Welcome to the second annual Nuclear Reaction Awards. As the year comes to its close we’d like to recognise those who have help make the nuclear industry the over-subsidised and under-scrutinised joke it is today.

Today’s Award: Outstanding Contribution To The Anti-Nuclear Energy Cause 2009

We could tease you by listing the contenders who might have won this award to be honest we’d be wasting everybody’s time. Nobody else came anywhere close to making as big a contribution to the anti-nuclear energy cause as this year’s winner. Not even this blog!

Our winner’s achievements this year are almost endless. It has…

- With the eyes of the world on it as it single-handedly tries to launch the nuclear ‘renaissance’ by building a flagship state-of-the-art third-generation nuclear reactor, it lets the project’s costs and schedule spiral out of control. The reactor construction has thousands of defects and its design has been heavily criticised by nuclear regulators in three countries.

- Spooked potential clients by conducting a very public row with its customer for the above project and attempting to change the terms of their contract.

- Demonstrated the terrible economics of nuclear power by having the above reactor project wipe out its profits.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you French nuclear corporation, AREVA!

AREVA, we salute you and await another year of ‘success’ from you in 2010.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Mayor of slide-slammed city seeks precautionary closer of Brazil's 2 nuclear plants
‘SAO PAULO, Brazil — The mayor of a mudslide-devastated city urged a precautionary shutdown of Brazil's only nuclear power plants on Sunday due to blocked highways while the discovery of more bodies raised the region's storm-caused death toll to 75. Angra dos Reis Mayor Tuca Jordao said that while the nuclear power plants are not damaged or threatened, mudslides that that have killed at least 44 people in his city alone have disrupted escape routes needed to cope with any emergency. "We don't want any risk," said Jordao, whose municipality has about 120,000 people. "We want to avoid a future problem." There was no immediate response from senior authorities, but officials of Brazil's state-run nuclear energy company Eletronuclear said a temporary closure of the plants would not seriously hurt the country's power supply, according to Globo TV.’

Ignalina nuclear power plant, 160 km north of Vilnius, Lithuania.
© Jan Haverkamp. Click image for a larger view.

As the year changes, it’s often customary to look back and think about those who are no longer with us. Here we bid farewell to Lithuania’s Ignalina 2 nuclear reactor, which was shut down on December 31.

The reactor was closed as part of the terms of Lithuania joining the European Union. Its sister reactor was closed in December 2004. The reactors were of a similar design to that at Chernobyl and so were closed due to safety concerns.

Questions are now being asked. Won’t power prices have to rise in Lithuania? Won’t the country leave itself open to relying on Russia for its power? In fact, the two Lithuanian reactors were reliant on Russian nuclear fuel. If anything the closure of the reactors means Lithuania is now able to diversify its energy sources.

Lithuania knew it had to close its Soviet-era nuclear reactors in 1999 when its application to join the EU was accepted. The closure is depicted as unpopular but a referendum held in 2008 on whether to close Ignalina 2 or not could not even attract the 50% of voter turnout required to allow it to pass.

That said, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity has shown that ‘after closure of INPP by the end of 2009, Lithuania will be able to cover peak load during the winter period. Lithuania does not expect any critical situation during the winter period.’.

(Which is more than can be said for France which is being forced to import electricity while several of its nuclear reactors are off during the winter months. Nuclear power hasn’t stopped the lights going out there.)

Lithuania has had eleven years to consider contingencies for any energy gap. The country has much potential for several renewable energy alternatives including solar, wind, geothermal and hyro power. It’s time for it to embrace a new revolution.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

France rejects Iranian "ultimatum" on nuclear fuel selling or swap
‘PARIS, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- France Monday rejected Iran's Sunday "ultimatum" that urged Western powers to decide whether to sell nuclear fuel to Iran or swap nuclear fuel for Iran's low-enriched uranium within a month. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, in an interview with the RTL radio, said it was not acceptable that Iran brought forward a new plan to counter the proposals by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA prepared a draft deal agreed by Western powers, which suggested Iran transport most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France by the end of 2009 for further processing. The higher-enriched uranium then would be shipped back to Iran for civilian use. The draft deal fell on deaf ears when it passed the Dec. 31, 2009 deadline.’

It’s just over a month since Greenpeace announced it had found high radiation contamination levels in the streets of Akokan close to French nuclear company AREVA’s uranium mines in Niger.

Today, we’re able to tell you that AREVA have confirmed with their own survey that radiation levels in the area were unacceptably high after having earlier declared the streets of Akokan safe. The company says the area has now been cleaned and also checked by the radiation safety authority. It also states that it has a plan of action for a complete survey of the two cities close to its uranium mines, and is promising that by the end of next year both will have been completely checked and cleaned up.

However, we remain worried. Would this action have been taken had it not been for Greenpeace visiting Akokan and taking its own radiation measurements? Why did AREVA’s own monitoring procedures not detect radioactive contamination levels as high as 500 times normal levels? Are the companies monitoring techniques adequate? The health and environmental impacts of years of uranium mining in Niger has yet to be fully assessed. That’s why Greenpeace is demanding a comprehensive, transparent and independent environmental assessment of the area be conducted urgently.

A full report of what Greenpeace found in Niger will be released soon.

(More information in French can be found at Nigerdiaspora.net. The Greenpeace briefing document for our findings is here. Radiation measurement tool photograph © Greenpeace/Philip Reynaers)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Life in a radiation zone
‘The recent incident involving a large number of workers at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka receiving substantial radiation doses due to drinking from a cooler contaminated with tritiated water (containing a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) is disturbing for a number of reasons. The nuclear establishment has tried to trivialize the import of this event. It has even impressed on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that it was only a "small matter of contamination". In turn, Singh has tried to mollify public fears by declaring there was "nothing to worry". However, what happened at Kaiga should be viewed in light of the catastrophic potential of nuclear technology highlighted by many accidents and incidents of safety lapses at
facilities run by India's Department of Atomic Energy (dae) and its sister institutes.’

Lithuania’s road sign makers certainly had the right idea about the country’s nuclear reactors…

© Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace EU Policy Campaigner on dirty energy.
Click image for larger version.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

EDF Has More-Than-Forecast Nine Reactors Off Line Amid Freeze
‘Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Electricite de France SA has nine nuclear reactors off line, more than twice what it forecast last month, as a cold snap boosted power demand and prices. The state-controlled company, Europe's biggest electricity generator, had 49 nuclear reactors "available and connected to the grid" today, EDF spokesman Francois Molho said by telephone. He declined to say which plants are running. EDF operates 58 nuclear reactors in France, which provide more than three quarters of the country's power. The number of non-connected reactors in France is more than the company forecast last month. During a parliamentary hearing on Dec. 16, Chief Executive Officer Henri Proglio said EDF expected to have four reactors halted this month and added he was "personally committed" to getting more plants online. A strike by nuclear workers last year and a lack of investment in the previous decade have left French power producers unable to meet growing power demand, Proglio has said. France is increasingly relying on power imports from neighboring countries during peak-demand periods.’

When he announced the UK’s nuclear ‘renaissance’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government insisted it would create 100,000 new jobs. That figure has since fallen to by 10% to 90,000 but that’s still a big promise.

Thanks to French nuclear company AREVA, however, we’re now getting an idea of how those numbers break down and the spin around nuclear job creation is revealed.

AREVA’s EPR reactor is one of two designs the UK government is looking at building and is also being considered in the US...

…a new U.S. EPR™ would create up to 11,000 direct and indirect jobs during component manufacturing (including AREVA’s Newport News heavy component facility in Virginia) and plant construction. On top if this, construction and operation would also create more than 400 permanent jobs and spur billion of dollars in investment in the local economy.

The UK government wants ten new reactors, so that would create 110,000 ‘direct and indirect’ jobs according to AREVA's numbers, wouldn’t it? Well, it might. That number is in the same ballpark as the UK government’s figures of 90,000-100,000 but it assumes that all ten reactors are built at the same time.

It also assumes there will be no overlap between the people working on one reactor and the people working on another. Do we expect that there will be no transfer of skills between reactor projects especially in a time when nuclear expertise is scarce? Are there enough contractors with enough experienced workers and resources to provide 110,000 of them simultaneously?

If anything, these jobs will be highly transient. As the campaign group Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy found when it visited the Okiluoto 3 EPR construction site in Finland late last year, ‘4,300 workers work on the site, but a total of 16,300 people have worked on site between 2005 and to date’. That doesn’t sound like job security to us.

Also, can the UK government guarantee that all those jobs will go to British workers? It looks like Westinghouse, the other company whose reactor design is being considered by the UK, would rely on thousands of workers from overseas. As Bulgaria found with its Belene reactor when it had to import foreign expertise, these promises of new jobs are not always kept.

Then there’s the final sting in the tail of the nuclear jobs spin. According to AREVA building an EPR creates only around 400 permanent jobs. The rest will, by any definition, be temporary jobs. That falls a long way short of the ‘100,000 jobs’ hype. No wonder the workers at Olkiluoto are taking their time.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Vermont Yankee groundwater well tests positive for radioactive isotope for the first time
'MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A small amount of radioactive material was found in a test of groundwater wells at the Vermont Yankee nuclear facility, the plant confirmed Thursday. The problem at the 38-year-old reactor is similar to those cropping up at nuclear plants around the country, with the discovery of a radioactive isotope called tritium in a monitoring well. Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said Thursday the plant confirmed a report provided a day earlier by an independent testing laboratory hired to check samples from 32 groundwater monitoring wells on the site. Williams said it was the first time a groundwater sample at the plant had tested positive for tritium.'

We’ve met the French nuclear reactors that can’t work when it’s too hot. Now meet the US nuclear reactor that can’t work when it’s too cold.

One New Jersey nuclear power plant has been shut down and another put on reduced power because of ice in the Delaware River. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission says Salem Unit 2 was shut down around 8 a.m. Sunday because it was taking ice into its cooling mechanism. Salem Unit 1 was also reduced to 80 percent power for the same reason. It's not clear when the two plants will return to full power.

‘Reliable’ nuclear power strikes again.

How about this for a nuclear slap in the face for poorer nations? Analysts at securities and investment banking firm Jefferies have suggested that the French nuclear industry should sell poorer countries such as ‘India or the Gulf states’ ‘older, cheaper’ nuclear reactors rather than ones with ‘top-notch safety systems’ that richer nations insist upon. Basically, they’re saying if French companies want to compete against the likes of the South Korean consortium, that last month won the contract to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates, they need to forget about selling the latest safety systems to countries where life is apparently cheaper than in the affluent West. And people say Greenpeace are ‘anti-human’.

Meanwhile, in the UK, respected newspaper columnist Simon Jenkins has written about how radiation isn’t really dangerous. He uses some rather strange arguments to do it. The Chernobyl disaster ‘killed no more than 60 people’ he says. We beg to differ. In a 2006 report Greenpeace presented new data showing that ‘during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000’.

Mr Jenkins then confuses ionising radiation (the dangerous kind) and non-ionising radiation (the less dangerous kind) when he says ‘only yesterday research suggested that mobile phone radiation may relieve Alzheimer's’. You simply cannot compare the two. If nuclear reactors and their waste gave off the same kind of radiation as mobile phones the anti-nuclear campaign could pack up and go home.

He also attempts to downplay the effects of nuclear weapons. ‘Cities recover with remarkable alacrity, as even Hiroshima did from contamination,’ he says. Mr Jenkins should try telling that to the 140,000 victims of the Hiroshima bomb. Oh, he can’t – they’re all dead. Cities may recover with ‘remarkable’ speed from an atomic bombing. Humans? Not so much.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Radioactive Groundwater Due to Hit Chesapeake Bay
’Not far from the political wheeling and dealing, hidden from view outside Washington, DC, one of the most stunning cover-ups in environmental criminal history quietly gurgles below our feet. Far outside the awareness of nearly 17 million residents exists a total news blackout of nuclear power plants that have leaked radioactive chemicals into the groundwater of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. There exists possibly no better example of the total stand down on the Chesapeake's nuclear woes than the day in August, 2009 when an EPA rep came to an Annapolis town hall forum. Press was in abundance in the standing-room-only event, ensuring wide press coverage of standard Bay pollution topics with bright smiling faces talking about nitrogen and storm drains. Yet for all the rhetoric from the non-profit organizers and EPA about the Bay-on-its-way-out, radioactive chemical emissions generated by the 11 reactors in the Bay watershed and their own 'special' contributions to the Bay's demise were never mentioned.’

The world-wide renaissance of nuclear power that has so often been predicted will not take place in the next few decades. Nuclear energy will be on the decline till the year 2030, and will continue to decline in importance globally.

This is the conclusion of the Swiss “Prognos” institute based in Basel. Germany’s Federal Agency for Radiation Protection in Salzgitter / Lower Saxony commissioned “Prognos” to carry out a survey on “the renaissance of nuclear energy”. The task was to provide a realistic estimate of the future development of nuclear energy world-wide till the year 2030.

Read the rest…

Can a nuclear reactor be made idiot proof? We ask the question after this weekend when a technician at the Czech Republic’s Dukovany nuclear power plant managed to power down the number two reactor by simply brushing up against a control panel (one report suggests he fell against a button). This isn’t the first time it’s happened at Dukovany.

It sounds ridiculously easy to do. We thought nuclear reactors were hugely complex machines not something that can be interfered with by the slightest stumble. They have four of these reactors – the commonly used Soviet era WER-440 – at Dukovany. It’s a wonder any electricity gets generated there. On this occasion the clumsy technician’s mishap has cost eight million Czech crowns. Let’s hope they’re treading a little more carefully at Dukovany today. And at Bohunice and Mochovce in Slovakia, Kola in Russia, Kozloduy in Bulgaria, Paks in Hungary, and Rivne in Ukraine.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Chernobyl area doctors and researchers contradict predicted UN mortality figures as being far too low years after disaster
‘NEW YORK - Doctors at the Children's Cancer Hospital in Minsk, Belarus and at the Vilne Hospital for Radiological Protection in Eastern Ukraine are telling international media that they are seeing what they have no doubt is a spike in cancer rates, mutations and blood diseases among their patients linked to the world's largest nuclear disaster at Chernobyl 24 years. If the reports of the local doctors and researchers, many of who spoke to Bellona Web Monday and in interviews last week, prove to be true, they could stand over two decades' worth of research by the United Nations and affiliated organisations on its head, and cast a shadow over the research techniques that have thus far been employed. The local data clash with figures release
by the UN's World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Those agencies have fixed the number of victims of the blast and fallout that occurred when Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor experienced a melt-down in 1986 and exploded at 56.’

‘We should be investing in cheaper, safer, cleaner nuclear…’

- Google’s Energy “Czar” Bill Weihl from the New York Times on January 7, 2010.

‘Investing’ is clearly a typo. Surely Bill Weihl said ‘inventing’? We need to invent cheap, safe and clean nuclear power. Because it doesn’t exist.

(Thanks to AREVA’s North America blog for the link.)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Radioactive leak prompts new Vt. Yankee questions
‘MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Key lawmakers said Tuesday that a radioactive tritium leak at Vermont Yankee raises new questions about whether they should approve a 20-year extension of the nuclear plant’s license. Meanwhile, plant spokesman Robert Williams said employees at the Vernon reactor were still trying to determine the source of the leak that contained elevated levels of the radioactive isotope. The leak was detected last week in a monitoring well at the plant site. House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said the latest mishap doesn’t help Vermont Yankee’s chances for legislative approval of relicensing this year. Vermont is the only state in the country that gives its Legislature a vote on nuclear plant relicensing. Vermont Yankee’s current license expires in 2012.’

This week the UK’s Guardian newspaper featured a new book by Oxford University professor of physics, Wade Allison. In his book ‘Radiation and Reason’ Professor Allison says ‘health dangers from nuclear radiation have been oversold, stopping governments from fully exploiting nuclear power as a weapon against climate change’.

Allison is only talking about low level radiation rather than the high level radiation released by the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or by the reactor explosion at Chernobyl. ‘The ability to repair damage and replace cells, we discovered in the last 50 years, show how radiation doesn't cause damage except under extreme circumstances,’ he says. Guardian, however, also asked the opinions of many other scientists who did not agree with Allison.

We’ll be reading the book very soon but we’re curious to know whether Professor Allison examines studies such as the German government-sponsored KiKK one which found that children five years or younger living five kilometres or less from nuclear plant exhaust stacks had twice the risk for contracting leukaemia as those residing more than five kilometres away. The science surrounding low level radiation is at best uncertain.

Then there is the politics of low level waste. If, and we stress if, Professor Allison is right it still does not take away from the fact that historically the nuclear industry has been less than honest and transparent when it comes to the disposal of nuclear waste. As Greenpeace found when it visited the supposedly low level nuclear waste storage facility at Drigg near Sellafield in the UK…

Scientists like Professor Allison can make as many reassuring noises as they like but when the nuclear industry behaves in such a fashion, those reassurances are worthless.

Not to downplay the risks of low level radiation but it remains just one of many reasons why nuclear power is a tried and failed technology that has had its day. This blog is a catalogue of those reasons, from the contamination of the lives and environments around uranium mines, the dishonesty and cover-ups in reactor construction and operation, through to the dangers of high level nuclear waste for which we still have no solution and which will be a responsibility for countless generations to come.

Put on top of that the terrible economics, the dishonest propaganda (‘clean’ energy?), the long length of time needed to build reactors, the litany of unreliability, and nuclear power’s inability to help fight climate change.

The dangers of nuclear power are not the mere decadent preoccupation of the anti-technology green movement of popular myth. They are very real issues that affect the lives of (usually poor and exploited) people every day and which the nuclear industry’s propaganda ignores.

Nuclear power has had sixty years in which to prove itself. The questions asked about it way back then have never been answered. Unfortunately, Professor Allison’s attempts at reassurance just aren’t enough to rehabilitate this discredited power source.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Medical and economic costs of nuclear power
‘Jennifer Nordstrom, co-ordinator of the Carbon-Free Nuclear-Free project has noted "Telling states to build new nuclear plants to combat global warming is like telling a patient to smoke to lose weight." A recent study sponsored by the German government (the KiKK study - Kaatsch P, Spix C, Schultze-Rath R, et al. Leukemia in young children living in the vicinity of German nuclear power plants. Int J Cancer. 2008; 1220:721-726,) examined children who lived near 16 of the country's commercial nuclear power plants. The results revealed a strongly increased risk of all childhood cancers, particularly leukaemia, the closer the proximity of the children's residence to the reactor. How does this state of affairs relate to Australia? Well, as we know Australia sits on 40 per cent of the world's high grade uranium; the ALP, in its wisdom, has determined that there should be no restrictions on uranium mining proceeding throughout the country. There are more than 60 potential uranium mines in Western Australia alone. In South Australia, the Olympic Dam mine owned by BHP Billiton is to triple in size to become the largest uranium mine in the world.’

One of the growing themes we’ve seen as the so-called nuclear ‘renaissance’ struggles to get off its knees is the attempt by the industry to ‘green’ nuclear energy. We’ve noted before the industry’s PR that is increasingly using the word ‘clean’ in connection with nuclear power and has rebranded the reprocessing of nuclear waste as ‘recycling spent fuel’. When they think they can get away with it, there are even those who avoid mentioning the word ‘nuclear’ altogether.

There have been two news stories in particular this week that show up the ‘clean’ and ‘recycling’ greenwashes as the frauds they are.

At the US’s catastrophically contaminated Hanford nuclear site, they have no idea what is buried there. ‘That's because in the 1950's and 60's, crews used the sandy site to dispose of radioactive waste, but they didn't do a very thorough job recording what they buried.’ Don’t try and convince us that things have changed dramatically since the 1950s or 1960s. And don’t try and convince us that this is a characteristic of a ‘clean’ energy source.

Meanwhile, how are things looking on the ‘spent fuel recycling’ front? We can’t help but notice that there are no waste or dangerous by-products when glass is recycled. So when we see that ‘28 stainless steel containers of waste - the byproduct of recycling spent nuclear fuel for Japanese utilities at the Sellafield plant’ – are about to set sail for Japan from the UK, we have to ask: how is this ‘recycling’ by any recognisable definition? The ‘recycling’ of Japanese spent nuclear fuel has created so much waste (850 containers) it’s going to take ten years to ship it all back to its owners. (And what will happen to it when it reaches Japan?)

You see, industry claims for nuclear power don’t stand up to even the most casual scrutiny. Yet we’re hearing them with increasing frequency from the mouths of our leaders and politicians who have swallowed nuclear spin, propaganda and lies. We can’t stress or repeat it enough – these are deliberate deceptions created to downplay the genuine concerns that surround nuclear power. How much longer can this fiction be maintained?

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Niger: French Nuclear Power Fed by Uranium From Country
‘It is known as the 'uranium highway,' a network of major roads connecting the Niger's primary urban mining centres such as Arlit, Agadez and Niamey. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, the north-south highway acts as the primary vein facilitating carriage of liquidated uranium resources. The network itself forms part of the Trans-Sahara route, an ancient system used since time immemorial by inhabitants of the 'Tinariwen' - or Desert of Many, as the Sahara was known to its native sons and daughters, including the Hausa and Tuareg.The Sahara, spanning 11 countries, composes 80 per cent of the Niger's land mass - a country generally characterised by poverty, famine, droughts and dictatorships. Over 60 per cent of the population live on the poverty belt, deprived of access to food, water and waste sanitation, infrastructure and education. Life expectancy is pegged at 43 years, and most citizens, including 71 percent of females, are illiterate - just three per cent of the state budget is redistributed toward education. Instead, at the turn of the millennium, over 50 per cent of development finance was used to service odious debt. The Niger, exporting 7.7 per cent of the world's uranium, consistently ranks in the top five alongside Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, and produces on par with Russia. The town of Arlit alone largely supplies the country's former colonial landlord, France, with the uranium required to power up the latter's nuclear programme and power stations - generating almost 80 per cent of France's electricity via an estimated 59
nuclear plants.

Here’s a story.

Last August, Haaretz revealed that workers at the [Israel’s] Dimona nuclear reactor had been required to participate in an experiment in which they drank a certain quantity of uranium mixed with juice… After drinking the liquid, workers were required to give urine samples which were then sent for testing at the lab. The aim of the experiment was to examine how uranium is excreted through the urinary tract.

Without authorisation, and ‘in gross violation of the Helsinki Committee rules - which stipulate when and how it is possible to carry out experiments on human subjects’, two scientists took it upon themselves to give the workers radioactive liquids. We suppose they should be grateful they were told what they were drinking, unlike the unfortunate crew at India’s Kaiga Generation Station who last year had their water cooler spiked with tritium.

The official inquiry into the Dimona experiments submitted its findings last week. They included…

…a recommendation that new and clear procedures stipulating when and how it is permissible to carry out medical experiments on workers be established.

You read that right. The scientists at Dimona need to be told when and how it’s ok to make workers drink uranium.

What’s the opposite of a renaissance, do you think? Denaissance, perhaps. We ask because in France, the supposed cradle of the rebirth of the nuclear ‘renaissance’, things seem to be sliding backwards rather than striding forwards.

According to the grid operator RTE, electricity generation from the country’s 58 nuclear reactors fell by 6.8% in 2009, marking a ten year low point. This shortfall meant France was a net importer of electricity for 57 days.

President Nicholas Sarkozy’s nuclear bandwagon is said to be leading the world. Just where it’s leading us however is more difficult to say. It seems to be travelling in the general direction away from a bright future of clean and secure energy supplies.

Finally, it’s over to Turkey where it looks as if our grisly prediction of last November is in danger of coming true. The country’s bid to build its first nuclear reactor – killed so many times we’re in danger of losing count – may be clawing its way from the grave once more.

This week ‘Russia and Turkey have signed a joint statement here Wednesday on the construction of a nuclear power plant on Turkish soil’. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia has ‘significant advantages’. He wasn’t kidding…

"We provide loans and equipment, and we give local construction companies ... a share of 20-25 percent or even 30 percent in the entire volume of contracts," he said, "We provide nuclear fuel and are ready to take back spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing."

The whole package, in fact. Russia will even provide the scientists to give the workers juice laced with uranium (we imagine).

There’s no date for when then first reactor of four will be operational but then why should it be any different from any other reactor? At this early stage the project is estimated to cost ‘between 18 and 20 billion US dollars’. What’s a couple of billion dollars between friends?

Still, it sounds like a plan of a fashion. Turkey, in order to ensure its energy security, wants its first nuclear reactors designed, built and fuelled by Russia. Look, you’ll just have to get someone from the nuclear industry to explain the logic of it to you, ok?

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Lesson in how not to go nuclear
‘Finland’s new nuclear plant at Olkiluoto should have been generating revenue and a major slice of the country’s electricity by now. Instead, the project has become a multibillion-euro money pit that serves as a cautionary tale for incoming members of the nuclear energy club, including the UAE. In 2005, Finland broke ground on the world’s most advanced reactor, a 1,600-megawatt plant built by Areva of France and the German firm Siemens. The nuclear industry hoped it would be an example of a new generation of plants that were cheap and efficient and could be built faster than older models. Four and a half years later, the project is running at least three years late, costs have doubled and both sides are locked in an ugly legal battle that spilled out in public several times last year. The Olkiluoto fiasco loomed large in the selection process for the UAE’s own nuclear power programme, which culminated in awarding a US$20 billion (Dh73.46bn) contract to a group of Korean firms last month over a rival bid from a French consortium that included Areva. Government officials said a key factor in the decision was the Korean team’s demonstrated ability to build reactors on schedule.’

‘Italians have not been able to protect Renaissance art treasures for even as long as one thousand years. Egyptians have not been able to protect the tombs of the Pharaohs for even as long as four thousand years, and some of the graves were looted within centuries. Yet, we in this generation have an obligation to protect our nuclear wastes for more than ten thousand years—a period longer than recorded history.

’It is ironic that we have been civilized for only about 10,000 years, yet we face the task of protecting high-level radwastes, a dangerous and "massive source of potentially valuable energy," in perpetuity. We face the task of storing radionuclides such as plutonium, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, but remains dangerous for more than 250,000 years. We have been separated from the apes for only about 5 million years, yet we face the task of safeguarding iodine-129, which has a half-life of 16 million years but remains dangerous for more than 160 million years. We in the United States have been a nation for only about 200 years, yet we face the task of storing technetium-99 having a half-life of 200,000 years. Given the short span of our experience in handling these materials, how can we deal adequately with long-lived radioactive waste?’

From ‘Burying Uncertainty: Risk and the Case Against Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste’ by K. S. Shrader-Frechette.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Bitter row throws French nuclear industry into turmoil
‘The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators. EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing. ''The transport of combustibles isn't working at the moment,'' Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Areva, said. As a result, used fuel is remaining at EDF sites instead of being reprocessed at La Hague treatment plant in northern France. Mrs Lauvergeon blamed a breakdown in talks over a new EUR800 million contract with EDF to process spent fuel. ''We've been talking for too long,' she said, calling on President Sarkozy's Government to resolve the dispute. Although Areva supplies 68 per cent of the uranium used in EDF's reactors, which themselves produce 77 per cent of electricity in France, the electricity group said it had enough stocks to last several months without envisaging power cuts. A spokesman said that it could keep spent fuel at its plants without risk of a radioactive leak.’

Stop nuclear madness in other words. Today, Greenpeace Italy took that message to the Rome’s Palazzo Civilt`a del Lavoro which is in front of the Industrial Association (Confindustria).

© Greenpeace

That’s where energy giant Enel is presenting its propaganda to those Italian companies hoping to participate in building EPR reactors in Italy. President Silvio Berlusconi dreams of having at least four of them built and running by 2020. We imagine Silvio has some pretty wild dreams so why not four EPRs?

That’s not the end of Italy’s crazy nuclear fantasies though. Enel promises that about 70% of the enormous budget will be given over to Italian companies. Those companies may be in for a disappointment. The nuclear island for the power plant will be built by French nuclear monopolists AREVA and represents roughly two thirds of the overall costs. The reality is, as they found out in Finland where they’re also building an EPR, most jobs and contracts were outsourced overseas. Let’s see if Enel can keep their promise in the face of the global nuclear skill shortage.

It’s time Enel stopped their nuclear madness and to looked to real and sustainable job opportunities like those offered by Greenpeace’s Energy Revolution.

(More information is available in Italian on Greenpeace Italy’s website)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Exxon Hid Radiation Risk to Workers for Decades, Witness Says

Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, “knew or should have known” that drilling pipes it sent to a Louisiana pipe yard were contaminated with dangerous radioactive material, a witness testified today. Paul Templet, a former secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality, told jurors in a civil trial in state court in Gretna, Louisiana, that internal Exxon memos showed the company had information beginning in the 1930s about cancer- causing radium in the residue, or “scale,” that built up inside its pipes. Templet testified as the first witness for 19 former pipe workers who are suing Exxon, claiming they were exposed to radiation and now fear they may get cancer. Templet said Exxon failed to report the contamination to his former agency until as late as 1988, endangering workers who cleaned the pipes at a Louisiana work site. “If you keep the information from the workers, you’re creating a big problem,” Templet told the 12 jurors and their four alternates.

In October 2008, we brought you sinister news from inside the Iranian nuclear reactor programme…

As we’ve seen before, birds are the innocent victims in humankind’s push for nuclear power. Regular readers will know about the freezers at the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK that are stuffed with seagulls shot by sharpshooters because the birds are radioactive after swimming in contaminated water.

The latest victims, it seems, are two pigeons arrested in Iran for espionage:

Iranian security forces have arrested two pigeons suspected of spying on one of the country's nuclear facilities. The birds were captured near the heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

What fate awaits them at the hands of their Iranian captors? Are the pigeons willing conspirators or were they brainwashed by western intelligence agencies? Did the Natanz Two sell their services (we hope they amount of corn they were paid was worth it) or were they perhaps blackmailed by the CIA (their wives and kids being held against their will in a secret facility)? Either way, it’s a black day for pigeonkind.

The pigeon community has refused to comment.

Fifteen months on and nothing has been heard of the Natanz Two and their whereabouts are unknown.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
Three out of four Germans not safe from nuclear power accidents

The figures are based on the foundation’s ‘Nuclear Power Atlas,’ which counts the number of people living within a 150-kilometer (93-mile) radius of each of the 17 nuclear power stations in Germany – putting them in immediate danger in the event of a nuclear accident. Between 5.4 million and 11.8 million people were counted within the various zones, which cover most of the western and southern regions of Germany. The city of Bremen, within 150 kilometers of six nuclear powers stations, is particularly at risk. According to a foundation statement, the numbers are considered conservative, as “in the case of a big accident a lot more people could be affected by the radioactive fallout.” Foundation board member Hans Guenter Schumacher concluded, “It’s not just irresponsible, but inhuman that nuclear power stations continue to be operated in a country as densely populated as Germany when millions of people could be endangered by an accident.”

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Nuclear ‘Renaissance’ or ‘Retreat’? France is not the Example

It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word – “renaissance” – to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is “clean,” “safe” and even “renewable.” And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry’s propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the “successful” example of the French nuclear program. France serves as a convenient sound bite for politicians and others advocating a nuclear revival (hypocritically evoked by many of the same people who insisted on “Freedom Fries” at the start of the Iraq War). A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear Utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality.

The French nuclear industry already had a great start for 2010; probably not to their liking though.

A few weeks ago, Areva lost a bid against the South Korean consortium in the United Arab Emirates. The French company commented the reason was their Asian rivals willingness "do anything" to win the bid. Obviously, it had nothing to do with the nice reputation Areva got on how it honors its contracts, like they do in Finland.

Then Areva turned its attention to home and got into a sibling fight with Electricite de France. Their spat has been all over the French media in the past few days. The confrontation reached its climax after Henri Proglio, head of EDF, had said that the creation of Areva had been a mistake –a declaration he later denied to have made-. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon had no other choice but to summon Anne and Henri to his office to give them a good spank; telling them behave especially in front of the media.

And it is only 22nd of January! Looks like; as unbelievable as it sounds, French nuclear industry will manage to overdo themselves this year in being our laughing stock.

(This is a guest post by Anne-Laure Meladeck, Climate&Energy Assistant at Greenpeace International)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

EDF 'abandons sale of British electricity grid'

EDF has given up plans to sell its electricity distribution network in Britain because the French state electricity giant's new boss is against the move, a financial news website reported Sunday. "Henri Proglio, who has always been opposed to this project that was initiated by (former EDF boss) Pierre Gadonneix, is set to announce soon that he is ending it," Wansquare website said, citing British banking sources. EDF declined Sunday to comment directly on the report, with a spokesman saying only that the group was "examining the options for the evolution of the ownership of its electricity distribution networks in Britain." Wansquare, in which France's Le Figaro newspaper group has a majority stake, said EDF was giving up its sell-off plans because the offers it had received were too low and the move was opposed by trades unions in EDF in France. EDF said in October it had put its British distribution network in Britain on sale with the aim of raising more than 4.0 billion euros (5.8 billion dollars) to reduce debt.

We had already brought you the news about French nuclear industry using Siberia as their private nuclear dumpsite. Areva and EDF fighting over at home but happily agreeing on dumping depleted uranium to Russia. Yesterday there was another shipment 500 tonnes of nuclear waste was going to leave France to go to Russia. Easy breezy! That is if Greenpeace was not there to stop them.

Three teams of Greenpeace activists blocked that train carrying nuclear waste to the port to be loaded to go to Russia. Six Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the railway, at two locations en route to Cherbourg. They were removed by the police after spending the night there,but a third team of Greenpeace activists placed a truck on the rails in Cherbourg centre, with a banner saying "Russia is not a nuclear dumping ground", facing the nuclear train at less than 50m distance. Stopping the train once again. Our activists managed to delay the transport of the illegal nuclear waste and expose once again the dirty lies of the industry.

A pattern occurs: run your dirty business and dump your waste far away. AREVA is an expert, with uranium dumping in Siberia and uranium mining in Niger. Why? It is cheaper and it is out of sight. This is the only way French nuclear model suggests for survival.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Boyko Borisov: Belene Nuclear Power Plant project will be revised

Belene Nuclear Power Plant project will be revised. The aim is to make it cheaper, more efficient and to attract more foreign investors, preferably from the countries of the European Union. The issue for the construction of nuclear power was discussed at a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is expected within next few weeks to be held meetings between the Ministers of Economy and Energy of the two countries and Germany leading energy companies. Borisov said that it would be thinking on construction only after presenting a better and workable project for Belene Nuclear Power Plant.

Nuclear industry has no doubt learnt some lessons during the past decade. Not that they learned hot to build reactors properly. And obviously not the economics of nuclear power, better don’t think about who might have been giving an Economics 101 class to the industry. We have seen an impressive unlearning curve that brought the cost of new reactors from 2,000 USD per kilowatt back in 2003 to between 6,000 and 8,500 USD today.

So what is the thing in which nuclear companies truly improved? It is their lobby skills. Thanks to investigative analysis of American University we now know that only in US, companies and unions related to the nuclear industry have during past decade spent more than $600 million on lobbying and nearly $63 million on campaign contributions. This is massive, but still a fraction of how much they will have in return for even building one single reactor.

So instead of trying to improve worsening economic indicators – perhaps knowing better than anyone else what kind of impossible mission that would be – or instead of earning money in some decent way like other people do, the industry focused its efforts to strip dozens of billions from the society.

It’s rate of return seems impressive: not only that it managed continue to shift massive costs related to its liabilities (from reactor operation, dismantling, and waste management) to society. But for an investment of less than a billion dollars, it achieved to secure 18.5 billion dollars loan guarantees from US federal budget. But even this is not enough to satisfy the black hole of nuclear economics - the industry now requests second round and more than 100 billion dollars in the pot. We also should remember many hundreds billions that were already poured to the industry since its birth in 1940s, which failed to deliver what it promised.

So, if this is not the high time to stop this insanity, when is?

Today, there are other flourishing technologies that deserve several years’ worth of subsidies so that they can fully stand on their own legs. Modern renewable technologies, such as wind and solar, manage to deeply cut their costs consistently year by year, coming close to the point of full competitiveness with traditional ways of generating electricity. They are safe and clean, provide sustainable jobs, and with no fuel needed they provide energy security. They can also be built on much faster schedules than nuclear reactors, meaning they have a big role to play in the task to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

We need to say to our politicians: quit nuclear madness, go for renewable energy. NOW!

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Areva, GDF-Suez to sign nuclear accord

French nuclear group Areva SA and energy company GDF-Suez SA are expected soon to sign a partnership to collaborate on nuclear energy projects, according to Wednesday's edition of Les Echos. An Areva spokeswoman and a GDF-Suez spokesman both confirmed such discussions had been underway for awhile but said a deal had not yet been sealed. "It's a project we've been discussing for a long time," said the GDF-Suez spokesman on Tuesday night. "For the moment no final decision has been made." The Areva spokeswoman said: "I have no comment to make on the signature of a partnership" with GDF-Suez. According to les Echos, the accord would include cooperation on building a nuclear reactor in France and exchanges on engineering and training. It would also bring GDF-Suez's backing to the Atmea project, which is a medium-powered nuclear reactor being designed by Areva and Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. President Nicolas Sarkozy has commissioned Francois Roussely, the former head of EDF, to produce an analysis on the future of the French nuclear industry. The report is due by the end of April.

In October 2008, Greenpeace published data showing that drinking water around the Caetité uranium mine in the state of Bahia, Brazil was contaminated with uranium levels up to seven times higher than the World Health Organisation’s recommendations. The Bahia Institute of Water Management and Climate (Ingá) opened its own investigation in the matter. In November 2009 they suspended the use of water from six wells preventively, because radioactivity in the wells was found to be above allowed limits.

On 21 January 2010, Ingá and the Department of Health of Bahia notified local authorities in Caetité that another three wells need to be closed, and clean water should be supplied to the local community. Radioactivity was again found to be too high. Greenpeace went to the uranium mining area yesterday, and discovered that the wells had not been closed yet. The mining company INB (Industrias Nucleares Brasileiras) as well as the Brazilian nuclear regulator CNEN (note: also shareholder of the mining company (!)) shamelessly claim the Ingá results to be false…

Greenpeace offered a bottle of water from one of the contaminated wells to the Secretary of the Water Resources, the local body responsible for the supply of safe drinking water. Surprisingly, Mr. Nilo Joaquim de Azevedo did not drink the water labelled “INB water: deadly delicious”….

INB claims that even if the water is indeed contaminated, this would not be caused by the uranium mining. Indeed, naturally present uranium could cause raised levels of contamination in ground water. However, INB is responsible for monitoring possible impacts of its uranium mining activities. Théy should do regular checks of the drinking water used by surrounding communities. Théy should warn the population if the water contains unsafe levels of uranium!

But INB has so far denied there is a problem. The Bahia Water Agency Ingá clearly disagrees.

Why do nuclear companies always start by denying there is a problem when there is a problem, only admitting it when there is a lot of pressure hoping the issue is already forgotten? For years AREVA denied the problems in Niger and now in Brazil! With such track record do they really expect us to believe anything they say?

(This is a guest post by Rianne Teule, Nuclear Campaigner at Greenpeace International)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
Yankee Rebuffed By Governor, Rebuked By Regulators

Governor Jim Douglas says he has lost confidence in the management at Entergy Vermont Yankee. Douglas asked the Legislature to delay voting on whether Vermont Yankee's license should be extended for 20 years. And his administration will ask the Public Service Board to close down a case in which Entergy asked for permission to spin off Vermont Yankee and five other nuclear plants into a new company. Douglas says several investigations that are under way have to be completed before Vermont can trust plant management. Vermont Yankee has been engulfed in controversy since it disclosed that it found radioactive water. There are indications that the radioactivity might have come from underground pipes that Yankee previously claimed didn't exist.

Human sexuality is an amazing, complex thing. People can be turned on by the strangest things. For example, in the UK last year, a man was prosecuted for making love to his bicycle. The media labelled him a ‘cyclesexualist’.

So what do we call someone aroused by nuclear power stations? Radiasexual? Fissionophile?

We ask because Lady Barbara Judge, chairwoman of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority, has found a novel way of describing nuclear power. ‘Atomic was a dirty word but now it's certainly a sexy one,’ she said.

That’s right. Nuclear power is sexy. No, it’s not the first word we’d have used to describe it either. Is it all to do with hot ‘rods’ being ‘inserted’ to get things steamy, do you think?

The operators at the Czech nuclear plant at Temelin say, ‘There is no better feeling than to watch the indicators, as the neutron flux increases and the reactor slowly wakes up. It is actually something like an orgasm of a reactor.’ No better feeling? Oh dear.

Be honest though, is this sexy?

Reactor construction at Olkiluoto 3 (© Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing)

No? How about this:

Anslem Roanhorse Jr., executive director of the Navajo Nation Division of Health, said 520 radioactive uranium mines on the Navajo Nation were abandoned without being cleaned up.

No, us neither. What about this:

Just as Britain decides to build new nuclear power stations, new research, commissioned by the German government, reveals that children under five who live within 5 km of a nuclear power plant, have twice the risk of suffering from the blood cancer leukaemia.

Feeling sexy yet? If anybody finds any of that arousing, we’d like to suggest they seek professional help immediately. It’s difficult to believe that such things give anyone a tingle in the trousers.

There’s only one aspect of the nuclear industry that’s even remotely sexy: the enormous injections of hard cash. We can only assume that it’s the thought of the nuclear industry’s bank accounts tumescent with taxpayers’ billions that’s getting Lady Judge all hot and bothered.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
Obama calls for more nuclear power plants

Is nuclear power ready for a resurgence? President Obama received standing applause, from both sides of the political aisle, when he called Wednesday in his State of the Union Address for a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.” Obama reiterated his support for developing solar cells, clean coal and biofuel technology and for giving Americans rebates to improve their homes’ energy efficiency. He then added: To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. As other countries, including the United Kingdom, push to open new nuclear power plants, industry lobbyists have been encouraging the Obama administration to do the same — with some apparent success.

In last night's State of the Union address, President Obama said that "(t)o create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." Despite his statement, the President knows better.

Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. There is no such thing as a "safe" dose of radiation and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean it's "clean." For years nuclear plants have been leaking radioactive waste from underground pipes and radioactive waste pools into the ground water at sites across the nation. Mr. Obama was prompted to address the issue when radioactive contamination was found in drinking wells and off the nuclear plant site at Exelon's Braidwood nuclear plant.

In 2006, when the President was serving as a senator from Illinois, he introduced the Nuclear Release Notice Act to address the radioactive contamination of groundwater at several nuclear reactors in his state. Unfortunately, the bill never became law.

Read the rest over The Huffington Post