November 21, 1997
Quote of the Month: (November 21, 1997) "It would be paradoxical in this situation if the world were to continue burning ever more hydrocarbon resources, which could have much more valuable uses, and were to leave in the earth uranium and thorium resources which can hardly be of any other peaceful use than as fuel in nuclear reactors". Hans Blix, then IAEA Director General, on September 4, 1997, speaking on the sustainable energy challenge.
IAEA Press release 97/18, 4 September 1997.
(November 21, 1997) Upon signing an agreement in 1993 the Bulgarian government, under the Nuclear Safety Account, received a grant worth ECU 24 million (US$ 28.8 million) for Units 1-4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, the Russian design VVER 440-230, for safety upgrades. The money was granted under the condition that decommissioning of the first two reactors would begin in 1998 and that of the third and fourth reactors would begin in 1999.
(481.4771) Za Zemiata -The Nuclear Safety Account (NSA) agreement is an initiative of the G-7 and is coordinated with and assisted by the G-24 and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It's aim is to fund temporary upgrades until the final shutdown of Central and Eastern Europe's most dangerous reactors. On October 27, 1997, the Bulgarian Council of Ministers adopted a Memorandum to extend the deadline for closure of Units 1&2 until after 2005 and units 3&4 until after 2010.
The memorandum also pleads for a re-negotiation of Bulgaria's agreement with the EBRD. The arguments put forward fully reflect the interests of both the Bulgarian and the international nuclear mafias. The proposed extension should be strongly opposed! Bulgaria's geographical and economic situation holds out tremendous potential for implementing energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technologies. It is high time energy authorities stop hindering the development of alternative energy sources and start planning and implementing an integrated energy system for the country that involves a wide range of energy sources and frees Bulgaria from the domination of power generated by one of the most dangerous nuclear plants in the world.
Protest faxes to Bulgaria's president and prime minister are urgently needed. Stress that you are very concerned about the extension of the deadline for final closure of the very dangerous Kozloduy-reactors. Fax numbers are: +359-2-980 4484 (president) and +359-2-981 8977 (prime minister). Please let Za Zemiata know of any protest faxes you send.
Source & Contact: Za Zemiata (For the Earth), P.O. Box 975, Sofia 1000 Bulgaria. Tel: +359-2-658 216.
E-mail: ftearth@bulnet.bg
(November 21, 1997) Fishing has been banned in a two kilometer zone surrounding the reprocessing plant at Dounreay because another 34 radioactive particles were found in sandbanks on the seabed this summer.
(481.4776) WISE Amsterdam -During the past years hundreds of so-called Hotspots have been found in the area around the Dounreay reprocessing facility, located on the Scottish northsea coast. This pollution, with its deadly radioactive potential was caused by a 1977 explosion in a shaft on the grounds of the plant. The latest fishing ban was imposed at the end of October on the recommendation of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). The recommendation calls the risk of contaminated fish, lobsters or crabs entering the food chain "very low," but says the ban is necessary as a precautionary measure until more information about the contamination of the seabed becomes available. The SEPA and officials from Dounreay got permission for lifting 69 of the 200 plus creels which had already been laid inside the exclusion zone. Attached to one of the creels they found a piece of radioactive industrial tape. To make further analysis the SEPA took samples of the crabs, lobsters and other marine life from the creels.
Reactions of the local fishing industry concerning the ban have varied. Some of the fishermen called it unnecessary, believing that there is no problem in eating the fish from this area. Others, however, emphasize the ban's importance, having already found radioactive debris from Dounreay in their lobster creels on a number of occasions emphasize that the ban is really important. One of these is shell-fisherman James Innes, who threw radioactive debris back into the sea because he did not think management at Dounreay, where he used to work, would bother to investigate it. What all the fishermen share is the worry of losing their livelihood and receiving no compensation for it. The ban will also, as some of them argue, achieve little because crabs and lobsters, which are caught most commonly in Dounreay, travel long distances and might also be fished outside the 2 km limit.
Sources:
Contact: Nenig, Bain`s Beach, Commercial Str. Lerwick, Shetland, UK.
Tel and Fax: +44-1595-694099
E-mail: n-base@zetnet.co.uk
WWW: www.users.zetnet.co.uk/n-base
(November 21, 1997) The British government's independent advisory authority on radioactive waste management has said two contracts Dounreay signed with Germany are effectively dumping foreign waste in Scotland, contrary to UK policy. The two contracts concern the importation of 88 tonnes of radioactive sodium from Germany's fast reactor programme and spent fuel from the Hahn-Meitner Institute's research reactor in Berlin to Caithness, in the north of Scotland, where Dounreay is located.
(481.4775) NENIG -For years environmental groups, Scottish local authorities, the SNP (Scottish National Party) and Liberal Democrat party have argued that overseas research reactor operators were using Dounreay's desperation to find new work as the answer to their spent fuel storage problems. To solve these storage shortages and avoid licensing problems for their reactors, the operators have signed reprocessing contracts with Dounreay which include allowing the fuel to be stored at the Caithness site for several years before reprocessing and for the resulting waste to remain there for another 25 years before being returned. In its report, "The Import and Export of Nuclear Waste," the new RWMAC (the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee) says it is "conceivable" that this argument is right. Accordingly, the RWMAC has published new guidelines which could make it harder for wastes to be dumped in the UK under the pretence of reprocessing. Present policy prohibits the import of nuclear waste unless it involves very small quantities, if the treatment process in the UK has already been developed, or it is considered impracticable for the customer country to treat the waste itself. Spent fuel is not regarded as waste by the UK if it is to be reprocessed. Therefore, it is not covered by waste regulations.
Doubts over Berlin contract.
The RWMAC report, which was commissioned by the previous Conservative government, highlights Dounreay's reprocessing contracts with the HMI reactor in Berlin. Fuel for the reactor had been provided by the US, but it had refused to accept importing the fuel - leaving HMI with virtually no choice other than signing a reprocessing contract with Dounreay, or closuring the reactor. Under German law the operators have to show a future waste management strategy, but its storage space in Berlin was nearly full. To get a new operating licence the HMI operators had to free up storage space and Dounreay was the only answer. RWMAC reported that without the contract with Dounreay, HMI could have lost its licence because of its "waste management problem". RWMAC concluded that "...it is conceivable that a situation might arise where a foreign concern was willing to enter into a reprocessing contract, whether for irradiated or unirradiated fuel, with a UK company in order to rid itself of what it construed as a 'waste management' problem, possibly one of inadequate or hazardous storage. This view can be linked to suggestions that developments in the world nuclear industry are militating against the reuse of materials separated during reprocessing. Under such circumstances, the RWMAC takes the view that the regulators should look carefully at whether the United Kingdom might, in certain circumstances, really be acquiring the waste management problems of another country."
Sodium deal also highlighted.
RWMAC was also critical of the GBP1 million (US$ 1.7 million) contract signed by the privatised company AEA Technology (AEAT) to import 88 tonnes of radioactive sodium from the German Kalkar reactor for treatment at Dounreay. The sodium contains radioactive tritium, cobalt-60, caesium-137 and sodium-22 and is being stored at the Scottish site. A special treatment plant is being built at Dounreay to treat the sodium. RWMAC dismissed AEAT arguments that the waste could not be treated in Germany, because it- did not have a sea disposal route. The advisory committee said it was unclear how it was justifiable for AEAT to build a plant at Dounreay, but not for a similar plant to be built in Germany. Also, RWMAC believed that while the German regulatory authorities would not have allowed waste from treating the sodium to be discharged into the river adjacent to the reactor site, the country did have a coastline which could have offered sea disposal - "it would not be difficult to understand a measure of public concern in the United Kingdom that the principle of self-sufficiency might be being breached." "In the RWMAC's view the sodium disposal facility process amounts to a waste management operation which could quite easily be carried out in Germany." The sodium contract had already been questioned by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) for the same reasons now voiced by RWMAC, but the agency was told the government approved the deal. Since then SEPA has stopped the work on commissioning the new plant at Dounreay by imposing an official Prohibition Notice on AEAT because of concerns that there is inadequate measuring and monitoring of radioactive waste discharges from the facility into the sea.
Return of waste.
The RWMAC report also enters the recent controversy over how long radioactive reprocessing waste should be stored at Dounreay before being returned to the country of origin. Dounreay wants the present 25-year limit to continue, fearing that a lower limit would discourage further contracts. There is also concern at Sellafield that any new lower limit for Dounreay might be imposed on its huge English reprocessing plant as well. SEPA wants the limit reduced to 10 years and RWMAC has stated that the limit should be reviewed "to ensure that countries using UK reprocessing facilities should develop appropriate waste management routes of their own in order to be able to manage the wastes for which they are responsible."
Source: N-Base Briefing 105, 2 November 1997.
Contact: NENIG, Bains Beach, Commercial Street, Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 OAG, UK
Tel & Fax: +44-1595-694 099
E-mail: n-base@zetnet.co.uk
WWW: www.users.zetnet.co.uk/n-base
Siemens buys conventional power generation business Westinghouse.
(November 21, 1997) On 14 November Westinghouse Electric Corp. said it agreed to sell its power generation business to Siemens AG of Germany for $1.525 billion cash as part of its plan to divest its industrial businesses. Siemens has purchased what is called the "Power Generation Business Unit", which does steam turbines and other conventional power systems. It does not include Westinghouse Energy Systems Business Unit, which does all of the companies nuclear work. Westinghouse is promising to sell its nuclear side by mid-1998. Until it is sold off, the nuclear part of Westinghouse will be run by the current chief of the Energy System, Dr. Charles Pryor.
ABC press release, 14 November 1997
Anti-nuke victory in Karelia. Russian first vice-prime-minister Nemtsov said during his October 6-7 visit to Karelia (north-west Russia) that a nuclear power plant would not be constructed there because it does not solve energy problems. That's the end in the long story of a tough campaign against Karelian local politicians who have been trying to convince the government to start the construction of two planned VVER reactors there. One more nuclear-free region in Russia (At least one bottle of champagne deserves to be opened).
WISE-Kalinigrad, 22 October 1997.
Bangladesh: Officials at Bangladesh's national atomic energy commission announced plans to go ahead with a nuclear power plant that has been on the drawing board for 35 years. The World Bank has said it is unlikely to provide financing for the 600 MWe plant, expected to cost up to US$1 billion.
Uranium Institute News Briefing, 22-28 October 1997.
Action against EC Kalinin-3 loan. On November 18, about 10 activists from Socio-Ecological Union's Antinuclear Campaign held an action to protest the issue of a European Commission loan to finish the Kalinin-3 nuclear reactor. Euratom, a European Commission agency, declared its intent to issue Kalinin-3 loan before the beginning of 1998. Activists walked to the EU embassy, where two activists climbed onto the roof and put up a 7-meter-long banner reading "Stop Kalinin-3!". Other protesters demanded a meeting with the EU ambassador. Ten minutes later, the EU vice ambassador came to talk to the protestors, who gave him a petition demanding the rejection of the Kalinin-3 loan proposal. The ambassador said all the documents he got from the protestors would be sent to Bruxelles and promised to give russian public a consultative place in the Environmental Impact Assessment of Kalinin-3 loan.
Ecodefense, 18 November 1997
(November 21, 1997) After the 1979 Harrisburg (US) accident the nuclear industry faced a serious decline in sales of nuclear power reactors. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster led sales to drop off even more, as several countries decided not to build any new nuclear power plants. Since the early eighties, the industry has been working on development of so-called inherently safe reactors. These new reactors are now being presented as a solution to the greenhouse effect. This first article in a series on new generation reactors looks closer at the HTR, the High Temperature Reactor.
(481.4774) Laka Foundation -The HTR is based on the technology of a gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactor. In the UK, gas-graphite reactors are the main type of reactors used in the production of nuclear electricity; only one water reactor (Sizewell B) is being used. Although the principles of an HTR are based on the gas-graphite reactor, no HTR was developed in the UK. At the German research center Juelich, an HTR, called the 'Arbeidsgemeinschaft Versuchsreactor AVR', was opened in 1967. In this reactor the fuel was embedded in graphite balls. It was a thorium reactor; neutrons from a chain reaction were used to breed fissionable uranium-233 from the non-fissionable thorium-232. Later models dropped the thorium cyclus as there were too many problems with the reprocessing of thorium fuel. Other problems with the AVR were leakages in the helium cooling circuit, a fire with turbine-oil and the production of fuel. In 1985 the Hamm-Uentrop Thorium High Temperature Reactor (THTR) was opened. This DM6 billion (US$ 3.5 billion) reactor faced serious safety problems. In May 1986 (a week after the Chernobyl accident), radioactive gas escaped from the cooling system, after graphite-fuel balls stuck in the fuel inlet. Other problems occured when fuel balls were damaged and with sticking control rods. In 1989 the reactor was permanently closed due to economic and political reasons. The Siemens company studied the HTR-Module, a 200 MW HTR, for the production of process-heat (steam) and electricity. In 1987 Siemens asked for a non-site specific license for building a prototype in the German state of Lower-Saxony. As no possible buyer was found, the license was ultimately denied. After spending some DM2 billion (US$ 1.2 billion) on the HTR, Siemens ended the project in 1991 by selling the technology to China.
In the US an HTR, developed by General Atomics, was opened in 1967 in Peach Bottom. It closed in 1974, the same year when the Fort St. Vrain HTR was opened. This reactor was closed in 1989 due to problems with the cooling system and control rods. General Atomics is still working on the development of a new HTR, but faces financial problems. In 1995 the US House of Representatives stopped subsidizing General Atomics research. Now the company hopes to sell an HTR to Russia for burning weapons plutonium. Smaller HTR projects are being developed elsewhere: the South African utility Eskom is studying the possibilities of HTR reactors, Japan has almost finished building its first HTR research reactor, and China is building a research HTR with the Siemens technology.
Technology
The HTR is not only made for the production of electricity. Due to the high temperature of the coolant, the HTR can also be used for the production of heat. This process-heat, f.i. through the production of steam, could be used in chemical industry, paper-mills, city heating and desalination plants. The uranium or thorium fuel is embedded in millimeter-small fuel particles. Some thousands of these particles are put in a graphite ball, approximately 5 centimeters in diameter. The function of the graphite is to moderate the neutrons produced by fission. Without moderation, the fission of uranium or thorium is impossible. The graphite balls are in the reactor vessel and are cooled by helium gas. Cooling by water is impossible as graphite reacts heavily with water. The heated helium is used to drive an electricity producing turbine. After this the heat is used for the production of steam in a steam generator. As the HTR is used both for the production of heat and power it is sometimes called a Cogeneration (or Combined) Heat and Power (CHP) plant. Some concepts are based on a uranium-cycle, using enriched uranium. Other concepts are based on the thorium cycle, using the neutrons from uranium fission to breed uranium-233 from thorium-232. Although there is little experience with thorium technology, a longer future is foreseen, mainly in India (see also WISE NC 461.4577: India; experimental thorium reactor gone critical.), as uranium resources are getting smaller.
Safety
The HTR is often presented as an inherently safe reactor. The term inherently safe suggests that absolutely no accidents can happen. This is of course not true; one can never exclude an accident. The IAEA recommends not to use this term, they prefer the use of 'next generation reactors'. In the most common reactors, water reactors, the danger of a large release of radioactivity exists if the fuel elements melt. This can happen when the water cooling fails, for instance, due to a leak in the coolant circuit. Due to residual heat, the fuel- elements would melt and release the fissionproducts. In the HTR the fuel particles are enclosed in graphite balls that cannot melt. But graphite can burn, a property that caused the serious 1957 accident at the UK Windscale plutonium producing reactor. The burning of graphite in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster extended the release of radioactivity and made it difficult to fight the fire, as graphite also reacts heavily with water. In the HTR a fire could occur when air comes into the reactor, for instance through an external explosion or an accident with an airplane. Water can enter an HTR when leaks occur in the steam generator. Research is being done to give the graphite balls a corrosion resistent layer. Graphite is damaged when temperatures reach 1600 degrees Celcius. To keep the temperature under this critical 1600 degrees, the release of residual heat from the reactor must be high in case of a loss of coolant accident. Therefore the HTR lacks the safety containment that is used in a light water reactor building. A safety containment would have an isolating effect on the reactor. But the function of a safety containment is to keep radioactivity inside the reactor building in the event of an accident, as well as give protection from forces from outside. In 1988 the US safety authority Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) doubted the safety characteristics of the HTR: the improvement in safety by the use of graphity would be followed by a decrease in safety due to the absence of a containment.
Proliferation
In a fission reactor uranium-238 is formed into plutonium-239 when it captures a neutron. Plutonium-239 can be used in nuclear weapons. But other plutonium isotopes are also bred which are unsuitable in nuclear weapons. It is the amounts of plutonium-239 and other plutonium isotopes that make the plutonium more or less suitable for nuclear weapons. The plutonium produced in gas-graphite reactors is especially of a high weapons quality. Therefore the HTR can be misused for the production of weapons material. Some HTR concepts make use of higher enriched uranium, that can also be used in nuclear weapons. In the thorium cyclus based HTR, uranium-233 is produced. This uranium-233 is of weapons quality, just like plutonium-239. The choice for a thorium cyclus means also a choice for reprocessing. The uranium-233 must be extracted from spent fuel for the production of new uranium-233 fuel. This means, in addition to the environmental risks of reprocessing, the production of pure uranium-233 with the risks of misuse and theft. The possibility to load and unload an HTR during electricity production makes the control or misuse more difficult than with a water reactor, which must be shut down for fuel to be unloaded.
Economics
The HTR is a reactor with which there has been very little experience worldwide. Therefore a very big financial investment is required before production of this reactor can be economical. Investments are not only needed for the reactor but also for a fuel production and reprocessing infra-structure. Nowadays an HTR cannot compete with a gas-fueled Cogeneration plant. Altough the fuel costs would be lower than in a gas plant, the main costs will come with building the reactor. According to a Dutch study gas prices would have to rise to three times their current level before an HTR (in serial production) could become competitive.
Conclusion
The choice of the nuclear industry to develop an HTR looks to be an attempt to show the public a 'safe' reactor that cannot melt. But complete safety can never be assured because of the possibility of graphite burning, the lack of a containment, etc. With the HTR, proliferation risks will increase. The environmental pollution from reprocessing will continue in the thorium concept. And off course the uranium or thorium mining will destroy mining areas, contaminating environment and people with radioactivity. The argument to fight the greenhouse effect with a safe non carbon dioxide producing reactor is false. The HTR will produce radioactive waste, in volume even more than a water reactor due to the radioactive graphite balls. This will enlarge the amount of waste that has to be stored for millions of years. Like the greenhouse effect, another worldwide environmental problem will be created.
Sources:
Contact: Laka Foundation, Ketelhuisplein 43, NL-1054 RD Amsterdam. The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-6168294; Fax: +31-20-6892179.
E-mail: laka@antenna.nl
OECD/IAEA meeting on HTR. From 10 to 14 two meetings on the HTR took place at the Energy Research Foundation (ECN) in The Netherlands. The IAEA Technical Committee Meeting dealt with the future prospects of the HTR. A second meeting (of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency) discussed the technical aspects of research on the HTR. According to the discussions at the IAEA meeting a market share of the HTR is not foreseen in the next decade: the HTR is still in a developing stage and can not compete with other energy sources. Only one small chance for an economically realizable HTR in the next decade, is foreseen in South Africa, were it would compete with coal plants. The Dutch Energy Research Foundation presented at the meetings its research report on the 'Incogen', INherently safe Nuclear COGENeration. Whether the research on the HTR at the institute would continue was doubted when dutch government ended in 1996 a finance program for new generation reactors. Now the ECN is looking for cooperation with other European institutes and companies. Under coordination of Framatome and with finances from the European Union new research has started.
Laka Foundation, 19 November 1997
See also Reactor grade PU also suitable for N-weapons [NC 483-4.4799] for important information on this subject.
(November 21, 1997) At the Kyoto COP-3 conference the nuclear industry will try to reach an official recognition that nuclear energy is a way to fight the Greenhouse effect. It is therefore important to make clear that this is not the case. In the next article, using the Netherlands as an example, it is shown that nuclear energy is neither efficient nor effective in cutting CO2 emissions, not to mention all the problems related to nuclear energy itself.
(481.4777) Laka Foundation -Over the last few years, nuclear energy has been offered as solution in the battle against the threat of the greenhouse effect. This is because no CO2, the most prominent of gases causing the greenhouse effect, is said to be expelled in the production of atomic power. The Dutch Van Middelkoop Commission's 'Parliamentary Report on Climatic Changes,' issued on September 11, 1996, cites nuclear power to be 'such an effective energy source, when solely evaluated on the aspect of carbon dioxide substitution'.
In this article the Laka Foundation reaffirms that nuclear power is no solution.
1- Nuclear power is not efficient
The possibilities to reduce the CO2 emissions in the production of electricity are limited. In the Netherlands the increase of the greenhouse effect through the burning of fossile fuel is confined to 24,8 % creditable to electrical power production. The remainder is spent on fuel for cars and aeroplanes, residential heating and, for instance, cooking. Nuclear power stations can only be utilized for the production of electricity.
The substitution by nuclear power of energy exponents with a high CO2 emissionfactor is inefficient. There are many other possibilities in the area of supply and demand. The studies of the Centre for Energy Conservation and Clean Technology in Delft, the Netherlands1 and of the German Öko Institute2, the costs of some of these options have been calculated and compared. The aim was to see the amount of money it would take to avoid the emission of one ton (1000kg) of CO2. These studies show that nuclear power is the least effective option, save one. For the results see chart 1.
| Measure | Costs |
| Thriftier housekeeping (household) | -200 |
| Replacement electrical boilers (household) | -175 |
| Electricity conservation metal industries | -70 |
| Energy-saving utensical appliances (household) | -50 |
| Supasave lamps (households) | -40 |
| Industrial CHP large | -35 |
| Electricity conservation chemical industrie (bulk) | 20 |
| Electricity conservation poly hothouse farming | 25 |
| Supasave lamps (utility buildings) | 70 |
| Hydropower | 60 |
| Biomass | 60 |
| Windpower | 120 |
| Nuclear power | 130 |
| Solar cells | 250 |
As we can see in chart 1 the possibilities of CO2 reductions mostly lie in reduction schemes. Wind and solar power are effective, but at this moment less efficient in terms of cost. This might be explained as due to the low penetration level and thus higher costs. Investments in the appliance of the mentioned alternatives are inadequete. From the Dutch goverment's expenditure on energy research, 23% is nuclear against 10% on research into renewable sources (see chart 2).
| Goverment | Companies | Total | |
| Energy conservation | 91.2 | 150.8 | 242.0 |
| Oil and gas | 19.4 | 20.1 | 39.5 |
| Coal | 12.2 | 14.1 | 27.3 |
| Renewable energy | 33.7 | 16.9 | 50.6 |
| Nuclear power | 72.5 | 47.5 | 120.0 |
| Electricity | 67.7 | 209.0 | 276.7 |
| Systemanalysis | 14.1 | 3.2 | 17.3 |
| Total | 310.8 | 462.6 | 773.4 |
2- Nuclear power is not effective
While the efficiency criteria (CO2 reduction per invested guilder) absolutely renders nuclear power void, the effectiveness (possibilities for CO2-reduction in comparison to other production techniques) is less than the Van Middelkoop Commission suggests. In order to come to this assessment, it is neccesary to ascertain what the CO2 emission factor of nuclear power is. Ir. Wouter Biesiot of the University of Groningen (Netherlands) has calculated how much CO2 may be indirectly related to nuclear energy5. In his study Biesiot ascertains that indirect CO2 exhaust is mainly caused by the mining and processing of uranium ore. His report concludes that with ore containing 0,01% of uranium, the indirect emissions may run up to 140 grams/KWh. This emission is comparable to that of a gas-fuelled Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Plant (150 grams/kWh).
There is only a limited supply of rich uranium ore. At this moment most of the ore in the proven supplies holds an average of 0.065 % uranium. In 2005 this will have decreased to 0.057. A number of ores have high concentrations: a quarter contains more than 5 kg uranium per 1000kg (0.5%), some ores even much more. These ores are being mined now, with the result that by the year 2005, the ore actually won will contain 0.125% uranium. That is still more than the average of all ores6. The result here is that shortly after 2005 the majority of the ore mined will contain significantly less then the average of 0.057%. This is a steadfast march in the direction of 0.01% per 1000 kg and therefore in the direction of an emission factor of 140 gram/ kWh, comparable to that of a gas-fuelled CHP of 150 g/kWh. In the case of 0.004 percent uranium, the CO2 emission would amount to 230 grams/kWh. The CO2 emission per KiloWatt/h is related in chart 3 for the major energy exponents.
| Fuel | Emmission |
| Coal | 924 |
| Procured Mineral Gas | 800 |
| Natural Gas | 448 |
| Heat & Power (gas) | 150 |
| Uranium | 73-230 |
The conclusion is that the CO2 emission factor of nuclear energy (particularily with the future of 'poorer ores') is comparable to that of a gas-fuelled CHP plant. A technique which, as opposed to nuclear energy, is cheap and quickly applicable, even on a small scale.
3- World uranium supply
A massive increase in the use of nuclear power is, due to the limited supplies of uranium, hardly possible. The Van Middelkoop Commission applies in its report a wildly optimistic estimate of resources: '6 to 30 million tons' The estimates vary greatly in source and investigation. To stay on the safe side, this article is based on estimates from the industry itself. The Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe (recently renamed Forschungszentrum Technik und Umwelt) in Germany estimates the worldwide uranium supply to be 6.4 million tons8. Other organisations, closely affiliated to the nuclear industrie, maintain even lower estimates. The 1995 'Red Book,' for instance, estimates the actual supplies to be 3.8 million tons, and the speculative supplies to be 11 million tons9.
If nuclear power, in the frame of global warming politics, would take care of 70% of the electricity need, as is the case in France, there would be 6.2 million tons of uranium needed until 2015. From 2015 this would - in the case of continuing nuclear output- be 0.5 million ton anually. The known resources of 6.4 million ton would therefore run out in 2016-2018.
The demand for uranium currently is much greater then the availability. Industry prognosis reveals that in 13 years, by 2010, the production will provide only half the demand10. The international organisations explicity point out that there is an imminent chance of large shortages. It is difficult to accelerate production. One reason is the approximately eight year stretch it takes for the new uranium mines to be put into production. Another is the existing mines are grappling with ever tightening environmental rules, which is hampering a higher production pace. The data in the 'Red Book' point to insufficient production capacity now and in the future. This destabilizes the market, resulting in price raises.
4- The endless source of energy myth
or: How the Netherlands invested over one billion guilders in an amusement park.
Nuclear power will take its final curtain call around 2020, unless the use of fast breeder reactors takes effect on a grand scale. The current developments does not point in this direction. The technology that had been developed to steer away nuclear power from its dependancy on uranium availability is the breeder reactor. Breeding was seen as a possibility to transform the enormous supplies of non-fissionable uranium into fissionable plutonium. This plutonium would then be made to serve as fuel. But breeders are a technical and economic failure. The complex meant to be a fastbreeder in Germany's Kalkar (a German, Belgium, Dutch cooperation) has become an holiday and amusement park: the Netherlands invested about one billion guilders (US$0.53 billion) in it. The French Superphenix is closed and will almost certainly not be reopend again, and the Scottish breeder reactor in Dounreay was closed a number of years ago. The Japanese Monju breeder has been inactive since a serious accident in December 1995 which caused a severe disruption in the Japanese breeder reactor programme. In Europe the European Fastbreeder Reactor (EFR) programme disintegrated in the early nineties when a number of the larger participating countries lessened or completely diminished their contributions.
5- Diminishing significance of nuclear power
Suppose that the political choice was made to offer a greater significance to the role of nuclear energy where generating electricity is concerned, and new nuclear power station would have to be built. For a scenario where 70% of electricity would come from nuclear power (supposing there is also a rise in energy demand), an increase of an average of 115 nuclear power stations of 1000 Megawatts each, or 192 of 600 Megawatt would have to be constructed annually. The average construction time of a nuclear power plant is now ten years.
Since 1986, according to the IAEA, three nuclear power stations have been ordered annually: The building of two nuclear power stations commenced in 1991, four in 1992, six in 1993, two in 1994, none in 1995 and three in 1996 11. The total production capacity of the nuclear industry, according to the German Öko-Institute, is eighteen nuclear power stations a year12.
6- Conclusions
Source: Updated summary of the October 1996 Laka Foundation report 'Nuclear energy no remedy for the greenhouse effect' (in Dutch)
Contact: Laka Foundation, Ketelhuisplein 43, 1054 RD Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: +31-20-6168 294; Fax: +31-20-689 2179. E-mail: laka@antenna.nl.
(November 21, 1997) On Wednesday 28 November US president Bill Clinton announced that Washington will lift the ban on nuclear technology exports to China. The announcement came after Chinese President Jiang Zemin pledged that the technology would not end up in any troublesome nation, such as Iran or Pakistan.
(481.4772) WISE-Amsterdam -Lifting the ban will mean that US companies like Westinghouse, General Electric and ABB Combustion Engineering can join the competition for China`s fast growing nuclear power market -- a market in which France`s Framatome, Canada`s AECL, and Russian firms have already concluded lucrative contracts. It could be very hard for the American companies to compete with those firms, but as one industrial expert says, 'US nuclear firms are very competitive in both their product quality and prices'. It has been US export control legislation that put them at a disadvantage. To get this ban lifted there has of course been great pressure exerted on President Clinton. The nuclear industry claimed that potential exports between now and 2010 just for new plants would create about 225,000 man-years of work and could be worth as much as US$15 billion. And because it is obvious that the nuclear industry is almost dead in the United States (due to lack of a domestic market), US nuclear power companies are eager to get a slice of what is believed to be the world`s fasted growing industrial market. But penetrating the Chinese market will be very hard due to the strong competition.
With two reactors at Guandong (Daya Bay) and one in Quinshan, China's current capacity is about 2,100 megawatt. This is only one percent of the electricity supply to the national grid. Plans call for an increase of capacity to 50,000 MW by the year 2020. This means the installation of 40-50 large nuclear reactors. Thus it is expected that China will spend some US$50-US$60 billion on this in the next two decades. US firms hope to snare half that market by 2010. But we have learned from the history of the nuclear industry that plans on this scale are very optimistic and most likely will not be realised.
There is still one difficulty to be overcome before the ban is actually lifted. This also means that there is still an opportunity to pressure for maintaining the ban. The US Congress, which has often criticized the disregard for human rights by the Chinese government, first has to agree to the export accord. That means that President Bill Clinton has to certify to the Congress that China will halt its spreading of nuclear weapons. China has already given written assurance that it will end all new nuclear cooperation with Iran and quickly phase out two existing projects.
On November 5, the Congress voted by an overwhelming margin of 394-29 to give itself three more months to decide this issue, extending the certification investigation from 30 days to 120. For further information see WISE NC 479.4756: 'US-China agreement to be certified.'
Sources:
Contact: Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), 1000 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 804, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel: +1-202- 822-8444; Fax: +1-202-452-0892
E-mail: nci@access.digex.net
WWW: www.nci.org/nci
Don't make the same mistakes! To urge China to reject nuclear power, a coalition of green groups in the US (Nuclear Information Resources Service, the Sierra Club and Public Citizen) wrote a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin advising him to consult energy experts to consider "cleaner and less costly alternatives for China." The groups say in the November 3 letter: "We hope to have China benefit from our own experiences. We would like to help China avoid wasting its resources on a failed and faulty technology that will saddle the Chinese people with enormous debt and the intractable problem of dealing with long-lived radioactive waste." They further pointed out that US investors do not consider nuclear power a cost-effective way to produce electricity and warned China not to commit itself to an expensive, dangerous and unsustainable energy course.
Japanese nuclear export to China. The Japanese Government has decided to lift the current ban on export of nuclear plant equipment from Japan to China. The decision came after the recent US-China agreement.
Asahi (Japan), 11 November 1997
(November 21, 1997) Leave it in the ground. Simple concept - leave uranium in the ground. This was the whole message behind ROXSTOP, a desert action and music festival recently held in northern South Australia at the Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine. It ran from Sep. 22 to Oct. 2 and saw over 250 anti-uranium activists from all over Australia come together to oppose Western Mining Corporation's questionably operated Roxby Downs mine.
(481.4773) Roxby Action Collective -The logic behind calling for the closure of Australia's largest and richest mine is easy to understand: uranium is dangerous to life. Experts the world over aren't arguing about whether radiation from uranium and its associated products are dangerous - they all agree that ionising radiation is dangerous. The debate is merely about how much radiation is publicly acceptable, and that level is consistently getting lowered every 15 years or so. Put this in a context of irradiated workers, manipulation of Aboriginal groups in the region, namely the Kokatha and Arabanna peoples, serious environmental mismanagement of the tailings dam (it leaked 3 billion litres within the first 6 years of operation, and, with the acknowledgement of the South Australian Government, continues to leak at the moment), and devastating impacts on the beautiful mound springs of the Lake Eyre region (some have dried up and more will shortly), and one can understand the constant storm of controversy that surrounds WMC and the Roxby Downs uranium mine. And make no bones about it, it is the uranium which makes the mine profitable, not copper.
Roxby Downs is a difficult mine to close - it has always shared bi-partisan political support from Labour and Liberal, and is a massive orebody of copper, uranium, gold and silver. WMC is currently undertaking a A$1.5 billion (US$ 1.1 billion) expansion of Roxby to increase production levels. There will potentially be more uranium produced at Roxby alone than at Ranger, Jabiluka, Beverley, Kintyre and Honeymoon put together. Hence the urgency with which activists came together for ROXSTOP - this is one fight we must - and will - win.
ROXSTOP incorporated many activities - protests at the mine itself, tour of the overall facility (where the lack of radiation protection signs was of deep concern), listening to the history and stories of the Kokatha people from women elders, and the stories of the Arabanna male elders, an all-day music concert with artists and bands from all over Australia, a public meeting on worker's health issues in the township of Roxby Downs with a special radiation expert from the USA (Dr David Richardson), solidarity with unionists and workers from the mine, visiting many of the springs in the Lake Eyre region to witness Roxby's long term damage. Perhaps the most poignant event, though, was the spontaneous blockading of a road-wide semi-trailor for half a day.
The massive truck contained a pre-fabricated steel structure for part of the new pipeline which will take even more water from the Great Artesian Basin. This basin feeds the mound springs their water in what is otherwise one of the driest regions on the planet. The power of a small band of people lying down on a desert highway can never be underestimated - within the hour police tried forcefully to remove protesters, however, using our much greater numbers we easily prevailed and we continued blocking the road for half a day. We had achieved our main aim - interfering with the expansion program, increasing costs, achieving wide media coverage across Australia and raising awareness among the local community and workers.
The anti-uranium movement in Australia is at a cross-roads: existing mines are expanding (Ranger, Kakadu Nat. Park, Roxby Downs); there are four proposals for new mines across the country with more expected and a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in the southern suburbs of Sydney. The Howard government has continually halted approvals because of widespread community opposition and active campaigning by the environment movement. The people of Australia have been consistently saying for decades we don't want uranium from our country to be dug up and exported to another country to become somebody else's problem - remember Chernobyl? remember the spontaneous anger shown on streets Australia-wide at French tests in our nearby Pacific neighbours? Howard and his boys do not have the mandate to destroy our country and world heritage areas for short term profit and at the expense of Aboriginal land rights and rural communities - whether it's Roxby, Ranger, or anywhere.
ROXSTOP highlighted to WMC and the Federal and South Australian governments that they are not off the hook. Roxby is a national shame and should be closed immediately. People are seeing through economic rationalism and mobilising. This campaign will only get more vibrant. It has to. Leave it in the ground INDEED.
Source & Contact: Roxby Action Collective: PO Box 222 Fitzroy, Victoria 3065, Australia. Tel: +61-3-9419 8700; Fax: +61-3-9416 2081
E-mail angelb@netspace.net.au
For more info and photos, see home.vicnet.net.au/~seaus/roxstop.html
Take a break (at Kakadu national park). At a recent meeting in Alice springs of Aboriginal and Green groups, Jabiluka traditional owners expressed a strong wish to proceed with preparing a major blockade/civil disobedience action in the Kakadu national park. The action will most likely take place in March/April/May next year. Anyone who has non-violent direct action experience, either at nuke weapons establishments or at Gorleben or Temelin, or Japanese nuclear sites, or wherever, are urged to consider taking a holiday in the Kakadu national park around that time. International support in terms of people willing to put their bodies on the line, financial support, logistic support, etc. is needed very much. High on the 'wish list' of things needed is communication equipment - eg. a satellite telephone. It's quite remote up there.
Contact: John Hallam, Nuclear Campaigner, Friends of the Earth Sydney. Suite 15, Ist Floor, 104 Bathurst street, Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Tel: +61-2-9283 2004; Fax: 6+1-2-9283 2005.
E-mail: foesydney@peg.apc.org.