That was the message Greenpeace Mediterranean took to the Turkey’s parliament yesterday interrupting Prime Minister Erdogan as he addressed his AKP party.

Mersin and Sinop are two coastal towns chosen by the Turkish government to be the sites of new nuclear reactors. It’s a measure of how completely unsuccessful successive governments have been in realising their nuclear ambitions that Mersin was first licensed for a nuclear plant in 1976. There’s still no sign of construction starting 34 years later.

One local newspaper is calling our Greenpeace colleague ‘Mersin’s 13th member of parliament’. The town has 12 MPs but it was clear yesterday just who really represents the townspeople’s interests.

(More information in Turkish - including CNN video of the action - is available at Greenpeace Mediterranean’s I Lovve Nuclear website)

Posted by Justin at 5:40 PM | Permalink

Here’s a story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Justin at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It’s going to be a nuclear ‘renaissance’, they’ve told us. A dormant (or dying) and discredited nuclear industry was going to spring back to life, provide cheap, safe, reliable and clean electricity, and save us from catastrophic climate change. But then…

Turkey’s government announced over the weekend that it is cancelling (for the fourth time) its farcical tendering process to build the country’s first nuclear reactor (following the likes of Canada, Bulgaria, South Africa, Texas, Missouri, Idaho, Alabama, and the rest who’ve all seen their own nuclear plans fall through).

In the UK is looks like a big chunk of the jobs that were hyped by the British government as part of the nuclear ‘renaissance’ may be going to go to overseas contractors. We hate to say we told you so.

Hard-headed capitalists like Citigroup are calling new nuclear reactors ‘corporate killers’ and an utter financial nightmare for potential investors offering non-existent returns.

Bearing all this mind, you be forgiven for asking, ‘just what kind of renaissance is this anyway?’ Where’s the rebirth and revival?

The Renaissance that swept Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries produced masterpieces that have the power to inspire awe even to this day: Gutenberg’s mighty printing press, Michelangelo’s David and the Sistine Chapel, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, the far-sighted vision of Copernicus and Galileo… to name but a very small few.

So where are the nuclear ‘renaissance’s major works and masterpieces? What does this 'renaissance' have to show for itself? The EPR reactor being built in Olkiluoto, Finland and Flamanville, France is supposed to be the ‘renaissance’s flagship endeavour. Is it the nuclear ‘renaissance’s Mona Lisa? If it is, it’s one drawn in crayon by a five year-old with his eyes shut.

Is the Turkish government, who can’t build a nuclear reactor after four attempts, the nuclear 'renaissance’s Michelangelo? Is Westinghouse, which lacks the vision to see that its new AP-1000 reactor design might need to include safety systems so it can ‘withstand events like earthquakes and tornadoes’ the nuclear ‘renaissance’s Galileo? It's starting to look pathetic.

With the nuclear industry facing yet more accusations (this time from Peter A. Bradford a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1977 to 1982) of seeking ‘to shift ever more economic risk to taxpayers who are already staggering under the weight of other federal bailouts’, it seems the nuclear 'renaissance' shares just one thing with its historical counterpart: the leading exponents of both being reliant on the money from generous patrons.

The nuclear ‘renaissance’ is really shaping up to be the ‘renaissance that wasn’t’.

Posted by Justin at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Justin at 1:27 PM | Permalink

Who said speaking out against nuclear power couldn’t be fun? Last week Greenpeace Mediterranean asked the Turkish public, “are you ready to live with nuclear?” by holding a highly visual performance from Abarjazz Avandgard Music Group in Istanbul. It was the first of many activities to come in the following months. Abarjazz Avendgard is a professional drumming group, that came to help us launch our campaign “I lovve nuclear” with an objective to knock out any chance of bringing nuclear power to Turkey in the future. The group played on barrels marked to look like radioactive waste, while wearing gas masks, and activists asked the government to end all nuclear plans present and future. It received a very positive response.

The Turkish government has spent decades entertaining the idea, and working to bring nuclear power here. So far, they have managed to go through the lengthy and expensive tendering process four times, and have failed all four times. Although, most recently, they accepted the one and only bid, from Russian company, Atomstroyexport, and against the tender’s own regulations, they accepted it. Greenpeace, and other local NGOs brought a legal case against such actions, and three days ago, the High Court restricted the conditions of the tender so significantly that it basically brought it to an end.

Even still, as good as this does sound, history has shown us that we cannot call this a full victory yet, but just another failed tender. In spite of repeated failures, calculated proof that nuclear power is incredibly expensive, and the examples of severe danger, such as Chernobyl, the Turkish government has not taken the nuclear option off the table. In fact, they still have another tender process on the agenda for 2010.

We intend to crush the beast while it’s down. From now until the anniversary of Chernobyl on April 26th next year, we will be pull together one million ‘radioactivists’ through our website ilovvenuclear.org. The campaign will be supported by several offline activities and tremendous outreach on the main social networking sites, and will promote the reality that nuclear power is expensive, dangerous and not the right solution for Turkey. One million voices cannot be ignored!

(This is a guest post by Stephanie Hillman, Programme Director for Greenpeace Mediterranean. More information is available in Turkish here. You can follow the ‘I lovve nuclear’ campaign on Twitter here and sign up to the Facebook group here.)

Posted by Justin at 1:08 PM | Permalink

Every time you think the thing’s been laid to rest, up to gets again, moaning once more and trudging along to who knows where, half terrifying and half pathetic.

No, we’re not talking about some zombie from a bad horror movie. Yet again it’s Turkey’s bid to build its first nuclear reactor that has us holding our breath – is it really dead this time or will it sit up yet again and begin another rather pitiable campaign of terror? The thing’s had more comebacks than Freddy Kreuger.

The latest hero to vanquish the creature is the Turkish courts who yesterday ‘suspended three articles in the regulations governing the tender process’. The Union of Turkish Engineers' and Architects' Chambers said: ‘With this decision, the nuclear power plant tender has legally ended. It has been rendered invalid."

We hope this is the end of this particular horror franchise – the signs are good but we won’t relax just yet. We’ve seen the sickening sight of the tender process receiving just one bid. We witnessed the stomach-churning scenes of the cost of the electricity that would be produced by the reactor being three times the current average price of electricity in Turkey. We screamed in horror as the technical shortcomings of the single bid were revealed. We trembled in terror as the Turskish government announced it was considering a sequel despite the first episode being a financial and critical flop. And every time the thing got up and lumbered on. Please, enough is enough. It’s dead but it won’t lie down.

(Greenpeace Turkey are doing their utmost to defeat the undead nuclear bid. Check out the mutant heart at I Lovve Nuclear. You can also follow the campaign at @ILovveNuclear.)

Posted by Justin at 4:50 PM | Permalink

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Turkey this week to talk energy with the country’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

Energy companies in both countries agreed to a joint venture to build conventional electric power plants, and the Interfax news agency in Russia reported that Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin offered to reopen talks on Russian assistance to Turkey in building nuclear power reactors.

Greenpeace activists revealed nuclear matryoshka dolls of Putin and Erdogan in Ankara’s Kizilay Square. There are certainly surprises waiting inside the Russian-Turkey energy deal, not least Turkey losing energy security by relying on Russian nuclear fuel for any reactor built by Russia’s Atomstroiexport. Add to that the risks of cost and construction over runs, waste management problems, high decommissioning costs, and the distractions from renewable energy sources and energy efficiency programmes, and you have to ask, do we really want to see what’s inside Turkey’s nuclear matryoshka?

(In an attempt to sweeten the nuclear deal and bring down the extortionate construction costs, the consortium bidding to build Turkey’s first nuclear reactor ‘has revised down its price to $0.1235 per kilowatt hour from a previous price of more that $0.15’. That the announcement was made the day before Putin arrived in Ankara was, no doubt, a coincidence. $0.1235 per kilowatt hour is still five cents more expensive than the current average price of electricity in Turkey.)

Posted by Justin at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Turkey’s bid to build its first nuclear reactor has had more comebacks than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. Every time you think it’s down and beaten, up it climbs again and continues lumbering and clanking along, looking increasingly pathetic as bits fall off.

POW! The bidding process for the contract to build the reactor receives just one bid. It’s down but not out. Up it gets…

CRASH! That one bid says the electricity produced by the new plant would cost 21 cents per kilowatt hour - three times the current average price of electricity in Turkey. Surely this is the end…? No, it doesn’t know when to quit…

BAM! The bid also has technical shortcomings and stipulates a reliance on Russian nuclear fuel. Down it goes for the third time.

But you know what? With a stoic ‘I’ll be back’, the plan refuses to die and is here again for yet another sequel. This time the story has a new hero but it’s all so very familiar. Who looks like they will step up and save this seemingly-doomed plan? Yep, you guessed it, the Turkish taxpayer…

A state energy company may now become a partner in the project to boost investment and ensure its completion, [the Sabah newspaper] said, citing unidentified government officials.

It’s a story we’ve seen over and over again: the nuclear industry, a towering giant that isn’t as impressive or as cool as it looks, having to be rescued by the tiny but brave ordinary underdog public. It’s time for a new script.

Posted by Justin at 8:59 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Today’s Zaman: Turkey's nuclear dreams face uncertain future
’Turkey's long-running dream of having a nuclear power plant is surrounded by uncertainty despite the fact that a recently concluded tender on the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant is about to be finalized. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz said the final decision on the tender would be made in June, but it seems that incertitude about the matter will not be cleard up easily even if the tender is discussed at a Cabinet meeting. As only one company entered the tender and the price offered is considerably high, the Cabinet will not be able to make an easy decision. Moreover, the global economic crisis has taken its toll on funds that were to be allocated to the nuclear power plant contract.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: Turkey's nuclear dreams face uncertain future" »

Posted by Justin at 4:31 PM | Permalink