Following last nights earthquake in Cumbria - just one of the increasingly frequent earthquakes to hit this area, our Cumbrian councillors should think again about their support for new nuclear build and the geological disposal of high level nuclear wastes. Earthquakes and nuclear power are not happy bedfellows with the need to retain radioactive releases compromised in unpredictable ways.
Even if this region had experienced no earthquakes at all, the Nirex inquiry of 1995 found the whole region to be too geologically unpredictable for the 'disposal' of high level nuclear wastes.
The following is an extract from an email sent by Professor David Smythe (employed by Nirex in 1995) to Allerdale and Copeland Borough Council which describes Nirex's remit- which was to explore the whole of West Cumbria.
"The REGION studied extends from north of Workington to south of Barrow, inland to Ulverston and halfway to Keswick, and offshore northwest and southwest for between 15 and 50 km. The DISTRICT is defined as Whitehaven down to Ravenglass, inland about 10 km, and offshore about the same distance".
Extract from recent email to Allerdale and Copeland Borough Council from Prof David Smythe
"Maps presented by Dr Robert Chaplow of Nirex to the Planning Inquiry in 1995, defining the scope of the £400M Nirex investigations. The site selection supposedly homed in, like opening up a set of
Russian matryochka dolls, as follows:
The REGION studied extends from north of Workington to south of Barrow, inland to Ulverston and halfway to Keswick, and offshore northwest and southwest for between 15 and 50 km.
The DISTRICT is defined as Whitehaven down to Ravenglass, inland about 10 km, and offshore about the same distance.
The SITE is a rectangle of about 55 sq km centred on Longlands Farm, including the Sellafield Works, Seascale and Gosforth. The POTENTIAL REPOSITORY ZONE comprises the 2 sq km or so of Longlands Farm.
So when the Planning Inspector deems the REGION to be unsuitable, he evidently means, using Nirex's own definition, the whole of West Cumbria, not just the PRZ. Since Longlands Farm was presented as the best site within the whole REGION, and £400M was spent in support, the bad science is in seeking to return to the REGION and waste yet more public money".
Professor David Smythe
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Friday, 17 December 2010
The government isn’t telling us the true cost of nuclear waste disposal
Dr Paul Dorfman
13th December, 2010
UK plans for ten new nuclear power plants will create £80 billion worth of radioactive waste that we still have no secure way of disposing
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the nuclear industry have a plan for 10 new ‘Generation 3’ reactors, each one containing 2.5 times the radiological inventory of the UK’s biggest AGR reactor at Sizewell B. In a recent Ministerial statement, Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for DECC made it clear that the Coalition is not ruling out taking on unspecified nuclear ‘financial risks or liabilities’ to make this happen. Given the sheer weight of our current nuclear legacy, its' clear that this will also involve nuclear waste ‘financial risks or liabilities’.
The most recent estimates are that, once ‘packaged’, the UK already has around 1,420 cubic metres of hot high-level radioactive waste, 364,000 cubic metres of long lived intermediate-level radioactive waste, and 3,470,000 cubic metres of toxic low-level radioactive waste. The Government proposes to house the high and intermediate part of this vast inventory in a deep hole five times the size of the Albert Hall over millennia. Government officials estimate that the cost of managing this waste and decommissioning will be around £80 billion and rising – five years ago it was around £50 billion. There are no secure estimates for costing a deep disposal repository.
Waste will be five times more radioactive
And this is just what we have at the moment. Although the nuclear industry estimate that any new build radioactive waste would increase the problem by only 10 per cent in volume - they fail to mention that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has worked out that the radioactivity would increase by five times, which means that we would need 15 Albert Halls to house the waste.
Steve Thomas, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Greenwich Business School, suggests that the liberalisation of the energy market in Europe has pressured the nuclear industry to become more competitive. The industry realised that a decrease in cost could be achieved if the reactor’s power could be increased, and this could happen by using more enriched uranium as reactor fuel. The logic is that this ‘super-charged’ fuel will be left in the reactor for longer in order to provide, as Jeremy Clarkson might say, ‘more power’.
Unfortunately, the Law of Unintended Consequences also means that this ‘high burn-up’ spent fuel is twice as radioactive than conventional spent fuel, and the reactor operations will have a much tighter safety margin. This is because high burn-up fuel is much hotter, much more radioactive, and performs very poorly when subject to ‘abnormal conditions’. John Large, an international consulting nuclear engineer, notes that ‘These risks persist through the nuclear cycle, as high burn-up fuel is liable to release a much higher content of its fission product inventory, known as the ‘immediate release fraction’, than fuel used in current reactors. And the situation isn’t being helped by the nuclear industries heroic safety claims: AREVA EdF’s ‘worst case’ estimate - including terrorist attack – insist that no more than 0.2 per cent of the reactor core content would be released during ‘open containment’ in ‘abnormal conditions’.
But surely things are better elsewhere? Well, not really. Although the deep geological concept is in the very early stage of testing in Finland and Sweden - in the US, Obama has withdrawn funding from the Yucca Mountain geological radioactive waste dump, saying that ‘After spending billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain Project, there are still significant questions about whether nuclear waste can be safely stored there’. In Japan and Germany, proposals for deep disposal facilities have encountered strong opposition, and in France, 15 years of research on deep underground burial has proved ‘inconclusive’.
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/691982/the_government_isnt_telling_us_the_true_cost_of_nuclear_waste_disposal.html
13th December, 2010
UK plans for ten new nuclear power plants will create £80 billion worth of radioactive waste that we still have no secure way of disposing
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the nuclear industry have a plan for 10 new ‘Generation 3’ reactors, each one containing 2.5 times the radiological inventory of the UK’s biggest AGR reactor at Sizewell B. In a recent Ministerial statement, Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for DECC made it clear that the Coalition is not ruling out taking on unspecified nuclear ‘financial risks or liabilities’ to make this happen. Given the sheer weight of our current nuclear legacy, its' clear that this will also involve nuclear waste ‘financial risks or liabilities’.
The most recent estimates are that, once ‘packaged’, the UK already has around 1,420 cubic metres of hot high-level radioactive waste, 364,000 cubic metres of long lived intermediate-level radioactive waste, and 3,470,000 cubic metres of toxic low-level radioactive waste. The Government proposes to house the high and intermediate part of this vast inventory in a deep hole five times the size of the Albert Hall over millennia. Government officials estimate that the cost of managing this waste and decommissioning will be around £80 billion and rising – five years ago it was around £50 billion. There are no secure estimates for costing a deep disposal repository.
Waste will be five times more radioactive
And this is just what we have at the moment. Although the nuclear industry estimate that any new build radioactive waste would increase the problem by only 10 per cent in volume - they fail to mention that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has worked out that the radioactivity would increase by five times, which means that we would need 15 Albert Halls to house the waste.
Steve Thomas, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Greenwich Business School, suggests that the liberalisation of the energy market in Europe has pressured the nuclear industry to become more competitive. The industry realised that a decrease in cost could be achieved if the reactor’s power could be increased, and this could happen by using more enriched uranium as reactor fuel. The logic is that this ‘super-charged’ fuel will be left in the reactor for longer in order to provide, as Jeremy Clarkson might say, ‘more power’.
Unfortunately, the Law of Unintended Consequences also means that this ‘high burn-up’ spent fuel is twice as radioactive than conventional spent fuel, and the reactor operations will have a much tighter safety margin. This is because high burn-up fuel is much hotter, much more radioactive, and performs very poorly when subject to ‘abnormal conditions’. John Large, an international consulting nuclear engineer, notes that ‘These risks persist through the nuclear cycle, as high burn-up fuel is liable to release a much higher content of its fission product inventory, known as the ‘immediate release fraction’, than fuel used in current reactors. And the situation isn’t being helped by the nuclear industries heroic safety claims: AREVA EdF’s ‘worst case’ estimate - including terrorist attack – insist that no more than 0.2 per cent of the reactor core content would be released during ‘open containment’ in ‘abnormal conditions’.
But surely things are better elsewhere? Well, not really. Although the deep geological concept is in the very early stage of testing in Finland and Sweden - in the US, Obama has withdrawn funding from the Yucca Mountain geological radioactive waste dump, saying that ‘After spending billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain Project, there are still significant questions about whether nuclear waste can be safely stored there’. In Japan and Germany, proposals for deep disposal facilities have encountered strong opposition, and in France, 15 years of research on deep underground burial has proved ‘inconclusive’.
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/691982/the_government_isnt_telling_us_the_true_cost_of_nuclear_waste_disposal.html
Backdoor Subsidies Introduced to prop up Nuclear Power
The coalition government has torn up its “no subsidy for nuclear” commitment with a series of measures aimed at financially supporting the construction of new nuclear power stations.
Today’s announcement by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne on “electricity market reform” includes a range of mechanisms aimed at making low carbon sources of electricity more economic in comparison to polluting fossil fuels like coal and gas. But while generators of carbon-free renewable electricity will no doubt be pleased, the nuclear industry will be celebrating a successful lobbying exercise.
“Private companies like EdF have already said that they can’t build nuclear power stations without additional financial incentives,” said Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey. “These new measures are aimed at helping them make a profit from a technology that carries massive future liabilities, including dealing with dangerous radioactive waste for up to 160 years."
The pro-government Daily Telegraph newspaper describes the measures unequivocally as a subsidy for nuclear. “Years of lobbying by nuclear companies has finally paid off as the Government will today reveal plans to subsidise the price that they are paid for generating electricity”, it concludes .
The fragile economics of nuclear power are already on the line as the first European Pressurised Reactor being built - the type proposed for Hinkley C – has doubled its initial cost estimate to 5.7 billion Euros.
Nuclear power has been covertly subsidised for many years in two obvious ways - through taxpayer support for its decommissioning and waste disposal costs and through the limit set on its liability in the event of a serious accident. These new proposals will increase electricity bills - by as much as £500 a year according to one estimate - in order to help pay for nuclear new build.
The changes to the electricity market proposed today still have to be agreed by parliament and squared with European legislation, so there are opportunities for their bias towards nuclear to be exposed and ruled out of order.
Stop Hinkley will be supporting national action to push nuclear power out of the “clean energy” basket and expose it as a diversion from a genuinely green future involving energy saving and a range of renewable sources.
http://www.stophinkley.org/
Today’s announcement by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne on “electricity market reform” includes a range of mechanisms aimed at making low carbon sources of electricity more economic in comparison to polluting fossil fuels like coal and gas. But while generators of carbon-free renewable electricity will no doubt be pleased, the nuclear industry will be celebrating a successful lobbying exercise.
“Private companies like EdF have already said that they can’t build nuclear power stations without additional financial incentives,” said Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey. “These new measures are aimed at helping them make a profit from a technology that carries massive future liabilities, including dealing with dangerous radioactive waste for up to 160 years."
The pro-government Daily Telegraph newspaper describes the measures unequivocally as a subsidy for nuclear. “Years of lobbying by nuclear companies has finally paid off as the Government will today reveal plans to subsidise the price that they are paid for generating electricity”, it concludes .
The fragile economics of nuclear power are already on the line as the first European Pressurised Reactor being built - the type proposed for Hinkley C – has doubled its initial cost estimate to 5.7 billion Euros.
Nuclear power has been covertly subsidised for many years in two obvious ways - through taxpayer support for its decommissioning and waste disposal costs and through the limit set on its liability in the event of a serious accident. These new proposals will increase electricity bills - by as much as £500 a year according to one estimate - in order to help pay for nuclear new build.
The changes to the electricity market proposed today still have to be agreed by parliament and squared with European legislation, so there are opportunities for their bias towards nuclear to be exposed and ruled out of order.
Stop Hinkley will be supporting national action to push nuclear power out of the “clean energy” basket and expose it as a diversion from a genuinely green future involving energy saving and a range of renewable sources.
http://www.stophinkley.org/
Monday, 13 December 2010
Don’t nuke our climate!
As part of an international day of action THOUSAND OF CANCUNS FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE, called by the International peasant farmers network La Via Campesina, we targeted European institutions and corporations which support, fund and push the idea of nuclear energy as clean, renewable and possible solution for climate crisis.
Our message is simple: nuclear power is unsustainable and unacceptably dangerous.
Watch the action movie now on youtube.
Why nuclear?
Nuclear energy is promoted as a clean technology but the mining of uranium has massive social and environmental impacts and the problem of safe nuclear waste disposal is yet to be solved. We are being locked into an uncertain future where they will have to shoulder the burden of this false solution. Besides that, we are leaving an extremely toxic and unsafe waste heritage to future generations (40000 generations!!!) and in the same time we have been ignoring the real solutions that will assure safe and sustainable future.
http://www.cancun-brussels.org/?p=115
http://www.youtube.com/user/YFriendsOfTheEarth#p/a/u/0/IFaq8ibel-U
Thursday, 9 December 2010
A cry from the heart about the destruction caused by nuclear new build
" Dear Sirs
I will be as brief as I can be in telling a complex story that I hope you will consider worth pursuing on any one of the issues that arise from it.
I will not pretend that I am writing exclusively to you; rather, I am writing to all and sundry on behalf of the small hamlets of Shurton, Burton and Wick and by extension, every hamlet in the country in the hope that, as one neighbour put it, “we might find ourselves to be rather more than a few voices crying in the wilderness of injustice that EDF are currently proposing to create”.
This area of West Somerset is unassuming, virtually unknown and simply, magically beautiful apart from the two nuclear power stations that squat on the coast. A third is proposed, not least because the population already lives with the first two. The early stages of EdF’s proposals were not resisted, partly because people felt that they had no choice and that the new station would be like the first two. It was thought that local benefits might accrue to the host parish and the county, but as the true extent of the development and the crushing, barely mitigated impact on the locality was revealed, the residents have turned from resignation and acceptance to horror and antipathy.
Much of the blame for this can be laid at EdF’s door. The consultation process has failed to give the detail an informed response requires and it has ignored local feedback (as all the official responses from Local Government confirm). The company has resisted all efforts made by local people to engage with them at anything other than the most superficial level. The company’s representatives do this with consummate charm and very sophisticated PR support but nobody is fooled that any real modification to the company’s original scheme is contemplated.
In effect, these three small hamlets on the southern boundary of the proposed development will be crushed. Their way of life will vanish over-night and for ten years or more they will be marooned in a noisy, dusty, polluted and spot-lit industrial wasteland, with little more than the qualified offer of double-glazing to off-set the damage, all for the sake of what the IPC may identify as “over-riding public interest”.
It is not just us. The rest of the county will suffer as well to a lesser but still damaging degree. Whitehall is watching. We are the first in the country; what happens here will happen everywhere that new nuclear power stations are proposed. If we - few in number, far from wealthy, and without spheres of influence - cannot make our voices heard, other communities will be compromised from the outset.
Now, before the main submission to the IPC has been submitted, let alone granted, EdF proposes to begin ‘preliminary works’. It hopes to do this beginning in March 2011. It seeks to uproot hedgerows and copses over 500 acres, fill in a valley, excavate and level the coastal hinterland, build a massive jetty next to a fossil beach, drive roads across fields and pile mountains of spoil around the hamlets, all before the design of the reactor is approved, let alone the development itself. The company says that if it fails to get planning permission from the IPC and the Secretary of State, it will ‘restore’ what it has destroyed. We wonder how.
There are so many issues that we wish the national press would take up – political, economic, social and community, manipulation and management of public awareness, heritage and culture, the environment. If the country is complacent about nuclear power, it should not be complacent about nor ignorant of the true cost.
Please get in touch, if only to discover whether or not there is anything more in this that your paper could use to sell copies. We will organize access to all the information and support you might want. EdF of course will fall over itself to tell you how wonderful it is.
Yours sincerely
Lesley Flash
Myrtle Farm, Shurton, Stogursey, Somerset TA5 1QE 01278 732417"
Uranium Price surges as Beijing goes nuclear
How cheap will it be to run nuclear plants as China and India begin a huge expansion of nuclear new build?
We are already seeing a huge rise in the price of uranium, before they even begin their building programme. But as "good" sources of uranium (i.e. 0.1%) run out and mining companies are forced to mine rock with a far lower yield, costs will spiral.
Angela
Mark Robinson in Investors Chronicle said on the 8th Dec
"Spot prices for uranium have recently bubbled up to around the $67 (£42.38) mark following confirmation that China's plans for its nuclear industry are far more ambitious than previously thought. At the recent International Nuclear Symposium held in Beijing, Chinese authorities announced that the People's Republic intended to construct up to 245 reactors over the next 20 years , at a projected cost of $511bn (£323bn).
China's ambitious urbanisation programme, coupled with unrelenting industrial demand, have placed great strain on its existing power infrastructure. Currently it is reliant on coal-fired power stations for 65 per cent of its energy needs, but as demand steadily rises, the country is facing the prospect of perpetual energy deficits unless alternate sources are brought on stream.
By 2020, it is estimated that China will require at least 35 per cent of the world’s current output of uranium ore, and that’s before the majority of the new reactors come on stream. Other countries, such as India, are also determined to expand nuclear capacity.
The recent hike in the spot price for uranium means it has now risen around 45 per cent since the start of this year. And come 2013, the supply of 'above-ground' uranium that has come from the gradual decommissioning of a vast arsenal of Sovier-era missiles will cease. That could throw the underlying supply-demand picture into sharp relief and have significant implications for the spot price."
We are already seeing a huge rise in the price of uranium, before they even begin their building programme. But as "good" sources of uranium (i.e. 0.1%) run out and mining companies are forced to mine rock with a far lower yield, costs will spiral.
Angela
Mark Robinson in Investors Chronicle said on the 8th Dec
"Spot prices for uranium have recently bubbled up to around the $67 (£42.38) mark following confirmation that China's plans for its nuclear industry are far more ambitious than previously thought. At the recent International Nuclear Symposium held in Beijing, Chinese authorities announced that the People's Republic intended to construct up to 245 reactors over the next 20 years , at a projected cost of $511bn (£323bn).
China's ambitious urbanisation programme, coupled with unrelenting industrial demand, have placed great strain on its existing power infrastructure. Currently it is reliant on coal-fired power stations for 65 per cent of its energy needs, but as demand steadily rises, the country is facing the prospect of perpetual energy deficits unless alternate sources are brought on stream.
By 2020, it is estimated that China will require at least 35 per cent of the world’s current output of uranium ore, and that’s before the majority of the new reactors come on stream. Other countries, such as India, are also determined to expand nuclear capacity.
The recent hike in the spot price for uranium means it has now risen around 45 per cent since the start of this year. And come 2013, the supply of 'above-ground' uranium that has come from the gradual decommissioning of a vast arsenal of Sovier-era missiles will cease. That could throw the underlying supply-demand picture into sharp relief and have significant implications for the spot price."
Monday, 6 December 2010
Why did the activists stop the nuclear waste train?
We find it absurd to transport 123 tons of highly radioactive waste across France and Germany to get them to a storage place that doesn’t offer any more guarantees compared to where the waste was stored in the first place. We understand the demand for return of the waste in their country of origin, from associations which fought from the beginning to prevent the arrival of these radioactive materials.
This transport of nuclear materials was also the most radioactive ever made: it contained twice the radioactivity released during the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Such convoys expose populations present along the path to excessive risks, both to their lives in the short-term but also long-term health … as is the case in Savoy with the transport of Italian waste two years ago. It was therefore logical to oppose this transport as well as all other trains with nuclear waste. It was also to express solidarity with the people of Germany who are not resigned to see their land contaminated forever.
Why stop the train?
This form of action is part of a movement of civil disobedience. This direct action was admittedly illegal from the standpoint of the law, but legitimate when compared to the danger and opacity of the nuclear industry.
It was also an act of solidarity and encouragement for antinuclear activists in Germany who were preparing to act in similar ways, a means to denounce the nuclear issue at the European level.
Radioactivity has no boundaries neither does our resistance!
This mode of action is of course not the only one but against the authoritarianism and the opacity of the nuclear industry it became necessary to choose this type of action. It definitely felt more of a necessity than a choice, which leads us to prefer a non-violent direct action to another mode of action.
A well planned action
Obviously, this was an action that was planned to be carried out safely.
Every precaution was taken not to put ourselves in danger with regards to the train. Thus, it is only when we saw that the train had stopped on the track (about a kilometre away) that the ten of us started the blockade. We very quickly set up under the rails, metal arm tubes on which five of us were locked on and we lit flares for the train driver to see us like we could see the lights on the train.
We then placed the banners indicating that the main message for our friends in Germany: "Our resistance knows no borders. Castor 2010, the first act. "
As with all such actions, the goal was not having to physically confront the police.
Without really believing it, we would have liked to maintain the presence of support for those doing physical lock-ons. This wasn’t possible.
The Law Enforcement
The police arrived within minutes by waves accompanied by a representative of the SNCF, then the mobile police and finally, the CRS (French riot police) who left the train while it was running slowly or close to us.
The police started removing the activists from the tracks that were not locked-on as well as journalists, and only then the CRS started to be interested in those who were locked on. They then put up blue tarpaulins to prevent people from seeing what was happening.
Freeing the blockaders
After they suddenly realised while trying to manually unlock the militants that it was not possible, the CRS quickly used a Circular saw with a big grinder engine, for cutting metal tubes one by one. It was quite impressive and we did not know how it was going to finish.
The CRS were very tense and wanted to extract us as soon as possible to allow the train to leave. This eagerness was detrimental to our security.
While we were locked-on under the tracks, it was their responsibility to free us without harming us.
From the beginning, the CRS were violent not only towards the blockaders but all other witnesses who were quickly told/forced to leave.
In addition to putting us under psychological pressure for more than two hours, police deliberately injured three of us when cutting the tubes.
Despite the howls of pain associated with burns, the CRS continued like nothing had happened… After a while they stopped for just a few seconds, before resuming with a vengeance, pouring just a little bottled water. It was only when firemen were present for the last person that water was used in sufficient quantity to cool the tubes.
We were all injured during the police operation, three seriously: two of us had third degree burns on the left hand. The other person had two severed tendons in his hand and had to undergo surgery the next day.
Afterwards
Firemen transported three of us to the hospital. Custody had been filed for two upon arrival at the University Hospital in Caen, (before being treated by doctors). The third was transferred to another hospital for surgery.
Those treated on the spot were then transferred to the police station and placed in holding cells like the four others arrested at the scene of the blockade. The next day we were released to be brought before the prosecutor and the judge.
The last, he was arrested and put into custody immediately when discharged from hospital on Sunday evening two days after the action to be brought before the prosecutor and the judge the following day.
The condition of the wounded remains unresolved; the recovery will be long and the burned people will have to have skin grafts.
Justice
We could feel pressure coming “from above” in the Caen Court. The bail conditions the prosecution asked for were € 5000 to be handed in court by each of the seven activists before Monday, 15th November in order to avoid custody until trial, 8th December 2010. In the end, €16 500 were required in total.
This bond seems somewhat absurd, the prosecution has admitted our desire for everyone to be present at trial, while the judicial review, especially with such a financial guarantee was intended precisely to ensure the presence of the accused at trial. This demonstrates a willingness to put pressure on us or to slow the preparation of our defence as we had to raise this huge sum to start with, while the court was convened in just a month.
We expected to find ourselves in court; it is also often the case in this kind of action but not in such conditions.
The police
It is scandalous that in a non-violent action, the police deliberately cause injury to activists. It is for this reason that we have already filed a complaint against persons unknown “for aggravated violence”. Similarly, we have started a procedure with the CNDS (the police of the police).
The will of the government and the nuclear lobby was passing the convoy at all costs. We could see they were willing to wound, to hurt, to use violence. Was this what they had to hide behind the tarpaulins stretched out around the blockade?
Our goal now is to make them seriously regret their behaviour.
This affinity group is informal and autonomous without any legal existence.
It brings together men and women who wish to object strongly to nuclear power (including for military use). We can use the broad spectrum of non-violent direct actions and disobedience if they are declared and don’t harm people.
We reject authoritarianism and violence from both the state and the nuclear industry, so we exclude these principles in our operations and our actions.
Our core values are non-violence, solidarity and collective self-organisation.
At the end of 2010, we feel that we must go further into details. We recognise the diversity of group members and therefore we are not trying to write an ideology that should guide us.
Also, many in the group also act differently or similarly.
Some political positions (especially to political parties):
We are moving, above all, the idea of taking concrete action, to try to regain the power to interfere with the system that has allowed to develop nuclear and allowing it to continue.
These tools are those of the non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
Linked to this, we attach great importance to disseminate the culture of self-organisation. The output of nuclear power is not only a technical issue or ecological, it is above all a democratic issue. And democracy for us is not that which is called “representative”.
However we do not want to be giving lessons. We are not political or policy experts, but we feel that a conflictual situation is much needed. This conflict that sometimes we create, restart or show must be taken up by a lot more people, by other actions, by direct questioning and even court cases. If someone can help to change things in an institution that they belong to, why not? We are not campaigning for that but everyone with the tools they dispose of can help us with nuclear phase out and to change the repressive system that we are in.
http://ganva.blogspot.com/
This transport of nuclear materials was also the most radioactive ever made: it contained twice the radioactivity released during the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Such convoys expose populations present along the path to excessive risks, both to their lives in the short-term but also long-term health … as is the case in Savoy with the transport of Italian waste two years ago. It was therefore logical to oppose this transport as well as all other trains with nuclear waste. It was also to express solidarity with the people of Germany who are not resigned to see their land contaminated forever.
Why stop the train?
This form of action is part of a movement of civil disobedience. This direct action was admittedly illegal from the standpoint of the law, but legitimate when compared to the danger and opacity of the nuclear industry.
It was also an act of solidarity and encouragement for antinuclear activists in Germany who were preparing to act in similar ways, a means to denounce the nuclear issue at the European level.
Radioactivity has no boundaries neither does our resistance!
This mode of action is of course not the only one but against the authoritarianism and the opacity of the nuclear industry it became necessary to choose this type of action. It definitely felt more of a necessity than a choice, which leads us to prefer a non-violent direct action to another mode of action.
A well planned action
Obviously, this was an action that was planned to be carried out safely.
Every precaution was taken not to put ourselves in danger with regards to the train. Thus, it is only when we saw that the train had stopped on the track (about a kilometre away) that the ten of us started the blockade. We very quickly set up under the rails, metal arm tubes on which five of us were locked on and we lit flares for the train driver to see us like we could see the lights on the train.
We then placed the banners indicating that the main message for our friends in Germany: "Our resistance knows no borders. Castor 2010, the first act. "
As with all such actions, the goal was not having to physically confront the police.
Without really believing it, we would have liked to maintain the presence of support for those doing physical lock-ons. This wasn’t possible.
The Law Enforcement
The police arrived within minutes by waves accompanied by a representative of the SNCF, then the mobile police and finally, the CRS (French riot police) who left the train while it was running slowly or close to us.
The police started removing the activists from the tracks that were not locked-on as well as journalists, and only then the CRS started to be interested in those who were locked on. They then put up blue tarpaulins to prevent people from seeing what was happening.
Freeing the blockaders
After they suddenly realised while trying to manually unlock the militants that it was not possible, the CRS quickly used a Circular saw with a big grinder engine, for cutting metal tubes one by one. It was quite impressive and we did not know how it was going to finish.
The CRS were very tense and wanted to extract us as soon as possible to allow the train to leave. This eagerness was detrimental to our security.
While we were locked-on under the tracks, it was their responsibility to free us without harming us.
From the beginning, the CRS were violent not only towards the blockaders but all other witnesses who were quickly told/forced to leave.
In addition to putting us under psychological pressure for more than two hours, police deliberately injured three of us when cutting the tubes.
Despite the howls of pain associated with burns, the CRS continued like nothing had happened… After a while they stopped for just a few seconds, before resuming with a vengeance, pouring just a little bottled water. It was only when firemen were present for the last person that water was used in sufficient quantity to cool the tubes.
We were all injured during the police operation, three seriously: two of us had third degree burns on the left hand. The other person had two severed tendons in his hand and had to undergo surgery the next day.
Afterwards
Firemen transported three of us to the hospital. Custody had been filed for two upon arrival at the University Hospital in Caen, (before being treated by doctors). The third was transferred to another hospital for surgery.
Those treated on the spot were then transferred to the police station and placed in holding cells like the four others arrested at the scene of the blockade. The next day we were released to be brought before the prosecutor and the judge.
The last, he was arrested and put into custody immediately when discharged from hospital on Sunday evening two days after the action to be brought before the prosecutor and the judge the following day.
The condition of the wounded remains unresolved; the recovery will be long and the burned people will have to have skin grafts.
Justice
We could feel pressure coming “from above” in the Caen Court. The bail conditions the prosecution asked for were € 5000 to be handed in court by each of the seven activists before Monday, 15th November in order to avoid custody until trial, 8th December 2010. In the end, €16 500 were required in total.
This bond seems somewhat absurd, the prosecution has admitted our desire for everyone to be present at trial, while the judicial review, especially with such a financial guarantee was intended precisely to ensure the presence of the accused at trial. This demonstrates a willingness to put pressure on us or to slow the preparation of our defence as we had to raise this huge sum to start with, while the court was convened in just a month.
We expected to find ourselves in court; it is also often the case in this kind of action but not in such conditions.
The police
It is scandalous that in a non-violent action, the police deliberately cause injury to activists. It is for this reason that we have already filed a complaint against persons unknown “for aggravated violence”. Similarly, we have started a procedure with the CNDS (the police of the police).
The will of the government and the nuclear lobby was passing the convoy at all costs. We could see they were willing to wound, to hurt, to use violence. Was this what they had to hide behind the tarpaulins stretched out around the blockade?
Our goal now is to make them seriously regret their behaviour.
Political stand
Who are we? What we stand for?
A few years ago, people involved in the Non-violent antinuclear Action group (GANVA in French) considered it important to draft a charter to consolidate a little bit positions that were until then more or less made up as they went along.This affinity group is informal and autonomous without any legal existence.
It brings together men and women who wish to object strongly to nuclear power (including for military use). We can use the broad spectrum of non-violent direct actions and disobedience if they are declared and don’t harm people.
We reject authoritarianism and violence from both the state and the nuclear industry, so we exclude these principles in our operations and our actions.
Our core values are non-violence, solidarity and collective self-organisation.
At the end of 2010, we feel that we must go further into details. We recognise the diversity of group members and therefore we are not trying to write an ideology that should guide us.
Also, many in the group also act differently or similarly.
Some political positions (especially to political parties):
We are moving, above all, the idea of taking concrete action, to try to regain the power to interfere with the system that has allowed to develop nuclear and allowing it to continue.
These tools are those of the non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
Linked to this, we attach great importance to disseminate the culture of self-organisation. The output of nuclear power is not only a technical issue or ecological, it is above all a democratic issue. And democracy for us is not that which is called “representative”.
However we do not want to be giving lessons. We are not political or policy experts, but we feel that a conflictual situation is much needed. This conflict that sometimes we create, restart or show must be taken up by a lot more people, by other actions, by direct questioning and even court cases. If someone can help to change things in an institution that they belong to, why not? We are not campaigning for that but everyone with the tools they dispose of can help us with nuclear phase out and to change the repressive system that we are in.
http://ganva.blogspot.com/
Anti nuclear activists on trial in Caen, Normandy the 8 Dec
| Come and support the activists who blockaded the CASTOR train in Caen, France. Their trial is next Wednesday 8 December. They'll be a film/debate the night before and a concert on the Wednesday night. Free accommodation can be provided, contact:ganva@riseup.net for more info or send me an email. The website (in French and German) apart from this leaflet: http://ganva.blogspot.com/ Please send around to everyone and anyone. Hope to see you at the trial! |
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Anti-nuclear campaigners brand Government energy view a 'fantasy'
PRESS RELEASE - 29 November 2010
Activists interrupt public meeting to read out ‘cautionary tale’
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, have slammed a government consultation on the future of the UK’s energy supply - held today (Monday) in Bristol - as ‘trying to sell a fantasy’. And activists attending the public meeting, held by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), interrupted this afternoon’s event to read out their own ‘cautionary tale’ - which outlines the nightmare future that could be created if a new generation of nuclear power stations is given the go-ahead.
Activists interrupt public meeting to read out ‘cautionary tale’
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, have slammed a government consultation on the future of the UK’s energy supply - held today (Monday) in Bristol - as ‘trying to sell a fantasy’. And activists attending the public meeting, held by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), interrupted this afternoon’s event to read out their own ‘cautionary tale’ - which outlines the nightmare future that could be created if a new generation of nuclear power stations is given the go-ahead.
Local activist, Nikki Clark, says preliminary statements on nuclear power published by the DECC prior to today’s meeting acknowledge the huge negative impact that nuclear new-build will have on communities, biodiversity and water resources. ‘Yet despite this, they are continuing to push their nuclear agenda - claiming that it’s in the public interest,’ she says.
In response, activists opposed to EDF’s bid to build two new reactors at Hinkley Point, Somerset, halted the meeting to read out their own ‘cautionary tale’. The story described the plight of a greedy king who buys a dragon that breathes endless supplies of fire from its mouth - but also creates a mountain of highly poisonous waste from its rear end.
‘We can't believe that a Government in the 21st century can get away with telling fairy stories about nuclear energy to the nation and dressing it up as fact,’ Nikki explained. ‘In response, we’ve created our own cautionary tale which clearly illustrates the fatal flaws in nuclear energy production. The problems associated with the long-term storage of radioactive waste remains unsolved and we feel outraged at the government’s blindness to this issue. The nuclear industry has already left us with a terrible legacy for future generations – and now the Government wants to compound the problem.'
Fellow campaigner, Zoe Smith, added: 'They're promoting nuclear power as a sustainable option and claiming that we can't meet our carbon reduction targets without it. Yet only three years ago the Sustainable Development Commission produced a report that reinforced the widely held position amongst academics and scientists that carbon reduction targets can be met without new nuclear build (2).'
Nikki Clark, who lives close to Hinkley Point, added: 'People need to be reminded that the nuclear industry is still as dangerous as it is ever was and that more reactors will just increase the possibility of more radioactive leaks or another Chernobyl-style disaster.'
ENDS
For further details contact Nancy Birch on: 07506-006597
1 - EN 6 draft statement on energy policy nuclear main report
2 - Sustainable Development Commission positon paper on the role of nuclear power in a low carbon economy
EDF “Jumping The Gun” with Hinkley Point destruction
French energy company EDF is “jumping the gun” by applying to destroy over 400 acres of Somerset countryside – even before it has permission to build on the site – according to the local campaign group Stop Hinkley.
EDF has just submitted an application to West Somerset Council for what it describes as “preliminary works” in advance of constructing Britain’s largest nuclear power station. In fact this involves completely razing the site near Hinkley Point, filling in a beautiful valley and even starting excavation of the power station foundations.
All this would be done before a formal proposal to build the plant itself has been delivered to the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which could then reject it.
The company has already evicted all badgers from the site by blocking off their setts, an action approved prematurely by Natural England, the wildlife conservation body.
“EDF have already shown that they have precious little regard for the countryside,” says Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey. “Now they are about to treat it with contempt by trashing over 400 acres of woodland, cornfields and coastline. This is jumping the gun on a massive scale.”
The “preliminary works” proposed by the multinational power company - on 430 acres of land stretching from the Severn Estuary to the village of Shurton – involve:
· Removal of the majority of trees and hedges
· Filling in a valley with excavated earth
· Closure of existing footpaths and bridlepaths, including the coast path
· Security fencing round the whole area
· Stripping topsoil and vegetation to make a terraced area for the proposed nuclear reactors
· New roads built across the site
· Underground streams re-routed
· The excavation of more than 3.2 million cubic metres of soil, sub-soil and rocks. This is more than was dug out to prepare the site for the 2012 London Olympic Games
· Noise from up to 12,000 vehicle movements per month
· Construction of new sea wall along the coast
· Construction of a jetty out into the sea
The company says it will restore the site to its original state if it fails to gain permission for the Hinkley C power station. “This would be impossible,” says Crispin Aubrey. “You can’t recreate a landscape that has taken generations to mature.”
Stop Hinkley is urging all those opposed to EDF’s actions to register their objection with West Somerset Council, which is planning to conduct a consultation process.
EDF “Jumping The Gun” with Hinkley Point destruction
French energy company EDF is “jumping the gun” by applying to destroy over 400 acres of Somerset countryside – even before it has permission to build on the site – according to the local campaign group Stop Hinkley.
EDF has just submitted an application to West Somerset Council for what it describes as “preliminary works” in advance of constructing Britain’s largest nuclear power station. In fact this involves completely razing the site near Hinkley Point, filling in a beautiful valley and even starting excavation of the power station foundations.
All this would be done before a formal proposal to build the plant itself has been delivered to the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which could then reject it.
The company has already evicted all badgers from the site by blocking off their setts, an action approved prematurely by Natural England, the wildlife conservation body.
“EDF have already shown that they have precious little regard for the countryside,” says Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey. “Now they are about to treat it with contempt by trashing over 400 acres of woodland, cornfields and coastline. This is jumping the gun on a massive scale.”
The “preliminary works” proposed by the multinational power company - on 430 acres of land stretching from the Severn Estuary to the village of Shurton – involve:
· Removal of the majority of trees and hedges
· Filling in a valley with excavated earth
· Closure of existing footpaths and bridlepaths, including the coast path
· Security fencing round the whole area
· Stripping topsoil and vegetation to make a terraced area for the proposed nuclear reactors
· New roads built across the site
· Underground streams re-routed
· The excavation of more than 3.2 million cubic metres of soil, sub-soil and rocks. This is more than was dug out to prepare the site for the 2012 London Olympic Games
· Noise from up to 12,000 vehicle movements per month
· Construction of new sea wall along the coast
· Construction of a jetty out into the sea
The company says it will restore the site to its original state if it fails to gain permission for the Hinkley C power station. “This would be impossible,” says Crispin Aubrey. “You can’t recreate a landscape that has taken generations to mature.”
Stop Hinkley is urging all those opposed to EDF’s actions to register their objection with West Somerset Council, which is planning to conduct a consultation process.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Protest over South Gloucestershire nuclear plant scheme
More than 30 people took part in the march and rally
A demonstration has been held against plans for a new nuclear power plant in South Gloucestershire.
Campaign group Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy (Sane) said it was concerned about safety and damage to the environment. Horizon Nuclear Power said it was listening to concerns, but it was about "achieving an acceptable balance".
The company hopes to start work at the site, next to the existing reactor, by 2019.
More than 30 people took part in a march and rally in Thornbury on Saturday.
The current power station at Oldbury is due to close next year. Reg Illingworth, from Sane, said campaigners would fight the plans with "energy and passion".
He said: "It is a true David versus Goliath battle against two massive, avaricious German energy companies along with support from parts of DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) and the government."
Previously, the firm said it was working on flood protection solutions, cooling systems and transport options, which were concerns that had been raised by local residents.
Government consultation branded a con by campaigners
Government consultation branded a con by campaigners
Call to protest outside Bristol public meeting on Monday 29th November
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
"This consultation exercise is a sham. The Government has no interest in what we have to say. It’s simply a box-ticking exercise so that it can avoid legal challenges in the future," said Nikki.
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
"This consultation exercise is a sham. The Government has no interest in what we have to say. It’s simply a box-ticking exercise so that it can avoid legal challenges in the future," said Nikki.
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
Government consultation branded a con by campaigners
Call to protest outside Bristol public meeting on Monday 29th November
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
Government consultation branded a con by campaigners
Call to protest outside Bristol public meeting on Monday 29th November
West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
"This consultation exercise is a sham. The Government has no interest in what we have to say. It’s simply a box-ticking exercise so that it can avoid legal challenges in the future," said Nikki.
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
"This consultation exercise is a sham. The Government has no interest in what we have to say. It’s simply a box-ticking exercise so that it can avoid legal challenges in the future," said Nikki.West country members of the Stop Nuclear Power Network are urging people to join them in a protest at a Government public consultation meeting they brand as undemocratic, which will discuss the Government’s revised draft National Policy Statements on energy infrastructure (1) – they include the role of nuclear power in the UK’s future energy mix. The event is one of only three that will take place around the country.
"This so-called public meeting is highly undemocratic and has all the hallmarks of the secrecy (2) the nuclear industry is renowned for," said Nikki Clark, a campaigner who lives near Hinkley Point in north Somerset. "It has not been widely publicised and only 100 people have been allowed to attend."
The protest will take place this Monday (29th) outside the Armada House Conference and Events, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol at 1pm.
Local Stop Nuclear Power Network campaigners argue that the consultation does not acknowledge that nuclear power is dangerous, undemocratic and unaffordable.
"The high-level waste from nuclear power stations cannot be safely stored in the long term," said Nikki. "The Government has no clue how to deal with it - except for deep geological storage, a method that is deeply flawed, leaving the problem for future generations to deal with."
"Nuclear power originated as a way of producing material for atomic weapons and has never lost its link with the arms industry and war,” added Nikki. “Depleted uranium from the nuclear cycle is used in weapons that cause cancers and birth defects in places like Iraq and Bosnia."
Nikki said the Bristol meeting is being held during the daytime, making it difficult for working people to attend. Scheduled for two and a half hours, campaigners say the event will not allow enough time for attendees to question the extensive range of documents included in this consultation (a staggering 168 documents in total - of which 148 relate to the Government's plans for new nuclear.)
The campaigners say the true costs of producing energy from nuclear have never been honestly calculated and put before the public: for instance, they say the costs of decommissioning (at least £70bn for the existing reactors) are not included.
"This consultation exercise is a sham. The Government has no interest in what we have to say. It’s simply a box-ticking exercise so that it can avoid legal challenges in the future," said Nikki.
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
Susan Newland, another member of the Stop Nuclear Power Network, said, "We are going to be protesting about the Government’s proposal to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, starting with Hinkley Point."
"This proposal, if carried through, will pose a threat to our health and that of future generations. Nuclear power stations will poison the environment with radioactive waste and emissions. Even if the Government says it will not use public subsidies for the next generation of power plants, you can be sure the public will be paying for it one way or another."
Nikki added, "Caroline Lucas, our only Green MP, has slammed nuclear new build as unsafe and unnecessary.(4)( 5) We say it's a strategy the British people simply can't afford."
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Fishermen join the antinuclear protest at Jaitapur
The narrow roads in this fishing village wind down to a crisp blue creek full of frenetic activity. Across the creek is the location of the proposed Jaitapur project being built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL).
There is a primary fishing school run by the government and trainees can be seen in the campus repairing bright red nets. Near the creek, Kamal and Abdul Rashid repair their old nets. “Yes, we have heard about the nuclear project. I think it will finish fishing in our area,” Kamal says. The first reactor of the nearly 10,000 MWe nuclear project will be set up by 2017.
It is evening and Liyakat Solkar is all set to go on a fishing trip. He has a steel tiffin box and a small plastic bag with some belongings. “Sometimes I feel, what is the use of opposing this project? It is a big project; the government has sanctioned it. But on the other side, it will wipe us out. Today we are self-sufficient. At the worst, we can walk down to the creek and grab a handful of fish and eat it with rice,” Mr. Solkar says as he sets off into the dusk.
Already, there are examples of the fish catch reducing in the sea as a result of projects in the Dabhol and Pawas creeks nearby. There are about 4500 fisherfolk in this village. Mr. Solkar supplies fish to a major exporter. “People make about Rs.1 lakh to Rs.5 lakh per trip,” he adds.
The 10 to 12 villages in the vicinity of the project will be affected, according to Amjad Abdul Latif Borkar, former chairperson of the Sakhri Nate Machchimar Society. The annual turnover for fishing in these villages is about Rs.15 crore. In Nate alone there are 200 big trawlers and 250 small boats. Nearly 6,000 people depend on fishing in the area and more than 10,000 are indirectly benefited.
“The used water from the nuclear plant will be dumped into the sea through a pipe, and while its temperature should be about five degrees Celsius, who will ensure that it is maintained?” Mr. Borkar says. “Government officials come here and tempt people with contracts and jobs, but how many people can the plant really employ?”
At a recent protest meeting in Sakhri Nate, activists managed to gather the entire village, including the women who rarely speak up. Hamid Abdur Rehman says: “We don’t want this project. Our future generations will be affected.”
Compensation issues
The residential complex for the project will be spread over Karel, Niveli and Mithgavane. Dattaram Narayan Dalvi and his wife Darshana stand to lose two acres to the project in Karel. “We refuse to accept the compensation cheques. We are dependent on the land and we don’t have anyone working in Mumbai to help us,” Ms. Dalvi says.
In Niveli village, Anil Tirlotkar’s father Jagannath has received a letter saying he will get Rs.1.78 lakh for his land. “We have to divide this money among so many claimants in the family. I will get about Rs.16,000,” Mr. Anil Tirlotkar says. “We got a notice in 2007 for a survey of the land. Later we were asked to be present for a joint survey, but they did not let us anywhere near the survey,” he adds.
According to the official note, about 185 landowners from the village will get Rs.55.91 lakh. The NPCIL has deposited Rs.16 crore with the government for compensation to all those affected, but there are no takers yet.
“Is this how projects are done? Are we living in a democracy? This is worse than the British,” Keru Katkar says.
Pollution
In Mithgavane, Dr. Milind Desai, who is spearheading the protest, says: “Background radiation from this massive project is a concern. We feel water, air, everything will be polluted. Why is this lovely coastline chosen for a dangerous project? They can’t give us simple processing units for our fruit crop. We would have given land free for any other project but not this one.”
The villagers have filed two writ petitions against the project, but the Bombay High Court did not give them any relief. The first case was withdrawn and in the second, Justices Ranjana Desai and A.A. Sayed dismissed the petition on August 13, 2009.
The project will use 100 cubic metres of sea water per second per unit, says C.B. Jain, project director of the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project. According to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the limit of the temperature of water should not exceed seven degrees Celsius.
The NPCIL will build a pipeline extending 1.5 km long and 40 metres below the sea bed to dispose of used water for the first two reactors. The NPCIL has said fishing will not be affected as it has commissioned a study which indicates that the released water temperatures will be a maximum of three to four degrees Celsius and that too for two months in a year.
The College of Fisheries in Ratnagiri has also submitted a report as part of the Environment Impact Assessment saying that fishing will not be affected.
Studies have ruled out any adverse impact on the biodiversity of the area as well, Mr. Jain said.
The villagers, however, will continue to fear the worst.
News » National SAKHRI NATE, Ratnagiri district, January 18, 2010
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article81725.ece
Opponents to huge nuclear power project in India arrested
PHOTO: Greenpeace
Activists and residents in Jaitapur are up in arms after Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh gave the environmental clearance to the proposed 9,900 MW nuclear power plant in the port town located in Maharashtra. The general consensus on the ground is that the project has been cleared in haste without analysing the environmental fallout.
According to activists, the 35 safeguards/conditions, of which 23 are specific to the Jaitapur project, neither highlight the main issues pertaining to radiation concerns, nor offer a solution to the loss of biodiversity and marine biota. They say the conditions just scratch the surface of these issues without dealing with the relevant problems. One of them (No. 10) states, “The existing Alphonso mango trees shall be protected to the extent possible. In case they need to be removed, efforts will be made to replant the same within the project site.” Points like these, the activists say, are hardly grave concerns compared to radiation worries.
Ramesh’s statement that his ministry has no jurisdiction over radiology emission has baffled environmentalists. “It is surprising that the environment minister has no clarity on hazardous stuff because environmentally, radiation eventually affects the ecology and thus becomes the responsibility of the environment ministry,” says Adwait Pednekar of Lok Vidnyan Sangathana, a Mumbai-based organization promoting public debate on scientific issues. Pednekar added that the Environmental Impact Assessment is unscientific and amateurish and does not resemble the work of experts.
The environmental clearance paves way for the Atomic Energy Regulatory Body (AERB) to go ahead with its technological assessments of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). When AERB Chairman SS Bajaj was asked about French energy company Areva’s patchy track record with respect to environmental pollution, he remarked, “I don’t recall anything about Areva polluting the environment and I am not concerned about what they do in their country.”
This ambiguity on safety issues is the main bone of contention among activists and people living near the nuclear plant site.
“Officially, the AERB has no clue about the kind of accidents that can occur in an EPR reactor. It will be difficult for the AERB to ask Areva to furnish all details regarding this technology. Besides, how will the AERB determine the radiation doses (the level above which radiation is harmful) emitted?” asks former AERB chairman A Gopalkrishan.
Meanwhile, local residents are planning to stage a dharna. They believe that the environmental clearance was hastily given to speed up formalities before the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will ink the final deal for the Jaitapur power plant on behalf of the French government and energy giant Areva.
A day-long protest will be held on 2 December at Azad Maidan while residents of Madban village, the plant site, are planning to organise a second jail bharo andolan. The first was held on 29 October 29, when nearly 1,000 people courted arrest for a day.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ws291110Activists.asp
Sunday, 28 November 2010
EDF evicts Badgers before getting planning permission
French government subsidised Nuclear Corporation EDF evicts the badgers from their ancestral setts because they want to bulldoze the land where the badgers live. Do they have planning permission to do this? No they do not.
So how did they get permission to evict the unfortunate badgers?
Easy. They applied to a wildlife watchdog called Natural England for a licence. And natural England granted them the licence under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, saying that one-way gates should be installed and artificial setts created.
Clearly Natural England could not care less about the destruction of a large piece of natural England, with ancient trees, hedges, birds and animals, including badgers.
So how did they get permission to evict the unfortunate badgers?
Easy. They applied to a wildlife watchdog called Natural England for a licence. And natural England granted them the licence under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, saying that one-way gates should be installed and artificial setts created.
Clearly Natural England could not care less about the destruction of a large piece of natural England, with ancient trees, hedges, birds and animals, including badgers.
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Body parts scandal goes way beyond Sellafield
Home Media Press Releases Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Commenting on the publication of the Redfern Inquiry into human tissue analysis in UK nuclear facilities, CND expressed profound concern that in addition to the previously uncovered abuse of nuclear industry workers, other researchers had taken samples from thousands of individuals "mostly children under the age of six", in many cases, without familial consent.
In addition to the cases that sparked the inquiry - where tissue had been taken from deceased Sellafield workers - Michael Redfern QC uncovered comparable practices at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and the Medical Research Council (MRC). The last case is the greatest in scope with the Inquiry reporting "In all, in addition to the 91 fetus, bone (femur or, later in the study, vertebrae) was collected for the UK strontium research from 6,072 individuals, mostly children under the age of six." [Chapter 14: Findings, Point 71, page 580]
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said "These abhorrent practices continued undetected for decades - most frequently at Sellafield - but also at other nuclear sites including the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment. The removal of body parts points to the major fear that the nuclear industry obviously had about the impact of radiation on their workers. Disgracefully they chose to conduct investigations without the informed consent of the families of their workers and then kept this fact secret for many years.
"The further revelation that investigations into the effects of nuclear weapons testing - large scale studies for Strontium-90 in the general population - had resulted in samples taken not from dozens of people but over 6,000 without consent. Despite legislation outlawing this after 1961 the studies continued for another decade. It is particularly chilling that it was young children - who were, as the report concludes 'mostly' under the age of six - that were the source of this material."
1.For further information and interviews please contact CND's Press Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2.See here for the Redfern Inquiry report.
3.The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe's biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere. http://www.cnduk.org/
Commenting on the publication of the Redfern Inquiry into human tissue analysis in UK nuclear facilities, CND expressed profound concern that in addition to the previously uncovered abuse of nuclear industry workers, other researchers had taken samples from thousands of individuals "mostly children under the age of six", in many cases, without familial consent.
In addition to the cases that sparked the inquiry - where tissue had been taken from deceased Sellafield workers - Michael Redfern QC uncovered comparable practices at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and the Medical Research Council (MRC). The last case is the greatest in scope with the Inquiry reporting "In all, in addition to the 91 fetus, bone (femur or, later in the study, vertebrae) was collected for the UK strontium research from 6,072 individuals, mostly children under the age of six." [Chapter 14: Findings, Point 71, page 580]
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said "These abhorrent practices continued undetected for decades - most frequently at Sellafield - but also at other nuclear sites including the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment. The removal of body parts points to the major fear that the nuclear industry obviously had about the impact of radiation on their workers. Disgracefully they chose to conduct investigations without the informed consent of the families of their workers and then kept this fact secret for many years.
"The further revelation that investigations into the effects of nuclear weapons testing - large scale studies for Strontium-90 in the general population - had resulted in samples taken not from dozens of people but over 6,000 without consent. Despite legislation outlawing this after 1961 the studies continued for another decade. It is particularly chilling that it was young children - who were, as the report concludes 'mostly' under the age of six - that were the source of this material."
1.For further information and interviews please contact CND's Press Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2.See here for the Redfern Inquiry report.
3.The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe's biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere. http://www.cnduk.org/
How Sellafield 'mutilated' its workers' bodies
By Jonathan Brown
wednesday, 17 November 2010
GETTY IMAGES
The inquiry looked at the deaths of 64 Sellafield workers
Organs and bones were illegally harvested from the bodies of dead nuclear industry workers at Sellafield without their consent over a period of 30 years, an inquiry found yesterday.
The relatives of 64 staff, many of whom only discovered their loved ones had been stripped of livers, tongues and even legs decades after they were buried, said the inquiry's findings proved the existence of an "old boys' club" among pathologists, coroners and scientists around Sellafield prior to 1992 which prioritised the needs of the nuclear industry above those of grieving family members.
In evidence to inquiry chairman Michael Redfern QC, who oversaw the Alder Hey inquiry, representatives of the workers said they felt as if bodies had been "mutilated" and treated as "commodities" to assist in research on behalf of the industry to disprove the link between cancers and radiation.
Some missing bones had been replaced with broomsticks for deceased workers' funerals. Mr Redfern said the families had been "wronged". "In most cases considered by the inquiry, relatives were let down at the time when they were most vulnerable by those in whom they were entitled to place an absolute trust," he said.
In the Commons, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne apologised to the families and said the practice had been stopped.
The 650-page report, following a three-year inquiry which also examined three other studies involving the nuclear industry in which 6,500 bodies, including children, were used, said the removal of organs and tissue was "unnecessary and inappropriate" in the majority of the Sellafield cases.
Pathologists who gave evidence to the inquiry were singled out for criticism. They were described as being "profoundly ignorant of the law" and of erroneously believing they could act with "carte blanche to remove tissue and organs for whatever purpose they saw fit". Coroners were also accused of leaving families in the dark and of assisting the nuclear authorities heedless of whether consent had been obtained or if the removal of organs had relevance to the cause of death.
The inquiry was ordered by then Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling in 2007 when it first emerged that body parts had been removed between 1961 and 1992. The deaths of 76 workers – 64 from Sellafield and 12 from other UK nuclear plants – were examined, although the scope of the inquiry was later significantly widened.
The "driving force" behind the post-mortem extraction of organs at Sellafield was BNFL's chief medical officer Dr Geoffrey Schofield, an acclaimed occupational health expert. The inquiry found he was subject to "little if any managerial supervision or control of his activities" prior to his death in 1985.
An "informal arrangement" existed between Dr Schofield and pathologists at the West Cumberland Hospital and he was "easily able" to obtain organs for analysis. Dr Schofield and his successor would return to their laboratory at Sellafield with the organs in a cool box.
There they were weighed, labelled and stored in a freezer before being analysed and then taken to the low-level waste repository at Drigg. The report said Dr Schofield took "somewhat dubious steps to obtain organs" in cases that were of particular interest to him, and accused him of a "manipulation of the coronial process".
case study: Stan Higgins
Dr Stan Higgins's father, also called Stan, was only 49 when he died.
The former member of the Parachute Regiment and keen rugby player had also been commended as a senior shift supervisor during the 1973 head-end plant incident, in which he had been severely exposed to ruthenium.
"He was the most irradiated man that ever lived," his son said yesterday. "He survived for about five years but he lost his thyroid and started having black outs and died of a heart attack."
Dr Higgins later learned that some of his father's tissue had been taken three years after he died, but he only discovered the true extent of the theft – vertebrae, mediastinum, kidney, liver, heart, spleen, sternum, both lungs and lymph nodes – three years ago.
"I believe there should be some retribution for the families who have had to go through this time and time again," he said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/how-sellafield-mutilated-its-workers-bodies-2136068.html
wednesday, 17 November 2010
GETTY IMAGES
The inquiry looked at the deaths of 64 Sellafield workers
Organs and bones were illegally harvested from the bodies of dead nuclear industry workers at Sellafield without their consent over a period of 30 years, an inquiry found yesterday.
The relatives of 64 staff, many of whom only discovered their loved ones had been stripped of livers, tongues and even legs decades after they were buried, said the inquiry's findings proved the existence of an "old boys' club" among pathologists, coroners and scientists around Sellafield prior to 1992 which prioritised the needs of the nuclear industry above those of grieving family members.
In evidence to inquiry chairman Michael Redfern QC, who oversaw the Alder Hey inquiry, representatives of the workers said they felt as if bodies had been "mutilated" and treated as "commodities" to assist in research on behalf of the industry to disprove the link between cancers and radiation.
Some missing bones had been replaced with broomsticks for deceased workers' funerals. Mr Redfern said the families had been "wronged". "In most cases considered by the inquiry, relatives were let down at the time when they were most vulnerable by those in whom they were entitled to place an absolute trust," he said.
In the Commons, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne apologised to the families and said the practice had been stopped.
The 650-page report, following a three-year inquiry which also examined three other studies involving the nuclear industry in which 6,500 bodies, including children, were used, said the removal of organs and tissue was "unnecessary and inappropriate" in the majority of the Sellafield cases.
Pathologists who gave evidence to the inquiry were singled out for criticism. They were described as being "profoundly ignorant of the law" and of erroneously believing they could act with "carte blanche to remove tissue and organs for whatever purpose they saw fit". Coroners were also accused of leaving families in the dark and of assisting the nuclear authorities heedless of whether consent had been obtained or if the removal of organs had relevance to the cause of death.
The inquiry was ordered by then Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling in 2007 when it first emerged that body parts had been removed between 1961 and 1992. The deaths of 76 workers – 64 from Sellafield and 12 from other UK nuclear plants – were examined, although the scope of the inquiry was later significantly widened.
The "driving force" behind the post-mortem extraction of organs at Sellafield was BNFL's chief medical officer Dr Geoffrey Schofield, an acclaimed occupational health expert. The inquiry found he was subject to "little if any managerial supervision or control of his activities" prior to his death in 1985.
An "informal arrangement" existed between Dr Schofield and pathologists at the West Cumberland Hospital and he was "easily able" to obtain organs for analysis. Dr Schofield and his successor would return to their laboratory at Sellafield with the organs in a cool box.
There they were weighed, labelled and stored in a freezer before being analysed and then taken to the low-level waste repository at Drigg. The report said Dr Schofield took "somewhat dubious steps to obtain organs" in cases that were of particular interest to him, and accused him of a "manipulation of the coronial process".
case study: Stan Higgins
Dr Stan Higgins's father, also called Stan, was only 49 when he died.
The former member of the Parachute Regiment and keen rugby player had also been commended as a senior shift supervisor during the 1973 head-end plant incident, in which he had been severely exposed to ruthenium.
"He was the most irradiated man that ever lived," his son said yesterday. "He survived for about five years but he lost his thyroid and started having black outs and died of a heart attack."
Dr Higgins later learned that some of his father's tissue had been taken three years after he died, but he only discovered the true extent of the theft – vertebrae, mediastinum, kidney, liver, heart, spleen, sternum, both lungs and lymph nodes – three years ago.
"I believe there should be some retribution for the families who have had to go through this time and time again," he said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/how-sellafield-mutilated-its-workers-bodies-2136068.html
Accident at Russia’s Kursk Nuclear Power Plant reveals blatant disregard of safety standards:
Is the Russian nuclear industry headed for a meltdown?
Part of: Kursk NPP , Nuclear accidents and incidents
Kursk Nuclear Power Planthttp://kunpp.rosenergoatom.ru/ Related articles
Number one reactor at Kalinin NPP shuts down for second time in two weeks, raising concerns Ecological groups call for investors to boycott finishing Kursk reactor Related news
Reactor no.2 at Kursk nuclear power plant shut down Unplanned turbo generator shutdowns at Kursk NPP Four incidents at Russian nuclear power plants in August Prolonged life for RBMK reactors ST. PETERSBURG – Incidents of various degrees of severity are not uncommon at Russian nuclear power plants (NPPs), but when repairs take longer than a month – as was the case with Reactor 1 of Kursk NPP, which was scrammed on July 22 and only went online on August 31 – concerns arise that serious damage must have occurred. A scrutiny of what happened at Kursk NPP seems to indicate the frightening possibility that a malfunction involving any RBMK reactor may turn out to be as devastating as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Andrei Ozharovsky, 05/09-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya
Kursk NPP: How extensive was the damage?
Kursk NPP is located in Kurchatov – a town bearing the name of the prominent Soviet nuclear physicist, and the man behind the Soviets’ A-bomb, Igor Kurchatov. It stands 40 kilometers southwest of Kursk, a large city in Central European Russia, and operates four power units with pressurized-tube reactors with a total capacity of 4 million kilowatts. Last July 22, an incident took place at the plant that put Reactor 1, an RBMK-1000 installation, out of commission and led to what later turned out to be five weeks of ongoing repairs. Even more disturbing, what information was finally made available about the incident did not come through the official channels from the state nuclear corporation Rosatom or Kursk NPP’s head company, the nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom, but from Kursk employees.
First, a press release was posted on Rosenergoatom’s website that said little about the incident or its causes. On July 22, 2010, at 12:23 p.m., Reactor 1 of Kursk NPP was scrammed, the message said. The reactor was put under repairs to fix a malfunction in the cooling circuit. The repairs are to take seven days, Rosenergoatom said.
A few routine sentences followed this announcement, which accompany Rosenergoatom’s every incident report, with safety assertions regarding background radiation levels at the plant and in the vicinity and the mention that the incident was classified as a a zero-level, or below-the-scale, event on the International Nuclear Events Scale (INES), i.e. that it had no impact on the safety of the plant or the personnel.
Rosatom’s Crisis and Response Centre – the nuclear industry’s agency responsible for the prevention and handling of emergencies in the field of nuclear and radiation safety – issued a slightly more detailed statement. On July 22, 2010, at 12:23 p.m., the centre said, the reactor’s emergency protection system shut it down following a pressure spike in the reactor core. This was a Type 5 Automatic Emergency Protection event – where the safety system actuates a reduction in the reactor’s power output, taking it down to the lowest level, that is, until the reactor is fully shut down. At the time, the reactor was operating at a capacity of 960 megawatts, the centre reported. The reactor would be under repairs until July 24, 2010, the statement said.
The resulting five weeks – instead of one week – of repairing works testify to the gravity of what happened at Kursk. According to a story that was described in a letter published on the website of the St. Petersburg-based nuclear news agency PRoAtom.Ru, the reactor scram at Kursk occurred as a result of a pressure increase in the reactor core caused by damage sustained by one of the channels of the control and protection system.
Such an accident may put a reactor out of commission for a long time, indeed: Repairing the damaged channel and the graphite moderator blocks effectively means carrying out works that have to be done inside the reactor core. It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to see the seriousness of the problem – radioactivity levels are through the roof in the core even in a shut-down reactor. If damage occurs to the graphite in the core, the repairs or partial replacement may well be beyond the bounds of the possible and the problem could become an unsolvable one.
Worse, direr consequences are conceivable. Graphite is the dominant feature of the core of an RBMK series reactor. This Russian abbreviation stands for High-Power Channel-Type (or Pressurised-Tube) Reactor and describes a design where graphite is used for the moderation (slowing down) of fast fission neutrons. In essence, an RBMK core is a cylinder-shaped 21-by-21-metre graphite stack 25 metres high, with apertures allowing for both fuel channels (or pressure tubes) and the control channels of the control and protection system. The system is designed to automatically regulate reactor power, keep it at a needed level, and shut down the reactor when necessary. Cooling water is supplied to cool each of the system’s channels.
But this is what has always been Achilles’ heel of RBMK reactors – the very system by which coolant is supplied to the core. If the cooling stops in any one of the control and protection channels, or the flow rate drops significantly, overheating and damage occurs – up to the channel’s destruction and water leaking out onto the reactor’s heated graphite.
Next – a steam explosion and a graphite fire, just like it happened in Chernobyl.
Indeed, it thankfully never got as far as Chernobyl in Kursk on July 22, but if a control channel was destroyed, a discharge of radiation may well have been possible. Nothing to that effect was ever said in any official statements.
Instead, five weeks later, a short statement on Rosenergoatom’s site informed the visitors simply that on August 31, 2010, at 08:50 a.m., “power unit No.1 of Kursk NPP was connected to the grid after completion of repair works. The unit was put in operation in accordance with process procedure requirements for safe operation.”
Was there a radiation discharge?
On August 4, Greenpeace Russia sent a letter to Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, which said: “According to information made available to us, an increase in background radiation levels was picked up by background radiation sensors at the moment the scram was initiated. Our information says one of the control channels of Reactor 1 was destroyed, accompanied with damage occurring to the graphite stack. The likelihood is very high that this could have led to an accidental discharge of some of the radioactive water and a release of radiation beyond the plant’s premises.”
Greenpeace urged the Prosecutor’s office to look into the matter and verify – or disprove – the authorities’ assurances that no consequences implying a release of radiation had taken place during the incident. As of late August, Greenpeace was yet to receive a response from Prosecutor Chaika, or any information at all that would indicate his office had undertaken any investigative steps.
“The prosecutors might have been more effective in their response,” said Vladimir Chuprov, who heads Greenpeace Russia’s energy unit. “What we’re talking about is a possible release of radiation into the surrounding environment, a direct threat to the well-being of the NPP’s personnel and the population of the neighbouring areas. The possibility that radiation [was] still being discharged [as the repairs were under way], cannot be ruled out, either.”
Was a “technological improvement” the underlying cause of the incident?
RBMK-type reactors are highly sophisticated and capricious machines. While no nuclear reactor design can offer an absolute failsafe guarantee of a life-long incident-free operation, RBMKs are specifically reputed to be creatures of fickle character. After the 1986 catastrophe at Ukraine’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which employed reactors of exactly this type, enormous funds and studious efforts were invested into modernising the RBMK design and improving its safety record. It may have well been one of these “improvements” that could constitute the underlying cause of the July 22 accident at Kursk.
This is how the nuclear news agency PRoAtom described this improvement:
"During one of the stages of modernisation of pressurised-tube reactors, a new feature was added to the design, whose novelty was that there was no more direct contact between the cooling water used by the control and protection system and the neutron-absorbing rods. The design of this innovation is such that the absorbers move within dry wells contained inside the original control channels and are cooled by the control and protection system’s own cooling circuit. The wells are topped with seals at the channel head.
"This is what allowed for the removal of the main defect of how control rods had originally operated and which had triggered the Chernobyl disaster: Earlier, positive reactivity, or simply, an escalating nuclear reaction, was generated at the initial insertion of control rods into the core from the top end switch, as the displacement of water by the dropping rods precluded normal cooling of the core.
Alas, as it often happens with advantages introduced by a technological innovation, the upsides did not come without the downsides. Less cooling water is allowed into the channels with the new wells installed than it was in the original design, while the level of local resistance to heat removal is higher.”
Why was the reactor not shut down at once?
Further, according to PRoAtom:
The event [at Kursk] was preceded by damage that had several days prior occurred to the well seal in one of the control and protection channels and which resulted in a drastic drop in the water flow rate in the channel. Because of that, less water was available to cool the well. As the cause of the incident was being investigated and the seal changed, the flow of cooling water stopped altogether. This situation remained unchanged for over 24 hours.
The poor circulation of cooling water led to an overheating and rupture of the zirconium tube of the control and protection channel.
It is now anyone’s guess why, given an incident that involved damage of this significance, the reactor was not scrammed at once. Locals in Kurchatov say the plant’s chief engineer wanted to keep generating electricity and shut the reactor down later, so that as little power output was lost during the downtime as possible, and the personnel on site could not disobey the orders, though they foresaw the situation would get worse as things were developing further.
PRoAtom’s story caused a wave of responses by outraged visitors to the website’s forum. If the information is correct about the chief engineer demanding to cut corners in order to continue with power generation, said one guest, then this person must be fired immediately. This incident – or accident, because there was or must have been, in any case, a release of radiation beyond the plant’s perimeters – is nothing but a precursor to a severe accident, that visitor wrote.
“Accidents are not made by politicians or economists or managers – they are made by professionals at their work stations, those who are immediately in charge of the site in question. They are the ones to bear full responsibility in the court of law. Don’t forget [Chernobyl], dear sirs!” the angry post concluded.
A discussion also arose on the forum around whether or not the incident with the poor coolant flow rate was wrongfully ascribed to a faulty flow meter and supposedly unreliable flow readings, and if that was the reason why the reactor was not stopped at once.
Operating a reactor… by sheer guess-work
If PRoAtom’s information is accurate, the incident at Kursk was steadily in the making for at least 24 hours – meaning that certain measures were likely available to qualified staff to stop it developing further. Why weren’t they used? PRoAtom’s forum visitors, most of whom sounded as if they had intimate knowledge of the nuclear industry, with some possibly directly affiliated with Kursk NPP, were able to shed light on that mystery.
The upper biological shield – or “pyatak” – over the Kursk reactor. On top is the fuel-changing machine (the RBMK design allows for fuel changes even as normal reactor operation is in progress). The operator may have missed the steam rising over one of the channels, which would have been visible right over the biological shield.
http://kunpp.rosenergoatom.ru/
“The RBMKs have been in operation going on 40 years now, and still the Technological Regulations for Reactor Operation allow for equivocal interpretations,” said one visitor. “The limits of safe reactor operation are breached when the rate of water flow in a control and protection channel drops below 2 cubic metres an hour if the rod is inserted. But inserted where – in the channel? In the core? The latest events tell us that even if removed from the core, but inside the channel, a control and protection rod can come under damage in conditions of a poor water flow rate. To top that, no steam at the channel head (if steam is found there, the Technological Regulations provide for an immediate manual scram) can be detected by any technological means, so whatever there was or wasn’t that caused all the fuss, the Central Hall operator who’s looking at this steam, he may not even remember. So the question is, what was the point of investing billions into the reactor’s modernisation if the way we’re still dealing with this quite frequent occurrence is as before – by guesswork?”
“Weren’t there still good reasons to shut the reactor down, if not by the scram button, then it least by power reduction according to regulations? We all know that what’s been happening at the plant, all this time since then, is the melted channel and the rod inside being 'jimmied out' [of the reactor]. So, how was it possibly melting without any steam?.. The fact that no steam was mentioned later in accident reports doesn’t mean it hadn’t been there,” another guest said, apparently in response to a suggestion that there hadn’t been grounds enough to shut the reactor down at an earlier point.
“That’s exactly the way things are done,” the same post continued, “by not hearing or seeing anything that doesn’t fit the system. The system’s in a state of a complete meltdown, and you’re still trying to jam facts into it that don’t fit! So you think it was OK to lay all the blame on the flow meter and forget about the control channel until kingdom come? Shame on you! The merits of this approach are self-evident – a total failure. Try to draw some lessons.”
“This is what’s interesting: The alterations were introduced into the design ten years ago. Why would [the Russian industry oversight agency] Rostekhnadzor permit the operation of reactors with such holes in the regulations??” yet another forum visitor wrote.
Kursk’s employees in for a meltdown of their own
According to PRoAtom forum visitors, the all-hands-on-deck emergency repairs and the general disarray have been greatly aggravating the situation in Kursk.
“The [plant’s] management have been forcing operational personnel to carry out radiation-hazardous works, which they made compulsory for them. These people are unprepared to perform such work to begin with, they are not qualified enough, plus all of this is done for no extra pay, during off-hours, and without any papers or documents drawn up… Also, they’ve been bullied by threats to fail them later on some exams like, whatever, industrial hygiene or something, and redundancies for failure to pass. It’s a total mess. Everyone knows Kursk Region is poor and there aren’t many jobs, and the plant pays well enough by comparison, so people are in fear for their jobs, in fear of the bosses… And the bosses are using it as they wish, plugging the holes left by their screw-ups with their employees’ health.”
“They’re making them work overtime and not at their assigned work places, either.”
“What money could compensate for the loss of one’s health? Yeah, keep thinking those thoughts about how radiation is harmless, you fool, when you’re in the repair zone and it’s shining straight at ya with 14 to 16 roentgen per hour. These are the conditions they do their repair work in at the plant,” posted a forum guest in response to another visitor, who had suggested hazard pay was included into the nuclear power plant workers’ compensation, and that the yearly permissible levels or radiation exposure were now anyway lower than they had been in Soviet time.
“Unprofessionalism is when…instead of scramming the reactor, they’ll just log non-existent defects in a perfectly well-functioning coolant flow meter in that channel and go home like it’s no big deal. Those who’ve allowed this accident to happen, they’ve long had a screw or two loose, from all the pressure of achieving high performance rates and being afraid of losing their cushy jobs. And the chances are nil that they’ll get their heads right again any time soon.”
“The event puts this issue on the agenda: Are Kursk NPP’s personnel capable of following the requirements of the Technological Regulations to immediately scram the reactor when emergency situations arise? Or have they been too intimidated and demoralised by all the various reorganisations in the nuclear industry? Intimidated, demoralised, and broken psychologically – this is the main tactic of manipulating personnel at Russian NPPs,” the PRoAtom story concluded.
The unshakable legacy and the sad epilogue
The picture emerging behind these comments – and behind the very story, indeed – is a lamentable one.
Firstly, the so-called “improvements” on the RBMK-1000 design, necessitated as they were by the tragedy at Chernobyl, have led to a common enough solve-one-problem-by-creating-another dilemma: One of the possible causes of the world’s greatest nuclear catastrophe to date may have been safely removed, but the upgrades have given room for the likelihood of other accident scenarios to develop that involve the infamous design. If on July 22 the supply of coolant to the damaged channel were to have been restored, the situation may have well resulted in the destruction of other channels and a steam explosion of a Chernobyl magnitude. The sheer crudeness of the solution chosen to rectify the deficiencies in the old design – turning “wet” control and protection channels into “dry” ones – is nothing short of amazing.
Secondly, the accident put into stark relief the disturbing problem where many reactor parameters that are key to its safe operation – such as steam emerging over a control channel head – are still only detected or assessed with the help of nothing but the naked eye of the operator on duty, and the regulations in place are vague and offer little recourse. This broadens the margin for the possibility of a severer accident already created by the earlier upgrades, by augmenting the risk of errors on the part of the personnel – the notorious “human factor.”
And thirdly, Rosatom, when it became a state corporation, took the worst of what this supposedly free-market form of business management could offer – an unabashed pursuit of profit – and added it to the worst traits it chose to inherit from its predecessor, the Ministry of Nuclear Energy. Its history suggests that little has changed since the ministry, now a corporation operating within a loosely defined legal format, arose in the Soviet Union in the 1950s under the name of Minsredmash. The indecipherable moniker itself – Minsredmash stands in Russian for the Ministry of Medium-Size Machine Building – would be a plain enough hint at how completely shrouded in secrecy the industry was and continues to be, while it never shook off the Soviet-style disregard for the health and well-being of both the nuclear workers and the general population.
And that legacy never shows more clearly than in the public information policies the nuclear industry apparently pursues even today.
Just a few days prior to the incident at Kursk NPP, Rosenergoatom, which regularly reports on “human-interest” events taking place at its branch outfits, wrote of this high achievement at the plant in an August 19 press release (quoted here verbatim):
“In 2010 Kursk NPP was declared the award winner of the contest called “100 Best Russian Companies. Ecology and Industrial Safety.” … The enterprise was awarded with a diploma and golden medal. Director of Kursk NPP Nikolay Sorokin was awarded with a badge of honor as “The Best Director in the Field of Environmental and Industrial Safety”. Head of Radiation Safety Department – Head of Environmental Safety Service Aleksey Trubnikov was awarded with a badge of honor as “Environmental Specialist of the Year”.
Kursk NPP became the award winner due to its constant environmental care and continuous investments in the maintaining of the environmental prosperity. The environmental safety system developed by the enterprise helps to detect possible problems and prevent them. The environmental impact of the nuclear power plant does not exceed the set standards. For the last five years state regulatory authorities have detected no violations of the environmental legislation…”
The story continues further with the same copious list of laudatory mentions and stands in sharp – if not outright mocking – contrast both to the unofficial information circulating in the nuclear field’s cyberspace and to the sparse official statements appearing, when and if they do, on incidents that Russian nuclear power plants experience on a regular basis. These are the incidents that force one to take a closer look at safety practices within the industry, and these are also the events that tell one the nuclear industry is in a state of deep crisis. Too bad the politicians and the managers in charge in Moscow keep looking the other way.
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