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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

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)

Protests over re-opening of Japanese nuclear reactor
‘(Buddhika Weerasinghe-Japan) Japanese peace and human right activists together protest against to Japan's Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)has reactive controversial "fast-breeder" Monju nuclear reactor14 years after the plant was shut down following a liquid of sodium leaked and fire in 1995. That fast breeder Monju nuclear reactor suspended four months after start-up in August 1995 and today morning 10.30 restarted to operation. Two organizations of right activists separate time morning and afternoon protest against to restarted "fast-breeder" Monju nuclear reactor. Fukui Kenmin Kagi joint right organization about 30 activists held protest rally and march to entrance of Monju then later hand over the petition and appeal suspend the operation of Monju. Shrasaka Kzyhe, activist of "No more Hiroshima, No more Nagasaki Action" organization said, "Why they use 98% plutonium? We think they try to make nuclear bomb power of their politics. Five of members of their organization come from Tokyo and Toyama protest and strongly condemned of Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and reactive Monju.

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.

It was clear from ElBaradei’s successor Yukiya Amano, in his opening speech to the nuclear Non_proliferation Treaty review at the United Nations, that ElBaradei’s warning is not being heeded…

"Nuclear power is enjoying growing acceptance as a stable and clean source of energy that can help to mitigate the impact of climate change," Amano told the meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York. "Nuclear power must be accessible not only for developed countries but also for developing countries."

We’ll leave for the moment Amano’s deceitful propaganda about nuclear power being ‘stable’ and ‘clean’ and able to ‘mitigate the impact of climate change’. He says more than 60 countries are considering adopting nuclear power. Could the IAEA monitor them all? Some of the countries on the Amano’s list are barely stable let alone functional, accountable democracies.

Couple that with the news about the global shortage of Helium-3 – a crucial ingredient in devices and technology used to detect and help stop nuclear smuggling – and its easy to see there could be some serious trouble ahead. You don’t have to worry about wind turbine smuggling or fear that the country next door is working on an energy efficiency programme.

Bulgaria halts nuclear plant project
‘Prime Minister Boyko Borisov says Bulgaria has put on hold construction of its second nuclear power plant until it finds a new investor and funds to complete the project. "The country has no money for an atomic power plant," the DPA news agency cited Borisov as saying in Tuesday's edition of the 24Casa newspaper. "We will build it when investors come." The Russian company Atomstroiexport had originally been commissioned to build the planned 2,000-megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River - 180 kilometers (about 112 miles) northeast of the capital Sofia - for 4 billion euros. The contract had been signed between the Russian firm and previous Socialist-led Bulgarian government. When new center-right government swept power in July elections, Borisov's conservative GERB party put the Belene under review due to rising costs. It recently announced a tender for a new consultant after German utility RWE walked out of the project due to funding problems and Sofia decided to redesign it to attract new investors.’

Governments saw that there could be a positive side to nuclear and began to promote it as a way of producing electricity. In the United States this “peaceful uses” aspect not only provided a welcome antidote to the government’s determination to rapidly escalate nuclear weapons production but was part of a program designed to win public approval of the expensive new arsenal. In other countries, like Britain and France, the primary purpose of so-called duel-use reactors was to produce plutonium for bombs. Yet the public was sold on the idea that the reactors were meant for electricity.

Fast forward 60 years and we have a new twist on this deception via a loophole in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which is having it’s five-yearly review this month at the United Nations.

What likely will not happen is a revision of the treaty’s Article IV, which states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. . .” In effect, Article IV offers a nuclear reward to non-nuclear weapons countries who sign the treaty; promise never to make the bomb and you can build and operate nuclear reactors. Since the materials, and to a certain degree, the processing involved in arriving at fuel for a civilian reactor or to create an atomic bomb are basically the same, a civilian program can lead to – and has led to – the covert development of nuclear weapons.

Not only that but you also get what Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calls…

…"virtual nuclear weapons states", who can produce plutonium or highly enriched uranium and possess the knowhow to make warheads, but who stop just short of assembling a weapon. They would therefore remain technically compliant with the NPT while being within a couple of months of deploying and using a nuclear weapon.

Former US vice president Al Gore said in 2006…

For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

So why aren’t the likes of Gore and ElBaradei, men who’ve seen the dangers of nuclear proliferation first hand, being listened to?

The misguided nuclear revival
‘RALEIGH - Fifty years ago, it was widely believed that nuclear power might provide the answer to all of the world's energy needs by providing a clean, safe, and virtually endless supply of affordable electricity. Two decades or so later, of course, the bloom on the nuclear rose had quickly wilted under the weight of the spiraling costs, worries about weapons proliferation and the storage of waste byproducts, and, of course, the disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. As a result, there has not been a new nuclear power plant ordered in the United States since 1977. Recently, Dr. Hugh Haskell, a Senior Science Fellow at the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and Instructor of Physics, emeritus, at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics prepared a detailed paper on the subject. Haskell's paper was a thoughtful reply to a passionately pro-nuclear speech delivered last fall by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. "If it should turn out that nuclear power is indeed that solution, then I would advocate for nuclear power ardently. But the facts as I see them are that nuclear power, due to its environmental footprint, its contribution to weapons proliferation, its cost, its excessive use of water, and the time it will take to build up what we would need to meet the needs of the planet, is simply not the best way to go, and will end up replacing one intractable problem with another, perhaps even more intractable. Other more environmentally friendly means are available to us now that can do what we need to do in a timely manner without excessive costs, and are consistent with the need to work toward a sustainable society-one not built on growth forever."

The radioactive risk society
‘On April 10, 2007, a uranium pipeline burst in Jaduguda, causing a spill of the fuel that keeps our nuclear energy schemes running. Further, adds Half Life, a report on radioactivity in India by environmental group Toxic Links, on August 16, 2008, another uranium pipe burst, spewing houses near the village of Dungridih in Jaduguda with uranium waste. The deadly waste circled and flowed into five houses. Impacts on human life are unknown. But while Jaduguda is sadly punished for its proximity to uranium mining and transportation, it is now clear that it is not just places that surround (and feed) our nuclear energy production that are at risk from exposure to radioactive material. Last month, a group of scrap dealers, in an unorganised scrap market in the national capital, cracked open a machine that looked like it could be valuable. They were only doing what they do every day; police said that when they chanced upon ‘bright, shining’ material ‘ radioactive cobalt 60 from a lab machine‘ they may have tried harder to extract it. Exposed to lethal doses of the substance, their hair fell out, and their skin darkened to nearly black, and one worker died days later. They may perhaps fit in the terminology of the Radiation Protection Rules of 2008, as an ‘off-site emergency’.

• In the 2006 report, 62% of EU citizens people thought that nuclear power could help combat climate change. That number has plummeted to 46%. The number of people who answered ‘don’t know’ has risen in France, Spain, Finland, UK, Belgium, Luxemburg, Ireland, Estona, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Malta and Cyprus. France, UK and Finland are at the heart of the faltering nuclear ‘renaissance’.

• In Bulgaria, Germany, France and Romania the number of people who think nuclear reactors can be run safely has fallen. The number of EU citizens that want to increase nuclear in the energy mix increased from 14% in 2006 to 17% now but ‘Europeans still do not consider nuclear energy as an option to tackle the energy supply/use challenges faced by developed societies.’

• EU citizens ‘consider that the current share of nuclear energy in the energy mix should be maintained or reduced’. Not, you’ll notice, increase.

• ‘Lack of security to protect NPPs against terrorist attacks and the disposal and management of radioactive waste remain the major dangers associated with nuclear energy’

• 'Citizens would like to know more about radioactive waste management and environmental monitoring procedures.'

If you live in Europe, take a look at the report yourself and see what you need to do to fight the nuclear power in your own country.

Bear this in mind, however. The report is produced against the background of the European Commission launching the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF), in 2007. It is promoted as ‘a platform aiming to promote broad discussion, free of any taboos, on issues of transparency as well as the opportunities and risks of nuclear energy’.

So interested is the nuclear-industry dominated ENEF in ‘broad discussion’, breaking ‘taboos’ as well as discussing the ‘transparency‘, ‘opportunities’ and ‘risks’ of nuclear power that Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Sortir du Nucléaire pulled out of the body ‘accusing ENEF of stifling critical voices, ignoring their concerns and riding roughshod over alternative scientific evidence.’

Coolant system mishap at Japan's long-stalled Monju fast breeder are "inevitable" in such reactors
‘NEW YORK - The Monju prototype fast breeder nuclear power reactor, which has been gearing up for an early May restart after a 15-year stoppage, suffered a temporary glitch in a coolant leakage detector Tuesday that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency reported had no impact on the environment, Japanese media reported. However, one Japanese nuclear industry source familiar with the Monju project was quoted as saying in Japan Today that malfunctions of this type - and worse – are "inevitable" in such reactors. The government-affiliated agency said the sodium detector, housed in an auxiliary building to the reactor at the Monju centre in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, came to a halt after a fan motor overheated, triggering an alarm at 11:59 p.m. Monday. A fire accompanying a sodium leak shut down the reactor in December 1995, and the project has not been restarted since.’

Helium-3 Shortage Could Mean Nuke Detection 'Disaster'
‘Stopping nuclear smuggling is already tough. But it's about to get a lot harder. Helium-3, a crucial ingredient in neutron-particle-detection technology, is in extremely short supply. Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, chided the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security at a hearing on the issue late last week, suggesting that they created a preventable "disaster." The Energy Department is the sole American supplier of helium-3, and DHS is supposed to take the lead in spotting and stopping illicit nuclear material. The helium-3 isotope represents less than 0.0002 percent of all helium. Of that, about 80 percent of helium-3 usage is devoted to security purposes, because the gas is extremely sensitive to neutrons, like those emitted spontaneously by plutonium. Helium-3 is a decay product of tritium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen used to enhance the yield of nuclear weapons, but whose production stopped in 1988. The half-life decay of tritium is about 12 years, and the U.S. supply for helium-3 is fed by harvesting the gas from dismantled or refurbished nuclear weapons. However, production of helium-3 hasn't kept pace with the exponential demand sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks.’

Yesterday, 30 Greenpeace activists from Germany, Poland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden shutdown the main headquarters of energy company Vattenfall in Stockholm ahead of its annual general meeting today.

The activists are demanding that Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Energy announce at the meeting that state-owned Vattenfall switch its investment away from nuclear and coal power stations to renewable energy technologies. The company spends a massive 80 per cent of its annual budget on nuclear and coal power.

If only Maud Olofsson were doing her job properly and standing by her promises of a clean, renewable future, actions like this wouldn’t be necessary. We’d much rather be at home. Yet here we are, with Vattenfall looking to build new nuclear reactors in Sweden and new coal plants across the world.

(More information is available in Swedish on the Greenpeace Sweden website)

Iranian leader to join UN nuclear summit
‘Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to join a major UN nuclear disarmament summit next week in New York, even as the US and other powers seek tougher sanctions at the world body to halt Tehran's suspect atomic work. Iran's UN mission said president Ahmadinejad applied Wednesday for a U.S. visa to lead Iran's delegation to the non-proliferation treaty review conference opening Monday at the United Nations headquarters.’

- Greenpeace Mediterranean’s Nuclear Free Turkey tour is on the move.

- Greenpeace International’s Picture Desk has a Twitter account. Check it out for some great photographs.

- Ever wanted to run your own nuclear reactor? We don’t know why you would but now you can.