

In May 2006, when EDF ordered Flamanville, the cost estimated by EDF was reported to be €3.3bn, essentially the same as for Olkiluoto given inflation and the higher expected output (1630MW).(*140)

Costs at the Olkiluoto and Flamanville plants escalated rapidly, but it was not clear how far this was due to an underlying underestimate of costs and how far it was due to specific errors. Initial cost estimates for US EPRs were no less unrealistic with Areva and Unistar claiming overnight costs of US$1600-2000/kW in 2005.(*141) By 2008, Unistar was still estimating only US$2400/kW (2005 dollars).(*142) However by August of that year, the Unistar CEO, Mayo Shattuck suggested that the cost would be at the mid- to upper-end of the range US$4500-6000/kW (US$7.2-9.6bn).(*143)

Reports of bids for international contests produced even higher projected costs. In South Africa, Eskom expected a construction cost of US$2,500/kW. In January 2008, Eskom received two bids in reply to its call for tenders from November of the previous year for 3200 to 3400 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).(*144) Both claimed their bids were “turnkey,” but whether they were really turnkey in the fixed price sense or whether they were simply for the whole plant is not clear. It was later reported that the bids were for around $6,000/kW – more than double the expected price.(*145)

In 2007, Ontario Power Authority (OPA), the public body responsible for planning the Ontario power system, had assumed nuclear power plants could be built for about C$2,900/kW.(*146) In June 2008, the Canadian government announced Darlington in Ontario as the site for a two-unit new build project and on May 20, 2009, information leaked that the Ontario government had chosen AECL as the leading bidder over Areva and Westinghouse to start building the first new nuclear plants in Canada in 25 years. Two new reactors were projected to start operating by 2018. However, the provincial government reportedly conditioned any go-ahead on financial guarantees by the federal government to cover the financial risks involved. Three bids were received, one from Areva and one from AECL, although only the AECL bid complied with the requirement that the vendor assume the construction risk. There was a press report on the size of the bids. This suggested that Areva’s non-compliant bid was C$23.6 billion (US$21 billion) for two EPRs (1600 MW each) or C$7,375/kW (US$6,600/kW). AECL and Westinghouse’s bids were higher. Ontario decided to suspend the tender. Subsequently, Areva disputed the published bid price, but they were not willing to supply the actual price they bid.

In December 2009, the UAE ordered four nuclear reactors from Korea using AP1400 technology, beating opposition from consortia led by EDF (including GDF Suez, Areva, and Total with the EPR) and GE-Hitachi.(*147) The contract is with Korean Electric to build and operate the reactors, the first coming on-line at an unspecified site in 2017 and the last by 2020. The terms of the deal and what is included are not clear, although the contract is reported to be worth $20.4 billion. The Korean bid was reported to be $16 billion lower than the French bid.(*148)

The response from Areva to this failure was particularly vitriolic. The CEO , Anne Lauvergeon, blamed the extra safety features required by the European market, particularly the core-catcher and a steel-lined double concrete containment that the EPR includes, whereas the winning bid, the Korean APR-1400 has no core-catcher and a single steel containment structure. She seemed to propose that Areva could offer previous generation models (for example, the 1000MW design sold to China in 1980) for export to third world countries.(*149)

The Roussely Report
The French government belatedly realised that commercialisation of the EPR was going badly and in October 2009 commissioned a former CEO of EDF, Francois Roussely, to examine the French nuclear industry. His report was given added point by the failure to win the tender for the UAE in December 2009. This failure was widely seen in France as due to the lack of an integrated offer including engineering, construction, fuel and waste, as well as equipment supply. The report, ‘The Future of the French Civilian Nuclear Sector’ was published in July 2010.(*150)

Roussely identified two major problems:

• The credibility of the EPR had been seriously damaged by problems at Olkiluoto and Flamanville;

• The capacity factors [reliability] of reactors in France have deteriorated sharply whereas elsewhere in the world, these have improved significantly.

He makes 15 recommendations, 12 described as ‘structural’ and 3 as ‘emergency’. Most of the structural measures seem to be aimed at creating a ‘Team France’, which would ensure France could offer a unified and comprehensive package for export markets in emerging countries. He recommends that the extension of reactor operating life to 60 years is supported and that further optimisation of the EPR from the feedback of the four reactors under construction and of past achievements be carried out. This optimisation should be carried out jointly by EDF and Areva.

On the problems at Olkiluoto and Flamanville, he recommends only that these reactors be completed with a few delays and as little cost over-run as possible. Lessons from this should be fed back into the construction of the Penly unit and any units ordered for the UK. The issue of poor reliability does not appear to be addressed directly by any of the recommendations. He does recommend that a charter setting out the conditions of employment applicable to all employees of nuclear power in France be introduced and that the mission of the Agence Securité Nucleaire (ASN) be reviewed, but it is not clear how this would address the issue of poor availability.

Of most interest is his diagnosis of the problems with the EPR. He attributes the problems squarely to ‘complexity’:

‘The complexity of the EPR comes from design choices, notably of the power level, containment, core catcher and redundancy of systems. It is certainly a handicap for its construction, and its cost. These elements can partly explain the difficulties encountered in Finland or Flamanville.’

He recommends:

‘The EPR should therefore be further optimised based on feedback from reactors under construction and past achievements. This optimisation would be lead jointly by EDF and Areva, in conjunction with ASN, with a view to make the detailed design as safe [as the current design].’

This recommendation does not seem realistic. The EPR was designed over a long period with the specific objective of rationalising the features of earlier designs. To assume that it would be a simple and quick process to just go through the design again to simplify it seems totally unrealistic. This is well illustrated by the issue of the I&C system noted above, which, ironically, was seen as not having enough redundancy. This problem was first identified in 2008; yet more than two years later, a detailed solution to the problem still has not been presented to the regulators. Any redesign that was comprehensive enough to significantly reduce complexity and costs would almost certainly be so extensive as to require the regulators to make a very full re-evaluation of the design.

This was the case with the problems with the AP1000 in the USA. This design received generic approval from the US regulator in 2006; yet in 2008, the supplier, Toshiba/Westinghouse, put in extensive design revisions that the US regulator is not expected to be able to approve before 2012. If we assume that this process of rationalization could be done in two years starting in 2011 and the regulators took a further four years to assess the design, this would mean that the design would not be ready to order before about 2017/18, after the Penly unit in France is expected to be on-line and at about the same time as EDF is claiming it will have the first UK EPR on-line.

Roussely recommends that the international French nuclear offering be ‘diversified’ with a smaller design, the Atmea, that could be brought to market quickly as a design more suitable for markets that would struggle to accommodate a reactor as large as the EPR. The Areva-Mitsubishi joint venture to develop Atmea was first announced in 2007.(*151) Atmea was described as being Generation III (rather than III+). A company spokesman said Atmea would be based on ‘proven technologies’ with ‘no technical breakthroughs or revolutionary innovations’. The design was reportedly to be submitted to the French regulator, ASN, in June 2010.(*152) The target for ASN to complete its review by fall 2011 seems unrealistic. Designs of this size from Areva or Mitsubishi are now more than 30 years old and given new features such as a core catcher and aircraft crash protection, the design must be substantially new. This either suggests that a highly optimistic timetable has been adopted or that the ASN review will not be a full generic assessment. Realistically, the Atmea design is highly unlikely to be available to order for 4-5 years and it is far from clear who the customers might be. GDF-Suez has expressed interest in building one in France but given that France already has serious over-capacity in nuclear, this would make no sense. Other customers, such as Jordan, are still some way from placing an order and for a country with no nuclear experience to order a first-of-a-kind unproven design would be seen as a massive risk.

It is particularly interesting to note the things that Roussely is entirely silent on. He fails to mention the prohibitively high prices bid by Areva on Ontario and South Africa, about double what the relevant governments expected. He also says a great deal about the Atmea design but nothing about the Kerena design, a BWR design that Areva has been working on for about as long as it has been working on the Atmea. The Kerena design is one of the options if another nuclear reactor is built in Finland.

The question that Roussely should have but utterly fails to address is whether the EPR is salvageable. Given the difficulties at construction sites, dramatically soaring construction cost estimates and difficulties of getting generic safety approval, this is surely the question that begs to be asked. It may be that the consequences to France’s nuclear strategy if the answer is that it is not are so severe that the question is politically impossible for an inquiry commissioned by the French government.

The fallout from the Roussely report seems set to continue with efforts by the French government to create a ‘Team France’ and the two key companies, EDF and Areva jockeying for position. It was reported in September that EDF was being pressed to increase its direct stake in Areva from 2.4 per cent to 15 per cent.(*153) EDF was making clear its dissatisfaction with Areva. It was reported in September 2010 that EDF was contemplating a partnership with a Chinese nuclear vendor or a Russian nuclear vendor to offer their designs to South Africa(*154) and that EDF was planning to develop nuclear reactors of its own design in competition with Areva.(*155) Neither proposal seems realistic: the Chinese design is essentially a 1970s design imported from France, which in turn imported it from the USA; the history of the EPR suggests that the time taken from start of conceptual design to the point when the reactor could be ordered is likely to be in the order 10-15 years. A more likely explanation is that EDF is trying to ensure that in any new configuration for the French nuclear industry, it is very much in the lead.

Conclusions
The EPR design is in crisis.

• Construction has gone dramatically wrong at the two sites in Europe where it is being built;

• The prices it is being offered at are so high that all contests where the EPR has been bid have either been abandoned (South Africa and Canada) or the contract has gone to a much lower bid from a competitor (UAE);

• Potential markets such as USA, UK and Italy all look problematic and reactor orders, if placed at all, will be much later than expected

• The process of obtaining safety approval in France, UK and USA is incomplete and, even if successful, the features needed to achieve regulatory approval may add significantly to costs.

The two sites in Europe where EPR is under construction, Olkiluoto and Flamanville, have gone dramatically wrong from the start of construction. It might have been argued that the problems at Olkiluoto were due to the lack of experience of the utility and the inexperience of Areva NP in carrying out the architect engineering. However, the fact that EDF, the most experienced nuclear utility in the world seems to be doing no better at Flamanville suggests the main problems are more related to the buildability of the design itself than to specific issues at Olkiluoto.

The promise for Generation III+ plants that they would: ‘have the advantage of combining technology familiar to operators of current plants with vastly improved safety features and significant simplification is expected to result in lower and more predictable construction and operating costs’(*156) has clearly not been fulfilled. The Chief Executive of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, acknowledges: ‘the cost of nuclear reactors has "always" gone up with each generation, because the safety requirements are ever higher. "Safety has a cost,"’(*157). Francois Roussely, former CEO of EDF stated: ‘The resulting complexity of the EPR, arising from the choice of design, specifically the level of power, the containment, the core catcher and the redundancy of the security systems is certainly a handicap for its construction and therefore its cost.’(*158)

The intuitively plausible notion that a new generation of nuclear reactors, starting without a blank sheet of paper could easily come up with a more rational and cheaper, yet safer design of reactor has been shown to be an illusion by the lengthy and still incomplete process of gaining safety approval. The Finnish and French authorities’ decision to allow construction to start before full generic approval had been given looks particularly ill-judged

As early as 1995 and again in 1997, there were concerns about the cost of the EPR then expected to be US$2000/kW but when other vendors began to claim they could build plants for US$1000/kW, Framatome seems to have felt obliged to follow suit. While it did not claim US$1000/kW was possible, it did claim reactors could be built for less than US$1500/kW in 1998 and 2001, less than a quarter of the prices it is now offering a decade later. At US$6000/kW or more, it seems unlikely that EPR will be affordable except where huge public subsidies are offered and/or there is a strong likelihood of full cost recovery from consumers, no matter what the cost is.

As the reality of these high costs hits home, it is likely that even markets in which government support for new nuclear orders has been strongest, such as the USA and UK, will find it difficult to support the costs.

From a business point of view, the right course for EDF and Areva seems clear. They must cut their losses and abandon the EPR now. In the short-term this will require some painful write-offs, for example, of investments in the UK and the USA, but in the long-term, the losses will be much greater if they continue to try to make the EPR work. Areva’s main business is its reactor servicing and fuel activities and these would be little affected by the abandonment of the EPR. EDF already has too much nuclear generating capacity in France, so not ordering more reactors will save it from unnecessary capital expenditure at a time when it acknowledges its debts are too high.(*159)

However, from a political point of view, France has invested so much political and financial capital in being the world leader in nuclear technology, such a decision to abandon the design will be politically too painful until it becomes unavoidable. However, for the governments of countries like the USA and the UK, which have invested little political capital in the French nuclear dream, the sensible course is clear: stop all investment of public money in the doomed EPR technology.

---

Annex 1 Letter from Jukka Laaksonen to Anne Lauvergeon

December 9, 2008

Dear Mrs. Lauvergeon,

With this letter I want to express my great concern on the lack of progress in the design of Olkiluoto 3 NPP automation.

The construction of Olkiluoto 3 plant seems to proceed generally well but I cannot see real progress being made in the design of the control and protection systems. Without a proper design that meets the basic principles of nuclear safety, and is consistently and transparently derived from the concept presented as an annex to the construction license application, I see no possibility to approve these important systems for installation. This would mean that the construction will come to a halt and it is not possible to start commissioning tests.

I expressed my concern on this already in spring 2008, in a meeting with Mr. Xavier Jacob and TVO's management. After that Areva organised a workshop at professional level in Erlangen on April 23-25, 2008. The goal of the workshop was to clarify the open technical issues. I was told afterwards that it was a successful event where our concerns were conveyed to your experts and were well understood by them. It was especially encouraging to hear that after the workshop a group led by an expert of high repute, Dr. Graf, was given a task to make sure that the issues be addressed promptly.

Since then there have been several meetings among our experts but we have not seen expected progress in the work on Areva side. The systems with highest safety importance are to be designed by Areva NP SAS but unfortunately the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons who speak in the expert meetings on behalf of that organisation prevent to make progress in resolving the concerns. Therefore, evident design errors are not corrected and we are not receiving design documentation with adequate information and verifiable design requirements. This is unfortunate because I am convinced that within your organisation there is enough competence to resolve all open issues. I wonder how this competence is actually being used in this project and whether an input by Dr. Graf and his group has been actually utilised.

I sincerely hope you could initiate some action in this area, in order to ensure bringing the construction of Olkiluoto 3 to a successful end.

With my best regards, Jukka Laaksonen, Director General, STUK

---

Endnotes

 (*1) European Pressurised water Reactor or Evolutionary Pressurised water Reactor for the US market.

(*2) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva, Mitsubishi introduce mid-size 'Atmea 1' PWR design’ Sept 6, 2007, p 1.

(*3) Agence France Presse ‘France's EDF designs reactor to challenge Areva: report’ September 28, 2010.

(*4) Nuclear News ‘Joint Franco-German design partly unveiled’, Aug 1992, p 52.

(*5) Nucleonics Week ‘EPR basic design goes forward: EDF to build first unit by 2000’ Mar 2, 1995, p 5.

(*6) Nucleonics Week ‘France-German advanced reactor may be too expensive to buy’ Nov 16, 1995.

(*7) Nucleonics Week ‘EPR becoming 1,800-MW plant to meet competitive targets’ Aug 21, 1997, p 5.

(*8) Nucleonics Week ‘EPR design certification expected in mid-2000: interim opinion sooner’ Sept 13, 1999, p 11.

(*9) Inside NRC ‘Lacoste says licensing advanced PWR in France would take 2 to 3 years’ Dec 30, 2002.

(*10) Nuclear News ‘Siemens/Framatome nuclear merger completed’ Aug 2000, p 109.

(*11) Nuclear News, ‘Proposal for fifth reactor should fulfill licensing reqs’ Apr 2001, p 46.

(*12) Nucleonics Week ‘Westinghouse will sit out bid for single unit in Finland’ Nov 14, 2002, p 1.

(*13) Nucleonics Week ‘Framatome claim AP1000 couldn’t win Finnish bid on economics is denied’ Apr 10, 2003.

(*14) Nucleonics Week ‘ENEC says it considered designs with core catchers for new reactors’ January 28, 2010, p 1.

(*15) Inside NRC ‘French and Finnish EPRs will march to different regulatory drums’ Dec 13, 2004, p 10.

(*16) Nucleonics Week ‘STUK okays Olkiluoto-3, sets limit on initial fuel burnup’ Jan 27, 2005, p 1.

(*17) Nucleonics Week ‘EPR wins design approval from French government’ Oct 14, 2004, p 6.

(*18) Inside NRC ‘Areva ready for NRC to start design review process for EPR’ Feb 7, 2005, p 1.

(*19) Xinhua Economic News Service ‘China Focus: China, France sign 8-bln-Euro nuclear energy deal’ Nov 27, 2007.

(*20)TendersInfo ‘China : Shaw Signs Contract to Support Additional AP1000 Nuclear Power Plants in China’ August 22, 2010.

(*21) Nucleonics Week ‘Westinghouse may win China bid as Areva balks at tech transfer’ March 16, 2006, p 15.

(*22) Nucleonics Week ‘French consortium to submit bids to build two EPRs in South Africa’ Jan 24, 2008, p 5.

(*23) Nucleonics Week ‘Big cost hikes make vendors wary of releasing reactor cost estimates’ Sept 14, 2008.

(*24) Nucleonics Week ‘Eskom to build initial reactors, but long-term plan to be curtailed’ Nov 20, 2008.

(*25) Nucleonics Week ‘Eskom cancels tender for initial reactors’ Dec 11, 2008, p 1.

(*26) Nucleonics Week ‘AECL, Areva, Westinghouse submit bids for new reactors at Darlington’ Mar 5, 2009, p 3.

(*27) The Candu reactor uses heavy water as moderator rather than light water as in the PWR.

(*28) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva disputes EPR cost figure as Canadians grapple with risk issue’ Jul 23, 2009, p 1.

(*29) Nucleonics Week ‘UAE starts selection process for multi-unit nuclear program’ Feb 12, 2009, p 3.

(*30) Nucleonics Week ‘Three consortia submit bids to UAE to build new reactors’ Jul 9, 2009.

(*31) Nucleonics Week ‘Bidders said to be making last-ditch efforts to supply reactors to UAE’ December 10, 2009, p 1.

(*32) The US Department of Energy commissioned a cost study from the University of Chicago, which was published in 2004 and concluded that nuclear power was competitive with power from coal and natural gas. Office of nuclear energy, science and technology (2004) ‘University of Chicago: "Nuclear Power Competitive With Coal & Natural Gas"’ Press Release, September 20, 2004. http://nuclear.gov/home/09-20-04.html

(*33) http://nuclear.gov/home/11-21-03.html

(*34) Congressional Budget Office (2003) ‘Congressional Budget Office cost estimate: S14 Energy Policy Act of 2003’ Congressional Budget Office, Washington. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4206/s14.pdf

(*35) Up to $500 million each for the first two new nuclear reactors, and half of the overruns due to such delays (up to $250 million each) for the next four reactors. See http://www.ne.doe.gov/energypolicyact2005/neepact2a.html

(*36) http://www.irs.gov/irb/2006-18_IRB/ar07.html

(*37) http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2008/janqtr/pdf/10cfr609.2.pdf

(*38) http://lpo.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/NuclPowerSol7-11-08Amen...

(*39) Inside NRC ‘NRC extends US EPR design review by six months; COL delays not expected’ Mar 1, 2010, p 5.

(*40) Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, undated ‘Fact Sheet’. Accessed on Jan 27, 2009 at

http://www.constellation.com/vcmfiles/Constellation/Files/Press-Kit_Corp...

(*41) Nucleonics Week, 2008 ‘EDF to acquire nearly half of Constellation's nuclear business’ Dec 18, 2008, p 1.

(*42) Nucleonics Week, 2008 ‘In France, EDF/CEG deal draws fire, but seen as key to EPR series cost’ Dec 25, 2008.

(*43) Electric Utility Week, 2008 ‘Regulators back expansion of Calvert Cliffs, but environmentalists ask for preconditions’ Dec 1, 2008, p 28.

(*44) http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/calvert-cliffs/review-sched...

(*45) SNL Coal Report ‘Optimism fades to frustration on Constellation's nuclear expansion’ Aug 9, 2010.

(*46) http://shareholders-and-investors.edf.com/fichiers/fckeditor/Commun/Fina...

(*47) Washington Post ‘Constellation, EDF in purchase dispute’ September 25, 2010.

(*48) Baltimore Sun ‘Daily Briefing’ September 28, 2010.

(*49) International Herald Tribune ‘EDF partner sees impasse in plan for U.S. reactor: Cost of loan guarantee dooms joint project, Maryland utility says’ October 11, 2010, p 15

(*50) EDF (2010) ‘Constellation Energy Group, Inc’ Form SC 13D/A. Filed 10/28/10 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

(*51) Nucleonics Week, ‘Enel Targets 2020 for Operation of First Italian EPR Unit,’ Oct 8, 2009.

(*52) Nucleonics Week, ‘Milan Utility A2A Could Become Hub of AP1000 Consortium for Italy,’ Oct 22, 2009.

(*53) The Hindu, 2009. ‘Areva to sign MoU with NPCIL; to set up two reactors’ January 22, 2009. Accessed on

Jan 27, 2009 at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200901221224.htm

(*54) European Daily Electricity Markets ‘Penly project less certain after GDF SUEZ pullout’ September 24, 2010.

(*55) European Daily Electricity Markets ‘GDF SUEZ may seek partner for new French nuclear unit’ September 27, 2010.

(*56) The Telegraph-Journal ‘Alward to shelve Areva deal; Generation Premier-elect says he plans to put future nuclear plans with Areva on ice and concentrate on the ongoing completion of Point Lepreau power plant refurbishment’ September 29, 2010.

(*57) Project Director Martin Landtman stated: ‘The value of the whole Olkiluoto 3 investment including the Turn-key Contract is about EUR 3 billion in year 2003 money. No other figures are published’, personal communication, e-mail to Mycle Schneider, dated 8 Oct 2004.

(*58) Nucleonics Week, ‘EC probing claims Olkiluoto loan guarantees were state aid’, 26 Oct 2006.

(*59) Nucleonics Week, ‘Areva reveals 47% cost overrun on contract for Olkiluoto-3’, 5 Mar 2009, p 1.

(*60) Nucleonics Week, ‘Giant EPR said to be competitive: EDF to decide on order next year’, 6 Nov 1998, p 1.

(*61) Petroleum Economist, ‘France mulls nuclear future’, Mar 2001.

(*62) Nucleonics Week, ‘EPR safety approval won‘t last beyond 2002, regulator warns’, 6 Mar 1997.

(*63) Agence France Presse ‘Areva reports profit surge from sale of asset’, July 30, 2010.

(*64) Agence France Presse, ‘Setbacks plague Finland's French-built reactor’, 30 Jan 2009.

(*65) Nucleonics Week ‘Problems in getting information could delay review of Olkiluoto-3’ Apr 1, 2004, p 4.

(*66) Nucleonics Week, ‘Olkiluoto-3 base slab pour delay not expected to impact end date’ Oct 20, 2005, p 4.

(*67) Nucleonics Week ‘Construction of Olkiluoto-3 behind schedule’ Feb 2, 2006, p 1.

(*68) Nucleonics Week ‘STUK begins investigating construction delay at Olkiluoto-3’ Mar 2, 2006, p 8.

(*69) Nucleonics Week ‘Olkiluoto-3 containment liner set in place, but project still lags’ Mar 2, 2006, p 8.

(*70) Nucleonics Week ‘Host of problems caused delays at Olkiluoto-3, regulators say’ Jul 13, 2006, p 1.

(*71) Nucleonics Week ‘Olkiluoto-3 delays lower Areva nuclear profits by Eur 300 million’ Oct 5, 2006, p 4.

(*72) Nucleonics Week ‘Problems found with Olkiluoto-3 hot legs’ Oct 19, 2006, p 1.

(*73) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva puts star engineer in charge of Olkiluoto-3 project’ Nov 2, 2006.

(*74) Nucleonics Week ‘Olkiluoto-3 commercial date slips to late 2010 at earliest’ Dec 7, 2006, p 1.

(*75) Finnish Broadcasting Company TV news, 30 Jan 2007.

(*76) Nucleonics Week ‘Lack of complete design blamed for problems with Olkiluoto-3’ May 17, 2007, p 4.

(*77) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva: Plane crash requirements to delay Olkiluoto-3 construction’ Aug 16, 2007, p 1.

(*78) Nucleonics Week ‘Regulator requires repairs to welds on Olkiluoto-3 containment liner’ Sept 20, 2007, p 1.

(*79) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva, TVO at odds over resolution of Olkiluoto-3 cost overruns’ Sept 6, 2007 p 9.

(*80) Nucleonics Week ‘Second top TVO executive leaving Olkiluoto-3’ June 26, 2008, p 1.

(*81) Nucleonics Week ‘Target date for operating Olkiluoto-3 again delayed, this time until 2012’ Oct 23, 2008.

(*82) Nucleonics Week ‘STUK finds more problems with Olkiluoto-3 liner, forgings’ Nov 13, 2008, p 3.

(*83) Nucleonics Week ‘TVO CEO sees improved workflow, potential for problems at Olkiluoto-3’ Nov 20, 2008, p 11.

(*84) Nucleonics Week ‘Olkiluoto costs weigh on Areva 2008 profits; TVO rejects blame’ Dec 25, 2008, p 9.

(*85) Letter from Jukka Laaksonen to Anne Lauvergeon, Dec 9, 2008.

(*86) Nucleonics Week ‘TVO: Olkiluoto-3 operation delayed to June 2012’ Jan 15, 2009, p 1.

(*87) Nucleonics Week ‘Siemens' departure seen putting Areva under financial stress’ Jan 29, 2009, p 14.

(*88) Nucleonics Week ‘TVO: Olkiluoto-3 operation delayed to June 2012’ Jan 15, 2009, p 1.

(*89) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva reveals 47% cost overrun on contract for Olkiluoto-3’ Mar 5, 2009, p 1.

(*90) Nucleonics Week ‘Olkiluoto-3 arbitration could last 'several years,' TVO says’ Mar 19, 2009, p 9.

(*91) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva reveals 47% cost overrun on contract for Olkiluoto-3’ Mar 5, 2009, p 1.

(*92) TVO ‘Finland: Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant to start operation in 2013’ Press Release, June 7, 2010.

(*93) Business Wire ‘AREVA: Olkiluoto 3 project: nuclear operation to start end of 2012’ June 7, 2010.

(*94) Associated Press ‘Areva net profit soars despite new EPR charge’ July 30, 2010.

(*95) European Daily Electricity Markets ‘Embattled AREVA suffers ratings downgrade’ June 29, 2010.

(*96) Nucleonics Week, ‘EDF orders Flamanville-3 EPR NSSS, with startup targeted in 2012’, 5 Jan 2007, p 1.

(*97) Nucleonics Week, ‘Flamanville-3 concrete pour marks start of nuclear construction’ 6 Dec 2007, p 3.

(*98) Nucleonics Week, ‘EDF to build Flamanville-3, says first EPR competitive with CCGT’, 11 May 2006, p 1.

(*99) Nucleonics Week, ‘Concrete pouring at Flamanville-3 stopped after new problems found’, 29 May 2008, p 18.

(*100) Nucleonics Week, ‘EDF confirms target of starting up Flamanville-3 in 2012’, 20 Nov 2008, p 1.

(*101) Associated Press Worldstream, ‘EDF to lead up to euro50B in nuclear plant investment’, 4 Dec 2008.

(*102) Nucleonics Week, ‘Areva official says costs for new EPR rising, exceeding $6.5 billion’, 4 Sept 2008, p.1.

(*103) French Business Digest ‘Unions confirm 2-yr delay at EDF's nuclear project in N France – report’ Jan 21, 2010.

(*104) Agence France Presse ‘EDF announces 2-year delay, cost hike at new reactor’ July 30, 2010.

(*105) Le Figaro, October 27, 2010, p 17.

(*106) Nucleonics Week ‘EDF to build Flamanville-3, says first EPR competitive with CCGT’ May 11, 2006, p 1.

(*107) Nucleonics Week ‘Site preparation work for EPR at Flamanville gets under way’ July 13, 2006, p 9.

(*108) Nucleonics Week ‘Cost estimate for Flamanville-3 unchanged, EDF official says’ Sept 7, 2006, p 9.

(*109) Nucleonics Week ‘EDF orders Flamanville-3 EPR NSSS, with startup targeted in 2012’, Jan 25, 2007, p 1.

(*110) Nucleonics Week ‘On brink of election cycle, French government licenses EPR’ Apr 19, 2007, p 6.

(*111) Nucleonics Week ‘Flamanville-3 concrete pour marks start of nuclear construction’ Dec 6, 2007, p 3.

(*112) Nucleonics Week ‘ASN asks EDF to improve quality, organization at Flamanville-3’ Mar 27, 2008, p 1.

(*113) Nucleonics Week ‘Regulator seeks EDF's response to QA findings at Flamanville-3’ Apr 3, 2008, p 5.

(*114) Nucleonics Week ‘Concrete pouring at Flamanville-3 stopped after new problems found’ May 29, 2008, p 14.

(*115) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva tasked to prove quality of EPR forgings’ Oct 30, 2008 p 1.

(*116) Nucleonics Week ‘EDF: Flamanville-3 cost rise due to inflation, technical/regulatory changes’ Dec 11, 2008.

(*117) French Business Digest ‘Unions confirm 2-yr delay at EDF's nuclear project in N France – report’ Jan 21, 2010.

(*118) Agence France Presse ‘EDF announces 2-year delay, cost hike at new reactor’ July 30, 2010.

(*119) Nucleonics Week ‘ASN asks EDF to make changes to Flamanville-3 I&C system’ August 5, 2010, p 10.

(*120) Le Figaro, October 27, 2010, p 17.

(*121) European Daily Electricity Markets ‘EDF's past efforts pay off with two EPR deals sealed in China’, 15 Aug 2008.

(*122) South China Morning Post ‘Hold-ups in construction of Taishan nuclear power plant; Atomic plant first in China to use latest European technology’ July 31, 2010, p 3.

(*123) Health and Safety Executive (2010) ‘ New nuclear power stations Generic Design Assessment: Guidance on the management of GDA outcomes’ HSE, London.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/management-gda-outcomes.pdf

(*124) Inside NRC ‘Areva and Westinghouse unlikely to get 'clean' UK design reviews’ Sept 14, 2009.

(*125) http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q1-10.pdf

(*126) Nucleonics Week ‘UK reviews of AP1000 and EPR might not be fully closed by 2011’ June 24, 2010, p 1.

(*127) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva files application with NRC for certification of US-EPR design’ Dec 13, 2007, p 5.

(*128) Inside NRC ‘NRC extends US EPR design review by six months; COL delays not expected’ Mar 1, 2010, p 5.

(*129) http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q2-09.pdf

(*130) Health and Safety Executive (2009) ‘Joint Regulatory Position Statement on the EPR Pressurised Water Reactor’ HSE, London. http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2009/hse221009.htm

(*131) http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q2-10.pdf p 12.

(*132) Inside NRC ‘Areva must modify I&C for US-EPR design, says NRC’ July 5, 2010, p 3.

(*133) Inside NRC ‘I&C designs will differ for Finnish, French, UK and US EPRs’ July 5, 2010.

(*134) Nucleonics Week ‘Lauvergeon: French lost UAE bid because of expensive EPR safety features’ Jan 14, 2010, p 1.

(*135) Nucleonics Week ‘Atmea 1 design to be submitted to French regulators for safety review’ Apr 1, 2010, p 3. 25

(*136) Nucleonics Week ‘Giant EPR said to be competitive: EDF to decide on order next year’ Nov 6, 1998, p 1.

(*137) Nucleonics Week ‘Framatome offers turnkey plant as US nuclear competition entry’ Dec 20, 2001, p 1.

(*138) Nucleonics Week ‘Bids give TVO a range of choices for fifth Finnish reactor project’ Apr 3, 2003, p 1.

(*139) Nucleonics Week ‘French government study sees EPR at overnight cost of 1,043 euros/KW’ Sept 11,2003, p 7.

(*140) Nucleonics Week ‘EDF to build Flamanville-3, says first EPR competitive with CCGT’ May 11, 2006, p 1.

(*141) Nucleonics Week ‘Constellation sites 'reserved' for part of U.S. EPR fleet’ Sept 22, 2005, p 1.

(*142) Public Utilities Fortnightly ‘Financing New Nukes; Federal loan guarantees raise hopes for new reactors planned by affiliates of Constellation and NRG.’ February 2008, p 19.

(*143) Nucleonics Week ‘Loan guarantee sought for Calvert Cliffs-3’ Aug 7 2008, p 1.

(*144) Nucleonics Week “Eskom Gets Bids for Two EPRS, Three AP1000s, Bigger ‘Fleet,’” Feb 7, 2008.

(*145) Nucleonics Week ‘Big Cost Hikes Make Vendors Wary of Releasing Reactor Cost Estimates’ Sept 11, 2008.

(*146) Toronto Star ‘Nuclear Bid Rejected for 26 Billion: Ontario Ditched Plan for New Reactors over High Price Tag That Would Wipe Out 20-Year Budget’ July 14, 2009.

(*147) Korea Herald ‘Korea Wins Landmark Nuclear Deal’ Dec 28, 2009.

(*148) Right Vision News ‘UAE: Middle East Leads Rally in Nuclear Plant Orders’ Jan 12, 2010.

(*149) Nucleonics Week ‘French regulatory chief rejects idea of tailoring reactor safety to market’ Jan 21, 2010.

(*150) For an English translation, see http://www.psr.org/nuclear-bailout/resources/roussely-report-france-nucl... Quotes used are from this translation.

(*151) Nucleonics Week ‘Areva, Mitsubishi introduce mid-size 'Atmea 1' PWR design’ Sept 6, 2007, p 1.

(*152) Nuclear News ‘The safety of the Atmea1 reactor will be reviewed’ July 2010.

(*153) Agence France Presse ‘France pushes EDF to raise stake in Areva: report’ September 27, 2010.

(*154) http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE68E03220100915

(*155) Agence France Presse ‘France's EDF designs reactor to challenge Areva: report’ September 28, 2010.

(*156) http://nuclear.gov/home/11-21-03.html

(*157) Nucleonics Week, ‘Lauvergeon: French lost UAE bid because of expensive EPR safety features’ January 14, 2010, p 1.

(*158) http://www.psr.org/nuclear-bailout/resources/roussely-report-france-nucl...

(*159) For a detailed analysis of the business prospects for EDF and Areva, see S Thomas (2009) ‘Areva and EDF: Business prospects and risks in nuclear energy’ Greenpeace, Amsterdam. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/nuclear/Areva_EDF_Final.pdf  

Contact: Professor Steve Thomas, Business School, University of Greenwich, London, U.K. PSIRU (www.psiru.org),
Email: stephen.thomas@gre.ac.uk

A new study released today shows European leaders are being misled over the safety of underground nuclear waste disposal which could poison ground waters for centuries. The European Commission is due to publish a draft nuclear waste directive this autumn. The new report, 'Rock Solid? A scientific review of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste' by Helen Wallace for Greenpeace International examines the current state of scientific evidence regarding the geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level and long-lived radioactive wastes.

Deep disposal has dominated the research into the management of highly radioactive nuclear waste for over 30 years and is expected to be central to the directive. However, the European Commission has been misinformed of the dangers of deep disposal by its most critical advisors, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and European Implementing Geological Disposal Technology Platform (IGD-TP). Both claim that a scientific consensus has been reached and construction should proceed. However, there is evidence to suggest that this is biased and deep geological storage projects could have serious problems that have not been identified because of lack of resources and funding for independent scrutiny.

The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), which was founded in 1957 to promote the use of nuclear power in Europe, has been financing research in the area of geological disposal of high level radioactive waste for more than three decades and has provided considerable support to national research and development programs.

Worldwide, thirteen countries are actively pursuing long-term waste management programs for high-level radioactive wastes resulting from nuclear electricity generation, but no country has yet completed an operational geological disposal facility for such wastes.

The 2009 Euratom-funded Vision Document of the European Implementing Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste Technology Platform (IGD-TP) states that “a growing consensus exists” that deep disposal is the most appropriate solution to disposing of spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste and other long-lived radioactive wastes, and that it is time to proceed to licensing the construction and operation of deep geological repositories for radioactive waste disposal. This conclusion is supported by the 2009 report of the European Commission’s (EC’s) Joint Research Centre (JRC), which states that “our scientific understanding of the processes relevant for geological disposal has developed well enough to proceed with step-wise implementation”.

The IGD-TP Vision Document has been prepared by an Interim Executive Group with members from the nuclear waste management organizations SKB (Sweden), Posiva (Finland) and Andra (France) and the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). It adopts the vision that by 2025 the first geological disposal facilities for spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste and other long-lived radioactive waste will be operating safely in Europe. The Director of Energy (Euratom) for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research states in the Foreword:

These will not only be the first such facilities in Europe but also the first in the world. I am convinced that through this initiative, safe and responsible practices for the long-term management of hazardous radioactive waste can be disseminated to other Member States and even 3rd countries, thereby ensuring the greatest possible protection of all citizens and the environment both now and in the future.

The IGD-TP states that inherent in “all the successful outcomes to date in European nuclear waste management programs” are judgments that safe geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel, high level waste, and other long-lived radioactive waste is achievable: “In this context, the future RD&D [Research, Development and Demonstration] issues to be pursued, including their associated uncertainties, are not judged to bring the feasibility of disposal into question.” This statement reflects the view expressed by the Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC) of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) that “geological disposal is technically feasible” and that a “geological disposal system provides a unique level and duration of protection for high activity, long-lived radioactive waste”.

However, the OECD/NEA position is merely a collective statement, based on the views of the RWMC, not an analysis of the existing scientific evidence. Similarly, the IGD-TP report relies on a road map towards radioactive waste management developed by the European Nuclear Energy Forum, and includes no references to papers in scientific journals. The EC’s JRC report is largely a description of ongoing research projects; it cites only three papers published in academic journals (one of which dates from 1999) plus lists of background reports, largely published by the NEA and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and a few conference papers. The report makes no obvious links between these summaries of research activity and its conclusion that Europe is ready to proceed to implementation of deep geological disposal. In a rare example of a referenced claim, the JRC’s statement that corrosion of steel (and the generation of hydrogen gas by this process) will not compromise the safety of a repository is based solely on an unpublished note of a panel discussion held in Brussels in 2007. Further, the report falsely claims that repository programs in Germany and the UK have “(temporarily) foundered mainly for reasons of public acceptance”, rather than because of safety issues.

In contrast, the present report is based on a literature review of research on deep disposal published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. It provides an overview of the status of research and scientific evidence regarding the long-term underground storage of highly radioactive wastes, and asks whether this evidence supports the view that such wastes can be disposed of safely underground. It finds that significant scientific uncertainties remain and it accordingly questions whether strong conclusions in favor of deep disposal can be drawn until all the relevant issues have been addressed.

This review identifies a number of phenomena that could compromise the containment barriers, potentially leading to significant releases of radioactivity:

* Copper or steel canisters and overpacks containing spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive wastes could corrode more quickly than expected.

* The effects of intense heat generated by radioactive decay, and of chemical and physical disturbance due to corrosion, gas generation and biomineralisation, could impair the ability of backfill material to trap some radionuclides.

* Build-up of gas pressure in the repository, as a result of the corrosion of metals and/or the degradation of organic material, could damage the barriers and force fast routes for radionuclide escape through crystalline rock fractures or clay rock pores.

* Poorly understood chemical effects, such as the formation of colloids, could speed up the transport of some of the more radiotoxic elements such as plutonium.

* Unidentified fractures and faults, or poor understanding of how water and gas will flow through fractures and faults, could lead to the release of radionuclides in groundwater much faster than expected.

* Excavation of the repository will damage adjacent zones of rock and could thereby create fast routes for radionuclide escape.

* Future generations, seeking underground resources or storage facilities, might accidentally dig a shaft into the rock around the repository or a well into contaminated groundwater above it.

* Future glaciations could cause faulting of the rock, rupture of containers and penetration of surface waters or permafrost to the repository depth, leading to failure of the barriers and faster dissolution of the waste.

* Earthquakes could damage containers, backfill and the rock.

Although computer models of such phenomena have undoubtedly become more sophisticated, fundamental difficulties remain in predicting the relevant complex, coupled processes (including the effects of heat, mechanical deformation, microbes and coupled gas and water flow through fractured crystalline rocks or clay) over the long timescales necessary. In particular, more advanced understanding and modelling of chemical reactions is essential in order to evaluate the geochemical suitability of repository designs and sites.

The suitability of copper, steel and bentonite as materials for canisters, overpacks and backfill also needs to be reassessed in the light of developing understanding of corrosion mechanisms and the effects of heat and radiation.

Unless and until such difficulties can be resolved, a number of scenarios exist in which a significant release of radioactivity from a deep repository could occur, with serious implications for the health and safety of future generations. In this light, the existence in a number of countries of ‘road maps’ for the implementation of deep disposal, and the rejection of other options, do not automatically mean that deep disposal of highly radioactive wastes is safe.

At present, the following issues remain unresolved and have implications for policy development:

* the high likelihood of interpretative bias in the safety assessment process because of the lack of validation of models, the role of commercial interests and the pressure to implement existing road maps despite important gaps in knowledge. Lack of (funding for) independent scrutiny of data and assumptions can strongly influence the safety case

* lack of a clearly defined inventory of radioactive wastes, as a result of uncertainty about the quantities of additional waste that will be produced in new reactors, increasing radioactivity of waste due to the use of higher burn-up fuels, and ambiguous definitions of what is considered as waste

* the question of whether site selection and characterization processes can actually identify a large enough volume of rock with sufficiently favorable characteristics to contain the expected volume of wastes likely to be generated in a given country

* tension between the economic benefits offered to host communities and long-term repository safety, leading to a danger that concerns about safety and impacts on future generations may be sidelined by the prospect of economic incentives, new infrastructure or jobs. There is additional tension between endorsement of deep disposal as a potentially ‘least bad’ option for existing wastes, and nuclear industry claims that deep repositories provide a safe solution to waste disposal and so help to justify the construction of new reactors

* potential for significant radiological releases through a variety of mechanisms, involving the release of radioactive gas and/or water due to the failure of the near-field or far-field barriers, or both

* significant challenges in demonstrating the validity and predictive value of complex computer models over long timescales

* risk of significant escalation in repository costs.

Source: The report 'Rock Solid? A scientific review of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste', written by Helen Wallace for Greenpeace International is available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/press-centre/reports/rock-solid-a-scie...
Contact: Greenpeace EU Unit, Jan Haverkamp
Email: jan.haverkamp@greenpeace.org

After France's failure to win the contract for four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, president Sarkozy ordered a report on the French nuclear industry. The outline of the Roussely report (named after Francois Roussely, a former EDF-president), dated June 16, was made public –in French- by the Elysée Palace on 27 July 2010

In the report, author Francois Roussely recognizes the scale of problems facing the French nuclear industry: lack of export competitiveness, falling domestic load factor, delays and cost overruns in EPR construction projects.

French nuclear industry: disastrous economic and industrial results
The Roussely report recognizes the scale of the setbacks experienced by Areva and EDF at the EPR reactor construction sites in France and Finland: “the credibility of both the EPR model and the French nuclear industry's ability to build new reactors has been severely eroded by the difficulties encountered at the Finnish construction site of Olkiluoto and at the site of the third tranche of the Flamanville plant.” At fault is the “complexity of the EPR” which “without doubt hinders its construction and consequently impacts on its cost.”

By stating that “the nuclear industry must become sufficiently competitive to attract private investment”, Roussely admits that the nuclear industry has so far never been competitive nor economically efficient, in contrast with the claims made by Areva, the merchant of nuclear plants. Roussely points out the inadequate performance of the French nuclear reactors: “whereas global average nuclear plant availability has significantly increased during the last 15 years, nuclear plant availability in France has seen a marked decrease in the last few years.”

The failure of the EPR is such, according to Roussely, that “it is the credibility, and therefore the very existence” of the French nuclear industry which is at stake. In the face of this, Roussely uses all available means to recommend various equally outrageous “emergency measures”. 

Passing the cost onto the consumer and misuse of public funding
Roussely recommends “a moderate but regular increase of electricity tariffs, opening the way towards financing the renewal of nuclear installations”. Is nuclear power too costly? That's no problem, the consumer can pay. By becoming "regular", the tariff increase is unlikely to remain "moderate" for any length of time...

Roussely proposes the diversion of some of the funding available for renewable energy to benefit the nuclear industry.

The uranium used in nuclear plants is a finite mineral resource and is non-renewable: nuclear power is a fossil energy as much as oil and coal. Yet Roussely suggests “taking firm political action to ensure that all multilateral funds for renewable energy should also be available to the nuclear industry”.

Savings at the expense of safety
The Roussely report confirms a dangerous trend: the reduction of safety and security requirements in the face of economic constraints: “Continually increasing safety requirements cannot be the only rational way forward”. Roussely calls for the optimal realignment between safety requirements and economic constraints. This politically correct jargon means that safety requirements are governed by the industry’s criteria of profitability and profit. “Safety indeed, but only if we can afford it!”

Nuclear energy is not “attractive enough for private investment”, so the construction of new reactors is not a foregone conclusion. Roussely recommends an increase in the lifespan of French nuclear power stations to 60 years, when they were designed to operate for 30! The oldest French reactors have already experienced incidents far more numerous than the average across nuclear installations as a whole. To pretend they can operate for another 30 years is therefore a high-risk strategy, totally irresponsible. Several hundred million euros would be needed to repair each reactor, which would still be cheaper than the 5 billion required to (maybe) build an EPR. And how much would a major accident like Chernobyl cost, in euros and in human lives?

Given the economic constraints, Roussely gives little thought to the appalling working conditions of the 20,000 external workforce employed by 600 subcontracting firms. Last May, eight temporary workers were forced to go on strike at the CEA site at Carradache: they were not being paid and had to buy their own radioactive protection gear! Yet Roussely only proposes a working conditions “charter”, i.e. a non-binding list of commitments left to the goodwill of companies...

Gagging a cautious French Safety Authority
Roussely calls for a reduction in the scope of the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) in favor of the government: “the government must define a balanced modus vivendi with the ASN, it must re-establish a sovereignty which it shouldn't relinquish to an independent authority.”  This is clearly a way to reduce the small margin of autonomy available to the official organization controlling the nuclear industry.  

Although very muted, criticisms from the ASN remain an embarrassment for Areva and EDF: “events with very limited effects [i.e. incidents and design errors documented by the ASN] should not result in undeserved suspicion of [nuclear] technology as a whole.”

The Roussely report confirms the fact that the government sees the ASN as a useful alibi, a tool to “reassure” the population. Does the French Safety Authority only have authority in name?

Making nuclear waste acceptable to the public
Roussely admits that “public acceptance [...] is an essential condition for developing the civilian nuclear industry”. Roussely points out that “[nuclear waste] is the most convincing argument against nuclear power for 60 to 70% of French people”.  

Yet there is no solution to the serious problem of nuclear waste, some of which remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. Roussely lets slip a telling confession: “a list of realistic specifications” is yet to be drawn up for the nuclear waste burial site at Bure, due to become operational in 2015. So Roussely admits in veiled terms that all the fine words uttered for years by the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency ANDRA are not “realistic”.

Thus, one shall not be surprised that Roussely is panicking to such an extent that he addresses all the industry's players: “It is now essential that ANDRA determines as a matter of urgency the detailed operational plans being set up for 2015 in relation to the deep disposal centre. To achieve this, it is proposed that ANDRA urgently involves EDF, AREVA and the CEA (French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission) in defining the best possible specifications for the deep disposal center and its completion.”

An English translation of the published summary of the Roussely report is available at: http://www.psr.org/nuclear-bailout/resources/roussely-report-france-nucl...

Source and contact: Sortir du nucleaire, 9, rue  Dumenge, 69317 Lyon Cedex 04, France.
Email: contact@sortirdunucleaire.fr
Web: www.sortirdunucleaire.org

On April 29, the European Commission released its Europeans and Nuclear Safety Eurobarometer report. The report attempts to measure EU citizen’s attitudes to nuclear power. It makes for very interesting reading indeed.

In the 2006 report, 62% of EU citizens people thought that nuclear power could help combat climate change. That number has plummeted to 46%. The number of people who answered ‘don’t know’ has risen in France, Spain, Finland, UK, Belgium, Luxemburg, Ireland, Estona, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Malta and Cyprus. France, UK and Finland are at the heart of the faltering nuclear ‘renaissance’.

• In Bulgaria, Germany, France and Romania the number of people who think nuclear reactors can be run safely has fallen. The number of EU citizens that want to increase nuclear in the energy mix increased from 14% in 2006 to 17% now but ‘Europeans still do not consider nuclear energy as an option to tackle the energy supply/use challenges faced by developed societies.’
• EU citizens ‘consider that the current share of nuclear energy in the energy mix should be maintained or reduced’. Not, you’ll notice, increase.
• ‘Lack of security to protect NPPs against terrorist attacks and the disposal and management of radioactive waste remain the major dangers associated with nuclear energy’
• 'Citizens would like to know more about radioactive waste management and environmental monitoring procedures.'

Bear this in mind, however. The report is produced against the background of the European Commission launching the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF), in 2007. It is promoted as ‘a platform aiming to promote broad discussion, free of any taboos, on issues of transparency as well as the opportunities and risks of nuclear energy’.

So interested is the nuclear-industry dominated ENEF in ‘broad discussion’, breaking ‘taboos’ as well as discussing the ‘transparency‘, ‘opportunities’ and ‘risks’ of nuclear power that Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Sortir du Nucléaire pulled out of the body ‘accusing ENEF of stifling critical voices, ignoring their concerns and riding roughshod over alternative scientific evidence.’

(thanks to www.greenpeace.org)

The full report (6,6 MB) is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/nuclear/safety/doc/2010_eurobarometer_safety.pdf

 

 

A new IPFM report is now available - "Global Fissile Material Report 2009: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament". The report by the International Panel on Fissile Materials charts some of the key technical and policy steps for securing verifiable world-wide nuclear disarmament and eliminating the world's huge stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the key materials for making nuclear weapons.

Global Fissile Material Report 2009 discusses, in particular, how nuclear-armed states could declare their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, plutonium and highly enriched uranium, and how these declarations might be verified using the methods and tools being developed for what is now called 'nuclear archaeology.'

The report includes IPFM's annual assessment of worldwide stocks, production, and disposition of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and current efforts to eliminate these materials. The report includes for the first time an estimate of the number and locations of nuclear weapons sites worldwide, listed by country.

The IPFM estimates that the current global stockpile of highly enriched uranium is about 1600 metric tons. There are about 500 tons of separated plutonium, divided almost equally between weapon and civilian stocks, but it is all weapon-usable. The global stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium together are sufficient for over one hundred thousand nuclear weapons. The report lists the location, size and safeguards status of operating, under construction and planned fissile material production facilities around the world.

The report considers options for monitoring nuclear warhead dismantlement and the disposition of the fissile materials they contain as well as other stockpiles of fissile materials; verifiably ending the production of fissile materials for weapons, through a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (a topic treated in detail in Global Fissile Material Report 2008); the potential roles of nuclear fuel-cycle facilities in enabling nuclear breakout in a disarmed world; and

the potential contributions of societal or citizen verification to making it impossible to conceal illicit nuclear-weapon-related activities.

The report is available on line at www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/gfmr09.pdf

Source and contact: International Panel on Fissile Materials. Princeton University, 221 Nassau Street, 2nd Floor, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA
Tel: +1-609-258-4677
Email: contact@fissilematerials.org
Web: www.fissilematerials.org