At the heart of Greenpeace’s report ‘Left in the dust: Areva's radioactive legacy in the desert towns of Niger’ is the human cost of nuclear power. If we are going to embrace nuclear power then, every time you flick a switch and nuclear-powered light bulb comes on, you must accept the suffering of the likes of the people who live around Areva’s uranium mines in Niger (and those people are by no means the only people to suffer at the hands of the nuclear industry).

This is what the nuclear industry wants us to forget. According to them, nuclear power is just a matter ‘safe’, ‘clean’ and ‘reliable’ reactors producing ‘low carbon’ electricity. They don’t want to think about where the fuel for those reactors come from, about the contaminated streets of Arlit and Akokan. They don’t want you to think about the people of Niger trapped at the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index.

But, if you’re pro-nuclear power, think about them you must.

Find out more:
- AREVA’S dirty little secret
- From Niger to Geneva
- Left in the Dust - Areva's uranium mining in Niger

Posted by Justin at 6:13 PM | Permalink

Yesterday Greenpeace launched its brand new report, a little bomb of information in the nuclear world, entitled "Left in the dust: Areva's radioactive legacy in the desert towns of Niger".

The press conference took place in in Geneva, Switzerland, city hosting numerous international organizations, and among them the United Nations' World Health Organization. Jean Ziegler, vice-president of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee was the first to speak. He rang the alarm on the dramatic situation in Niger regarding food and health. He also pointed out how international law could be used to trigger pressure on countries like France and Switzerland, and through them on companies like Areva who do not endorse the full responsibility of the damages they cause in other countries like Niger.

Ziegler's alarming words only proved Greenpeace was right to go to Niger last November to check in which context the population of the mining towns of Arlit and Akokan live, showing one more time that Areva is not a trustworthy company.

Dr Rianne Teule from Greenpeace International and Dr Bruno Chareyron from CRIIRAD (an independent French laboratory that did our analysis) demonstrated Areva does not deserve peoples' trust. That it does not deserve the trust of the Nigerien mining towns' people who are clearly suffering from conditions imposed by the French company for not respecting international norms. And that our fight is the right one.

Media came, the room quickly got quite crowded and it was so motivating to see journalists' interest grow as the press conference unrolled. After asking numerous questions, the journalists were presented a short movie of the Greenpeace expedition in Niger and were then offered the opportunity to have a demonstration of radioactivity measurements of some of the samples brought back from Niger.

Funnily enough, journalists were not so keen on approaching the big cement barrel at the right corner of the room where the samples were safely guarded. Of course there was no danger in doing so as everything was cautiously sealed and manipulated, but nuclear radiations is a serious and even scary topic. Nuclear energy, from the very bottom of the chain with the mining, to the processing and storage of nuclear waste is a danger for human health and the environment.

If you are ready to face the truth and want to learn more about Areva's legacy in Niger follow me.

(This post is by Anne-Laure Meladeck, Climate & Energy Officer for Greenpeace International)

Posted by Justin at 12:26 PM | Permalink

Uranium mining by French nuclear company AREVA poses a serious threat to the environment and people of northern Niger in West Africa.

Operations of Nuclear giant AREVA put lives at risk in Niger

Uranium mines in Niger operated by the state-owned French nuclear giant AREVA continue to create a radioactive hazard for the people living nearby. A new report released today by Greenpeace reveals contamination levels in the air, water and soil above internationally accepted limits.

“Radioactivity increases poverty because it creates more victims. With each day passes we are exposed to radiation and continue to be surrounded by poisoned air, polluted water and earth – while AREVA makes hundreds of millions from our natural resources.” said Almoustapha Alhacen, President of the local Nigerian NGO Aghir in’ Man (which means “the shield of the soul” in the Touareg language, is a local environmental and human rights organization).

Last November, Greenpeace carried out soil, water and air tests in Arlit and Akokan, located a few kilometers from the mines. The samples were studied in collaboration with the France-based Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity Commission (CRIIRAD).

“The analysis we have performed show that the uranium contamination in four out of five water samples exceed World Health Organisation safety limits*. We found evidence of radon, a radioactive gas dissolved in water and also chemical elements. Even so, this water is still being distributed to the population and the workers for consumption” said Bruno Chareyron, an engineer in Nuclear Physics from CRIIRAD.

Half of AREVA's uranium comes from two mines in Niger, one of Africa's poorest countries despite being the world's third largest uranium producer for more than 40 years. Areva, has also signed a deal to start tapping a third mine in the desert nation from 2013 or 2014.

“AREVA claims that it is an environmentally friendly company are not borne out in reality, the shocking levels of contamination in Niger reveal the truth. AREVA must take immediate action to end the routine radioactive contamination of villages surrounding their Nigerien mines.” said Rianne Teule, Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner.“ AREVA must also put in place long-term health monitoring of the local population.”

Greenpeace is calling for an independent study around the mines and mining towns in Niger followed by a thorough clean up and decontamination. AREVA must take responsibility for its actions not only in Niger, but worldwide.

* Guidelines for drinking water quality, first addendum to third edition. Vol. 1: Recommendations. WHO, 2006. This version of the guidelines integrates the third edition, which was published in 2004.

Posted by Justin at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Following on from yesterday’s news that the new OL3 EPR nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland has been delayed once again, Greenpeace are launching a real word version of the OL3 counter (get one for your own website here)…

click for a larger view

The three-meter counter – pulled by an electric car and powered by wind - shows the extra cost that French taxpayers and Finnish electricity consumers will have to pay thanks to the OL3’s skyrocketing budget and botched construction.

That figure starts at 2.86 billion euros and climbs by 3,190 euros every minute. How much development of renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes has OL3 single-handedly blocked? It’s up there in red and black.

(More information in Finnish is available on the Greenpeace Finland website.)

Posted by Justin at 4:21 PM | Permalink

Sorry we’re late posting to the blog today, we’ve only just finished mopping up the tears of laughter that flooded the office after we read this…

The construction of Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor, which is being built in Olkiluoto on the west coast of Finland, has been delayed once again…

Already three years late and billions over budget Frecnh nuclear giant AREVA’s so-called flagship European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), says Jouni Silvennoinen, a project manager at the Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), ‘should be more or less completed by the end of 2012’.

More or less? Can a ‘more or less completed’ nuclear reactor generate electricity we ask ourselves. It’s highly unlikely. Just because a reactor is ‘more or less completed’ doesn’t mean it can do anything useful. The original timetable reserved six months for testing meaning the reactor could be operating in the summer of 2013.

However, a more realistic timetable for the operational permit would be 12 months, meaning electricity production would start in early 2014. This mean the construction time of the OL3 reactor will have doubled from four and a half years to nine. That will mean it will be completed five years and 13 years after the Finnish government gave the go ahead to build it. Plus, all this assumes there will be no more problems or delays at Olkiluoto on top of the thousands of construction defects we’ve already seen there.

The most important and difficult construction stages - the installation of heavy components and the control systems, along with the application for an operating permit – have still to be done. ‘There are hundreds and thousands of components, hundreds of kilometres of cables, as well as pipelines. That will certainly take time,’ says Jouni Silvennoinen.

The supposedly state of the art EPR was supposed to launch the nuclear ‘renaissance’ on a wave of optimism with countries around the world queuing up to build them. It’s quickly become a symbol of the incompetence and comedy of the nuclear industry. Would you put money on everything running smoothly from here on at Olkiluoto, knowing what we know? We certainly wouldn’t.

Posted by Justin at 4:52 PM | Permalink

Dr Bertrand Barré, a scientific adviser to French nuclear giant AREVA has been telling Ireland it should get itself a nuclear reactor ASAP [http://www.sbpost.ie/newsfeatures/nuclear-power-is-irelands-most-affordable-option-48661.html].

The wind is variable, and there is no sun at night. In order to produce base load electricity without carbon emissions - especially in Ireland, where there is very little potential for hydroelectricity, because there are no big mountains - I think nuclear will be necessary.

A scientific adviser for a nuclear company recommending nuclear power? What a shock.

What we have here is another retelling of the baseload myth again. There are days when we wonder of it’s just about the last argument the nuclear industry has left. Time and again they argue for huge, complex, expensive and centralised electricity generation.

Ireland is a sparsely populated country. It’s a country ideally suited to smaller, decentralised electricity generation methods not one connected to another reactor pumping its filth into the Irish Sea (which is, thanks to the Sellafield nuclear plant on the opposite side on the sea in the UK, one of the most contaminated stretches of water in the world.)

Moving on, Dr Barré took time to talk about Greenpeace’s findings of contamination in the villages around AREVA’s uranium mines in Niger. We’re very happy to restate our case. ‘Environmental measures’ at the Niger mines are ‘quite comparable to the measures taken elsewhere in uranium mines’. When you take a look at the contamination at other uranium mines around the world – Caetite in Brazil, Kakadu in Australia, Wollaston Lake in Canada – ‘quite comparable’ is really nothing to boast about.

Dr Barré also spoke of the positive benefits of uranium mining in Niger:

“Uranium is one of their main resources, so we are not in fact exporting pollution, we are in fact helping the development of Niger," said Barré.

According to AREVA’s own website the company has been present in Niger for more than 40 years. And yet the country remains firmly at the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index, 182nd out of 182. Forty years of AREVA mining doesn’t seem to be ‘helping the development of Niger’ very much.

“Niger is a very poor country and, without the use of uranium, it would be much worse."

Much worse? Unless the UN is considering extending its Index to allow Niger to sink lower than the bottom, it’s difficult to imagine how things could be worse.

Posted by Justin at 2:55 PM | Permalink

…and Greenpeace was there to meet them.

The ship was carrying 650 tons for French nuclear giant AREVA. Where will it end up? Probably dumped in the open air in Siberia if past experience is anything to go by.

And even if you don’t agree with Greenpeace’s point of view, you have to admit we really know how to make a banner…

(More photos available here and more information is available on the Greenpeace Russia website.)

Posted by Justin at 6:18 PM | Permalink

Yesterday morning at 8am CET, eight Greenpeace activists dismantled the railway tracks between the Tricastin nuclear facility and Pierrelatte in order to stop a shipment of nuclear waste being shipped to Russia. The Russian ship, Kapitan Kuroptev, is waiting at Le Havre to receive the shipment.

French nuclear companies AREVA and EDF say depleted uranium is sent to Siberia to be enriched and then returned to France. This is spin and deception. This isn’t ‘recycling’ or ‘reuse’. This is making nuclear waste somebody else’s problem. It only demonstrates once again the industry’s complete inability to deal with the dangers of nuclear waste.

Official figures published in December 2009 show that AREVA and EDF are
not telling the truth. Since 2006 33,000 tons of uranium have been exported to Russia, while only 3,090 tons have returned. Where are the missing 30,000 tons? It’s dumped in places like Seversk.

So frightened are AREVA of Greenpeace shining a light on their dirty dealing they’ve taken us to court in France in an attempt to gag us. If they’ve got nothing to hide, they’ve got nothing to fear.

In France, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo has already received more than 29,000 petitions for a moratorium on the export of nuclear waste In Russia, people can write directly to Mr Borloo here.

(For more information in French, visit Greenpeace France’s website and follow them on Twitter.)

Posted by Justin at 2:32 PM | Permalink

Here is a press release from AREVA about Greenpeace's finding at the uranium mining villages in Niger.

Here is Greenpeace's response.

On previous inspections

All the previous inspections were either limited to specific problems or were not done independently. They are no substitute for the independent, comprehensive inspections Greenpeace is calling for. Such a full assessment has never been done.

Areva’s release did not mention that the 2004 IRSN inspection found that some of the water wells in the mining region were contaminated with radioactive elements.

On transparency

Areva have been repeatedly warned by other NGOs about high levels of radiation and radioactive scrap metal within Akokan and Arlit. Yet they have failed to sufficiently address these issues.

Every day Nigeriens are exposed to radiation, illness and poverty -- while Areva makes millions from their natural resources. It is shocking to see that Areva blame the messenger when they should be focusing on the people in Niger.

Greenpeace visited Niger in November 2009. Only after repeated requests from Greenpeace did AREVA invite the team to visit the mining sites. The limited survey done by the Greenpeace team was done without involvement of AREVA.

We provided this report in draft form to Areva on March 26 and have not received comments back. Once the report is finalized we will provide it to authorities in Niger.

On the results

The Greenpeace report is not yet finalised. However, it is clear from our findings that AREVA's mining operations have significant impacts on the environment and the population around the mines.

Our analysis showed that there is high levels of radiation in the streets of Akokan (see publication in Nov09) and objects contaminated with radioactivity in the metal market in Arlit. Most of the water samples collected in the mining towns were contaminated, radioactive soil was found in a publicly accessible area. Tailings from the mines are stored in open air without any protection.

In the previous years, other work including Areva’s own analyses have shown the problems with uranium contamination of water and high levels of radiation in the street. They have not taken adequate action to address these problems, but should do so immediately.

Posted by Justin at 11:05 AM | Permalink

We’re a big fan of French nuclear corporation AREVA’s promotional videos. If you haven’t seen their ‘Funky Town’ masterpiece, you should treat yourself right now. You’ll discover, among other things, that nuclear power can help people fall in love in Shanghai dance clubs.

The latest video we’ve seen is also a triumph of condescension and misinformation. It brings a cartoon cutesiness to the horrors of nuclear waste not seen since The Simpson’s Smilin’ Joe Fission.

Isn’t that simply gorgeous? Unfortunately it shows the actual realities of ‘spent fuel recycling’ (we’re not allowed to call it ‘nuclear waste reprocessing’ any more) about as much as Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs shows the reality of the social relationships between woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers.

So, the friendly little spent fuel rod with the hat, on his way for ‘recycling’, says Mixed-OXide fuel ‘is pretty hard’ to use ‘any other way, especially in a bad way’. This is flat wrong. The way MOX is produced means it’s actually easier to extract the plutonium from it than ordinary nuclear fuel. MOX presents an even greater nuclear proliferation risk.

‘By treating me and recycling me into MOX fuel,’ says our little friend, ‘there’s less waste to watch after and for a shorter period of time too’. Really? The Sellafield THORP MOX processing plant creates 180 times the volume of waste that you start with. Also, when used in nuclear reactor, ‘only some of the plutonium in MOX fuel gets "fissioned," or converted into other radioactive elements. These include such deadly elements as Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-129 and many, many more.’ Iodine-129 ‘has a half-life of 16 million years but remains dangerous for more than 160 million years’.

According to the cartoon, AREVA have ‘successfully treated and recycled for 25 years’. This is a definition of ‘successful’ of which we’d previously been unaware. In this context ‘successful’ means ‘sending tens of thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste to be dumped in Russia’. The English language, as ever, is nothing if not flexible.

Posted by Justin at 3:06 PM | Permalink

Olkiluoto in Finland has the eyes of the world on it. That’s where French nuclear corporation AREVA is building the world’s first European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). With its state of the art third generation design, the EPR is the reactor that is going to kick off the nuclear ‘renaissance’ in style, with countries around the world queuing up to buy the design. Apparently.

AREVA took careful steps to make sure they marketed their ground-breaking technology properly. The OL3 EPR reactor at Olkiluoto is three years late and 2.75 billion euros over budget. The project has been inundated with thousands of construction defects and safety concerns, and has single-handedly hammered AREVA’s profits. How’s that for salesmanship? What was heralded as the poster child of the nuclear ‘renaissance’ has turned out to be its enfant terrible.

To make matters worse AREVA are engaged in a rather undignified public squabble with TVO, the Finnish utility that commisioned the reactor. TVO say it’s AREVA’s fault the reactor’s late. No, say AREVA, it’s TVO’s fault and TVO owe us money. No, say TVO, AREVA owes us money. NO! say AREVA. NO! say TVO. YOU! say AREVA. YOU! say TVO.

We’ve seen playground fights show more diplomacy. Just how this is going down with other countries thinking about using AREVA’s reactor building services is anyone’s guess. TVO have announced this week that OL3 will be complete in the second half of 2012. Going on past experience, you’d be a fool to bet money on that date staying fixed.

The use of the word ‘complete’ is also interesting in this context. It’s possible the reactor will be completely built in the second half of 2012 but that’s different to it actually producing electricity on a commercial basis. That could take months and even longer. The saga of Olkiluoto has a long way to go yet.

Posted by Justin at 3:03 PM | Permalink

The nuclear industry’s most famous salesman, French President Nicholas Sarkozy (where does he find the time to do anything else?), has once again been singing the praises of nuclear energy and its miraculous powers to do almost anything. On this occasion, it’s the ability to solve world poverty….

Speaking at the International Conference on Access to Nuclear Energy in Paris today, Sarkozy said that solutions to future energy needs would not be found in no-growth theories. Such policies were selfish and would force the poorest people of the world to stay in their current situation and 'would close the door' on have-nots. France is deeply convinced that nuclear power is the key to more equitably sharing wealth on the planet.

It’s a piece of breathtaking hypocrisy from the President. Let us, for example, look to Niger in Western Africa. The country provides 40-45 per cent of the uranium needed to fuel French nuclear reactors. French companies have been mining uranium in Niger since 1971. In 2008 uranium mining generated 260 million euros in revenue for French nuclear corporation AREVA.

So how are things in Niger after 40 years of French mining? Has nuclear power been ‘the key to more equitably sharing wealth’ in Niger?

In short: No.

Niger is firmly rooted to the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index which ‘provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living’. Eleven out of every hundred babies born in Niger die before their first birthday.

The nuclear industry has brought contamination to the people of Niger and left poverty in its wake. Where is the concern from the French government about their plight? French uranium mining did not pause for one second during or after the military coup which took place last month.

President Sarkozy seems to have a highly selective eye when it comes to the ‘have-nots’ of the world. Those have-nots who might buy his country’s reactors are worthy of attention whereas those have-nots who merely help fuel those reactors can be safely ignored. Niger is another of the nuclear industry’s dirty little secrets. Don’t expect to see it featured in any flashy PR videos or glossy brochures.

So let’s take Sarkozy’s words and frame them in a more honest way: French nuclear policies are selfish and force the poorest people of the world to stay in their current situation and do 'close the door' on have-nots.

Posted by Justin at 1:22 PM | Permalink

Here’s French nuclear corporation AREVA caught in a jaw-dropping and disgraceful piece of greenwash on the Discovery Channel’s ‘The Green Room’…

We can’t believe the Discovery Channel fell for it. It’s a classic of PR spin by AREVA which blatantly ignores several unpleasant facts about nuclear waste reprocessing in France. If you want a corrective to this glossy AREVA propaganda, you should take a look at Eric Guéret and Laure Noualhat’s film Déchets - Le Cauchemar du Nucléaire (Waste - The Nuclear Nightmare). As the International Panel on Fissile Materials’ blog puts it…

Constantly facing the AREVA PR that states that 96% of the nuclear materials are "recycled" through the reprocessing scheme, the reporters inquired where the recovered uranium, roughly 95% of the mass of spent fuel, does end up. In fact, AREVA has been sending most of the reprocessed uranium (23,000 tons were still stored in France at the end of 2008), to Russia officially for re-enrichment. In fact, even if all of that uranium had indeed been re-enriched, which is not the case, over 90% of the mass remains in Russia as enrichment tails. This material is waste, because there is absolutely no economic incentive to re-enrich it, in particular considering the hundreds of thousands of tons of "clean", first generation enrichment tails that are stored in Russia and in the other major enrichment countries, including in France (close to 260,000 tons at two sites). The message that AREVA's "recycling" ratio had to be corrected from 95% to less than 10% of the original mass send a shockwave through the French political landscape.

In the Discovery Channel film, AREVA describes nuclear as ‘a very green form of energy’, ‘a very clean technology’ which produces ‘relatively small volumes of waste that has to be disposed of’ (260,000 tonnes?). It’s difficult to know whether to laugh at AREVA’s audacity or be incandescent at the deception. We wouldn’t tolerate such transparent lies from our children and yet AREVA clearly think they can get away with it.

Now, this is a family blog and we don’t like to use bad language. So we’ll restrain ourselves to comparing AREVA’s claims to the solid waste produced by male cows.

Posted by Justin at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In an interview last week Jacques Besnainou, chief executive officer of French nuclear corporation AREVA’s U.S. unit, said: ‘What Wall Street needs to see, and Main Street as well, is that we are able to build on time, on budget.’

He’s completely right. Wall Steet and Main Street do need to see that the nuclear industry is able to build on time and on budget because, in the entirety of its 60-year history, it’s been an abject failure at doing both.

Of course, Mr Besnainou is only telling half the story because what his industry also has to show us all is that it is able to mine uranium and produce nuclear fuel in a way that doesn’t devastate people’s lives and the environment. Or is the implication that we shouldn’t worry or care about what goes on at the start of the nuclear chain? We notice, for instance, that it’s business as usual at AREVA’s mines in Niger despite the military coup that took place in the country last week.

The industry also needs to show us all that it can deal with the highly radiaoctive waste that nuclear reactors produce in a safe, clean fashion. AREVA in particularly are singularly failing in that regard. Again, is the implication that we shouldn’t worry or care about wat happens at end of the nuclear chain?

Like we said, we’re only told half a story by the nuclear industry. The likes of AREVA can talk the talk but we’ve yet to see them walk the walk. As Wealth Daily puts it, Mr Besnainou sounds ‘like he might be ready to sing "Kumbaya" around a glowing hunk of uranium’ but actions speak louder than words.

While we’re hearing a lot of the latter we’re seeing precious little of the former. Nuclear energy has a long way to travel before it’s anywhere close to being accepted as clean, safe, cheap, reliable and a solution to climate change. And it’s a road with no end in sight.

Posted by Justin at 5:15 PM | Permalink

Of all the nuclear waste France has sent to Russia since 2006 for reprocessing, less than 10% has ever been sent back. That’s 3,090 tonnes out of 33,000. The rest is dumped in Russia, often in the open air. This is the ‘clean’ and ‘safe’ nuclear energy US President Barack Obama was mythologizing yesterday.

© Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace

Greenpeace are demanding a moratorium on the export of nuclear waste from France to Russia. That’s why yesterday Greenpeace France activists blockaded the Tricastin nuclear facility to prevent a shipment of nuclear waste leaving for its Russian dumping ground.

Nuclear waste reprocessing in France is a scam. AREVA and EDF claim that 96% of nuclear waste can be reprocessed. However just 1% finds its way in to MOX (Mixed Oxide fuel). The rest is sent to Russia where most of it is simply dumped and never reprocessed. Nuclear industry claims about ‘recycling’ are simply spin, hype and propaganda. Forget about ‘safe’ and ‘clean’.

(More information and photographs are available in French from Greenpeace France’s website)

Posted by Justin at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On its US blog, French nuclear giant AREVA has a ‘Clean Energy Quiz’. It really is quite something. It manages to undermine wind, solar and other truly clean and renewable energy sources in favour of giving nuclear a great big boost.

Here we go again with nuclear energy being called ‘clean’. If AREVA PR people think nuclear is clean we’d hate to see their houses. Imagine the shocking state of their kitchens if nuclear is their idea of cleanliness. Remind us never to go for dinner at an AREVA spin doctor’s house.

In an interview elsewhere on its blog, AREVA’s CEO ‘Atomic’ Anne Lauvergeon insists ‘nuclear power isn’t THE solution’. She says nuclear is just part of the ideal energy portfolio but the way AREVA regards wind and solar in the likes of its quiz, that’s like someone telling you they love you while punching you in the face.

Posted by Justin at 5:31 PM | Permalink

‘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.)

Posted by Justin at 5:25 PM | Permalink

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.

Posted by Justin at 4:52 PM | Permalink

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)

Posted by Justin at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

French nuclear corporation AREVA is launching what it calls a ‘Community Advisory Council’ (CAC). The Council will apparently ‘raise greater awareness of the benefits of clean energy technology, including nuclear energy and renewables’ and ‘build a working group of representatives from influential organizations who will informally advise the company on energy and sustainability issues’.

We’ll move swiftly over AREVA once again greenwashing nuclear energy as ‘clean’ and instead focus on what Laurence Pernot, vice president of communications at AREVA, had to say about his CAC:

When it is about energy, there must be no taboo subjects. All issues, including the tricky ones, must be on the table. And when it is about nuclear energy in particular, public concerns must be taken seriously and addressed honestly.

No taboo subjects? All issues, including the tricky ones, must be on the table? Concerns must be taken seriously and addressed honestly?

If this is the case then why, in the month since Greenpeace announced it had found radioactive contamination on the streets of a village close to AREVA’s uranium mines in Niger, has there not been a single word on the subject from AREVA?

Is radioactive contamination in Niger a ‘taboo’ subject for AREVA? Is this ‘tricky’ issue on the table or not? When will these concerns be 'taken seriously and addressed honestly' by the company?

Posted by Justin at 12:30 PM | Permalink

The likes of French nuclear giant AREVA and its supporters are trying to push the nuclear ‘renaissance’ onto the agenda at the Copenhagen climate change conference, like some kind of radioactive Trojan Horse. Meanwhile, the reality on the ground for this so-called resurgence of nuclear power continues to be utterly dismal.

The latest casualties – following the cancellation of new nuclear projects in Turkey, Canada, Bulgaria, South Africa, Texas, Missouri, Idaho and Alabama – are at Nine Mile Point in upstate New York and the South Texas Project nuclear power plant.

After announcing last year its plans to build an AREVA-designed EPR reactor at Nine Mile Point, UniStar Nuclear Energy has now asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ‘temporarily suspend’ the review of Unistar’s application to build the reactor. Why? ‘Because of uncertainties over the availability of federal loan guarantee money for new nuclear power plants’. In other words Unistar can’t or won’t build a new reactor without US taxpayers providing a financial safety net.

Meanwhile, over at the South Texas Project nuclear power plant, the cost of building two new nuclear reactors has spiralled from $10 billion to $14 billion. This has led to CPS Energy, the company supposedly building the reactors, to make legal enquires to see what costs would be involved should it or its partner Toshiba withdraw from the project. This follows ‘a postponed a bond issue, a warning on cost escalation, an internal investigation and the departure of its general manager’. That’s one troubled project.

Once again we’re seeing how the economics of nuclear power work against it – rocketing costs and the need for government bailouts. No amount of pro-nuclear propaganda is going to change that any time soon.

Posted by Justin at 11:26 AM | Permalink

So, in July 2007, there were these two contractors working at the Sellafield nuclear plant in North West England. They were drilling through a concrete floor in a nuclear waste storage facility that was being converted into offices.

They were wearing protective masks and suits, and had equipment to monitor radiation levels.

When two radioactive ‘hot spots’ were detected, the men decided to keep working.

One of the men removed his mask.

One of the pair received a dose of radiation of 17 milli-sieverts. The statutory annual dosage limit is 20.

Mark Bassett, the UK Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) superintending nuclear inspector, said: ‘Although the radiation doses in this case were below the statutory dose limits, they could potentially have been higher. They should have been zero.’

The operating company Sellafield – which is jointly owned by Amec, AREVA and URS Washington – was fined £75,000 in the ensuing court case which delivered its verdict last week. The consortium was also ordered to pay £26,000 in court costs.

Amec, Areva and URS Washington operate Sellafield under the consortium name Nuclear Management Partners Ltd. Last year it was awarded the contract to operate Sellafield for up to 17 years. The contract is worth £22 billion.

So, that’s a £101,000 penalty over a £22,000,000,000 contract. We’re sure Nuclear Management Partners Ltd felt suitably chastised as they handed over 0.00046% of their money. Mark Bassett of the HSE described the punishment as ‘relatively high’. That’s quite some exaggeration. He must think ants are ‘relatively enormous’.

Posted by Justin at 1:04 PM | Permalink

The nuclear industry likes to make a big song and dance about reprocessing nuclear waste (or ‘recycling spent fuel’ as they’re currently greenwashing it).

Did you know, for instance that France has sent 33,000 tonnes of nuclear waste to Russia for reprocessing since 2006? How much of that has come back to France? A mere 3,090 tonnes. That’s less than 10%. The rest is dumped and abandoned in places like the ‘closed’ city of Seversk, the nuclear waste storage facility in Siberia. Some of it is even stored in open air car parks. This is the fabled nuclear safety we’ve heard all about.

After these revelations in October this year, along with it emerging that plutonium had been ‘forgotten’ at the Cadarache nuclear plant, the French government announced a moratorium on nuclear waste shipments to Russia while the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety conducts a full inventory of France’s nuclear waste products. The results are expected in January.

So when the French government decided to pre-empt the inventory’s findings and break the moratorium this weekend, resuming nuclear waste shipments to Russia, Greenpeace France sprang into action. Nuclear campaigner Yannick Rousselet chained himself to the railway line along which the nuclear waste was to be transported, delaying the shipment.

It’s a strange coincidence that French nuclear giant AREVA would choose to resume nuclear waste shipments exactly when attention is focussed on the opening of the Copenhagen climate change summit. Thanks to Yannick and his colleagues, however, AREVA’s dirty little secret is in the public eye once more.

(More information is available in French at Greenpeace France’s website)

Posted by Justin at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday, the BBC World Service's Africa in Focus radio programme featured Greenpeace's findings of radioactive contamination on the streets of the villages close to AREVA's uranium mines in Niger. You can listen to it here…

AREVA have been uncharacteristically silent on this matter. As the radio presenter says at the end of the piece: `We tried to contact the uranium mining company AREVA for comments but they were not reachable.'

The company were certainly reachable when Greenpeace activists boarded the Happy Ranger en-route to Areva's OL3 nuclear reactor last month. AREVA were extremely quick in labelling the activists as `militants'. But when there's evidence that AREVA are putting people's health at risk in Niger? The company spin doctors are nowhere to be seen.

AREVA may be silent but voices in Niger are determined to be heard. Tomorrow, a peaceful march to protest against AREVA and its subsidiaries in Niger is being held by the people of Arlit where AREVA has a uranium mine.

Posted by Justin at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Do you know many companies like the nuclear industry who have only one product in their catalogue? There was Ford and the Model T, but that was 100 years ago, and they at least knew how to build and sell it.

We wish we’d come up with that joke. The honour however goes to Henri Proglio, the new chief executive of the French nuclear giant EDF. When even the nuclear industry is mocking the nuclear industry, you know things aren’t right.

So how is the nuclear ‘renaissance’ going this week? Not well, in actual fact…

The UK’s safety regulators, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), have just released the third stage of their assessment for the designs of AREVA’s EPR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors. It’s grim reading.

There are a significant number of issues with the safety features of both designs. The regulators still don't have a complete design yet from either Areva or Westinghouse. The HSE will not approve the designs unless this is addressed.

The EPR design has a long list of problems. There are "significant concerns" about the lack of separation between the safety protection and control systems. The HSE says "you could have the same fault occurring on both, so your protection system won't do what it's supposed to do. The company has proposed a way to fix the problem, but has yet to provide details". Concrete reactor shielding may not meet UK standards (the question is whether it meets any standards at all). There are problems with the structural integrity of the reactor but it’s "too early to say whether they can be resolved solely with additional safety case changes or whether they may result in design modifications being necessary". Unbelievably, even simple, fundamental things such as fire doors and alarms are not properly sited.

(You can take a look at some of the many safety failings of the EPR reactor being built at Olkiluoto here.)

Things with the AP1000 are little better. According to the HSE, Westinghouse has significant additional work to prove its reactor is safe across "the majority of the technical topic areas.". The safety case on internal hazards has "significant shortfalls." The regulator criticises Westinghouse for a "lack of detailed claims and arguments". There are major concerns about the reactor design’s new cooling valve but there has been, says the HSE, "minimal progress in addressing our concerns. There is a significant risk that the depth of the issue and the resources and effort that are needed to address it have been underestimated.". On top of all that aspects of the civil and mechanical engineering plans are being questioned, as well as the structural integrity and "human factors".

Wow. That’s quite a list. If the EPR was a car with a list of concerns like that, would you drive it? If the AP1000 was a plane, would you fly in it?

Meanwhile, UK government ministers are complacently unconcerned…

Posted by Justin at 5:01 PM | Permalink

Greenpeace has found high radiation contamination levels in the streets of Akokan where children play. What is even more disturbing is that this just year AREVA claimed that those same streets were safe.

It began in 2003 when radioactive contamination was found in towns close to Niger’s uranium mines by the independent laboratory CRIIRAD and local NGO Aghir In’Man.

In 2007 CRIIRAD found dangerous levels of radiation levels near the hospital in the mining village of Akokan. The mine operator, French nuclear giant AREVA, admitted to widespread contamination in the village.

In October of that year, the mining company and AREVA subsidiary COMINAK reported the contamination had been addressed. In September 2009 AREVA confirmed to CRIIRAD that a clean up had been done and the streets made safe.

It is clear that this is not true.

There are still radioactive materials in the street of Akokan. Greenpeace’s findings directly contradict AREVA’s assurances. The people of these villages are being exposed to unnecessarily high levels of radiation. In one area Greenpeace tested, the radiation was almost 500 times higher than normal levels.

This is the hidden cost of nuclear power: innocent men, women and children exposed to radiation, exploitation and danger. It’s something you won’t see in the nuclear industry’s glossy brochures and on its impressive websites.

This is what we must accept if we are to continue using nuclear power for our energy needs. The uranium from Niger is used to keep the lights on in France. Nuclear reactors must have uranium. To obtain that uranium it seems that people must suffer. It is a story told wherever in the world uranium is mined. Ask yourself: would you like to live near a uranium mine?

The nuclear industry does not want you to think about the dust in the streets of Niger. Instead it wants you to think about its so-called clean and safe energy. Are the streets of Akokan clean? Are its people safe?

AREVA has shown it cannot be trusted to take care of this problem themselves. An immediate and comprehensive independent assessment and clean up must be done to ensure that the people of the mining villages are protected from AREVA’s radiation.

(A detailed briefing on Greenpeace’s findings in Akokan can be found here)

Posted by Justin at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

An independent expert commissioned by Greenpeace has found the two nuclear reactors currently being built in Finland and France have serious safety flaws in their design. Dr. Helmut Hirsch, Scientific Consultant for Nuclear Safety says the design of AREVA’s much heralded third-generation EPR reactor is ‘contradictory to the foundation of nuclear safety’.

A nuclear reactor’s control systems are supposed to be independent, so that a failure of one system doesn’t compromise the whole reactor. This is not the case with the EPR – its systems are interlinked. ‘In the worst case,’ says Dr Hirsch, ‘this can lead to a minor incident developing into a severe accident.’ This has led to the nuclear regulators in the UK (who are evaluating the EPR design as part of their nuclear ‘renaissance’), France and Finland to jointly express their concern with this design flaw.

This is on top of ongoing serious problems at the construction of the OL3 EPR at Olkiluoto, Finland. Last week it was found that the pipes in the reactor’s essential cooling system (the part of the reactor that prevents a meltdown) have been welded using unacceptable methods without any supervision or written records. The surface of the pipes had been welded to cover up damage which may have weakened the pipes beyond repair.

The number of defects in OL3’s construction is around 3,000. The Finnish nuclear regulator STUK has detected many that were in fact approved by AREVA’s quality control but can we be certain that STUK has found them all? In 2006 STUK admitted that they could not be sure due to the high number of problems.

What we can be certain of however is that the EPR reactor is a dangerous and failed experiment. The safety flaws highlighted by Dr Hirsch reveal that there can be no confidence in the safety of the EPR design. The massive budget and schedule overruns show that a programme of building EPRs across the planet, as AREVA plans, presents a very real threat to the fight against climate change. Neither must we forget the legacy of nuclear accidents.

EPR, like nuclear power as a whole, not only threatens our safety, but takes and wastes the vital money, time and resources that we need to expand renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes if we are serious about saving our climate. The risks are too great. EPR must be abandoned immediately.

Read Dr. Hirsch’s report here. Greenpeace’s EPR factsheet is here.

Posted by Justin at 3:01 PM | Permalink

The Happy Ranger carrying both steam generators - for AREVA's disaster-prone OL3 EPR nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland - and eight Greenpeace activists arrived at their destination this afternoon. After the formalities of Finnish immigration, our heroes are now enjoying well deserved baths, hot dinners and celebrations.

A press conference will be held in Helsinki on Friday and we'll bring you all the details from there. This isn't the end of the story so stay tuned.

(A full briefing on Areva's OL3, its many safety issues and negative impact on Finnish climate policy is available here. One of the activists on board, Lauri Myllyvirta, blogged the experience here. There are photos and video, and more photos.)

Posted by Justin at 1:26 PM | Permalink

French nuclear giant AREVA is upset by the six Greenpeace activists who boarded the transport ship Happy Ranger in the Fehmarn Belt strait between Denmark and Germany. The ship is taking massive steam generators to the construction site of AREVA’s beleaguered OL3 EPR nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland.

The company says it is ‘saddened that Greenpeace refuses to engage in a calmer debate on energy issues’. Just how this ‘calmer debate’ is supposed to take place in the eyes of AREVA remains unclear. AREVA studiously ignore the issues raised on this blog, for example, although we know AREVA people are avid readers. And a visit to the facility where these large EPR components have been produced will not advance us in the debate on how nuclear energy undermines climate protection or how the choice for nuclear power has shut the door for renewable energies in Finland. A calmer debate? Greenpeace is ready when you are, AREVA.

©Greenpeace/Mueller

The company certainly wasn’t interested in calm debate at the European Commission’s European Nuclear Energy Forum (Enef) this year. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Sortir du Nucléaire - the only groups invited into the industry-dominated body - walked out accusing Enef of ‘stifling critical voices’, ‘ignoring their concerns and riding roughshod over alternative scientific evidence’. If the likes of AREVA are so sure of themselves and their reactors you have to wonder why they have to resort to such cover-up and cowardice.

On top of that, AREVA spokesperson Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier seems to think some kind of ‘association’ is ‘opening up’ between AREVA and Greenpeace just because a Greenpeace team visited the AREVA uranium mines in Niger last week. As if inviting people to the hellish nightmare of what AREVA has done in Niger would endear the company to anyone.

In its Happy Ranger press release AREVA also uses a rather strange and inappropriate metaphor…

To quote a well-known saying, "Our house is burning and we are looking the other way". If we apply this metaphor, then Greenpeace's attempts to stand in the way of nuclear power is like preventing a trusted fire service from getting to the blaze.

AREVA is comparing nuclear reactors to a ‘fire service’ fighting against the ‘burning’ that is climate change. Now, we don’t know about you, but if our house was burning we’d want the fire service at the scene immediately. We wouldn’t want the fire service being massively delayed and taking years to arrive like AREVA's nuclear reactors are. By the time the AREVA fire truck arrives the house could be in ruins. And just imagine the highly toxic and radioactive extinguishing chemicals that AREVA uses when trying to put out this fire. Even if they managed to save the house, it would be uninhabitable for thousands and thousands of years.

And don’t get us started on ‘trusted’.

(Get the latest news on the Greenpeace activists’ progress on Greenpeace Finland’s Twitter feed and Nuclear Reaction’s Twitter feed. One of the activists on board, Lauri Myllyvirta, is blogging here. There are photos and video, and more photos.)

Posted by Justin at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Happy Ranger is taking up speed again with after stopping when two more Greenpeace activists boarded the ship between Gotland and Öland. There are now eight activists aboard bearing witness to this transport of main components of the new Finnish reactor at Olkiluoto - Lauri, Rosa, Tuomas, Mai, Andreas, Jacky, Elisabeth, and Niko.

The Happy Ranger is expected to arrive in Finland tomorrow afternoon.

(Get the latest news on the Greenpeace activists’ progress on Greenpeace Finland’s Twitter feed and Nuclear Reaction’s Twitter feed. One of the activists on board, Lauri Myllyvirta, is blogging here. Here are photos and video, and more photos.)

Posted by Justin at 3:30 PM | Permalink

When I was woken up for my watch at 4 am, I had a liter of water in my sleeping bag.

Read Lauri's latest blog post from from the deck of the Happy Ranger...

Posted by Justin at 9:28 AM | Permalink

Greenpeace Finland nuclear campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta is blogging from the deck of the Happy Ranger which Lauri and five colleagues boarded today as the ship transports steam generators to the construction site of AREVA's EPR nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto, Finland.

Find out more here.

Posted by Justin at 10:54 PM | Permalink

A few days ago the cargo ship The Happy Ranger left France carrying steam generators intended for the nuclear European Pressurised Reactor under construction in Olkiluoto, Finland. As the ship made its way from France to Finland, activists from the Arctic Sunrise boarded the cargo ship and are currently occupying the cranes on deck.

Read on...

The activists have not been removed and intend to stay on board all the way to Finland.

Photos of the action can be seen here and here. The Greenpeace press release is here.

The EPR reactor could be coming to your country. It's worth finding out why that might be a bad idea. You can find out more about this ill-fated reactor on Greepeace's factsheet and read its disastrous history recorded here on Nuclear Reaction.

Update: Greenpeace Finland nuclear campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta is blogging from the deck of the Happy Ranger.

Posted by Justin at 6:45 PM | Permalink

There are days when you simply run out of words. How to continue to describe the ongoing construction of the flagship OL3 EPR reactor at Olkiluoto, Finland? We’ve done ‘disastrous’, ‘incompetent’ and ‘farce’. Add to those ‘massively over-budget’ and ‘hugely behind schedule’.

We’re at a loss to describe the latest news from the construction site…

The pipes that form the cooling system around the reactor have been partially welded without any supervision. TVO and Areva are right now investigating how much of the work must be redone and what the consequences are.

This pertains to the same pipes whose weld seams have been investigated before. This time the weld seams are not concerned but welding has been performed to cover cosmetic damages on the surface of the pipes. Welding work has not been, however, documented.

If the entire primary coolant piping had to be redone, it would take three years.

The cooling system is the very important bit of the reactor that prevents the thing getting too hot and going into meltdown. Imagine being the press officer for OL3. We’re struggling to think of a more depressing job.

The EPR, if you need reminding, is supposed to be the most advanced reactor on the planet. The top dog. The big man. Numero uno. This is the design – which its owners AREVA are selling around the world – that is, according to the propaganda, going to usher in the so-called nuclear ‘renaissance’ and lead us to a glorious future where nuclear-generated electricity is abundant, cheap, clean and pixies in funny little hats caper around for our entertainment.

And yet here we are again. Fundamental mistakes at Olkiluoto are compounded by the repetition of the same fundamental mistakes. The OL3 project has been notorious from the very beginning for its inability to get something as essential as the reactor’s welding right – non-existent supervision, lack of training and instructions, and poor quality work.

You’d expect a five year old child to learn lessons faster and shake your head in bitter disappointment if they didn’t. You know when kids do something stupid and you have to tell them not to do it, then they do it again, then again, and you think you're going to go insane with frustration? It must be a bit like at OL3.

AREVA however are hailed around the world by gullible leaders and journalists as potential saviours of the human race. Like we said – words have failed us.

Posted by Justin at 4:53 PM | Permalink

Yesterday, we saw nuclear reactor builders AREVA citing a study that said ‘nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint of all forms of energy generation’.

The thing is, there’s actually quite a bit of disagreement on the matter. The study ‘Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America’ isn’t the only one to examine the issue.

In his paper ‘Four Nuclear Myths’, Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute shows that…

…windpower is far less land-intensive than nuclear power; [solar] photovoltaics spread across land [is] comparable to nuclear if mounted on the ground in average U.S. sites, but much or most of that land… can be shared with lifestock or wildlife, and PVs use no land if mounted on structures, as ~90% now are.

The paper ‘Improving the ecological footprint of nuclear energy: a risk-based lifecycle assessment approach for critical infrastructure systems’ (from the International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, Vol. 1, No. 4.) estimates that nuclear’s land-use footprint is four times higher than coal…

Specifically, a lifecycle assessment of nuclear energy production is important because it captures the release of radionuclides and other toxic materials into the environment... It is concluded that, when critical infrastructure risks are taken into consideration, the actual nuclear footprint may be significantly higher than previous footprint calculations.

Would AREVA care to cite a study taking all this into account?

(And there’s one thing that hasn’t been mentioned: energy efficiency doesn’t use any land at all.)

Posted by Justin at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We’re once again grateful to lumbering French nuclear ogre AREVA’s North American blog for a quite spectacular piece of greenwash, the title of which is...

The Nature Conservancy: Nuclear Power has a Small Footprint

Now, when it comes to environmental issues, what’s the kind of footprint that springs to mind? It would be carbon footprint, wouldn’t it? A quick Google tells us that there are over four million references to ‘carbon footprint’ out there on the internet.

So reading that headline from AREVA’s blog, what kind of footprint did you first think of?

The thing is, the particular footprint AREVA are talking about here isn’t nuclear power’s carbon footprint but it’s ‘land-use footprint’. Apparently, ‘nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint of all forms of energy generation’. We’ll confess to not being familiar with the term. A quick Google tells us that ‘land-use footprint’ has just over 20 thousand references out there on the internet. It’s not a search term used very frequently at all on Google.

So far, so misleading. It’s just one more example of the creative lengths you have to go to when you want to promote a dirty, dangerous and discredited energy source (debunking nuclear, thanks to it being so dirty, dangerous and discredited, is an altogether simpler proposition).

This isn’t to say that the issue of ‘energy sprawl’ and the amount of land we use to generate our power isn’t hugely important. We’re not downplaying it, it’s just that AREVA is coming to the issue suspiciously late and takes the line that ‘nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint’ but stays silent on just what happens on the land that nuclear power sits on (in their blog post, they’re still calling nuclear power ‘safe, reliable, clean, CO2-free’ without any proof). It smacks of desperation.

Have the good people at AREVA read this passage of the ‘Land Use Intensity’ study from which they quote so approvingly…?

Our definition of impact varies among energy production techniques, so a less compact way of generating energy does not necessarily mean that an energy production technique is more damaging to biodiversity, but simply that it has a larger spatial area impacted to some degree. Moreover, many energy production techniques actually have multiple effects on biodiversity, which operate at different spatial and temporal scales… Further, the longevity of the impacts described here varies. For example, radioactive nuclear waste will last for millennia, some mine tailings will be toxic for centuries…

In other words, AREVA are promoting the part of the study that says ‘nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint of all forms of energy generation’ but not the part that talks about nuclear power's devastating impact on the environment from uranium mining to land contamination around nuclear reactors to high-level nuclear waste storage. Fancy that.

Posted by Justin at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As we’ve discussed before, there are two questions asked about building a nuclear reactor – ‘How much will it cost?’ and ‘When will it be operational?’- to which there is only one, honest reply: ‘I’ll tell you when it’s finished.’

This week, however, lumbering French nuclear ogre AREVA added a third question to the list: ‘What will the design look like?’…

In an unprecedented step, the UK nuclear safety regulator (HSE’s ND), the French nuclear regulator (ASN), and the Finnish nuclear regulator (STUK) released a joint statement on their respective evaluations of the design of AREVA’s shiny all-singing, all-dancing state-of-the-art third generation EPR Pressurised Water Reactor. You see, all three have discovered the same problem with the reactor’s design…

The issue is primarily around ensuring the adequacy of the safety systems (those used to maintain control of the plant if it goes outside normal conditions), and their independence from the control systems (those used to operate the plant under normal conditions).

Independence is important because, if a safety system provides protection against the failure of a control system, then they should not fail together. The EPR design, as originally proposed by the licensees and the manufacturer, AREVA, doesn’t comply with the independence principle, as there is a very high degree of complex interconnectivity between the control and safety systems.

In short: the EPR’s safety system isn’t independent from its control system. The safety system is there, in case the control system fails, to prevent catastrophic accidents. In EPR’s case, if the control system fails, the currently non-independent safety system could fail as well. And AREVA wants to sell the EPR all over the world.

Needless to say, AREVA responded with an awesome piece of denial, spin and downright fantasy…

The safety of the EPR™ reactor has not been called into question…

Really? So clearly ‘The issue is primarily around ensuring the adequacy of the safety systems’ and ‘The EPR design… doesn’t comply with the independence principle’ actually means ‘there’s nothing to worry about’. Silly us. Need we remind you that the OL3 EPR reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland has been under construction since 2004, the EPR at Flamanville, France has been under construction since 2006. And there are still questions about the ‘adequacy’ of the EPR’s safety systems.

AREVA then move straight to the fantasy…

The EPR™ reactor is currently the most powerful reactor in the world...

(No it isn’t – it hasn’t been built yet.)

AREVA guarantees the safety of its reactor…

(It could guarantee snow in Summer but that wouldn’t make it any more likely. AREVA can make as many guarantees as it likes but what will those guarantees be worth after a major accident? Can you clean up nuclear contamination with a guarantee? Figures vary as to the cost of the Chernobyl disaster but a quarter of a trillion dollars is a conservative estimate. Does AREVA have that kind of money? It will be governments and taxpayers who will be paying for any clean-up.)

So what does this mean? What it always does: more cost, more delays, more uncertainty, more spin, more fantasy, and more distraction from the fight against climate change. It means more of the same from AREVA and those who support them.

Posted by Justin at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, we’ve all heard the hype and propaganda about the forthcoming nuclear ‘renaissance’ with its shiny and new so-called third generation of nuclear reactors. The thing is, it’s looking as if the biggest barrier to this ‘renaissance’ taking place might actually be that shiny and new so-called third generation of nuclear reactors.

You see, this latest generation of nuclear reactors are, to put it mildly, a little on the flaky side…

The design for Westinghouse’s AP-1000 has recently been rejected by the US’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission because ‘a key component might not withstand events like earthquakes and tornadoes’. The projected cost of building them varies wildly as well.

GE Hitachi’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) remains in the ‘early design stage’. Late last year, US energy corporation Exelon dropped plans to build a ESBWR in Texas because the ESBWR wouldn’t have earned them the vital government loan guarantees that keep the nuclear industry afloat. GE Hitachi also withdrew the design from the UK’s currently ongoing reactor evaluation process.

Canada’s Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) also withdrew their ACR-1000 reactor design from the UK process. In July last year Canada’s own province of Ontario pulled the plug on plans to build two ACR-1000s after the project was priced at 26 billion Canadian dollars, three times what the province wanted to pay.

Which leaves us with French nuclear ogre Areva’s infamous European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) design. Two are currently under construction in the world – one in Olkiluoto in Finland and one in Flamanville in France. The EPR design has quickly become a symbol for everything wrong with the nuclear industry – expensive, late, unreliable, and farcical.

How are things going at those construction sites right now. Well, after it being announced that its anybody’s guess as to when the Olkiluoto OL3 reactor may be ready (it’s currently four years late), Areva said this week that the EPR at Flamanville is now running two years late as well. The company is also making a EUR 300 million provision on top of OL3’s rapidly expanding – and profit-killing - EUR 5.5 billion budget.

In fact, all you need to know about building an EPR reactor is summed up in this simple graph…

Click image for a larger version

The graph upturns at the precise moment construction began. How much higher will those lines reach?

The nuclear industry is starting to look like its own worst enemy.

Posted by Justin at 1:30 PM | Permalink

French nuclear giant Areva is placing full page advertisements in the American media.

But what’s missing from the ads?

Posted by Justin at 5:10 PM | Permalink

Bad news from the construction site of the OL3 EPR nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland arrives with such reliable and alarming regularity you can almost set your watch by it.

First up we have Jouni Silvennoinen, head of OL3 project for Finnish utility TVO, announcing that the reactor might not now be working until 2013, four years later than planned. TVO has now requested a new timetable from Areva, the reactor’s builders. The reasons Silvennoinen gives for this further delay are problems with the EPR reactor’s vital control and instrumentation system design, and ‘accumulation of delays in construction’. And what an ‘accumulation’…

The second piece of bad news is rather more worrying. The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland (STUK) has suspended welding on OL3’s essential cooling system (one of the most important parts of a nuclear reactor) after…

…STUK’s inspectors noticed deficiencies in the welding of the pipes in the plant’s cooling system between 6th and 8th October 2009. Among the deficiencies observed were that one welder did not have the welding instructions at his disposal, neither was he familiar with the welding requirements, as a result of which an excessive amount of power was being used in the welding. Other deviations noticed concerned the use of shielding gas necessary for welding and the shape of the contact surfaces to be welded.

The reactor’s builders have been told time and time again about the poor standards in the welding of this so-called state of the art nuclear reactor. Why have lessons not been learned? How hard can it be to ensure a welder – working on a nuclear reactor - has proper instructions and knows his equipment?

STUK has previously drawn attention to welding quality and its supervision in the welding of the steel lining of the containment building, amongst others. STUK has also required TVO to take into account what has been learned from this experience in pipe welding and its supervision. The matter will continue to require special attention from TVO as the volume of pipe installation work increases in the near future.

The EPR reactor is supposed to be the future of nuclear power. You don’t need a crystal ball to see what that future’s shaping up to look like. It’s going to be a very expensive future, shoddily built and arriving late. EPR must be stopped.

Posted by Justin at 5:17 PM | Permalink

‘In preparation for this new reactor boom…’

Areva does its bit for public confidence in its new EPR reactor.

Posted by Justin at 3:54 PM | Permalink

The OL3 nuclear European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), being built by French nuclear giant AREVA at Olkiluoto in Finland, is in such desperate financial trouble it has single-handedly wiped out the company’s half year profits.

The company’s operating profit is down by 97 per cent and net profit is down by 79 per cent – all thanks to the disastrous Olkiluoto EPR project. Facing up to the realities of nuclear reactor construction – the only true answer to the question ‘how much does a reactor cost?’ being ‘we’ll tell you when it’s finished’ – AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon has finally admitted that it is impossible to predict the final cost of OL3.

When the OL3 project was presented to Finnish government and parliament for (an ultimately positive) decision, TVO said the cost would be EUR 2.5 billion. The contracted fixed budget was EUR 3.2 billion. After years of schedule overruns, safety violations, and thousands of construction defects, the cost of this so-called state-of-the-art third generation reactor - one of just two being built in the world right now – now stands at EUR 5.5 billion. The counter above shows just how much OL3 is over schedule and over budget. To think AREVA describe EPR as ‘a cost effective reactor’.

The profit announcement has resulted in another very public argument between AREVA and the reactor’s owners, Finnish utility TVO. AREVA are demanding TVO help carry some of the financial burden (one billion euros and counting) – despite OL3 being a ‘turnkey’ project with a fixed price – and are threatening to suspend construction until the original contracts are modified.

So now Areva starts blackmailing its Finnish partner in an attempt to force it to cover at least some of the massive cost overrun. Anne Lauvergnon said that Areva will not commence with some of the construction unless TVO agrees to modified contracts. So far, it seems these threats have been made only in the media as TVO says it has not been informed about ‘discontinuing work or presented any conditions for the continuation of work on the OL3 construction site’

The countries – China, UK, US, India, Italy and others – looking to build their own EPRs are surely watching closely. How must potential investors be feeling, watching a reactor builder refusing to complete construction unless contracts are changed in its favour?

The real losers in this are of course Finnish electricity consumers (who face higher bills) and French taxpayers (AREVA is 91 per cent owned by the French state). In other words, the OL3 EPR reactor cannot be completed without massive public subsidies.

Arrogance and a misplaced faith in its own abilities have brought AREVA to this position. Like the rest of the nuclear industry, the EPR reactor is a dangerous and failing experiment (the other EPR being built at Flamanville in France is also hugely over budget and behind schedule, and has seen the same construction problems as OL3). EPR is massively expensive, untried and untested, and a block to the real and urgently needed solutions to climate change – renewable energy sources and energy efficiency programmes.

EPR is unaffordable both financially and environmentally. Construction Olkiluoto must be abandoned.

Posted by Justin at 1:28 PM | Permalink

We’re grateful to Areva’s North America blog for pointing us towards a speech Areva’s Chief Executive Officer Anne Lauvergeon made back in April of this year. Entitled, ‘Nuclear Industry’s Role In Nonproliferation’, the speech was given to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

We’d like to take a look at the number of fascinating things Ms Lauvergeon had to say during her speech…

…the fact is that we witness worldwide enthusiasm for nuclear energy coming from governments, coming from utilities, or electro-intensive industries…

Or, in other words, from vested interests. Notice she didn’t say ‘and the public’ or ‘and environmental groups’. Can a handful of cheerleaders really be described as ‘worldwide enthusiasm’?

Renewable energy sources, she says…

…don’t meet competitiveness requirements as well, needing heavy subsidies in the USA as well as in Europe. It’s not shocking to subsidize a source of energy at the early stage of its development, but we have to be aware of it.

Unlike nuclear energy which is a source of energy late in its development (having been developed in the 1950s) which is still needing heavy subsidies. Nuclear, says Ms Lauvergeon meets ‘all three requirements of sustainability, competitiveness, and security’. How can an energy source be sustainable when it’s reliant on a finite resource, in this case uranium? If it’s so competitive, why has the CEO of French nuclear giant EDF recently called for a ‘level playing field’ to be created so nuclear power can compete with renewable energy sources? How does having to rely on imported nuclear fuel give energy security to those countries without their own supply? Don’t expect answer from the likes of Atomic Anne.

And on and on she went. She dwelled briefly on the myth of the so-called ‘proliferation proof’ closed nuclear fuel cycle (here’s a clue: it isn’t closed and still produces dangerous nuclear waste). Have a quick look at the speech yourself (don’t spend too long – it’s eight pages) and try and find your own favourite piece of nuclear spin. Maybe we’ll offer a prize for the best one.

There was a spectacular piece of easily debunked spin from Lauvergeon in the question and answer session after her speech. It’s indicative of how Areva and the nuclear industry deal with questions. Questioned about the Savannah River Mixed-Oxide (MOX) fuel plant being built in South Carolina, she said…

…it’s a little bit over budget because the decisionaround this facility in Savannah River has taken a little bit more time in to the Department Of Energy forecast in the beginning. So you know when the projects are longer to be able to be developed, it’s very often a little bit more expensive.

In 2007, the Department of Energy costed Savannah River at $3.6 billion. In 2009 the cost was $4.8 billion. That’s a budget overrun of 33 per cent with costs set to rise still further. That’s a definition of ‘a little bit more expensive’ of which we’ve previously been unaware.

One thing she did get right however was this…

Two billion people are currently living without access to electricity, left by the wayside. And no electricity means life expectancy of 35 or 40 years. We cannot allow this situation to continue.

It’s a shocking state of affairs that cannot, we agree. And yet with stories like those of Barack Obama’s Kenyan grandmother and her newly solar-powered homestead, it’s all too apparent that Areva and Anne Lauvergeon don’t offer the cheap, secure and quickly-provided solution these two billion people – not to mention the rest of us - so urgently need.

Posted by Justin at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So how are things going at the construction site of the OL3 EPR reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland? The builders, Areva, can update us…

Sounds like it’s all going perfectly well. No mention of the three year delay until the reactor is completed or the nearly two billion euro cost of that delay. Funny that.

There’s also a curious figure on Areva’s blog concerning the number of people working to complete the OL3 EPR: 3,500 to be precise. That’s quite a different number from the 9,000 UK environment minister Ed Miliband said each new EPR in the country will provide. Who’s right? As ever when it comes to nuclear power, don’t trust the numbers.

Posted by Justin at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Washington Post: Obama: Iran cannot be permitted to be nuke power
’WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says he is "not reconciled" to the idea of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon within a year. The president told The Associated Press in an interview that U.S. government planning is running in precisely the opposite direction. He said a nuclear-armed Iran would likely trigger an arms race in the already volatile Mideast and said that would be "a recipe for potential disaster."’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: Obama: Iran cannot be permitted to be nuke power" »

Posted by Justin at 3:15 PM | Permalink

After Areva - builders of the disaster-prone state-of-the-art third generation OL3 European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) in Olkiluoto, Finland - lost its reputation and credibility over the project, it only had one thing left to lose: its dignity.

And so it happens. The recriminations over just who is to blame for the world’s largest prototype reactor being massively over budget and over schedule, which doubts over its design and construction, have begun. Areva are now engaged in a very public and childish game of he-said-she-said with the reactor’s owners, Finnish utility TVO and nuclear safety agency, STUK.

Jukka Laaksonen, director general of STUK says…

They (Areva) started planning when they won the contract, which was of course too late. They should have used two years for planning (in advance)… The French did not understand at first the Finnish system, that no important device can be built before the plan is approved.

Areva weren’t going to take that lying down and managing director of Finnish operations, Osmo Kaipainen, argued back…

"Authorities are never satisfied" when it comes to meeting safety regulations, he said. He added that TVO was slow delivering Areva-Siemens' documents to STUK for validation, needed before moving from one building task to another.

Those pesky safety agencies and their fussy ways about… safety. Whatever next? We’re not sure if we’d like to eat a meal cooked by an Areva executive – let’s hope they wash their hands and cook the chicken properly.

TVO managed to confuse things further by saying Areva had spent "significantly more time on planning" than the contract asked for. STUK say not enough time was spent by Areva on planning, TVO say too much time was spent. You’d feel sorry for Areva if they hadn’t made a complete disaster of the OL3 construction from the very start and were capable of giving a straight answer to a straight question themselves.

On the whole, Areva, TVO and STUK all look and sound like children squabbling over which of them gets the biggest piece of cake. If it was up to us the three of them would be sent to bed without any supper.

(Apparently Areva have declared the OL3 EPR as the first child of the ‘rebirth of the nuclear industry’. Boy, it’s going to be an ugly baby.)

Posted by Justin at 4:30 PM | Permalink

In May we told you that the review being conducted by the UK’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate into new reactor designs had issues with EDF and Areva’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). Further details are now coming out about how the Inspectorate regards the EPR design as ‘significantly compromised’…

The Health and Safety Executive, which oversees the NII, said that the EPR design could be rejected for use in Britain if its concerns could not be satisfactorily addressed. “It is our regulatory judgment that the control and instrumentation architecture appears overly complex,” the NII letter [to EDF] said. “We have serious concerns about your proposal which allows lower safety class systems to have write access [the ability to override] to higher safety class systems,” it continued.

The letter also highlighted concerns about the absence of safety display systems or manual controls that would allow the reactor to be shut down, either in the station’s control room or at an emergency remote shutdown station.

In other words, the NII don’t trust the designs of EPR’s control and safety systems. Areva is apparently ‘scrambling to produce revised plans’, a situation mirrored in Finland where plans for the control system for the massively late and over-budget EPR being built in Olkiluoto have been described by Finland nuclear watchdog STUK as ‘without a proper design that meets the basic principles of nuclear safety’.

Apparently, in the UK’s case, ‘the design assessment phase could be delayed well past its expected completion in 2011.’ So in Finland, so in the UK. Areva and EDF are nothing if not consistent.

Posted by Justin at 3:33 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AP: Exelon delays plan for Texas nuclear plant
’COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Power generator Exelon Corp. said Tuesday it has called off plans for now to build a new nuclear plant in Texas because of worries over the economy and the limited availability of federal loan guarantees. The Chicago-based company, the largest nuclear power generator in the U.S., is the second company in the past two months to postpone work for a new nuclear plant. St. Louis-based AmerenUE said in April that it was suspending work on a reactor in Missouri. "We just aren't in a place to pursue the nuclear project," John Rowe, Exelon's chairman and CEO, told The Associated Press in an interview regarding the company's plans to add two nuclear reactors in Victoria, Texas. But the projects are so expensive, running an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion per unit, that they are proving difficult to finance.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: Exelon delays plan for Texas nuclear plant" »

Posted by Justin at 3:26 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Financial Times: French government forces Areva's 'iron lady' to bend
’Areva's board meets today to rubber stamp what was always inevitable - the sale of the nuclear group's transmission and distribution business and its stakes in a number of blue-chip companies. This is what Areva's main shareholder, the French government, has long wanted to fund the rising investment needs of its nuclear champion. This is what Jean-Cyril Spinetta, its new chairman - also the chairman of Air France-KLM - is going to recommend. He is also expected to confirm that the government, which, through different state or state-controlled institutions, owns more than 90 per cent of Areva, has agreed to open up the company's capital to new investors, although perhaps not the investors Anne Lauvergeon, Areva chief executive, would have wanted. Ms Lauvergeon, sometimes called France's "iron lady", has long campaigned for a market flotation to open up the group's capital, which is only traded through investment certificates. However, the government has always regarded Areva as a strategic national asset. It now wants to raise funds which are urgently needed not just for investments, but also to finance the â‚2bn ($2.8bn) Areva needs to buy out Siemens, its German engineering joint venture partner.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: French government forces Areva's 'iron lady' to bend" »

Posted by Justin at 8:27 PM | Permalink

How this works:

The accumulating costs above are based on the EUR 1.7 billion overrun announced by Areva/TVO plus an extra EUR 1.2 billion which will be needed to purchase electricity that has not been produced by Olkiluoto-3 since its projected start.

These costs will eventually be paid for by Nordic electricity consumers and French taxpayers, either through higher bills for customers or through taxes.

The financing of Areva’s EPR programme isn’t going well at all. It needs ‘between eight and 10 billion euros by 2012 to fund its investment programme’ and a desperate French government are putting parts of the company up for sale.

Related posts: EPR: Enfant Terrible of the French Nuclear Industry

Posted by Justin at 1:22 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AFP: Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short
’VERNON, Vt. (AP) - The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found. The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and devastated the plants' savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning. At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material. But mothballing nuclear reactors or shutting them down inadequately presents the most severe of risks. Radioactive waste could leak from abandoned plants into ground water or released into the air, and spent nuclear fuel rods could be stolen by terrorists. During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: US reactors to be abandoned as decommissioning cost rocket" »

Posted by Justin at 8:11 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AFP: EPA to rebuild uranium-contaminated Navajo homes
’FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - The federal government plans to spend up to $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Navajo counterpart are focusing on homes, sheds and other buildings within a half-mile to a mile from a significant mine or waste pile. They plan to assess 500 structures over five years and rebuild those that are too badly contaminated. "These families, with the resources they have, they would not be able to put up a new home for themselves," said Lillie Lane, a spokeswoman for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection
Agency. "We don't know how radiation in the home affected these families, but in the end people will be living in safe homes." Between the 1940s and the 1980s, millions of tons of uranium ore were mined from the 27,000 square-mile reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many Navajos, unaware of the dangers of contamination, built their homes with chunks of uranium ore and mill tailings.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: EPA to rebuild uranium-contaminated Navajo homes" »

Posted by Justin at 6:58 PM | Permalink

From top to bottom, the nuclear industry is built on uncertainty. If a representative of company building a nuclear reactor gives you a firm answer to the questions ‘how much will it cost?’ and ‘when will it be finished?’ they are lying to you. The only truthful answers to those questions are ‘I’ll tell you when it’s finished’ and ‘I’ll tell you when it’s finished’.

The latest example is this story about how…

…the U.S. Energy Department is negotiating with the Tennessee Valley Authority and at least one other potential client to use mixed oxide fuels from a $4.86 billion facility under construction at Savannah River Site.

It’s a story couched in so many ‘might’s and ‘potential’s as to be practically worthless. The mixed oxide (MOX) plant production plant at Savannah River is scheduled to open in 2016. Would you put money on the plant opening that year? Remember that the facility is being built by Areva of Olkiluoto and Flamanville infamy, and that the Savannah construction has already been issued with a ‘notice of violation’ for multiple failings in quality control evaluations, construction procedures and safety testing.

So we have the Tennessee Valley Authority which ‘might’ take MOX fuel for six existing reactors - and three reactors that ‘might’ be built some time in the future – from a production facility that ‘might’ be ready in 2016.

This is just another demonstration of the danger and deceit inherent in the nature of nuclear power. We have renewable technologies ready to go today that are cheaper, safer, quicker and easier to construct, and will make a significant impact on climate change. And yet governments around the world would rather rely on the ‘might’ of a nuclear industry which offers none of those promises.

Posted by Justin at 5:09 PM | Permalink

The transportation of the enormous (and we mean HUGE) components required to build nuclear power plants is really a metaphor for the nuclear industry as a whole: huge, lumbering, slow-moving, a logistical nightmare, and causing a massive inconvenience to all concerned.

Take the two steam generators being built in France by Areva for the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in America. Seventy feet long and weighing 510 tons each, the generators will sail across the Atlantic and up the Chesapeake Bay to Port Deposit. The 70-mile journey from Port Deposit to Three Mile Island will take 20 days as the 26-axle self-propelled flatbed trailers have a top speed of just three miles an hour.

‘A small army of 100 workers is expected to accompany the generators in a column about a mile long…[T]he trip will take the generators over 20 bridges that either will have to be braced to carry the 850-ton combined weight of each generator and transporter, or, in three cases, bypassed altogether… Eighteen traffic signals along the proposed travel route will have to be temporarily lowered, along with numerous utility wires, and trees will have to be cut, all to give the generators the vertical clearance they need to pass.’

See? It’s a metaphor. Will the nuclear industry, moving at a snail’s pace like these generators, get there in time? Are you, like the bridges of Lancaster County, braced for what a nuclear ‘renaissance’ will take? The environmental damage, the uncertainty, consultations and concerns bypassed altogether?

Or will the nuclear industry end up like the nuclear turbines that were destined for Canada’s Point Lepreau reactor a few months back? That’s sunk. Here’s hoping.

Posted by Justin at 4:51 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

China View: IAEA discovers traces of uranium in Syria
’CAIRO, June 6 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that it has found traces of processed uranium in a second site in Syrian capital Damascus, Pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV reported on Saturday. The IAEA is investigating a U.S. intelligence report which claimed that a secret DPRK-designed nuclear reactor that Syria has almost completed for the production of plutonium.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: IAEA discovers traces of uranium in Syria" »

Posted by Justin at 2:04 PM | Permalink

There’s more hype and spin on AREVA’s North America blog today as it tries to sell the idea that the company is on the frontline against nuclear proliferation.

As part of this commitment to remove weapons-grade material from stockpiles, AREVA has partnered with the Shaw Group to build the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This facility when complete with convert the weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. This $4.9 billion project now under construction employs some 1,000 workers and is being built for DOE.

We’ll move swiftly over the fact that the construction at the Savannah River Site was recently issued with a ‘notice of violation’ for multiple failings in quality control evaluations, construction procedures and safety testing.

Instead we’ll focus on AREVA’s claim that MOX somehow helps in the battle against nuclear proliferation. In reality, MOX presents a greater proliferation risk than even conventional nuclear fuel. The plutonium required to create MOX could be stolen by terrorists and can be diverted to nuclear weapons programmes by countries. Once the MOX fuel is produced, the plutonium content is also easier to extract than from other varieties of nuclear fuel.

So, AREVA’s MOX plant may well remove ‘weapons-grade material from stockpiles’ but it certainly doesn’t remove the dangers.

Posted by Justin at 5:48 PM | Permalink