Sweden: Barsebaeck-1 closed, but replacement electricity is also nuclear.
(December 10, 1999) On November 30, after years of uncertainty, the first unit of the Barsebaeck reactor was shut down. It is the first reactor which is shut down as a result of the 1980(!) referendum to phase out nuclear power before 2010. On November 29, the Swedish Supreme Court denied a final appeal of the Barsebaeck operator Sydkraft to postpone the shutdown pending a decision by the European Commission, which the company had asked to review the case. It is very unlikely that the reactor, in case the EC decides that forced closure intervenes with EU competition rules, will be restarted. AP, 29 November / Press release, Critical Shareholders (Germany), 30 November 1999
Israel: minutes released from Vanunu trial. A decision to release the minutes of the Mordechai Vanunu trial is being seen by experts both in Israel and abroad as a change in Israel's nuclear policy. So far Israel never said it has nuclear weapons, it only said that it "will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East". The decision to release the minutes is seen as a step closer to a first declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons. However, there is also severe criticism about the decision, especially from the defense establishment and from the atomic energy committee, as well as a variety of security experts, who called the publication decision an error.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former employee at the Dimona nuclear research center, had passed on information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British weekly The Sunday Times. He was kidnapped by the Israel secret service and convicted of treason and espionage and sentenced to 18 years in prison in a closed-door trial.
Before releasing the minutes, information was deleted about the nuclear complex Dimona, operational details and the circumstances of Vanunu's kidnapping. The state attorneys office decided to give the 1,200-page trial minutes exclusively to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, a decision which aroused great criticism on the part of other media outlets. Ha'aretz(Israel), 25 November 1999
Drigg: bill to remove Pu from low-level dump. The cost of moving plutonium-contaminated waste from the low-level dump at Drigg (near Sellafield, UK) to Sellafield could be GBP40 million (US$ 65,7 million) the operators, British Nuclear Fuels, has announced. The company has been under pressure from local residents to move the waste from Drigg, which is not licensed for intermediate waste with plutonium contamination. BNFL says it is unlikely to meet the original 2001 target date and it could be 2006 before the waste is removed to Sellafield.N-BASE BRIEFING, 16 November 1999
US resettlement agreement for people of Rongelap. The United States Congress has ratified certain provisions of the resettlement agreement for the people of Rogelap Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. The agreement covers US assistance in the resettlement of the Rongelapese, which was concluded between the US Department of Interior and the local government of Rongelap Atoll. It was accepted by the US secretary of interior on behalf of President Clinton on September 19, 1996, and will continue to be in effect following the adoption of the Rongelap Resettlement Act by the Congress. The agreement would be extended by 10 years.
It provides and oversees the use of federal assistance in resettling the people of Rongelap who were displaced from their island as a result of the US nuclear testing programs in the Marshall Islands in the 1950s. It also allows the local government to continue using a portion of the earnings from the Rongelap Resettlement Trust Fund to provide food and shelter to Rongelapese during their period of dislocation and also cover certain administration expenses.
Rongelap is one of the four atolls in the Marshall Islands, which were seriously contaminated by high level radiation due to nuclear testing during the time the islands were administered as a trust territory by the US. Twenty of twenty-two atolls were affected by fallout. The total estimated cost for radiological rehabilitation of Rongelap Atoll and resettlement of the Rongelap community was estimated in 1995 at approximately US$90 million. Pacific News Bulletin, November 1999
UK: Aldermaston operators get bad news. Hunting-Brae, the operator of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, is to be taken to court by the Environment Agency for unauthorized discharges of water contaminated with tritium in February, and failing to report the incident to the agency. There are also reports that the operator's contract to run the nuclear weapons plant for the UK government is not be renewed when it comes up for renewal in April 2000. A consortium of British Nuclear Fuels and American defense firm Lockheed Martin are reported to be in line to takeover the running of the complex. N-BASE BRIEFING, 27 November 1999
Australia: first spent fuel shipment to La Hague. On November 27, a first shipment with spent fuel from the Lucas Heights test reactor in Sydney, left the harbor of Port Botany after a one-hour standoff with anti nuclear activists. A total of 14 Greenpeace demonstrators were arrested. The shipment (with the French registered ship, the Bougenais) is heading for the reprocessing complex at La Hague, France. It is the first shipment under a newly signed contract with Cogema and the fourth in total (and the largest so far) since 1963. According to the contract, 1,300 elements of spent highly enriched uranium fuel from the Lucas eight reactor in Australia are to be reprocessed at Cogema's La Hague plant. At one time the Scottish reprocessing plant at Dounreay was very hopeful of getting the contract for this work, and did reprocess 114 elements from Lucas Heights in 1996 and another 500 went to America for storage. However, accidents and safety concerns at Dounreay shut the reprocessing plants and the UK government stopped all new commercial contracts, forcing the Australian nuclear authorities to turn to France as a way of solving its serious storage problems for spent fuel at the Lucas Heights plant.N-Base Briefing, 21 November 1999 / AAP, 27 November 1999
Finnish electricity consumers to pay for extended operation of old Russian reactors? On September 21, 1999, the Commission on Operative Management of the Russian government charged the State Committee on Nuclear Inspection and the Ministry of Nuclear Power Engineering to develop standards which would prolong the operation of the oldest reactors. It is supposed to extend the operating lifetime by 10 to 15 years the life of reactors at the Leningrad and Kola nuclear power plants. The RBMK1000 and VVER230 reactors started in the first half of the 1970s.
Besides that, it is proposed to conclude construction of new nuclear reactors.
To find finances for these works, it is proposed:
- to include the investment component in the tariff of electricity from nuclear power plants; and
- to use money from selling electricity to Finland (contract with Imatran Voima) for these purposes.
Thus, all who use electricity in Finland and northwest Russia would become investors of nuclear projects. Baltic News, 20 November 1999
DU in Kosovo/Serbia. The US military is claiming it lost count of depleted uranium shells fired in Kosovo. American aircraft used so much DU ammunition during the NATO bombardments in Serbia that US officials are now claiming that they have no idea how many locations may be contaminated by the radioactive dust left behind by their weapons. This statement is hard to believe, according to European bomb disposal officers. What is known is that DU was used by A-10 "tankbuster" aircraft for more than a month in at least 40 locations in Kosovo. Independent (UK), 22 November 1999
Delta Lloyd withdraws investment from Czech reactor Temelin. On November 18, the Dutch international insurance company Delta Lloyd decided to cancel their investment in the Czech electricity company CEZ, responsible for building the highly-controversial Temelin nuclear power plant. WISE International, asked to do so by WISE Brno, informed Delta Lloyd about the international criticism of the construction of the nuclear plant and the possibility of (Dutch and international) agitations against the company as a result of the investments. The pressure build up during a mere two phone-calls and one personal conversation was enough; the company sells its share capital in CEZ because, as they say it, "our societal responsibility prevails".
This positive example strengthens WISE and other antinuclear groups around the globe in their attempt to watch closely the investment policy of (Dutch) companies in foreign countries. Press release WISE International, 19 November 1999
Court case against WISE International postponed; transport license Dodewaard not valid. In an unexpected ruling the Dutch High Court decided that the license for the transport of the last amount of Dodewaard spent fuel is not valid! The closed Dodewaard reactor is in big trouble now; applying for a new license will take at least 3 months and, if environmental groups or others challenge the license application, can even take up to 16 months. Dodewaard has to ship the last 4 tons of spent fuel to the reprocessing plant in Sellafield before the end of the year 2000 - otherwise their general license runs out. This could lead to a large delay in the dismantling schedule.
Environmental groups welcome the decision of the High Court because it gives new opportunities to discuss the reprocessing contracts and the rationality of reprocessing. The ruling of the High Court and the problems of Dodewaard immediately led to reaction in Parliament where, and this is new and hopeful, even the biggest opposition party the Christian-Democrats (CDA), expressed their will to discuss the reprocessing contracts, not only of Dodewaard but also the contracts between the still-running Borssele reactor and La Hague (France). Although not a member of the governmental coalition of three parties the position of the CDA is crucial; they have been supporting reprocessing over the last decades and can make the difference in getting a majority for the step to dissolve the contracts.
As a direct result of the High Court ruling GKN (operator of Dodewaard) and BNFL (owner reprocessing facility Sellafield) decided to at least postpone the court case against WISE International and Greenpeace Netherlands. As they don't have legal permission to transport the spent fuel they now first have to apply for a new license. In the meantime the discussion on reprocessing will take place, the debate in parliament is expected in January next year.
In the last weeks WISE International received loads of support from all over the globe and, more important for the court-case itself, from Dutch organizations expressing their will to take over the action in case WISE is forbidden to do so. Press release WISE International, 8 December 1999
The Netherlands: no money for K2/R4. Early December, the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament accepted a motion which requests the government not to support financing of K2/R4 reactors in the Ukraine by the EBRD. This motion was proposed by the Social-Democrats, Green Left, Christian Democrats, and Conservatives (which is already quite special). The motion was approved last week unanimously.
One interesting aspect is that the motion is partly based on the evaluation of the K2R4 EIA done by the Dutch EIA Commission (a highly respected independent institution evaluating EIAs, which also did some good work concerning the Chad Carmeroon pipeline project). The evaluation report is now available in English at www.eia.nl/e-info/fr-info.htm Email Huub Scheele, 8 December 1999