(January 19, 1996) Four gallons of plutonium-laced acid leaked for eight days at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in July 1995. The Rocky Flats management announced in December that at the time of the leak, workers at the plant did not at first believe the reading on a key gauge and that they later could not immediately find the leak because they had wrong blueprints of the building.
(445.4406) WISE-Amsterdam - Condensation from steam that heated buildings at the plant flowed through open valves into a tank holding nitric acid laced with plutonium. The water and acid mixture backed up into the steam system, ate through a pipe and spilled onto a basement floor. A key gauge showed the rising level of the liquid but plant workers initially refused to believe the alarming gauge reading. They soon realized their mistake but they could not find the leak in the 75 miles of pipes in the plant because the blueprints were wrong.
"To me, the major concern was that they couldn't find the source for a week", said Ed Kray, the state health department observer at Rocky Flats. "They didn't know what was coming into the tank and they didn't know what was in the spill until they did an analysis of it." Production of atomic weapons stopped at the Rocky Flats after the end of the Cold War, but pipes and tanks remained still filled with hazardous materials. All pipelines in the building should be cleared by September 1996. The Department of Energy admits that the wrong blueprints are a problem for cleaning the old plants. The blueprint problem, it adds, exists with all Cold War-era facilities.
Source: UPI, 14 Dec. 1995
Contact: Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), 1424 16th St. NW Suite 601, Washington DC 20036, USA
Tel +1-202-328 0002, Fax +1-202-462 2183,
E-mail nirsnet@igc.apc.org
WWW: www.essential.org/nirsnet
(445.4407) Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as a United Nations Agency (like the World Health Organization), is present at all UN Conferences promoting nuclear power. They were there at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in 1992 promoting nuclear energy as an environmentally safe option and before that at the Nairobi UN Mid-Decade Conference on Women in 1985 to assure that their propaganda was in the Forward Looking Strategies (FLS) Document. Many women's groups participated in a campaign to have the nuclear advocacy Paragraphs 221 and 223 removed from the FLS at the prepcoms prior to the Beijing conference. None of this was evident in the Platform for Action, the Beijing official document. Once there, however, we saw the visually beautiful blue green promotional poster included in the last WISE issue about women helping to create peace and development through nuclear technology. The IAEA representative tried to place these posters in the Once and Future Pavilion (OFAN) tent at the NGO Forum but women refused to allow them to do so because the IAEA had not signed the OFAN statement of principles. One action organized by a very small group of us had widespread implications.
On September 12, Jennifer Williams of VOW noticed the IAEA recruitment meeting notice on their poster in the Beijing International Conference Center (BICC) which she reported at the peace caucus meeting that day. In less than 24 hours, we organized a successful press conference which was attended by major international media including CNN.
We began writing a press release headlined "Environmental and Peace Groups at the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) are Appalled at the Arrogance of the Nuclear Industry". It said "For ecological/safe energy groups, peace and environmental justice organizations, nuclear technology means BOMBS, RADIATION, CANCER AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM".
The whole nuclear fuel chain is fraught with radioactive emissions which are dangerous to health and the environment, and are directly and indirectly connected to nuclear weapons proliferation. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three- Mile Island and Chernobyl have made it clear that there are no safe levels of radioactivity.
To present nuclear power as "Atoms for Peace" and "Expanding the Contribution of Women to Development and Peace" is a blatant contradiction which misappropriates the language and themes of FWCW. Aboriginal women and marginalized people everywhere have been victims of toxic and radioactive facilities and waste depositories since the nuclear age began some sixty years ago."
We then noted health impacts and safe energy alternatives and stated the inappropriateness of the IAEA recruiting women on the site of a conference which is committed to peace.
When women in the NGO lounge saw the recruitment poster and heard what we were doing, the energy was remarkable. They needed no explanations. The word went out immediately and by the time of the press conference the next morning outside the room where the recruitment meeting was being held, there were women from the Philippines, the UK, Canada, Germany, the USA, Africa, Japan, etc. who spoke about nuclear disasters in their own countries. (I learned later from a friend working with the Canadian Save the Children who was in Jamaica at the time that she saw the item on CNN there)
We then went into the meeting and challenged the IAEA representatives, an American woman, on our concerns. We hope she relayed them to the headquarters. What the event illustrated was how widespread the problems of nuclear technology are known in the women's movement and how quickly they rose to the occasion to voice their objections. The press conference was a highlight event for many in Bejing.
Dorothy Golin Rosenberg is a member of the Canadian voice of women for Peace (VOW), Women for a Just aqnd Healthy Planet, lead Canadian groups, peace and environment sectors of the Platform for Action '95, the official document of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Equality Development and Peace (Beijing September 1995). She is also on the steering committee of the Canadian Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout.
Source and contact: Dorothy Godin Rosenberg. 44 Walmerroad, apt. 1006, Toronto, Ontarion, M5R 2x5, Canada.
Tel: +1-416-6613745
Bellona Working Paper No.4: 1995 (19 September)
Reprocessing Plants in Siberia
Nils Bohmer & Thomas Nilsen
(January 19, 1996) "Chernobyl" is commonly considered as the largest nuclear accident in the history of mankind. However, when we take into account the accidents at military nuclear plants in the USA and the former Soviet Union, the disaster at unit 4 of the nuclear power station in Chernobyl would probably not be in the top ten hot spots in the world. Although it is hard to estimate the result of the nuclear legacy of the Cold War, the Norwegian/Russian environmental foundation Bellona is seriously endeavouring to do the job on the Soviet side.
Bellona has once again come up with a well-documented and detailed report, this time focusing on nuclear facilities located along the Ob and Yenisey rivers. The authors map the radioactive contamination from the Mayak Chemical Combine in Ozersk, the Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk (Tomsk-7) and the Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk-26).
Mayak Chemical Combine (Ozersk)
Large-scale Soviet production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium began in the summer of 1948 at the top secret facility Mayak Chemical Combine (MCC) near the southern Ural city of Ozersk (until 1992 known as Chelyabinsk-65, and prior to 1990, as Chelyabinsk-40). The construction of MCC began in November 1945, and the first reactor became operational in June 1948. There used to be six operational reactors at MCC for the production of weapons plutonium. The five graphite-moderated of these have now been shut down. The sixth, a heavy water reactor later modified into a light water reactor, remains in operation today. Besides this reactor, there are a reprocessing facility in use, a vitrification facility for liquid waste and about 100 storage tanks containing high-level radioactive waste. Of the five MOX fabrication facilities, two have been shut down, two continue to operate and the construction work on the fifth has been halted for the present.
About 124,000 people were exposed to high levels of radiation as a result of various waste discharges from 1949 to 1956. In two major accidents at the facility, large amounts of radioactivity were released. There have also been a number of other accidents of varying severity at the facilities. An area totalling 26,700 square km has been contaminated with a total activity of 5MCi.
In 1953 a facility with a number of underground steel storage tanks equipped with cooling systems had been built to store the high-level waste and to prevent it from being dumped in the River Techna. Due to a failure of a cooling pipe in one of the tanks, however, the cooling fluids began to evaporate. This led to the 1957 Kyshtym Accident (September 29). Due to the force of the explosion, which corresponded to 75 tonnes of TNT, the 2.5 m thick concrete lid was hurled 25 to 30 m away. About one tenth of the total activity (2MCi) released by the accident was swept up to a height of one kilometre, leading to the radioactive contamination of parts of Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen counties.
The operation of MCC, particularly of the reprocessing plants and the military production reactors, has produced large amounts of radioactive waste. The report gives detailed information.
Siberian Chemical Combine (Seversk)
Seversk is located in Siberia, 15 km north-west of Tomsk. It is one of Russia's closed cities, and until 1993, was known only by the name Tomsk-7. The city is situated beside the River Tom, a tributary of the River Ob, and has a population of 107,000. Construction of the facilities and Seversk itself began in 1949, and the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) was founded in 1954. SCC consists of five military production reactors, a chemical separation plant, a reprocessing facility for uranium and plutonium, a uranium enrichment plant, and storage facilities for radioactive waste. Originally there were five reactors at SCC producing weapons- grade material. Only one is still in use today. The chemical separation plant ("Object 15") manufactures plutonium, mostly Pu-239. since 1978, it has also been reprocessing plutonium from the spent fuel of the five military reactors at Mayak. Today, only the fuel from the two remaining reactors in Seversk is reprocesssed.
In January 1991, SCC signed a contract with the French company COGEMA in which SCC would accept uranium recoverd from reprocessed French nuclear fuel and enrich it up to 4%. France has a uranium enrichment facility of her own, but she uses the facility at Seversk so as not to contaminate her own enrichment facility with the isotope U-232 and U-236.
The operation of the facilities of SCC, like that of the MCC facilities, has resulted in large amounts of radioactive waste and a number of accidents. There have been 23 accidents or incidents at SCC that have resulted in releases of radioactivity to the environment. In the April 6, 1993 accident, the most serious thus far, a tank exploded, resulting in the release of uranium, plutonium, niobium, zirconium and ruthenium. Radioactive material spread to the northeast and radioactive fallout was detected over an area of 120 square km.
Mining and Chemical Combine (Zheleznogorsk)
Zheleznogorsk (until 1994: Krasnoyarsk-26) is situated 50 km north of Krasnoyarsk on the eastern side of the River Yenisey in Krasnoyarsk county. It has a population of 90.000 and is also know as f.e. Dodonovo or Devyatka. The building of the facility was authorised on February 25, 1950, by the Soviet Central Committee in cooperation with the Council of Ministers. The Combine is made up of 22 different divisions. The main division consists of three plutonium production reactors (of which only one is in operation at present), and a radiochemical facility where plutonium is seperated from spent nuclear fuel.
Unlike the Ozersk and Sevfersk nuclear plants, the entire Zheleznogorsk nuclear plant, together with its facilities, is well shielded 250-300 m underground the plant had been so constructed tosurvie any nuclear attack. All three entrances can be sealed off if necessary.
The two oldest reactors, started up in August 1959 and 1961, had an open cooling system. The cooling water for the reactors was piped in from the Yenisey River and then discharged directly back into the river again. This resulted in the radioactive contamination of the river water to the north of the facility.
The operation of the three plutonium reactors and the radiochemical plant in Zheleznogorsk, just like that in the other Combines, has resulted in large amounts of radioactive waste. Most of the liquid waste has been discharged deep into ground or released into the Yeniwey River. Fourteen million cubic meters of liquid waste with an activity of 700 million Ci have been pumped down into the ground. According to the Jablokov report, it has been estimated that in the period from 1961 to 1989, the rivers Ob and Yenisey have transported at least 30,000 Ci into the Kara Sea.
Reprocessing Plants in Siberia; Nils Bohmer & Thomas Nilsen, Bellona Foundation, Sept. 1995
You can obtain the report at: Bellona Foundation, PO Box 2141 Grunerlokka, N-0505 Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47-22-382 410; Fax: +47- 22-383 862. E-mail: bellona@bellona.no
(January 19, 1996) British Energy has scrapped plans to build two new NPPs in view of its impending privatization this year. British Energy, which is made up of state-owned Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear, wants to "clear the way" for the firm's privatization.
(445.4408) WISE-Amsterdam - It cancelled plans to build Hinkley C in Wiltshire, west England and Sizewell C in Suffolk, east England.
BE emphasized that the decision not build the two new NPPs does not mean the end of British nuclear power. Chief Executive Robert Hawley said there will be construction of new nuclear generation capacity if it offers an appropriate return to the shareholders. He stated that it is now important for BE to prepare for privatization: "The announcement allows potential investors to judge our core business without trying to assess the prospects of our involvement in a large capital-intensive project in an uncertain market."
It has been estimated that construction of the two plants would have cost about 4.8 billion pounds (US$7.4 billion) and created 10,000 jobs. Despite the scrapping of the NPPs, no employee at BE should lose his job. Antinuclear campaigners were happy with the NPPs' scrapping. Business people in the area of Suffolk and Wiltshire, however, were said to be pessimistic about the economic future.
Analysts in London said nuclear power is threatened by gas' preeminence after two decades of British drilling in the North Sea. Gas was found during the search for oil in the North Sea in the 1970s, but it was not immediately tapped. Starting in the late 1980s, huge gas reserves became available as the British government had earlier restricted North Sea gas sale. It is estimated that the gas supply will last for more than 20 years.
Analysts said that BE can remain competitive in the British power market, but will have also to build plants which are fired by gas to generate extra profits. The British government has shown it is unwilling to fund new nuclear reactors and, according to analysts, it is hard to see how the private sector could be tempted to take over the role of the financier. The construction risks and the uncertain costs of decommissioning nuclear plants will prevent private investors from paying for a new reactor.
Source: Reuter, 11 & 12 Dec 1995
Contact: Shut Down Sizewell Campaign, Tudor House, St. James Street, Dunwich, Saxmundham, Suffolk IP17 3DU, UK
Tel & Fax +44- 1728-648300
(January 19, 1996) An accident took place in South Korea. During a test run at the Yonggwang Nuclear Power Plant no. 4 in South Chola Province, damaged fuel rods leaked radioactive iodine into the cooling water, increasing its radiation density to 500 times the permissible level.
(445.4403) WISE-Amsterdam - But the plant authorities, with the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology, continued the test run until Sept. 23, falsified their reports to the press, and only admitted the accident when a member of parliament raised questions during the National Assembly's inspection of administrative affairs.
The defective fuel rods were Korean-made and inspected by the Korean Nuclear Safety Commission. Thus, there is reason to expect further accidents.
Although the citizens' awareness of the dangers of nuclear power is growing, the government still keeps a tight lid on all information regarding nuclear matters and does not brook interference with its nuclear development plans. Due to pressure from above, possible whistleblowers - "insiders" with information about the actual situation - are unwilling to come forward and speak freely.
1997, twelve percent of the country's primary energy will be supplied by nuclear power plants. The nuclear share will reach 25 percent by the year 2030.
Source: Civil Society (Korea), August 1995
Contact: Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, Ducksoo B/D 4th Fl., Sinmunno 1 ga 31, Chongno-ku. Seoul 110-061, Korea.
Tel: +82-2-735 7000; Fax: +82-2-741 1240
(January 19, 1996) On October 9, the South Korean government finally confirmed the existence of two active faults under the Kurop Island, the tiny island, 90 km southwest of Seoul, where the government had decided to build the spent fuel nuclear waste storage and low-level waste disposal facilities (see WISE NC 432.4263).
(445.4414) WISE Amsterdam - The unstable geological situation of the island had been repeatedly pointed out. Thus, even some members of the Radioac tive Waste Management & Planning Mission had raised objections to the Kurop island as a site. One of the active faults at the bottom of the sea penetrated just under the island. This fault will also affect Tokjok Island, which lies next to the Kurop Island and which has been selected as a site for nuclear institutes as well.
For some time, the government had been promoting the plan to build nuclear waste facilities by claiming that "we have no extra room for nuclear waste". Now it says that temporary waste storage at each nuclear site will continue to be used for another 14 years.
Source: Nuke Info Tokyo, Nov/Dec 1995
Contact: Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, Ducksoo B/D 4th Fl., Sinmunno 1 ga 31, Chongno-ku. Seoul 110-061, Korea. Tel: +82-2-735 7000; Fax: +82-2-741 1240
(January 19, 1996) Where's the wooden pipe cover? Uhhh ... forgotten! Canadian New Brunswick Power Corp. says a maintenance error at Point Lepreau will cost the utility at least Cdn$27.5 million (about US$40 million) in replacement power and repair costs.
(445.4404) WISE-Amsterdam - The 680MW pressurized heavy water reactor was out of operation since October. When NB Power tried to restart the unit following a six-month maintenance outage, they discovered that workers left behind a wooden pipe cover in the heat transport system. A 9,000-horsepower pump was knocked out of service. The cover made contact with the pump impeller. Excessive load on the impeller broke the pump drive. Pieces of the wooden cover got into the heat transport system. Most of the material has been located in the discharge header and some of it has been removed using a remote-controlled underwater robot. NB Power engineers are developing "other procedures" to get the rest of the wood. Repairing the pump will cost $9.5 million. The unit was expected too be back on full power in mid-December.
Source: Nucleonics Week, Dec. 7, 1995
Contact:Nuclear Awareness, PO Box 104, Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada LP9 1M8.
Tel & Fax: +1-905-725 1565
The Philippines: President Ramos wants to construct nuclear reactors to support his programme to industrialise the country. He is supported by some politicians, but a large part of the Senate opposes nuclear power.
Tambuli (NL), Dec 1995
Nuclear reactor plant in receivership.
(January 19, 1996) A court has ordered the replacement of the management of Atommash in Volgodonsk, the plant which was built in 1978 to mass-produce reactors for Russia's nuclear industry, ITAR-TASS reported on 5 January. Among those fired is the general director, Vladimir Yegorov. The plant does not have any new orders, and has fallen into a "debt hole," owing money to suppliers and utility companies, and having a lot of unpaid taxes. All the plant's social facilities have been transferred to the city council.
ITAR-Tass, 5 Jan. 1996
Less Beaujolais sold. Sales of Beaujolais Nouveau, the trendy young French wine, dipped eighteen percent in the 1995 campaign compared to the same period in 1994, the National Interprofessional Wine Office (ONIVINS) has reported. The figure, buried in a brief aside in a 125-page report on the state of the French wine market, was the first official word of the damage done to Beaujolais winemakers by President Jacques Chirac's decision to resume nuclear weapons tests. The Beaujolais Wine Board said last month that international outrage over the tests had hurt sales to the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand as well as Japan and Britain.
Reuter, 24 Dec. 1995
No compensation for cancer. A former Australian soldier who said his cancer was a result of exposure to British nuclear tests at the outback site of Maralinga in South Australia 20 years ago lost his case for compensation on December 13, 1995. Pedro Cubillo, 66, sued the Australian government, arguing he was wrongfully exposed to ionising radiation which caused him to suffer renal cell carcinoma. However, the Federal Court Judge dismissed the compensation claim, saying Cubillo's carcinoma was not proved to be caused by exposure to the radiation. Cubillo, then a private in the Australian army, was involved in the construction and dismantling of test sites and equipment used in atomic explosions conducted in 1957 at Maralinga. His case was the first linking a physical condition to the tests. In 1994 the federal court dismissed a compensation claim by a former soldier who argued his psychological condition of nervous shock resulted from the tests. Maralinga was used to test British nuclear bombs from 1953 to 1963. Australia has accepted a A$45 million (US$30 million) compensation from Britain to clean up the contaminated sites (see WISE 442.4371 and 394 in brief).
Reuter, 13 Dec 1995
Russia: new VVER-type. Minatom is hoping to have a new reactor design in operation by 2002 in northwest Russia. The VVER-640, or V-407 type, has been developed from the later VVER-1000 PWRs operating in Eastern Europe and Russia. The new reactors will have control, electrical and safety systems supplied by Siemens (Germany). Documentation is at an advanced stage for construction of one unit at Sosnovy Bor, adjacent to the Leningrad nuclear power station. Three more are expected to be built at Kola.
Uranium Information Center LTd., Australia, Weekly News, 12 January, 1996
Bad wine tastes good due to irradiation. Japanese scientists want to use high doses of radiation to make bad wine taste good and cheap whisky smooth. Researchers have exposed whisky and wine to 2,000 joules of radioactive gamma rays; it takes just eight joules of gamma rays to kill a person. Hitoshi Itoh, co-head of research at the Japan Atomic Power Company's research facilities in Takasaki, predicted food irradiation could be legalised worldwide in as little as five years. Itoh spoke after attending a food irradiation conference in Vienna, Austria, sponsored by the U.N.'s World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He said the United States, Britain, France and China were pushing hard for an early introduction of irradiation, and that with their support, its legalisation was a formality. The main drawback with irradiation, he said, was that it remains illegal in most countries, and that many consumer groups oppose it. Let's keep it that way.
Reuter, 13 Dec. 1995
Iran. According to a senior Chinese official, China will continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran, state-run Tehran radio reported on January 8, 1996. The deal includes the supply of relatively small 300 MW light-water reactors and associated technology. U.S. officials said in September Beijing had assured Washington the deal would not go ahead, and Chinese officials later said China had "suspended for the time being" the reactor sale. Iran has said negotiations over the site, price and schedule for the deal were still in progress. China always in- sisted the deal was delayed due purely to the nuclear project site, which was considered too close to Iraq. The US claims Iran might use the technology from China to develop nuclear arms. However, the US is selling light-water reactors to North Korea to replace the latter's graphite-moderated reactors. Meanwhile on January 2, 1996, Iranian President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani inaugurated a nuclear research center in Teheran, part of Iran's state-run Atomic Energy Organization (AEO), the Islamic Republic News Agency said. The head of the AEO, Amrollahi, said the AEO produces 90 percent of the country's total needs in the field of medical radiation techonology.
UPI, 2 Jan, 1996 & Reuter, 8 Jan. 1996
Vanunu's solitary confinement. A District Court in the Israeli town of Beersheba rejected on January 14, 1996 an appeal by jailed nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu that it end his solitary confinement after nine years. Vanunu was brought to court under intense guard and reporters were kept well back as he entered. Vanunu has been held in isolation since he was kidnapped by Israeli agents from Rome in 1986. An Israeli court convicted Vanunu of espionage and treason at a secret trial in 1986 and sentenced him to 18 years in jail after he gave the London Sunday Times photos of Israel's Dimona nuclear complex.
Reuter, 14 Jan. 1996
(January 19, 1996) On December 14, 1995, the New York Times reported that India is making preparations for a nuclear test on Pokaran, the site India used in 1974 for its first - and thus far only - nuclear test, a test which India said was for peaceful purposes only.
(445.4415) WISE-Amsterdam - According to the New York Times, American intelligence experts had detected with spy satellites an increased movement on the Pokaran site which points to possible preparations for a nuclear test or some other test to improve India's weapons system.
India called the New York Times article "speculative" but stopped short of making an outright denial. A government spokesman called the recorded movement routine military activity, but was not willing to give more information.
A US Government official said: "We're not sure what they're up to. The big question is what their motive is. If their motive is to get scientific knowledge, it might be months or years before they do the test. If it's for purely political reasons, it could be this weekend. We don't know the answer to those questions." For some time, India has been one of the main supporters of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but frustration with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a recent US arms package to Pakistan have prompted India to make a reassessment of the CTBT. India is now saying that it has not made up its mind on a proposed global nuclear test ban treaty. India has refused to sign the NPT. It regards this treaty as discriminatory, because it allows a few nations to keep their nuclear weapons.
India says it has the capability to build a nuclear weapon but has chosen not to do so. "While we have the capability, we have not utilised it. We believe in using nuclear energy for peaceful ends and not for weapons purposes," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
A Western diplomat said that the possibility of a Indian nuclear test could not be ruled out. But he also said that India might try to avoid a categorical denial. "It serves India's purposes to be ambiguous about this." Towards Pakistan, it rival for power in the subcontinent, for instance. Since independence in 1947, India has fought three wars against Pakistan, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir, which remains a cause of hostility.
US experts say that both India and Pakistan could easily assemble nuclear weapons. It is feared that if India carries out a nuclear test, Pakistan will follow. According to the New York Times report, Pakistan believes that any Indian test would endanger peace and damage nuclear non-proliferation in the region. A commentary in the Pakistani English-language daily, The News, said an Indian nuclear test would create a security peril for Pakistan that it could meet only by carrying out a similar test itself.
For the Indian government, not to deny the possibility of an nuclear weapons test is good politics not only towards Pakistan but also within India itself. With general elections only half a year away, the government is being attacked by the right-wing Hindu Bharativa Janata Party (BJP) which demands the development of a nuclear weapons capability. An opinion poll in India conducted shortly before the publication of the New York Times story showed that 62 percent of the Indian population were in favour of India having its own nuclear weapons and conducting nuclear tests. Half of the 62 percent were still in favour of having nuclear weapons even if this meant international sanctions against India.
The Indian Express newspaper said that the months before the CTBT comes into effect "offer India the best opportunity to further develop its weapons system". Conducting nuclear tests now to get data for further development and then supporting a CTBT could be the best way and the last chance for India to get nuclear weapons, according to the newspaper.
Source: Reuter 15, 16, 17 Dec. 1995, New York Times 15 Dec. 1995
Contact: Anumukti, Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya, Vedchhi 394 641, India. Tel: +91-2625-2074
(January 19, 1996) North Korea and KEDO, a U.S.-led consortium, signed finally the agreement to build two 1000MW Pressurized light-water reactors (PWRs) in North Korea. An Agreed Framework Agreement about the delivery of the two reactors was signed in October 1994 in Geneva, after an international crisis that emerged after North Korea formally withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in March 1993.
(445.4409) WISE-Amsterdam - Pyongyang suspended its decision in June 1993, but was widely believed to be using its graphite-moderated reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is more difficult to extract at light-water reactors. (see also WISE NC 415/6.4125)
The reactors, to be built with financial and technical contributions from more than 20 countries, including the United States, South Korea and Japan, will be completed by 2003. The now signed agreement includes selection of sites, training and problems dealing with maintenance, nuclear safety and regulations and intellectual property. Many of the technical details still remain to be worked out, including the selection of a US engineering contractor to oversee construction.
A geological survey team is expected to visit North Korea in January or February to prepare for the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors, a Seoul Foreign Ministry official said. The 20-member team will represent the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium led by South Korea, the United States and Japan that signed the $4.5 billion deal to replace Pyongyang's graphite reactors. The survey team will include 17 South Koreans and enter North Korea from Beijing and will focus on the possible impact of an earthquake on Shinpo, the proposed reactor site.
Two containers of equipment to be used for the study left the South Korean port of Pusan on January 14 for the port of Shinpo in North Korea, the official said.
Source:
Contact: Asia No Nukes Forum. Ducksoo B/d 4th Fl., Sinmunno 1 ga 31, Chongno-ku, Seoul 110-061, Korea.
Tel: +82-2-735 7000; Fax: +82-2-741 1240
(January 19, 1996) A new programme to reduce marine pollution from land-based sources was approved at an inter-governmental conference in Washington from 23rd October to 3rd November, organised by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), as part of the recommendations in the 1992 Agenda 21.
(445.4411) WISE Amsterdam - The programme includes a large section on radioactive discharges into the marine environment. There are few radical or new proposals to worry the nuclear industry, although the adoption of the precautionary principle in another inter-governmental forum, for example, will be welcomed by environmental interests.
The Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Environment, approved by 110 governments, is designed "to assist States in taking practical actions to maintain and improve the productive capacity of the marine environment, to ensure the protection of human health and to promote the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity".
The Programme's objective/target is "to reduce and/or eliminate emissions and discharges of radioactive substances in order to prevent, reduce and eliminate pollution of the marine and coastal environment by human-enhanced levels of radioactive substances". It has proposed setting a timetable "to minimise and limit the generation of radioactive wastes" and ensure the safe storage, transportation and disposal of waste. The best available techniques and the best environmental practices are to be used to reduce or eliminate emissions.
States should "not promote or allow the storage or disposal of ... radioactive wastes near the marine and coastal environment" unless scientific evidence shows that it poses "no unacceptable risk to people and the marine and coastal environment or does not interfere with other legimimate uses of the sea, making .... appropriate use of the concept of the precautionary principle".
Among the regional actions is a proposal for the preparation of environmental assessments of the effect of historical and current discharges of radioactive substances. All proposals in the programme are to be carried out under the criteria set by international bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Programme of Action is not legally binding on States - it is known as a soft international law - and is not a convention or treaty. There is a review scheduled in three years.
Source: N-Base Briefing (UK), December 1995
Contact: NENIG, Bain's Beach, Commercial Street, Lerwick, Shetland, UK Ze1oAN Tel:+44-1595 694099, Fax:+1595 694082, E-Mail:nenig@gn.apc.org
(January 19, 1996) An independent report prepared for the government regulatory body H.M. Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) states that plutonium from the proposed underground nuclear waste repository at Gosforth, near Sellafield, United Kingdom, will eventually leak into surrounding drinking water giving levels of radioactivity up to 10,000 times the present legal limit.
(445.4410) WISE Amsterdam - The report was prepared by consultants WS Atkin and released to the public planning inquiry being held into Cumbria County Council's rejection of plans by the government nuclear waste company, NIREX, to build a so-called Rock Characterisation Facility (RFC) - an underground laboratory to test for suitability of the site for a waste dump. NIREX tried to stop HMIP presenting the evidence, but did not succeed.
The WS Atkin report's computer prediction findings show that within 25,000 years - a relatively short time for some long-lived radionuclides - local inhabitants' drinking water could receive a radiation dose of 9.0 Sievert a year from plutonioum contamination. Current government limits for the public are 0.001 Sieverts a year, with no one installation allowed to contribute more than 0.0003 Sieverts. The consultants found that in its evidence of predicted radiation flows, NIREX had failed to consider the effect of "colloidal transport", the dispersion of very small particles in a liquid to which plutonium particles could attach. The consultants accused NIREX of "glossing over" the possibility of colloidal transport. The actual worst-case scenario figures were not the important thing, the consultant added, "the important thing is that we believe there is a mechanism by which the plutonium dose could be raised significantly. We must study this further". NIREX dismissed the findings as having "no basis in reality".
Another report commissioned by HMIP was prepared by RM Consultants. Their computer modelling on groundwater movement showed "a plume of activity reaching surface almost directly above the repository". This report was also dismissed by NIREX. They said "all our indications show that the water is going to come up out under the Irish Sea". This is central to NIREX's safety argument - that radioactivity from the dump will go into the Irish Sea. However this NIREX argument could be contrary to the UK's commitment to various international agreements including, for example, Agenda 21 and the recently-signed agreement on pollution from land-bases sources (see related story in this issue), which both prohibit dumping radioactive wastes close to, or next to the coast where it will pollute the adjacent marine environment.
Irish Energy Minister Emmet Stagg travelled to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant to give evidence to a public inquiry into the 190 million pound ($293 million) project. He told a news conference later that Ireland might take Britain to the European Court of Justice if the plan for a so-called Rock Characterisation Facility (RCF) went ahead. Stagg said the risk that nuclear material would leak into the Irish Sea was unacceptable.
These new doubts about the suitability of the Gosforth site next to Sellafield has once again raised the question of using Dounreay as a dump site. NIREX carried out test drilling at Dounreay and chose Gosforth mainly because of lower transport costs and environmental protests as the majority of the waste is already stored at Sellafield and the local community, NIREX argues, is supportive of the nuclear industry.
Source: N-Base Briefing (UK), December 1995 / Reuter, 12 Jan. 1996
Contact: NENIG, Bain's Beach, Commercial Street, Lerwick, Shetland, UK Ze1oAN Tel:+44-1595 694099, Fax:+1595 694082, E-mail: nenig@gn.apc.org
(January 19, 1996) A radioactive leak at a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine which contaminated a small area within the plant remained undetected for weeks.
(445.4405) WISE-Amsterdam - In mid-December there was a leak of radioactive water in reactor #3 but it was not found until January 3. The water poured out of an old pipe at a poorly soldered joint. The other two reactors were not affected by the incident. The reactor was shut down and contaminated topsoil over an area of about 30 square metres was collected and buried.
The incident ranked "1" on the international seven-point scale. According to authorities, however, there was no danger posed to residents and the environment. "Such things happen at nuclear stations. It's no reason for the world to worry," said an official from the governmental nuclear regulatory agency, who declined to be named.
Source: Reuter, 5 Jan. 1996
Contact: Zeleny Svit, Kontaktova 4, Kiev 70, Ukraine.
Tel: 380- 44-416 5218; Fax: +380-44-417 4383
(January 19, 1996) In November 1995, Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) and the Cherokee Nation appealed a settlement agreement forged earlier last year by Sequoyah Fuels Corp. (SFC) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding the cleanup of the company's closed conversion plant at Gore, Oklahama, US.
(445.4412) WISE Amsterdam - NRC and SFC entered into a settlement agreement that limited SFC's liability to pay for the cleanup of the closed plant and protected the assets of SFC's corporate parent, General Atomics (GA). The settlement agreement curtailed litigation against SFC and GA by HRC, and was accompanied by the end of litigation by the companies.
The basis of the appeal by NACE is that the settlement agreement approved by two out of three of the administrative judges sitting on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in the case had "violated its own agency's decommissioning regulations, misinterpreted the agency's scope of authority, failed to protect the public health and safety, and did not provide any assurance that the responsible parties will clean up the contamination".
NRC had held in an October 1993 order that GA and SFC were both liable for cleanup costs that could amount to US$86 million. The settlement agreement rescinded that order and endorsed the view that the settlement agreement represented a "good-faith effort to provide for the decommissioning of the Sequoyah facility".
Source: Nuclear Fuel, 20 November 1995
Contact: Native Americans for Clean Environment (NACE), PO Box 1671, Tahlequah OK 74465, USA. Tel: +1-918-458 4322; Fax: +1-918- 458 0322
(January 19, 1996) The state-run utility Taiwan Power (Taipower) has announced that it plans to send low-level radioactive waste to Russia.
(445.4413) WISE Amsterdam - According to Chen Fan-hsien, a Taipower director, the utility firm is slated to deliver the first shipment - from 2,500 to 5,000 barrels - to Russia this summer between June and August. Details are still under negotiation.
Russia authorities, however, have denied the reported plan, saying that any contract on dumping Taiwan's radwaste in Russia would violate Russian law. "The law on the environment says no radioactive waste can be brought into Russia, so this delivery just cannot happen," Ministry spokesman Georgy Kaurov said. "The ministry is not getting involved with it."
Officials in the Russian harbour of Murmansk had announced in November last year that nuclear waste from Taiwan would arrive in Murmansk in April. Taiwan then denied this, saying it still had not decided where to dump its waste (see WISE NC 443.4384). Taiwan currently dumps its waste on Orchid Island, off Taiwan's southeast coast, but the site will be full in less than two years and the construction of new radwaste facilities in Taiwan is opposed by local environmentalists. Taiwan has also considered sending nuclear waste to China and the Marshall Islands.
Sources: Reuter, 3 & 4 Jan. 1996
Contact: Anti Nuclear Coalition for Taiwan, Box 843, Tunghai University, Taichung 40704, Taiwan.
Tel & Fax: +886-4-359 5622
(January 19, 1996) The official in charge of investigating the cover-up of Japan's worst nuclear power accident committed suicide on January 13, by leaping from the roof of a Tokyo hotel, police said.
(445.4402) WISE-AmsterdamThe victim is Shigeo Nishimura, 49, deputy general manager of the general affairs department of the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. (PNC), the government corporation that runs the country's prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju. Nishimura leaped to his death the day after attending a news conference where officials revealed that the cover-up had extended from plant officials to company head-quarters in Tokyo.
He was tormented both by failure to get to the bottom of the cover-up and by the harm his inquiries would do to colleagues and the government corporation for which he worked for 26 years. "They (PNC staff) were confident in their technical ability. But they may have found it difficult to explain their panic and confusion from the accident. It is most difficult for people to judge others and discover the truth," Nishimura said in one of three suicide notes. He was investigating why plant officials took one hour to notify authorities about the leak and why video film of the incident was both edited and concealed from the press and government agency charged with determining what caused the leak.
The shock suicide was the latest fallout from the December 8 accident involving a massive coolant leak at Monju, Tsuruga, 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo (see WISE NC 444.4392).
Leak from defective weld? On December 11, the Fukui prefectural officials and, separately later, STA (Science and Technology Agency) officials together with PNC (Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp.) staff entered the secondary sodium piping room where the leakage took place, in order to conduct a short survey of the spot. According to the reports of the survey, the leak seemed to have occurred from a defective weld of a tube for temperature measurement attached to one of the 55 cm main secondary lines (loop C). The welding of the tube was carried out in 1991 when PNC had to remodel the whole loop due to design fault. At this time the old thermometer tube was removed for ease of reconstruction works and after the works a new one was welded. This process is regarded to be the cause of the defect.
Heap of Rubble
The video pictures taken by the Fukui officials as well as by NHK TV team showed that the room is like a heap of rubble. The observation of the survey teams made clear that:
PNC Cover Up
In the first few days quite a few malfunctions, failures and controversial PNC practices were revealed:
Interim report on accident
On Dec. 26 an interim report issued by the Fukui prefectural government. One conclusion of the report: "There are serious faults with basic issues at the plant, issues which are indispensable in winning residents' trust in nuclear power". Warning systems and written instructions at Monju were not adequate and pointed out the following:
Bleak Outlook of Pu Program
PNC and STA started an investigation of the cause of the accident, after taking out the primary and secondary sodium from the loop C and then cleaning up the room. If it is found that the defective weld was really the cause, it will take a long time to inspect all the other welds in the primary and secondary sodium lines as well as in water lines before restarting. But a main problem is obviously that the corrosive coolant (sodium) is too dangerous. According to Jinzaburo Takagi of the Nuclear Citizens Information Center, luck prevented a real disaster. The reactor was only running at 40 percent of its capacity when the accident took place in a secondary cooling system relatively far from the reactor core. If this had occurred on a larger scale, it might have affected the core and could have caused a radioactive release or even an explosion of the whole reactor. It is highly likely that the Fukui Prefectural Government and other local governments will strongly resist the restart of Monju.
On december 12, Tukio Kurita, the governor of Fukui Prefecture, lodged a protest with Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama over the unfaithful attitudes of the central government and PNC, demanding the government to suspend all the experiment plans on Monju. The anti-nuclear movement, which is already active and persistent, particularly against Monju and Japan's plutonium policy, will surely gain ground. On Sunday December 17, 600 demonstrators took part in a rally in Turuga.
Now that PNC and STA have lost the confidence of the public completely, the outlook for restart is bleak. On December 12, the Japanes daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun predicted that it would take, "in the worst case", two years for Monju to restart. In a reverse sense, restart after two years may be a worst-case scenario for the anti-nuclear movement, who have to bring it into a scrap before two years. After being stored for two to three years, plutonium, the fuel for Monju, can no longer be used; it degrades. According to PNC officials the fuel can be used in other Japanes reactors.
The plan to build a 600 MW class demonstration FBR should be frozen. In the current long-term nuclear energy program, construction of this demonstration reactor is due to start in the beginning of the next century. But this reactor is supposed to be constructed on the basis of the experiences with the prototype FBR Monju, which has now clearly proven to be big failure.
There is now good reason to scrap the whole FBR program and review Japan's plutonium policy thoroughly.
Sources:
Contact: Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, 1-59-14-302 Higas-hi-nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164, Japan. Tel: +81-3-5330-9520; Fax: +81-3-5330-9530
E-mail: cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp
