India wants to build still more nuclear power stations

Kovvada nuclear power plant will displace about 8,000 people

Author(s): M Suchitra

Date: Nov 2, 2012

Andhra government declares five villages in Srikakulam district as project affected

Proposed nuclear power plant site

The Andhra Pradesh government has issued an order, notifying villages that are likely to be affected fully or partially by the proposed nuclear power plant at Kovvada in Ranasthalam block of the coastal district of Srikakulam. The order issued on November 1 by Mrutunjay Sahoo, principal secretary, states that 1,916.27 acres (1 acre equals 0.4 hectare) of land, including 604.12 acres of private land, will have to be acquired for the 6,000 MW project. As per the government’s estimation, 1,983 families (7,960 persons) in five villages will be displaced by the nuclear plant.

The government issued the notification as per the state’s policy—Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) for Project Affected Families, 2005. Villages which figure in the notification of “Project Affected Zone” are Ramachandrapuram, Gudem, Kotapalem, Tekkali and Jeeru Kovvada. The main source of income of people who would be displaced are agriculture, fishing and wage labour, notes the order.

The Department of Atomic Energy of the Central government had given in-principle approval for the 6X 1,000 MW nuclear power plant comprising light water reactors in 2009. The ambitious Rs 60,000 crore plant is being set up by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

The government order says the district collector of Srikakulam, in a letter dated June 20, 2012, has stated that the chief engineer of the NPCIL has submitted a proposal for acquiring 2,436.77 acres of land in these villages for installing the reactors, establishing a township and rehabilitating the displaced families. The state government had sanctioned a Land Acquisition Unit in last December for starting the land acquisition process by identifying the land. The acquisition of land and houses will be under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, says the order. 

Land to be acquired (in acres)
Poramboke (government) land 763.51
Village sites 52.89
Assigned land (government land
distributed to the landless): 495.76
Private land 604.12
Total 1,916.27



____________

SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN):
An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned
about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia
http://s-asians-against-nukes.org/

Why I continue to fight the Hinkley nuclear plant next door

Theo Simon

07.11.2012

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While Britain’s green movement remains split over nuclear power, a determined band of campaigners are staging their own protests against a planned nuclear plant in the south-west. Activist Theo Simon gives an insider’s view.

In spring, 2012, around 1,000 people blockaded the Hinkley site, where EDF plans to build a new nuclear plant. (Copyright: Adrian Arbib)

 

In the southwest corner of Britain, where the mighty River Severn flows into the Atlantic Ocean, a small but significant battle rages over energy and the legacy we leave for future generations.

For a thousand years people have trudged down the long lane that leads through windswept coastal farms to the headland of Hinkley Point, where a fresh water spring bubbles up beside an ancient burial mound. Within living memory villagers believed the water had curative powers and was protected by the spirits of the mound. But in the 1960s two nuclear power stations,Hinkley A and B, were built on the site. The Neolithic mound was fenced off, the lane became a driveway for nuclear workers, and the sacred well was covered by their car-park.

Read also: Nuclear waste: the 270-tonne legacy that won't go away

Now the two stations are at the end of their operational lives, but central government is supporting plans for French energy giant EDF to build a massive new nuclear plant on adjacent farmland. For the government, it looks like a way to cut carbon-dioxide emissions while still expanding the power supply. For those of us who live in Somerset county, it looks like a massive new hazard on our doorstep, a Fukushima waiting to happen, a bottomless drain on public funds and a future radioactive waste dump for our grandchildren.

If it is built, it will only be because it has been steamrollered over us. So the lane is seeing another kind of traffic now, as police vans monitor coach-loads of protesters opposing the plan with blockades, trespass and illegal camps.

Public consultation “a sham”
Because the government declared a “National Policy” to build 10 new nuclear plants in Britain, with Hinkley C as one of the likely sites, most local officials feel powerless to resist. They pressured the reluctant landowner into selling the land, then gave EDF permission to begin ripping it up before the project has even been given the go-ahead.  Ancient oak woodland has been felled, historic buildings have been demolished and precious wild-life habitats destroyed to make way for the biggest building site in Europe. 

Meanwhile, government created a new “consultation process”, replacing the old democratic form of public hearings with a National Planning Inspectorate. They will record your objections – so long as you submit them correctly in writing and don’t question the safety, toxicity, cost or necessity of nuclear power and its radioactive waste products. This reduces local representatives to showing their resistance through wrangles over bits of road widening or costs to the public purse. People believe that the decision has already been made and the consultation is just an expensive sham.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, 10 of us dodged security guards in February 2012 and entered the proposed development site to occupy an abandoned farm. We claimed squatter’s rights, raised anti-nuclear banners and flags, talked to the press and TV, broadcast on the internet and invited others to visit us. After three weeks, EDF took us to the High Court and asked the judge for an injunction to forbid all protest at Hinkley C.  They didn’t get the blanket ban they wanted, but did get an eviction order against the people at the farm. Some of us will now face prison if we are seen going back on the site.

None of this has stopped a growing tide of protest. A blockade by 1,000 people in the spring was followed by mass trespass and disruption to site preparation this autumn. Although the police were mobilised in force, they mainly stood by and chatted pleasantly while filming us, as it is their job to intervene only if there is violence or property damage.   They have enjoyed watching us repeatedly outwit the private security guards and dogs patrolling the site.

Read also: Chinese nuclear industry goes global
Many of the police are on our side in their hearts. They are local people themselves, with families who would face evacuation and contamination if there were a nuclear accident, and with children whose great-grandchildren will have to take care of the highly toxic radioactive waste dump which will be remain long after Hinkley C has stopped generating electricity. Recently at a roadblock one officer explained to me that the sea at Hinkley Point has the second highest tidal range in the world and is an ideal place to harvest marine energy – but state investment is lacking. Where nuclear is concerned though, the government now says it may underwrite the construction and fix the electricity price for EDF if that is what it takes to secure enough corporate or foreign state investment to keep the project afloat.

The British state has a historic attachment to nuclear power as a source of nuclear weapons material and a centralised power system that requires secretive control. While no one seriously doubts the need for urgent and rapid action to cut carbon-dioxide emissions to prevent climate change, MPs have questioned the way the decision to use such hazardous technology was made when renewable energy options of wind, sun and wave-power also exist. They believe that nuclear industry lobbyists have corrupted the democratic process. Even at a local level, the press rely so heavily on money from EDF’s advertising that they have effectively become propaganda sheets for the Hinkley C project.

Economic and environmental “blackmail”
Thanks to our protests on the one hand and the reluctance of investors to commit on the other, the nuclear edifice has now begun to crack. Eight of Britain’s 10 planned new-nuclear projects have stalled. But it is still an uphill struggle to challenge such large-scale construction when it has full government backing and a supposedly “green” justification.  Local people feel trapped. Their resistance is softened by cash handouts from EDF to the community – a kind of legal bribe – and the promise of jobs. One local teacher told me she wanted to visit our camp but felt she couldn’t as EDF had given money to her school.

Economic and environmental blackmail makes people reluctant to speak out. “Don’t tell anyone in the village I was here,” said one man who brought supplies to our farm occupation, and he was typical of many. But through direct action and social media, campaigners are making local resistance more visible and inspiring self-confidence. At a recent rally in nearby Bridgwater town, we showed that there are alternative ways to cut CO2 while creating a million new “green” jobs. We also brought survivors from Fukushima to remind workers of the terrible cost communities must pay when nuclear goes wrong. As a former senior engineer from the Hinkley B plant explained to the rally, such human mistakes are always possible when there is strong financial pressure to cut corners in construction and no genuine public scrutiny.

Climate change is global, and tackling it will require global solidarity. Globally also, Fukushima has reawakened ordinary people to the hazards of nuclear power. We have had visits from Indian and European campaigners, and we know that our common future lies in the hands of the larger so-called “emerging economies”, not with us. But hopefully we can play a small part here by successfully rejecting new-nuclear in Britain, while acting to leave our descendants a world which is as clean and safe as the world our ancestors left for us.

Theo Simon is an environmental campaigner and musician with UK band Seize The Day

Superstorm Sandy Shows Nuclear Plants Who’s Boss

Tuesday, 30 October 2012 11:30By Gregg Levine, Capitoilette | Reporthttp://truth-out.org/news/item/12410-superstorm-sandy-shows-nuclear-plants-whos-bossl

Once there was an ocean liner; its builders said it was unsinkable. Nature had other ideas.

On Monday evening, as Hurricane Sandy was becoming Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy, pushing record amounts of water on to Atlantic shores from the Carolinas to Connecticut, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a statement. Oyster Creek, the nation’s oldest operating nuclear reactor, was under an Alert. . . and under a good deal of water.

As reported earlier, Oyster Creek’s coolant intake structure was surrounded by floodwaters that arrived with Sandy. Oyster Creek’s 47-year-old design requires massive amounts of external water that must be actively pumped through the plant to keep it cool. Even when the reactor is offline, as was the case on Monday, water must circulate through the spent fuel pools to keep them from overheating, risking fire and airborne radioactive contamination.

With the reactor shut down, the facility is dependant on external power to keep water circulating. But even if the grid holds up, rising waters could trigger a troubling scenario:

The water level was more than six feet above normal. At seven feet, the plant would lose the ability to cool its spent fuel pool in the normal fashion, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The plant would probably have to switch to using fire hoses to pump in extra water to make up for evaporation, Mr. Sheehan said, because it could no longer pull water out of Barnegat Bay and circulate it through a heat exchanger, to cool the water in the pool.

If hoses desperately pouring water on endangered spent fuel pools remind you of Fukushima, it should. Oyster Creek is the same model of GE boiling water reactor that failed so catastrophically in Japan.

The NRC press release (PDF) made a point–echoed in most traditional media reports–of noting that Oyster Creek’s reactor was shut down. As nuclear engineerArnie Gundersen told Democracy Now! before the Alert was declared:

[Oyster Creek is] in a refueling outage. That means that all the nuclear fuel is not in the nuclear reactor, but it’s over in the spent fuel pool. And in that condition, there’s no backup power for the spent fuel pools. So, if Oyster Creek were to lose its offsite power—and, frankly, that’s really likely—there would be no way cool that nuclear fuel that’s in the fuel pool until they get the power reestablished. Nuclear fuel pools don’t have to be cooled by diesels per the old Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations.

A site blackout (SBO) or a loss of coolant issue at Oyster Creek puts all of the nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at risk. The plant being offline does not change that, though it does, in this case, increase the risk of an SBO.

But in the statement from the NRC, there was also another point they wanted to underscore (or one could even say “brag on”): “As of 9 p.m. EDT Monday, no plants had to shut down as a result of the storm.”

If only regulators had held on to that release just one more minute. . . .

SCRIBA, NY – On October 29 at 9 p.m., Nine Mile Point Unit 1 experienced an automatic reactor shutdown.

The shutdown was caused by an electrical grid disturbance that caused the unit’s output breakers to open. When the unit’s electrical output breakers open, there is nowhere to “push” or transmit the power and the unit is appropriately designed to shut down under these conditions.

“Our preliminary investigation identified a lighting pole in the Scriba switchyard that had fallen onto an electrical component. This is believed to have caused the grid disturbance. We continue to evaluate conditions in the switchyard,” said Jill Lyon, company spokesperson.

Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station consists of two GE boiling water reactors, one of which would be the oldest operating in the US were it not for Oyster Creek. They are located just outside Oswego, NY, on the shores of Lake Ontario. Just one week ago, Unit 1–the older reactor–declared an “unusual event” as the result of a fire in an electrical panel. Then, on Monday, the reactor scrammed because of a grid disturbance, likely caused by a lighting pole knocked over by Sandy’s high winds.

An hour and forty-five minutes later, and 250 miles southeast, another of the nation’s ancient reactors also scrammed because of an interruption in offsite power. Indian Point, the very old and very contentious nuclear facility less than an hour’s drive north of New York City, shut down because of “external grid issues.” And Superstorm Sandy has given Metropolitan New York’s grid a lot of issues.

While neither of these shutdowns is considered catastrophic, they are not as trivial as the plant operators and federal regulators would have you believe. First, emergency shutdowns–scrams–are not stress-free events, even for the most robust of reactors. As discussed here before, it is akin to slamming the breaks on a speeding locomotive. These scrams cause wear and tear aging reactors can ill afford.

Second, scrams produce pressure that usually leads to the venting of some radioactive vapor. Operators and the NRC will tell you that these releases are well within “permissible” levels–what they can’t tell you is that “permissible” is the same as “safe.”

If these plants were offline, or running at reduced power, the scrams would not have been as hard on the reactors or the environment. Hitting the breaks at 25 mph is easier on a car than slamming them while going 65. But the NRC does not have a policy of ordering shutdowns or reductions in capacity in advance of a massive storm. In fact, the NRC has no blanket protocol for these situations, period. By Monday morning, regulators agreed to dispatch extra inspectors to nuclear plants in harm’s way (and they gave them sat phones, too!), but they left it to private nuclear utility operators to decide what would be done in advance to prepare for the predicted natural disaster.

Operators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokes-folks like to remind all who will listen (or, at least, all who will transcribe) that nuclear reactors are the proverbial house of bricks–a hurricane might huff and puff, but the reinforced concrete that makes up a typical containment building will not blow in. But that’s not the issue, and the NRC, at least, should know it.

Loss of power (SBOs) and loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs) are what nuclear watchdogs were warning about in advance of Sandy, and they are exactly the problems that presented themselves in New York and New Jersey when the storm hit.

The engineers of the Titanic claimed that they had built the unsinkable ship, but human error, corners cut on construction, and a big chunk of ice cast such hubris asunder. Nuclear engineers, regulators and operators love to talk of four-inch thick walls and “defense-in-depth” backup systems, but the planet is literally littered with the fallout of their folly.

 Nuclear power systems are too complex and too dangerous for the best of times and the best laid plans. How are they supposed to survive the worst of times and no plans at all?

UK anti-nuclear groups condemn Hitachi’s £700 m acquisition of Horizon Nuclear Corporation

UK-based anti-nuclear groups Kick Nuclear & Japanese Against Nuclear (UK) [1] have condemned the £700m acquisition of nuclear new build consortium Horizon by Hitachi Ltd. [2] They call on the Japanese firm to abandon its plans to build new nuclear plants in the UK [3] and are calling for a boycott of the company until it does so.

Hitachi was responsible for the manufacture of one of the reactors at the Fukushima No.1 plant in Japan, which was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. [4] There are also questions about the reliability of the reactor design Hitachi wishes to build in the UK. [5] Nancy Birch, a spokesperson for Kick Nuclear, said:

“As a Japanese company with first-hand experience of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which continues to pollute the environment, Hitachi is only too aware of the dangers of nuclear power. Building more nuclear power plants is a danger to everyone and will do nothing to solve the long-term environmental problems we face. “If these nuclear plants are built, it will be us and future generations who will ultimately have to foot the bill for the clean up, with Hitachi walking away with any profits. "We simply don’t need dangerous new nuclear power plants in the UK. Our energy needs can be met more safely, sustainably and cost-effectively through a combination of energy saving and renewable and decentralised energy, including solar, wind and marine energy. “Instead of building new nuclear white elephants, Hitachi should invest in renewable energy. We want a future, not a disaster.”

Notes 1.

Kick Nuclear is a London-based group campaigning against the UK’s addiction to nuclear power and supporting sustainable alternatives. http://kicknuclear.org

Japanese Against Nuclear (UK) is a group of Japanese citizens resident in the UK who campaign against nuclear power.   http://januk.org  

2. Hitachi news release – 30 October 2012 http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/121030a.html  

3. Horizon Nuclear Power was formed in January 2009 with a view to building new nuclear power plants at Wylfa, in north Wales and Oldbury, near Bristol.
http://www.horizonnuclearpower.com

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant ‘Fukushima Engineer Says He Helped Cover Up Flaw at Dai-Ichi Reactor No. 4’ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-says-he-covered-up-flaw-at-shut-reactor.html

5. The reliability of Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) built so far is not particularly impressive, though only two of those have been built by Hitachi. Shika-2 has been in commercial operation since 2006, yet lifetime operating reliability is less than 50%. Technical problems in the turbines are blamed. Operational ABWRs include: HAMAOKA 5 (Toshiba), KASHIWAZAKI KARIWA-6  (Toshiba) , KASHIWAZAKI KARIWA-7 (Hitachi) and SHIKA-2 (Hitachi) - From list of reactors in operation worldwide in 2009. See: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/CNPP2010_CD/pages/AnnexII/tables/table2.htm ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABWR

Reliability
The four ABWRs in operation were often shut down due [to] technical problems. The International Atomic Energy Agency documents this with the 'operating factor' (the time with electricity feed-in relative to the total time since commercial operation start). The first two plants in Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (block 6 & 7) reach operating factors below 70%, meaning that about 30% of an average year they aren't producing electricity.[3][4] In contrast other modern nuclear power plants like the Korean OPR-1000 or the German Konvoi show operating factors of about 90%.[5] The output power of the two new ABWRs at the Hamaoka and Shika power plant had to be lowered because of technical problems in the turbines.[6] After throttling both power plants still have a heightened downtime and show other their lifetime operating factors under 50%.[7][8] The following are new Hitachi reactor projects, only one of which appears still to be going ahead:
Oma Nuclear Plant, originally scheduled for completion Nov 2014, has faced an 18- month delay after Fukushima
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121002a4.html  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cma_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Shimane was due to be completed in March 2012, but was suspended in 2011  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimane_Nuclear_Power_Plant

5. Image of Fukushima-1 Unit 4 vessel head being removed, draped in GE-Hitachi banner: http://www.nirs.org/images/unit4vesselhead.jpg

Making the World a More Dangerous Place: The Eager Role of Julia Gillard

By John Pilger

October 24, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - The Australian parliament building reeks of floor polish. The wooden floors shine so virtuously they reflect the cartoon-like portraits of prime ministers, bewigged judges and viceroys. Along the gleaming white, hushed corridors, the walls are hung with Aboriginal art: one painting after another as in a monolithic gallery, divorced from their origins, the irony brutal. The poorest, sickest, most incarcerated people on earth provide a façade for those who oversee the theft of their land and its plunder.

Australia has 40% of the world’s uranium, all of it on indigenous land. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just been to India to sell uranium to a government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and whose enemy, Pakistan, is also a non-signatory. The threat of nuclear war between them is constant. Uranium is an essential ingredient of nuclear weapons. Gillard's deal in Delhi formally ends the Australian Labor Party's long-standing policy of denying uranium to countries that reject the NPT's obligation "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament".

Like the people of Japan, Australian Aborigines have experienced the horror of nuclear weapons. During the 1950s, the British government tested atomic bombs at Maralinga in South Australia. The Aboriginal population was not consulted and received scant or no warning, and still suffer the effects. Yami Lester was a boy when he saw the nuclear flash and subsequently went blind. The enduring struggle of Aboriginal people for recognition as human beings has been a fight not only for their land but for what lies beneath it. Since they were granted a status higher than that of sheep -- up to 1971, unlike the sheep, they were not counted – many of their modest land rights have been subverted or diminished by governments in Canberra.

In 2007, prime minister John Howard used the army to launch an "emergency intervention" in Aboriginal communities in the resource-rich Northern Territory. Lurid and fraudulent stories of paedophile rings were the cover; indigenous people were told they would not receive basic services if they did not surrender the leasehold of their land. Gillard’s minister of indigenous affairs has since given this the Orwellian title of "Stronger Futures".

The tactics include driving people into “hub towns” and denying decent housing to those forced to live up to a dozen in one room. The removal of Aboriginal children has reached the level of the infamous "Stolen Generation" of the last century. Many may never see their families again.

Once the “intervention” had got under way, hundreds of licences were granted to companies exploring for minerals, including uranium. Contemporary politics in Australia is often defined by the power of the mining companies. When the previous Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, proposed a tax on record mining profits, he was deposed by a backroom party cabal, including Gillard, who reduced the tax. Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks reveal that two of the plotters against Rudd were informants of the US embassy, which Rudd had angered by not following to the letter US plans to encircle China and to release uranium for sale to US clients such as India.

Gillard has since returned Australia to its historic relationship with Washington, similar to that of an east European satellite of the Soviet Union. The day before Barack Obama arrived in Canberra last year to declare China the new enemy of the “free world”, Gillard announced the end of her party’s ban on uranium sales.

Washington's other post-cold war obsessions demand the services of Australia. These include the intimidation of Iran and destruction of that country’s independence, the undermining of the NPT and prevention of nuclear-free zones that threaten the nuclear-armed dominance of the US and Israel. Unlike Iran, a founding signatory of the NPT and supporter of a nuclear-free zone Middle East, the US and Israel ban independent inspections. And both are currently threatening to attack Iran which, as the combined agencies of US intelligence confirmed, has no nuclear weapons.

The necessary inversion of reality and double standard require a “carefully orchestrated process”, the US embassy is assured by an Australian official quoted by WikiLeaks. According to the US cables, there are enthusiastic "Australian ideas" for "dredging up" information to help discredit Mohamad El Baradei who, as director of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1997 to 2009, repeatedly refuted US claims that Iran was building a nuclear weapon. The Director of the Australian Arms Control office is portrayed as a US watchdog, warning against "a slippery slope" of governments "exercising independent judgment" on nuclear matters. A senior Australian official, one Patrick Suckling, is reporting as telling the US that “Australia wants the most robust, intrusive and debilitating sanctions possible” against Iran. Suckling’s victims are today mostly ordinary men, women and children.

On 5 October, the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, which includes Aboriginal groups from across the country, gathered in Alice Springs. They called for a moratorium on all uranium mining and sales. Indigenous women made a special plea to Gillard, recently ordained by the white media as a feminist hero. No response was expected.

On 17 October, all the testaments of obedience and servility to the mighty patron finally paid off when Australia was rewarded with a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, known in Canberra as “the top table”. The timing is striking. An attack by Nato on Syria or Iran, or both, has never been closer. A world war beckons as 50 years are marked since "the world stood still", wrote the historian Sheldon Stern. This was the 1962 Cuba missile crisis when the US and the Soviet Union came within an ace of nuclear war. Declassified files disclose that President John F. Kennedy authorised "NATO aircraft with Turkish pilots ... to take off for Moscow and drop a bomb."

The echo today could not be clearer

www.johnpilger.com

Anti Nuclear Protest in France

On 23rd November last, near the town of Valognes, towards the northern tip
of the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy, 800 people took it into their
heads to delay a train full of nuclear waste, in which action they were
successful. For the first time in many years, the French anti-nuclear
movement was seeing direct action at a mass level. For the first time in
many years, the anti-nuclear movement was speaking without fear, in
response to the thousands of Germans who have been blocking the same
nuclear-waste train every year for more than twenty years.

This action, in the most densely “atomic” region of the most nuclear
country in the world, proved unacceptable to the authorities. Just as the
steady drip-feed of “incidents” in power stations and reprocessing plants
has always been hushed up, so too has any kind of opposition to the
nuclear industry.

Which is why, too, in the same part of northern Normandy, some six months
later, police were given free-rein to disperse the anti high-tension wire
camp at Montabot. The cost in human terms was twenty-five casualties, five
of them serious. Next came a tidal wave of court-cases against nuclear
opponents: five charged over the action at Valognes; a mayor (the mayor of
Le Chefresne) held on remand, provoking his resignation along with that of
his entire municipal council; not to mention many assorted convictions,
including one actual prison sentence, for people who taking part in the
battle against the Cotentin-Maine high-tension line; and many straight
summonses intended to intimidate.

A further trial is to be held at Cherbourg on 9th October 2012. The three
defendants are all people who spoke to the media during the action at
Valognes. This is an across-the-board first for all political struggles,
that the mere fact of answering reporters’ questions should be answerable
before the law. The charges are: “direct provocation leading to people
assembling to take up arms”; “organizing an illegal demonstration”; and
“party to the destruction of private property”.

And what is the evidence to corroborate charges of so serious a nature?
Two or three interviews before BFM TV (a news channel), Le Figaro (a
national newspaper of a conservative bent) or France Soir (an Internet
publication formerly a national newspaper), alleged to establish the
defendants as self-proclaimed leaders commanding a flock of sheep-like
obedience.

This is not subtle. The intention is that events such as Valognes should
not in future be able to be supported by publicly formulated political
demands. Those who take part must be seen as thoughtless criminals,
irresponsible and crazy. There must always be seen to be leaders, in
denial of non-hierarchical modes of organization. The clear expression of
any sort of offensive, collective commitment is to be prevented. On our
side, the purpose is just that: to provide space for an insolent
connection between deed and thinking behind deed.

Beyond the dozy confines of a tribunal, such trials must always seem
preposterous. Which is why we are calling for the three defendants to be
overwhelmed by the broadest possible support. Why we are asking for you to
be present outside the court on the day of the trial.

ALL MEET: 9TH OCTOBER: 10 am - CHERBOURG LAWCOURTS.

Support the Valognes Three Collectives
legalteamvalognes@riseup.net

Most EU Nuclear Power Plants ‘Unsafe’

By Julio Godoy

Most European nuclear facilities do not meet even minimum security standards. Credit: Monica S/CC-BY-ND-2.0

BERLIN, Oct 16 2012 (IPS) - The so-called ‘stress tests’ on nuclear power plants in the European Union (EU) have confirmed environmental and energy activists’ worst fears: most European nuclear facilities do not meet minimum security standards.

The tests on 134 nuclear reactors operating in 14 EU member states were carried out in response to widespread concern among the public that an accident similar to the catastrophic meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactor in March 2011 could occur in Europe. According to the report, “EU citizens must… be confident that Europe’s nuclear industry is safe.”

But the findings of the report, released in Brussels on Oct. 4, suggest that, contrary to feeling safe, EU citizens have good reason to be afraid.

Only four countries “currently operate additional safety systems (e.g. bunkered systems or a ‘hardened core’ of safety systems) independent of the normal safety systems, located in areas well protected against external events.”

The stress tests also found that in “four reactors (located in two different countries), there is less than one hour available to operators to restore the safety functions in case of loss of all electrical power and/or ultimate heat sink.” Additionally, “in ten reactors, on-site seismic instrumentation is not installed yet.”

Only seven countries are in possession of “mobile equipment, especially diesel generators needed in case of total loss of power, external events or severe accident situations.”

Activists have also lamented that the tests were almost entirely theoretical, whose findings and recommendations are not legally binding.

The report itself states, “Peer review teams mainly composed of experts from the Member States visited 24 sites out of the total of 68, taking into account the type of reactor as well as the geographical location. Team visits to selected sites in each country were organised in order to firm up the implementation of the stress tests, without encroaching on the responsibilities of national authorities in the area of nuclear safety inspections.”

Report prompts action

The catastrophe of Fukushima, deemed the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, demonstrated that nuclear power plants must be protected even against accidents that have been deemed ‘highly improbable’.

In the EU’s own words, “Events at Fukushima revealed well-known and recurring issues: faulty design, insufficient backup systems, human error, inadequate contingency plans, and poor communications.”

The EU stress tests only confirmed what environmental groups and anti-nuclear power activists have feared for years. Now, these groups are using the results of the tests to call for a gradual phasing out of nuclear power across the continent.

Tobias Muenchmeyer, nuclear power expert for the German office of Greenpeace, told IPS, “The stress tests confirm that the warning systems are insufficient, and that the application of guidelines in cases of major accidents is also deficient. In such cases, nuclear power plants must be shut down.”

“The stress tests on nuclear power plants across Europe constitute a fire signal for a pan-European phasing out of nuclear power,” Muenchmeyer added.

At the very least, according to other activists and politicians, the results of the tests should lead to the immediate shutting down of all nuclear power plants situated in border regions, where nuclear accidents will not only impact the local environment and population but foreign regions and citizens as well.

Such measures would affect nuclear power plants in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, the Slovak Republic, and Romania.

Johannes Remmel, minister for the environment in the German federal state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, said in a press conference that all deficient nuclear power plants operating in border regions in Europe should be shut down, or, at least, not be allowed to function past their ‘operational life’.

“An accident with leakage of radioactivity would affect populations in several countries,“ Remmel said. He specifically referred to the Belgian nuclear power plants of Tihange and Doel, considered particularly fragile, which are situated between 60 and 120 kilometres away from German territory.

Similar calls were made in Austria referring to the nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The stress tests also shed light on just how expensive nuclear power plants can be.

The EU assures that “All participating countries have begun to take operational steps to improve the safety of their plants”, adding that “the costs of additional safety improvements are estimated to be in the range of 30 million to 200 million (euros) per reactor unit. Thus, the total costs for the 132 reactors operating in the EU could be in the order of 10 (to) 25 billion (euros)…over the coming years.”

These figures are based on estimates published by the French nuclear safety authority, which covers more than one-third of the reactors in the EU, and are subject to confirmation in national actions plans.

Experts like Jo Leinen, former minister of the environment in the German federal state of Saarland, and present member of the European parliament, believe this money can be put to better use.

“Either the EU and its member states invest in upgrading the nuclear power plants to make them safer, or they shut them down,” he told IPS. “If the upgrading actually costs 25 billion (euros), such a sum (could) be better invested in renewable energy sources.”

The accident at Fukushima showed that nuclear power plants must be prepared to withstand even the most improbable accidents.

Fukushima also reinforced popular opposition to nuclear power around the world. Meanwhile, numerous nuclear power plants currently under construction, such as the Olkiluoto 3 in Finland and the Flamanville power plant in France, are incurring skyrocketing costs.

Now, the EU stress tests have added yet another nail in the coffin of nuclear power.

The growing global share of renewable energy sources shows that a world free of nuclear power is possible and feasible. The share of nuclear power in global power generation has steadily declined from a historic peak of 17 percent in 1993 to about 11 percent in 2011.