Russia

Russia is to build Bangladesh's first nuclear power plant at Rooppur under an intergovernmental cooperation agreement signed in Dhaka on November 2. The agreement was signed by Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, and Yafesh Osman, Bangladesh's minister of state for science, information and communication technologies. Rooppur is designated as the location for a nuclear reactor since 1963.

The signing ceremony was attended by dignitaries including Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Under the agreement, Russia will construct two 1000 MWe reactors at Rooppur, in Pabna district, about 200 km from the capital, Dhaka. It specifies that Rosatom's AtomStroyExport division will act as the contractor, while the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission will be the customer. Russia will also support Bangladesh in developing the necessary infrastructure for the proposed plant. The agreement calls for Russia to provide fuel for the plant on a long-term basis, as well as taking back the used fuel for long-term management and permanent disposal. Russia will also train workers to operate the plant. A separate agreement will be signed for Russia to provide the necessary financing for the Rooppur plant’s construction. The Government of Bangladesh is considering either a Government-owned turnkey project or a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) contract.

Kiriyenko said that the proposed reactors "will meet all the international post-Fukushima requirements." He noted that the plant will feature double containment, a passive heat removal system, hydrogen recombiners, a core catcher, as well as other safety features. According to a Reuters report, Osman said that construction of the reactors at Rooppur would begin by 2013 and will take five years to complete.

Russia, China and South Korea had earlier offered financial and technical help to establish nuclear power in Bangladesh. In March 2009, Russia made a formal proposal to construct a nuclear power plant in the country. The Bangladeshi government approved this proposal the following month. The latest agreement between the two countries follows the signing of an intergovernmental agreement in May 2010 on cooperation in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. That agreement provided a legal framework for cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.

Plans to built a nuclear reactor at Rooppur were first drawn up in 1963 and after Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan after a war in December 1971 the plans were revived and an Atomic Energy Commission was set up. In April 1974 it signed a deal with India for information exchange about the "peaceful uses of nuclear energy" (less than a month later, on May 18, India exploded its first nuclear device code named Operation Smiling Buddha). On August 29, 1980, the government singed an agreement with France to provide technological and financial aid for the construction of a 300 MW nuclear power plant. The Saudi Arabia agreed to provide two-thirds of the finance, but Bangladesh was unable to find the rest of the money. In September 1981 it signed an Agreement for Coorperation Concerning the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy with the US and in December 1984 Russia offered to finance and supply a 440 MW reactor, supply and take back the fuel for an estimated price fo US$600 million. But again it did not materialize.

Then, in September 2007 after announcing the construction of 2 reactors in Rooppur for the xth-time, Bangladesh asked the IAEA for 'technical assistance and support'. Russia won a state-to-state-deal for ten construction. In a November 21 2011 report, the IAEA announced Bangladesh has "achieved notable progress in its nuclear infrastructure development of nuclear power". An Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission concluded that Bangladesh has "mostly met the conditions for knowledgeable decision-making and is actively preparing for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project."

Sources: New Scientist, 13 December 1984 / Financial Express (Bangladesh), 3 February 2010 / World Nuclear News, 2 November 2011 / IAEA, November 21 2011 / Laka files on Bangladesh

The economy of the Russian nuclear energy industry is the least known and most opaque of all the many facets that make up the vast dominion that is the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. There is, today, plenty to learn about the environmental, technological, safety, and other aspects of Rosatom’s operations – but economic information, if it is revealed at all, is only made available in relative figures and general data whose accuracy it is impossible to verify. A new report, researched by Leonid Andreev and published by Bellona, offers some estimates of the levels of expenses the Russian nuclear industry bears in its operations.

Still, many experts have made attempts lately to understand and estimate just how much exactly generating electricity from nuclear sources comes to, what it costs the Russian state budget – i.e. the Russian taxpayers – to build new nuclear power plants, including those built by Russia abroad, how big the spending is on managing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, and, ultimately, if it is even worth it to invest billions of dollars into developing an industry that is hardly a cure -all for existing energy woes but instead carries with it an enormous potential threat of killing everything alive on the planet.

The economics of Rosatom’s varied activities has become a topic of interest not just to the public – the ordinary taxpaying citizens, that is – but the Russian financial oversight agencies as well. For instance, one of the reasons that the newly minted draft law “On Management of Radioactive Waste” has not yet been passed, even as it remained on the legislators’ tables all throughout 2010, is the ambiguities in the economic concept of the waste management system the new law was supposed to establish. The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation is yet to work out a  definitive position with regard to what sort of expenses the state budget will bear in order to dispose of the radioactive legacy Russia has inherited from the Soviet Union and if the system suggested by the bill – the idea that the management of radioactive waste will be the responsibility of those who produce it – will prove economically effective.

Whichever provisions have been approved in those regulatory and legislative documents that have been adopted since the State Corporation Rosatom was established – starting with the Law “On the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom” – and that have to do with the nuclear authority’s economic activities have, as a rule, been such as to cater to the interests of Rosatom itself, rather than the public or even the Russian state. For instance, a passage in the Law “On the State Corporation Rosatom” stipulates that the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation – the federal body with a mandate to exercise oversight over fulfillment of the federal budget – can only perform external control over the corporation’s activities. As for the audits of Rosatom’s internal financial and economic operations, the efficiency of spending government-allocated financial resources or those held in special reserve funds, and other aspects – those are carried out by Rosatom’s own Audit Committee. The public has a stake in knowing how much money has been accumulated on the accounts of special reserve funds that are maintained in order to finance decommissioning of old nuclear power plants and management of radioactive waste, but that, alas, is restricted information.

Rosatom and its daughter enterprises keep to a bare minimum what financial  information they disclose in reports made available for public access or during events such as public discussions or so called forum dialogues. If questions are asked during such events – for instance, how much does reprocessing of one ton of spent nuclear fuel cost? – the answer, as a rule, is: This is commercial secret.

By adopting its financial reporting policy, Rosatom took upon itself the obligation to disclose, in annual reports made available for the public, the results and efficiency of spending funds disbursed from the state budget and other sources. But though they are posted on Rosatom’s website, these reports say almost nothing on the industry’s economy save for some general references or percentage figures which impart information of little practical use.

All of the above would indicate that everything is not as hunky-dory as the upper management’s cheerful reports would have it – something that is furthermore confirmed by many expert studies both in Russia and abroad.

The present report offers some estimates of the levels of expenses the Russian nuclear industry bears in its operations and some arguments that explain why nuclear energy is a loss-making industry today. But the main purpose of this report is to initiate a broader discussion of nuclear energy economics in expert circles and the public domain alike in order to work out a better understanding of whether developing nuclear energy and committing enormous financial resources to this end is ultimately in the public’s interest.

The full report called 'The Economics of the Russian Nuclear Power Industry' (August 2011) is available at: http://bellona.org/filearchive/fil_Economics-of-the-Russian-Nuclear-Powe...

French Nuclear Authority points to "weaknesses" of the EPR.
The construction of the EPR nuclear reactor being built in Flamanville, has many "weaknesses" that put the "final quality" into doubt. This is the conclusion drawn after a  thorough inspection conducted on site in May by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). The report of this "inspection review", highlighted by Le Canard Enchaine on August 24, is posted on the site of the ASN (www.asn.fr). It is a 20 page letter sent by the ASN on June 24 to EDF, the prime contractor for the 1600 megawatt reactor designed by Areva. The inspection has was  carried out by fifteen experts, including an observer from the British regulator. The team found deviations from the construction requirements on essential parts of the reactor: the feed of the steam generators, water injection filters, the RIS batteries of the cooling system. "EDF has to make great efforts to show the final quality of the construction of Flamanville 3", judges the ASN, which points out: "inconsistencies between the requirements specified in sub-contracting and the demands mentioned in the preliminary safety report" - that is to say a non-compliance with initial prescriptions. Concerning an essential feature of the steam generators, experts estimate that "the quality of materials taking into account their importance for safety has not been demonstrated and their use in FLA3 is not possible". In two cases, they demand from EDF to "not engage in actions that are difficult to reverse before demonstrating" compliance.
Le Monde (Fr.) 24 August 2011 (translation Jan Haverkamp)

Town produces 321% more energy than it uses.
A small Bavarian town in Germany called Wildpoldsried produces 321% more energy than it uses, from renewable and natural sources. By selling the excess energy, Wildpoldsried has eliminated all the towns debt and generates 4.0 million Euro (US$5.7 million) in annual income. The point they are at now in terms of energy production and independence was reached by starting a plan about fourteen years ago to develop more clean energy sources and green building projects. The town with a population of about 2,500 started work on a huge community initiative involving the construction of nine new buildings and energy sources. The new buildings included a school, community hall and gym, and they employ solar panels, as do 190 private households. Five biogas digesters, nine windmills, three hydroelectric projects,  ecological flood control and a natural waste water treatment system were part of the plan for energy independence. It all has worked well, and the town is debt-free. They actually formed several local companies to construct, install and manage their wind turbines, with local residents as investors.
www.care2.com, 24 August 2011

Bushehr online after 36 years of construction.
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been connected to the national grid. It began supplying around 60 MW of its 1000 MW capacity on Saturday 3 September at 11:29pm, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said. Construction on Bushehr by German company Siemens KWU started in 1975, but the work was stopped in 1979. Iran signed a deal with Russia in 1995, under which the plant was originally due to be finished in 1999, but the completion of the project was repeatedly delayed. The most recent delay, in February 2011, was caused by the discovery of damaged internals of a coolant pump supplied in the 1970s. To avoid potential consequences of metal debris getting on the fuel assemblies, they were unloaded and washed, while the reactor pressure vessel was cleaned. The fuel was reloaded in April and the plant achieved criticality in May 2011. In August 2011, the Government of Iran invited an International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to visit the country’s nuclear facilities, including nuclear power plant that has been built by Russia’s Atomstroyexport. According to Iran's nuclear officials, Bushehr power plant will reach 40% capacity during a ceremony that will be held on 12 September 2011. It is expected to reach full capacity in November or December 2011.
Nuclear Engineering International, 5 September 2011

North Anna shut down after earthquake.
The largest earthquake to hit the eastern US in 67 years has raised concerns about the safety of the country's nuclear power plants. The 5.8 magnitude quake's epicenter in Virginia on August 23, was close to the North Anna plant, 130 kilometers southwest of Washington. The plant lost power and automatically halted operations after the quake. While the operator reported no 'major' damage to the facility, three diesel generators were required to kick in and keep the reactors' radioactive cores cool. A fourth diesel unit failed. While nuclear power plants can operate safely on back-up power, failure of generators was a key reason for the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant

A spokesman for the operator said the plant was designed to withstand an earthquake of up to 6.2 in magnitude. But some groups have expressed concern about the narrow margin between the design metrics and the quake's size. 'It was uncomfortably close to design basis,' said Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has pushed for stronger nuclear regulations. 'If Fukushima wasn't a wake-up call, this really needs to be to get the NRC and industry moving to do seismic reviews of all the nuclear power plants in the country.' An article in the Washington Post reports that the earthquake moved dry casks (huge concrete containers holding spent nuclear fuel), weighing between 100 to 115 tons, by as much as four inches (10 centimeters).

Twelve other nuclear plants along the Eastern Seaboard declared an "unusual event" following the quake, the lowest of the NRC's emergency classification ratings. North Anna's "alert" status is one step further up on a four-step U.S. emergency scale.

North Anna's reactors are among 27 east of the Rockies that the NRC highlighted during a seismic review last year as presenting a potential hazard, due to the amount of ground-shaking they were designed to withstand. Many nuclear experts say plants in the United States were designed with big margins of error  built in, but last year's NRC survey found that the risks posed by earthquakes were higher than  previously thought.
RTE (Ireland), 24 August 2011 / Reuters, 24 August 2011 / Washington Post, 1 September 2011

Germany: no need for nuclear reserve capacity.
Germany's grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) said August 31 that it has decided against keeping one idled nuclear reactor on standby as reserve capacity for the coming two winter seasons to ensure power grid stability after the government permanently closed eight older reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in March. "Our investigations have shown that even in exceptional contingencies the transmission system will remain operational without the dispatch of a reserve nuclear power plant," BNetzA President Matthias Kurth said in a statement.

The government has asked the grid regulator to investigate the need for a nuclear reserve capacity during the winter after transmission system operators in May warned of possible blackouts during extreme winter weather should the eight older reactors remain shut permanently, removing at least 5,000 MW of nuclear capacity from the market.
Platts, 31 August 2011

International blockade Olkiluoto, Finland.
On August 20, 2011 a blockade of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant under construction took place for the second time gathering people from several regions of Finland and from other European countries on the streets. One year ago, on August 28, 2010, it was the very first public street blockade of an atomic facility in Finland ever. It had been started with the support of a number of European and Finnish environmental and anti-nuclear groups. The gathering of the Nuclear Heritage Network, an international network of anti-nuclear activists, taking part in March 2010 in Helsinki had initiated the idea of the blockade and developed it together with the variety of Finnish NGOs and groups. The goal was to question the international reputation of Finland as the country of the so-called "renaissance of nuclear power", and to show that even in this country being under strong pressure of the nuclear lobby atomic power has noch support of the citizens.

For Finnish anti-nuclear activists the Olkiluoto Blockade was also an important occassion for meeting each other and exchanging as so far there doesn't exist any other nationwide organizing structures for a common anti-nuclear strategy. In the south as well as in the north strong networks of local initiatives and organizations exist and in some cases they successfully opposed to projects of uranium mining and new nuclear reactors constructions. However, cross connections between those groups and networks are created so far only in mutual big actions like the Olkiluoto Blockade or the anti-nuclear infotour around the Baltic Sea that also took place in 2010.

This year a blockade of about 100 activists from Finland, Sweden, Germany, Russia, France, United Kingdom and Belarus several times stopped the traffic on the access roads to the disputed Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland. Police had announced to prevent the blockade of roads that were supposed to take place for the second time. They forced protesters from the streets again and again towards a bus stop nearby. Nevertheless, the activists succeeded several times to blockade the main access road to the nuclear power plant for some minutes, while an additional access street had been closed for some two hours by a wooden tripod construction with an activist on the top.
www.greenkids.de

Donors agree to fund new Chernobyl shelter.
There appears to be enough money (at last after almost 15 years) for a new sarcophagus at the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine. The Nuclear Safety Account and the Chernobyl Shelter Fund donors agreed to provide the necessary financial resources for the implementation of the Chernobyl projects. The decision was made at the Assembly of Contributors to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund meeting on July 7, 2011, in London. The new construction will help "neutralize any possible future threats to the environment from the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine".

The needed amount of financial resources for the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) funding is EUR 740 mln. On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl tragedy on April 26, 2011, a fundraiser was held resulting in donors' obligations of EUR 550 mln. The new decision of the world donors allows for the immediate start of the SIP execution and its completion by 2015. The SIP involves stabilization of the existing sarcophagus and the construction of a New Safe Confinement (NSC) for the damaged nuclear reactor.

In 1988 local scientists announced that the life time of the sarcophagus was 20 to 30 years. The Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) was established nearly a decade later in December of 1997 to collect funds for the NSC project. Currently, the European Union, the United States, and Ukraine cooperate to help meet the CSF's objective while the EBRD is entrusted to manage the CSF and provide oversight of the funds disbursement.

The construction of the original Chernobyl sarcophagus began on May 20, 1986 - three weeks after the accident, and lasted for 206 days.
PRNewswire, 14 July 2011

PSC shifts risks costs overruns to public.
US: Georgia utility regulators agreed on August 2, to scrap a proposal that would have eaten into Georgia Power’s profits should the costs for its nuclear expansion project exceed US$300 million. The Georgia Public Service Commission unanimously approved the plan after making sure the commissioners could review previously approved project costs if there is a budget increase. Customers would pay for cost overruns in their monthly bills unless the PSC determines the overruns are Georgia Power's fault.
Georgia Power is part of a group of utilities building two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. The utility is responsible for US$6.1 billion of the estimated US$14 billion project. The company has been at odds with the PSC’s advocacy staff over how to handle potential cost overruns for the project. The advocacy staff wanted to cut into the utility’s profits if the costs exceeded US$300 million over budget. The advocacy staff agreed to drop its plan if Georgia Power allowed regulators to re-examine previously approved parts of the project if there is a budget increase. If regulators determine that Georgia Power's mistake led to the cost overruns, consumers would not have to pay the additional costs.
Consumer advocates have criticized the PSC's move as shifting all of the burden of the project's cost onto Georgia Power customers, who already are paying for the plant's financing costs.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2 August 2011

Walk away from uranium mining.
Footprints for Peace, an international grassroots group that organizes walks, bike rides and runs around the world, invites families and people of all ages, background and cultures to come and support traditional owners in their opposition to uranium mining in Western Australia by taking part in the “Walk away from uranium mining” that began in Wiluna on August 19 and will finish in Perth on October 28. "We will demonstrate that we have the choice to walk away from this costly, toxic industry — which produces radioactive waste and weapons usable material — in favour of renewable energy options." Footprints for Peace are working together with the Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA) to organise this grassroots awareness-raising and action-based campaign. Everyone is welcome to join the walk for a few hours, a day, a few weeks or the whole way. Even if you cannot walk we still require financial assistance, drivers, kitchen crew members, media liaison volunteers, video operators and photographers, musicians, artists, singers and general support for daily events, such as camp set up and pack up, food shopping and water collection. The walkers will cover a distance of 20 to 25 kilometres a day, with a rest day every five days……… The walk’s conclusion in Perth will coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. There we will deliver our well-supported and strong message that it is time to shut down the nuclear industry’s plans to expand in Western Australia and the rest of Australia.

For more information please visit: http://nuclearfreefuture.com/
GreenLeft (Aus.) 23 July 2011

Sellafield: No prosecutions for organ harvesting.
Recent correspondence has revealed that no one will be prosecuted over the body hacking scandal carried out by the nuclear industry for over 40 years in collusion with government, hospitals, coroners and doctors.

From 1960 to 1991, body parts were taken without consent from 64 former Sellafield workers and 12 workers from nuclear sites in Springfields, Capenhurst, Dounreay and Aldermaston. The liver was removed in all cases and one or both lungs in all but one incident. Vertebrae, sternum, ribs, lymph nodes, spleen, kidneys and fermur were also stripped in the majority of cases. Brains, tongues, hearts and testes were also taken on the advice of the medical officer at Sellafield.

Correspondence from Cumbria Constabulary has been seen which says that despite the findings of the Redfern Inquiry (into the scandal; see Nuclear Monitor 721, 17 December 2010)  that the relationship between the nuclear industry and fellow bodysnatching conspirators was "too close" no one will be prosecuted as it is not "in the public interest".

Extract from a letter sent by ‘Special Operations’ - Cumbria Constabulary: "the issues you raise which I have listed below;
1. That specific people and institutions have breached the Human Tissue Act and that this should be investigated.
2. That an investigation into whether there was any unlawful corruption of the coronial processes had taken place
3. The stipends made to mortuary attendants are also of particular concern.
This was a Government led review which involved both the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Ministry of Justice. As such any requirement on the police to investigate identified breaches as outlined above would be made by the Government. No such request has been made". (end quotation Cumbria Constabulary correspondence)
Well, surprise, surprise: No such request is likely to be made.
http://101-uses-for-a-nuclear-power-station.blogspot.com/2011/07/dodgy-hacking.html

Floating Nuke Plant Seized in Bankruptcy
A St. Petersburg court seized the 70MW floating nuclear power station under construction at the Baltiisky Zavod shipyards after Rosenergoatom, the division of the Rosatom nuclear monopoly that commissioned it, demanded recognition of its right of ownership to the unfinished vessel. The July 26 court order gave the go-ahead for the seizure on the basis of "significant risk" that Rosenergoatom could lose its investment in the 9.8 billion ruble ($334 million) vessel if another claimant seized Baltiisky Zavod's assets during bankruptcy proceedings.

The ship yard, which is 88.3 percent owned by former Tuva governor Segei Pugachev's United Industrial Corporation is facing litigation from numerous disgruntled creditors. International Industrial Bank, also known as Mezhprombank, had its operating license revoked when it declared itself bankrupt in November. In January prosecutors launched a criminal case against the bank for intentional bankruptcy.

The dispute is not the first to hit Rosatom's ambitious plans to build a generation of floating nuclear power stations to serve remote coastal communities in Russia's north and Far East. Interfax on Thursday quoted an unidentified source at Rosatom saying the contract could be reassigned to another shipbuilder. If true, it would be the second time a contractor has lost the order from Rosatom, which originally commissioned the Sevmash shipyard to build the controversial floating nuclear plants in 2006. Rosenergoatom tore up that agreement in 2008 and signed a new deal with Baltiisky Zavod in 2009. Baltiisky Zavod is scheduled to finish the first station in 2012, according to the contract. The 70-megawatt plant is destined for Kamchatka.
Moscow Times, 15 August 2011

A report stunning in its candor prepared for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by the county’s state nuclear monopoly in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster reveals that Russia’s atomic reactors are grievously under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters ranging from floods to fires to earthquakes or plain negligence.

The report of the first round of stress tests on Russia’s nuclear reactors, prepared by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, was obtained by Bellona Web and other environmental groups and distributed to Norwegian and Russian media. In the report, 31 serious flaws that make Russia’s nuclear industry extremely vulnerable to natural disasters are catalogued.

As such, the report is one of the few documents to surface in recent history that actually flatly contradicts Russia’s own rosy assessment that its reactors are safe – a propaganda campaign that was kicked into high gear by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Medvedev after the March 11 quake and tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi, causing three meltdowns.

Bellona nuclear physicist Nils Bøhmer called the Rosatom report “shocking.” “It makes for dramatic reading with a view to the fact that the report comes from the owner of the nuclear plants,” he said, describing it as “the most serious description of the status of Russian nuclear plants I have ever seen from Rosatom.”

Report confirms long-held fears
The two Russian nuclear power plants that are closest to Finland and Norway – Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and Kola NPP, respectively – are of the most concern to the international community. Both are in close proximity to Western Europe.

“The report reveals deficiencies which have never before been mentioned publicly, nor reported internationally,” chief engineer Ole Reistad of the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFI) told Norway’s NRK television.

Of particular concern at the Leningrad NPP (LNPP) is its use of the fatally flawed Chernobyl-type RMBK-1000 reactors. LNPP operates four RMBK-1000s, while the Kola NPP runs four aged VVER-440 reactors, two of which received engineering life span extensions in 2003 and 2004.

The Rosatom report, stating what many have asserted since Chernobyl, detailed “flaws and defects” in the design of the RMBK-1000 series that could lead to severe accidents - specifically, problems with control rod mechanisms, which are necessary to keep the nuclear reaction in the reactor under control.

The report’s revelations have alarmed the government of Norway. Norwegian State Secretary Erik Lahnstein of the Foreign Ministry, who received an overview of the report, told Aftenposten he wanted a full copy of the report sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying “this confirms what Norwegian authorities have claimed for a long time.”

He stressed that Russia should shut down its oldest reactors. The Rosatom document said four reactors have been in shutdown mode for 20 years, and no decommissioning plans have yet been set in motion. This would arguably present difficulties in decommissioning other aged reactors in Russia.

Ole Harbitz, head of the crisis commission for the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, said of the report that it showed Russia was rethinking the vulnerability of its nuclear reactors to natural phenomena in the post-Fukushima era.

The dangers have been proven before: In the 1990s a severe storm knocked out primary and back-up power supplies to Kola NPP and Norway had to deliver enormous power generators to keep coolant flowing. In 2006, another power outage threatened coolant systems at the plutonium reactor at the Mayak Chemical Combine.

In Finland, Keijo Valtonen, an official at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland (STUK) somewhat soft-pedalled the dangers posed by Russia’s reactors, particularly those at Kola and Leningrad nuclear power plants.

Valtonen told Helsingen Sanomat that most of Russia’s nuclear plants meet Western safety standards, but that new threats might arise in inspections made after the catastrophe at Fukushima.

But Valtonen has an agenda of his own: By some estimates, some 30 to 40 percent of power produced at Leningrad NPP is exported to Finland, and annual inspections of the plant by representatives of STUK consistently give it high marks, despite environmental dangers that are regularly revealed and confirmed there.

What the report said
Among the more critical safety failings relayed to Medvedev in the report, Rosatom found that Russia’s plants do not have relevant regulations in place for personnel to know how to deal with large-scale natural disasters or other serious contingencies; protective shelter for workers would not accommodate the largest teams on any given shift in the event of an accident, and Rosatom does not keep records of previous accidents, meaning workers do not have the benefit of learning from previous mistakes or improving remedial measures, among other shortcomings.

Elsewhere in the report, Rosatom points out that electrical and safety-significant systems do not receive the attention they need, resulting in a lack of required protection.

The Rosatom document also questioned the capability of reactors to remain safe for extended periods of time if cooling systems fail. There is no guarantee that power backup systems will be effective should this happen - the primary difficulty that beset Fukushima Daiichi when the quake and tsunami hit.

Additionally, key equipment involved in the cooling process suffers from metal fatigue and welding flaws – yet another problem that was ignored at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor No 1 when regulators there agreed to give it a 10-year operational life span extension – which contributed to a total failure of cooling at the reactor.

Hydrogen control systems also do not correspond to regulations, meaning Russian reactors are vulnerable to the kinds of hydrogen explosions that tore through three reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi.

Most importantly, in light of the Fukushima disaster, the report also said that the risk of earthquakes has not been considered as a safety factor for Russian nuclear facilities. Furthermore, not all of Russia’s reactors have automatic shutdown mechanisms like the Fukushima Daiichi plant, should an earthquake occur.

Nor are there currently clear guidelines or sufficient infrastructure for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management, leading to fears of SNF leaks during a disaster – as also happened in Japan. With respect to Russia’s RBMK-1000 reactors, spent fuel is simply allowed to accrue in onsite storage because of lack of space to store it and because no technologies have been developed to reprocess it. Solid and liquid waste facilities across Russia are filled to at least 60 percent, and these facilities at Leningrad, Kursk and Smolensk NPPs – all of which run RBMK 100 reactors – are filled to 85 percent capacity.

Reactor buildings at many of Russia’s nuclear power plants are also aged and susceptible to structural failure - meaning the buildings could collapse without the help of mother nature.

Further, the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear oversight, or Rostekhnadzor – Russia’s nuclear industry watchdog – lacks safety inspectors, and there is a shortage of qualified maintenance workers at NPPs across the country.

Rosatom Chief Sergei Kiriyenko was quick to comment on the report once Norwegian news outlets and Russian environmentalists had publicized its findings, saying it was just a matter of money to fix Russia’s shortcomings in the area of back-up power and coolant system deficiencies.

In the Vedomosti business daily, he cited a figure of 5 billion rubles (US$986 million) to bring Russia’s reactors up to specifications by enhancing their back-up power and coolant systems. To counter cost overruns, Kiryenko told the paper, Rosatom would rely on the government.

No stress test for Russia. According to Kirill Kormarov, deputy general director for global business development at Russian state energy corporation Rosatom, Russia has no plans to submit its nuclear reactors directly to EU-style safety stress tests. "We've done tests already", he said. The EU agreed common criteria in May for safety tests to be carried out on all 143 EU reactors starting June 1 (see Nuclear Monitor 728, June 17, 2011: 'Little Stress With Stress Test').

The European Commission has also pushed for the EU's neighbors to agree to a similar nuclear safety review, but currently there is only a "joint declaration to contribute to transparency and to participate in the peer review [a review of national safety reports at an EU level by the European nuclear regulators' group Ensreg]." The declaration was signed on June 23 by the EC and Armenia, Belarus, Croatia, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.
Platts, 28 June 2011

Source and contact: Charles Digges and Maria Kaminskaya, Bellona Foundation, 21 June 2011.
Web: www.bellona.org

On February 17, the Russian government decided to delay investment into large-scale program aimed at construction of new nuclear reactors and large hydro plants. Russian deputy prime minister Igor Sechin proposed to re-direct governmental funding to other areas with federal budget deficit. Russian government expect to save around 15 billion rubles (US$500 million; 365 million euro) by delaying new nuclear reactors and hydro plants. No detail was given so far about how it will affect projects of new nuclear plants which are already under construction.

The decision to re-direct government funding, corresponds with earlier statements by Russian Government’ Accounting Office (GAO) which suggested most of the reactors will not be built on time. In March 2010, Russian GAO released results of its inspection of the Ministry of energy. GAO concluded that 60% of new reactors scheduled to come on-line before 2015 will not be built in time. Russian state nuclear corporation  Rosatom did not comment on this, but in other statements it said reactors may come on-line later than planned because the economic crisis affected energy demand.

In 2008 Russian government approved "General scheme for energy generating capacities" which included detailed plan for construction of all types of power plants during the next two decades. This scheme suggested 13GWt of new reactor capacity will be installed by 2015 (equal to 13 VVER-1000 units or 11 VVER-1200 units). Then in 2010 GAO admitted only 5,2GWt will be installed by 2015. But this figure is far from reality too, according to Russian anti-nuclear campaigners.

“Russian government is supporting  Rosatom in any way it can. It’s completely blind when it comes to nuclear industry ignoring democratic norms in the process of site selection and licensing of reactors; also when local population is protesting and the site is geologically inappropriate for construction. But even then, it is unlikely that Rosatom will install 5,2GWt until 2015 in Russia. They can rather hope for 2-3 new reactors”, said Russian environmental group Ecodefense in its press-statement following decision of Russian government on February 17.

Vladimir Milov, former deputy minister for energy in Russian government and presently one of the opposition leaders, told the 'Nuclear Monitor' that for two years, it was clear that the number of new reactors will be reduced because the consequences of economic crisis in Russia are big.

Currently, there are several reactors under construction in Russia: two light water units of the new VVER-1200 design at Novovoronezh-2 nuclear complex, same design at Leningrad-2 nuclear power plant, one older light water reactor VVER-1000 at Kalinin and a fastbreeder BN-800 at Beloyarsk. Construction of last two units started well over 20 years ago while newer units’ construction started just 3 years ago.

At two more sites in North-West and Central Russia the construction of reactors may start in 2011 and 2012. At the site of Baltic nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad region, near the border with Lithuania, preparatory work is going on since February 2010. It is planned that first unit of VVER-1200 design will be put in operation by 2016. According to nuclear industry sources, active reactor construction may start as soon as Spring 2011.

Another site located close to the ancient city of Murom, 300 km east of Moscow, is under controversial development. At the end of 2010, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom obtained license allowing preparatory work on-site. That license came only on the condition that Rosatom will spend one year to conduct research which will bring better understanding of the site’ geological condition. Russian regulatory attempted to both satisfy Rosatom with permit for nuclear plant construction and opponents of the project who criticized poorly prepared documentation and site selection process.

In 2010, reports were published several times about large-scale corruption at the construction site of Novovoronezh-2, which leads to lower safety and may possible slow down the project. Reports were published mostly by 'ProAtom', the pro-nuclear internet forum close to a group of influential former nuclear professionals.

Another report on the risk of corruption in Rosatom-operations came from “Transparency International – R” and Ecodefense in November 2010. The two groups analyzed open trade operations by various branches of  Rosatom and concluded that the risk of corruption is very high because of poor governmental regulation and the control over the state company is very weak. Rosatom publicly denied the conclusion in a statement for the media. But then it invited “Transparency International – R” to a private closed-door meeting in which (according to sources in TI-R) it confirmed that some corruption exist on lower level and proposed various joint activities.

Lack of governmental funds, corruption, growing criticism over Rosatom's activities among the Russian public – it is clear that all these reasons will play a role in slowing down reactor construction in Russia. It may be hard to predict today the exact number of new reactors which will appear across Russia during the next decade, but it is clear that a new, much more difficult epoch has arrived for Rosatom.

Source and contact: WISE Russia

Most people understand that radiation from nuclear weapons production or civilian nuclear power plant accidents carry large potential health threats. Since the 1986 catastrophic Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union, a conservatively estimated 9,000 people have contracted or died from radiation-caused cancers. And an area of the Earth that is home to three billion people was contaminated by Chernobyl fallout which is found in every country in the Northern Hemisphere. Twenty-five years after the accident, sheep from parts of Wales cannot be sold because their pastures are still contaminated with radioactive Cesium-137.

CCNS - In the five years following the accident a staggering 750,000 Soviet citizens worked at the impossible task of cleaning up Chernobyl. It is this nearly one million clean-up workers, plus several million more living near or downwind of the destroyed reactor, that have suffered the worst health effects, including more cancer, heart disease, cataract of the eye, birth and health damage in children, psychological problems and damaged immune systems. In the case of the latter, a damaged immune system can open the body to non-radiation related diseases, chronic infections, colds and flu.

Because of the health risks of nuclear technology, commercial and government interests as well as international agencies who set nuclear policy have tried to control the public's understanding of the health effects of radiation. The Department of Energy (DOE) conducts the US nuclear weapons program, but also funds research on radiation's health effects. Many non-government health scientists view DOE-funded radiation studies as skeptically as they view studies funded by tobacco companies on lung cancer and smoking. The world's nuclear powers have always given nuclear weapons and nuclear power priority over the public health impact of nuclear technology. For instance, is it good public health policy to legally allow nuclear power plants to routinely release radioactive gases even though we now have proof that no dose, however small, is free of added cancer risk?

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose mission statement includes global promotion of nuclear power, also puts weapons and power generation before health concerns. In fact, the IAEA and the UN World Health Organization have a written agreement that keeps radiation-health studies by the health agency from public release until the atomic agency gives its permission.

The cover up of radiation's health effects started immediately after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In the following four years, while 100,000 weakened survivors died, the US authorities forbade all medical studies. The 1986 Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union is another example of the same cover up. Soviet doctors were forbidden to mention radiation in Chernobyl patient reports. Instead health problems were attributed to fatigue, smoking, diet, lifestyle, or irrational fear of radiation. Health data were kept secret, even from patients themselves, for three years after the accident.

Since Chernobyl, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian regional researchers have conducted thousands of health studies on the survivors. Western scientific committees have dismissed these studies because they are written mainly in Russian or fall short of the arguably arbitrary standard for statistical significance. In December 2009, however, leading Russian scientists published an English summary covering more than 5,000 studies of the health impacts of Chernobyl. These studies often showed worse health damage than did studies funded by Western governments or the UN. In 2009, summaries of 5,000 of these studies were first published in English by the New York Academy of Sciences.

Some of the findings include:

 *1. Although half of Chernobyl's radioactivity fell outside of European Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, no health studies have included these areas. In other words, half of the total exposure to Chernobyl's radiation has been ignored.

 *2. The list of health damages is longer than Western studies show. Examples include: radiation-accelerated aging; brain damage in exposed individuals and their children; fully developed eye cataracts in young people; tooth and mouth abnormalities; blood, heart, lung, stomach, intestine and urinary problems plus bone and skin diseases; glandular problems, especially thyroid cancer and thyroid dysfunction. Genetic damage and birth defects were also found, especially in the children of clean-up workers and newborns in areas with high radiation areas. Immune system damage also increased viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections. For over 20 years, overall illness continues high in exposed populations and these health problems affect millions.

 *3. Of an estimated 750,000 Chernobyl clean-up workers, approximately 117,000 had died by 2005. Most of these were healthy young people in 1986.

 *4. Official sources say that in the 70 years following Chernobyl, cancer will claim about 18,500 lives and twice that number will get cancer. The independent scientists say that 18,500 is low by a factor of 21; that cancer deaths will be around 230,000 in Europe plus 19,000 outside Europe; and that environmental contamination will generate new cancers for hundreds of years.

Chernobyl's core lesson is that a very serious nuclear accident can risk the health of millions of people. And we never can eliminate all possibility of a shattering nuclear accident from engineering failure, human error, or terrorist threat.

Now these studies are available online for the first time.

'Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment' was published December 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). Its hardcopy sale price from the NYAS has been US$150 for Nonmembers; out of reach, of course, for most all-volunteer anti-nuclear groups. Besides that, NYAS only printed 700 hardcopies of the book to begin with. Now, no copies are left, and it is unknown if more will be printed. But now all 335 pages are viewable online at no charge in PDF format. Go to: http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d.... Click on 'Full Tex'. Then, under 'Annals Access', next to 'Nonmembers', click on 'View Annals TOC free'. This will allow you, chapter by chapter, to download and/or view the entire text of the book, for free.

Sources: Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) News Updates, 29 October & 5 November 2010 / Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear

Rehabilitation Chernobyl-area. If Ukrainian authorities have their way, the fields surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor could soon be growing fruit and vegetables. Ukrainian officials feel it is time to start a rehabilitation process for the land affected. A report will be published next March, before the disaster's 25th anniversary in April. One plan previously mooted involved growing rapeseed rather than edible crops in the areas. Rapeseed can be used to make biofuels and is relatively resistant to radiation. Scientists were split over the plan. Some said that in areas where intensive rehabilitation programs had been done, soil-radiation levels could be reduced to near-normal levels, but others said disturbing the land would risk catastrophe.

New Zealand Herald, 20 November 2010

In the run up to the 25th commemoration of the Chernobyl accidents, April 2011, the Nuclear Monitor will publish articles on several aspects of the accident and the destroyed reactor. The  first article is about the Sarcophagus and the New Safe Confinement, which has to replace it.

Following the explosion on April 26, 1986, a massive concrete ‘sarcophagus’ was constructed around the damaged Number 4 Reactor. This sarcophagus encases the damaged nuclear reactor and was designed to halt the release of further radiation into the atmosphere. However, hastily constructed this structure is now cracking open and leaking out lethal doses of radiation.

Chernobyl Sarcophagus – The end or just the beginning? Since the accident, Central and Eastern Europe have undergone momentous political changes. The USSR no longer exists. Chernobyl is now the responsibility of the respective governments of each of the affected countries, but the fallout from Chernobyl continues to kill and mar the lives of millions. Despite all the words that have been written about the accident, little has changed for the better. In fact, in many ways the situation is getting worse.

The scientists admit that the sarcophagus which encases the damaged nuclear reactor is now cracking open and leaking out lethal doses of radiation. In 1988 Soviet scientists announced that the sarcophagus was only designed for a lifetime of 20 to 30 years. Holes and fissures in the structure now cover 100 square metres, some of which are large enough to drive a car through. These cracks and holes are further exacerbated by the intense heat inside the reactor, which is still over 200 degrees Celsius. The sarcophagus’s hastily and poorly built concrete walls, which are steadily sinking, act as a lid on the grave of the shattered reactor.

Only 3% of the original nuclear material was expelled in 1986, leaving behind 216 tons of uranium and plutonium still buried inside the exploded reactor, is a chilling reminder that the explosion was not the end, but rather the beginning.

Scientists now agree that this sarcophagus will eventually collapse, and when it does there will be an even great release of radioactivity than in the initial accident.

Inside the Sarcophagus
There are 740,000 cubic metres of lethally contaminated debris inside the sarcophagus, which is ten times more than was previously thought. Locked inside lies is 30 tons of highly contaminated dust, 16 tons of uranium and plutonium and 200 tons of radioactive lava. The rain pours through causing corrosion, the weight of 3,000 cubic meters of water lodging each year further adds to the possibility of the roof caving in.

The result of the water and dust mixing is a dangerous radioactive ‘soup’. When the building became highly radioactive the engineers were unable to physically screw down the nuts and bolts or apply any direct welding of the Sarcophagus, this work was done by robotics, and unfortunately the result is that the seams of the building are not sealed thus allowing water to enter and radiation to escape on a daily basis. The problem of controlling the water and dust inside has never been resolved. This type of project has never been undertaken before and no one knows for sure if it will be effective enough to contain the radioactivity or what will happen in 100 years times.

Chernobyl’s debris will be radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and must be treated and buried in shallow graves as an urgent priority. In 1998, finally with the help of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a stabilization programme was completed which included securing the roof beams from collapsing.

The New Safe Confinement structure
A Chernobyl Shelter Fund was established in 1997 at the Denver G8 Summit to finance the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). The plan calls for transforming the site into an ecologically safe condition by stabilising the Sarcophagus followed by construction of a New Safe Confinement (NSC).

Now, according to Igor Gramotkin, Director-General of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, completion of the facility's New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure will not occur before 2013. Design delays have pushed back the structure's expected completion date.

While the original cost estimate for the SIP was US$768 million, the 2006 estimate was US$1.2 billion, which in July 2009 had increased to US$1.6 billion. The SIP is being managed by a consortium of Bechtel,  Battelle, and Electricité de France. The conceptual design for the NSC consists of a movable arch, constructed away from the shelter to avoid high radiation, to be slid over the sarcophagus.

If completed it may be the largest moveable structure ever built. After construction this structure will be the height of a 35 story building. Inside, robotic cranes and, where possible, live workers will then begin the delicate job of prying apart the wreckage and removing the radioactive materials. 

Sources: www.chernobylee.com/blog/new-safe-confinement;  www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl-sarcophagus.html

The New Safe Confinement Time schedule

In 1992, the Ukraine Government held an International Competition for proposals to replace the hastily constructed sarcophagus. A pan-European study (the TACIS programme) re-examined the proposals of the top three finalists of the competition. The study selected the British Sliding Arch proposal as the best solution for their further investigations and recommendations.

The structure was originally intended to be completed in 2005, but has since been postponed.

The following schedule was released in June 2003:

• 12 February 2004 - complete the NSC conceptual design.
• 13 March 2004 - Government of Ukraine to approve the conceptual design.
• 13 June 2004 through 13 September 2004 - conduct a tender and sign a contract with the winner to proceed with relevant engineering and construction work.
• 16 April 2006 through 20 May 2007 - lay foundations for the NSC.
• 20 February through 29 February 2008 - slide the arch structure in place over the existing Shelter.                                                                                                                         But only on 17 September 2007, it was reported that the project contract was finally signed with French consortium Novarka, but not much has been heard from it since then.
  

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On October 21, Greenpeace activists in a number of European countries (Russia, Luxemburg, Turkey and France) called on the international bank BNP Paribas to “stop radioactive investments”, including its plans to fund an obsolete, dangerous nuclear reactor in Brazil. 

In Paris, Greenpeace activists used a BNP decorated armoured truck to deliver millions of fake ‘radioactive BNP-Paribas notes’ to AREVA’s, headquarters, the company that is building Angra 3, exposing the nuclear link between the two.  The banking group, which provides more finance to nuclear industry than any other bank in the world: BNP invested €13.5 billion (US$ 18.7 billion) in nuclear energy projects from 2000-2009. Profundo, independent investments consultancy research. Summary of the findings, as well as full report, available at www.nuclearbanks.org.  BNP is planning to provide crucial financing for the construction of the nuclear reactor Angra 3, just 150 kilomet-rers from Rio de Janeiro, as part of a French banking consortium. The total amount that is reported to be negotiated is €1.1billion.  

"Angra 3 must be cancelled. It uses technology that pre-dates the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and that would not be permitted for use in the countries that are financing it. There has been no proper safety analysis and the legality of the project is in doubt. It will not benefit the people of Brazil,” said Jan Beránek Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner. 

“BNP’s customers have the right to know that their bank is misusing their money. Brazil does not need more nuclear electricity, it has abundant wind, hydro and biomass resources for energy – all of which provide cheaper options without creating environmental and health hazards,” he continued. 

The construction of Angra 3 started in 1984 and stopped in 1986 following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, when banks withdrew their funding. Most of the equipment that will be used to build the reactor pre-dates Chernobyl and has been left on the site for the last 25 years. It is now dangerously obsolete. 

Angra 3 falls far behind current generation of reactor technologies, which themselves suffer safety problems, construction delays and skyrocketing costs. Any large-scale upgrades and adaptations required to integrate new safety requirements will lead not only to higher construction costs, but also increase the risk of unplanned outages during its operation. There are additional safety concerns, such as, in its planning, there was no risk-analysis carried out, in clear violation of international standards: International Atomic Energy Agency Safety Requirements stipulate that the probabilistic safety assessment is performed and evaluated prior to construction. This has not been done for Angra 3 as is pointed out in both the official license from Brazil’s nuclear regulator CNEN (Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear)as well as from ISTEC German report. Angra 3 is accessible only via one road, which frequently is blocked due landslides. As is the reality for all nuclear reactors, there is still no permanent or safe solution for storing hazardous nuclear waste, which remains lethal for millennia.  

"The financial players have been telling us for too long they are not responsible for the direction of energy, it is a political problem. In reality, it is they as well as manufacturers who allow these dangerous nuclear projects to see the light of day,"said Sophia Majnoni d’Intignano, Greenpeace France nuclear campaigner.  

"It is high time that the banks fulfil their responsibilities. Greenpeace calls on BNP Paribas to announce its immediate withdrawal from Angra 3 and allow full transparency on its radioactive investments.”  

Greenpeace launched this campaign on 16 October, when volunteers began putting posters up around BNP branches and stickers on its ATM machines asking the public: "Do you know what your bank does with your money? " 

For more information check:  http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/BNP-Paribas-and-dangers-of-financing-nuclear-power/    
Source: Greenpeace Press release, 21 October 2010

Russia has embarked on a scheme to building floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts -especially off northern and eastern Russia- and sold to nations around the world. “Absolutely safe,” Sergei Kiriyenko, director general of Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation, told Reuters as the barge that is to serve as the base for the first floating plant was launched recently in St. Petersburg.

However, David Lochbaum, senior safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, describes an accident at a floating nuclear power plant as “worse” than at a land-based plant. “In a meltdown, a China syndrome accident, the molten mass of what had been the core would burrow into the ground and some of the radioactive material held there. But with a floating nuclear plant, all the molten mass would drop into the water and there would be a steam explosion and the release of a tremendous amount of energy and radioactive material. It would be like a bomb going off,” said Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at Washington-based UCS.

“With a floating nuclear plant you have a mechanism to significantly increase the amount of radioactive material going into the environment,” said Lochbaum, who worked 18 years as an engineer in the nuclear industry and also for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A large plume of radioactive poisons would be formed and “many more people would be put in harm’s way.” Further, there would be radioactive pollution of the sea, he noted.

Nuclear experts in Europe -including in Russia- are as critical as Lochbaum is about floating nuclear power plants and their unique accident potential. Other issues raised include the floating plants being sources of fuel for nuclear weapons and easy targets for terrorists.

“This project is clearly a risky venture,” said Alexander Nitikin, a former chief engineer on nuclear-powered submarines of the Soviet Union and senior inspector for the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Inspection Department for its Department of Defense. He is now head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Bellona Foundation, an international environmental organization. “Safety shouldn’t be neglected for the profits Rosatom wants to get from selling floating nuclear power plants to the troubled regions. Such Rosatom activities simply violate the idea of non-proliferation.”

The floating nuclear plants would use a far more volatile fuel compared to land-based plants: weapons-grade uranium containing 40 percent Uranium-235. The U-235 enrichment level in land-based plants is 3 percent. Each would include two reactors providing a total of 70 megawatts of electricity.

A press release by Rosatom issued with the June 30th launch of the football field-sized barge at St. Petersburg said “there are many countries, including in the developing world, showing interest” in the plants.

The Times of London has reported countries interested in buying them include China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria and Argentina (“Floating Nuclear Power Stations Raise Spectre of Chernobyl at Sea.”) World Nuclear News in its article added Namibia and Cape Verde to the list

The notion of a floating nuclear power plant being pursued by Russia originated in the United States where it was scuttled because of excessive cost, public opposition and lack of energy need. Public Service Electric and Gas. Co. of New Jersey, in its literature, has related that while taking a shower in 1969 the idea of floating nuclear plants came to its vice president for engineering and construction, Richard Eckert. In the shower, Eckert thought that the sea could supply the mammoth amounts of water nuclear plants need as coolant.

PSE&G convinced Westinghouse Electric Co. to build such plants. In 1970, Westinghouse and Tenneco set up Offshore Power Systems to fabricate them at a facility it built on Blount Island off Jacksonville, Florida. The plants were to be towed into position with the first four moored l.8 miles off Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, 11 miles northeast of Atlantic City. Costs skyrocketed, there were protests—in both Jacksonville and New Jersey as well as national opposition. And because of the 1973 oil crisis energy conservation reduced PSE&G’s need for more power. In 1984, Offshore Power Systems cancelled the undertaking and dissolved after spending $180 million on the failed venture.

Source: An extended version of this article by Karl Grossman was first published in CounterPunch, 27 July 2010.

Four years ago, the EU, Russia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the US picked Cadarache in the south of France as the location for the experimental nuclear fusion reactor, Iter. But since the science of how to achieve this type of fusion hasn't been settled (to put it mildly), the plans for the Iter project have been the subject of several revisions in recent years, each one leading to an increased price tag. Even opponents from within the scientific world are becoming more vocal to end the project.

Delegates at an extraordinary meeting of the Iter Council on July 28 also agreed a timeline that would see the first plasma experiments in 2019, with a fusion reactor generating significantly more power than it consumed (for a few minutes) by March 2027. But the Iter organisation was encouraged to explore ways to bring this deuterium-tritium operation forward to 2026. After research and development at Iter it should be possible to build a demonstration fusion power plant around 2030.

Coupled with the increases in costs for raw materials like steel and cement, the budget for the project has spiralled from around 5 billion euros to about 16 billion euros.

Delegates agreed that the overall costs of the project will be almost US$21 billion (16 billion euros), some three times the original price. Europe is paying 45% of the construction costs, while the other participants (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are paying 9% each.

Additional construction funds will have to come from within the EU's budget. The extra 1.4 billion euros will cover a shortfall in building costs in 2012-13. The EU has agreed to meet a critical short term shortfall of those 1.4 billion euros by using money that has been allocated to other research programmes. But the EU has said it will cap its overall contribution to Iter at 6.6 billion euros, leaving the fusion project to find cuts in costs of around 600 million euros.

In Europe, some scientists are unhappy with the EU proposal to take funds from unspent budgets to bail Iter out. In France, a group of physicists - including Nobel prize winner Georges Charpak - have written a letter to the press calling Iter a catastrophe and arguing that it should be shut down. They suggest that making up the shortfall in Iter's budget is costing France alone the equivalent of 20 years investment in physics and biology. According to one of the signatories, Professor Jacques Treiner from Paris University, it was time to call a halt to Iter before any more money was spent. "At a certain point especially when they say they will take money from other fields to fund this one you have to say, really a clear answer and the answer is no, don't do that."

More on the technical problems of  nuclear fusion: Fusion Illusions, Nuclear Monitor 698, 27 November 2009

Sources: BBC, 28 July 2010 / World Nuclear News, 29 July 2010

Russia to invest heavily in Namibia.
Russia is ready to invest US$1-billion in uranium exploration in Namibia. "We're ready to start investing already this year," the head of state corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, told journalists. Rosatom seeks to compete for projects with global miner Rio Tinto in the African country. Earlier in May, Russia and Turkey signed a US$20-billion project for Moscow to build and own a controlling stake in Turkey's first nuclear power plant.

Namibia, the world's fourth-largest uranium producer, is home to the Rossing mine operated by Rio Tinto, which together with Paladin Energy's Langer Heinrich mine accounts for about 10% of global output. Other firms have been joining the exploration drive, with several new mines due to come on stream in the next five years.

Although Russia plans to spent a lot of money on foreign nuclear projects, it is clear that there is not enough money to realize its domestic nuclear program. As described in Nuclear Monitor 707 the number of reactors planned to be built by 2015 will be cut by 60%. And even that number will be hard to build.
Reuters, 20 May 2010

UK: Decommissioning black hole.
The new U.K. Government will have to find an extra £4 billion for decommissioning and waste management at the UK civil nuclear. Energy minister Chris Huhne said: "as you can imagine, this is a fairly existential problem. The costs are such that my department is not so much the department of energy and climate change, as the department of nuclear legacy and bits of other things." He added that there were "genuine safety issues" so the costs could not be avoided. As a result, the Government is considering extending  the life of some of the UK's oldest reactors as a way of raising extra income for decommissioning. Extending the life of the reactors owned by the NDA would raise extra income. The Wylfa reactor on Anglesey, for example, is due to close at the end of the year, but extending its operating life for another two years would mean £ 500 million (US$ 736 million or 598 million euro) in new revenue. The NDA is also considering extending the life of the Oldbury reactor, first opened in 1968. Any application to extend the life of reactors would have to be approved by safety regulators.
N-Base Briefing, 9 and 16 June 2010

France: Subcontractors not in epidemiological surveys.
French antinuclear network 'Sortir du nucléaire' supports nuclear industry subcontractor and whistleblower Philippe Billard. As a spokesperson of the organisation 'Santé / Sous-traitance' (“Health and Subcontracting”), he has undergone some retaliation measures after having denounced workers exposure to radiation. As a  whistleblower, he’s now treated as persona non grata in nuclear power  plants. His employer refuses to re-instate him at his previous job, in  contradiction with the Labour Inspectorate’s recommendations.

The French antinuclear network “Sortir du nucléaire”, considers Philippe Billard’s ousting as a means to put pressure on whistleblower workers. “Sortir du nucléaire”  decided to bring its support to the workers who, just like Philippe Billard, suffer from the unbearable working conditions imposed by the nuclear industry and undergo irradiation without even receiving appropriate health care.

To protect its corporate image, EDF chose to give subcontractors the most dangerous tasks. These people working in the shadows have insecure jobs and are mostly temporary and/or nomad workers. Every year, 25,000 to 30,000 of them are made to carry out tasks where they are exposed to radiations. This system allows EDF to cover up a huge health scandal, since these subcontractors, who get 80% of the annual collective dose from the whole French nuclear park, are not taken into account in epidemiological surveys! (See: Annie Thébaud-Mony, « L’industrie nucléaire organise le non-suivi médical des travailleurs les plus exposés », Imagine, May-June 2007)

EDF is shamelessly multiplying talks on transparency while hushing up workers whistle blowing about the imminent catastrophe. In the ageing French nuclear park, the accident risk is increasing, all the more since maintenance periods are shortened in order to save time and money. However, the official motto remains “Nothing to report” and short-term profits are more important than common safety and security.
Press release 'Sortir du nucleaire', 31 May 2010

Switzerland: Thousands march against nuclear power.
More than 5,000 people gathered in Goesgen, canton Solothurn, in northern Switzerland on May 24, for a peaceful protest against the continuing development of nuclear energy in the country. The protest had participants from 83 groups in Switzerland, France, Germany and Austria. One of their key points was that Switzerland’s nuclear power plans are preventing the rapid development of alternative energy programs. The demonstration was one of the largest in last years.
www.menschenstrom.ch

Another subsidy for Areva in the U.S.
"As part of a broad effort to expand the use of nuclear power in the United States and reduce carbon pollution," the U.S. Department of Energy has approved a US$2 billion loan guarantee for French nuclear power developer Areva S.A. (owned for about 93 percent by the French State). The loan guarantee will support Areva's Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility near Idaho Falls, Idaho, which will supply uranium enrichment services for the U.S. nuclear power industry. Areva's US$3.3 billion nuclear enrichment facility will use centrifuge technology instead of gaseous diffusion technology that is more common in the U.S. but uses more energy. Areva had filed its application for the guarantee with the Department of Energy in September 2008.

The group can tap the guarantee once its Idaho Falls project has received full approval by the authorities. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide sometime next year on a licence for the facility. Areva plans to have the plant in operation in 2014. 

The United Stated Enrichment Corporation (USEC) is also seeking a loan guarantee for its American Centrifuge Project under development at Piketon, Ohio. Following DOE's announcement the consensus would seem to be that 'd be bad news for USEC. But according to USEC spokesman Paul Jacobson that is not the case. Jacobson said USEC was encouraged that DOE recognizes the need for more enrichment services to supply the nuclear needs of the future. He also noted that DOE, as noted in the federal agency's press release, still has another US$2 billion in loan authority available. At one time, USEC was going head to head with Areva for the loan guarantees, and USEC played up the foreign-owned company versus domestic company, etc., but now the company -- on the public front at least -- seems to be focused on the nuclear renaissance and the idea that there's enough demand in the U.S. and abroad to support multiple new ventures in the enrichment arena.
U.S. DOE, 20 May 2010 / Reuters, 20 May 2010 / Atomic City Underground, 21 May 2010

EC: investigation non-compete clauses Areva, Siemens.
The European Commission has opened an antitrust case to determine whether non-compete clauses in civil nuclear technology arrangements between Areva of France and Germany's Siemens violate EU competition rules. The opening of antitrust proceedings on June 2, means that the EC thinks the case merits investigation. EC competition spokeswoman Amelia Torres said an investigation was triggered by a complaint from Siemens after Areva took full control last year of reactor construction and services company Areva NP, a joint venture originally set up by Framatome (which later became Areva) and Siemens in 2001. But non-compete clauses between the two companies remain, even though Siemens sold its 34% stake to Areva last year.

The shareholders' pact between Areva and Siemens for Areva NP is not public, but a French official familiar with it confirmed that it forbids either party from competing with the other in businesses covered by Areva NP for eight years after a potential divorce.

Siemens said in January 2009 that it intended to exercise its option, to sell its 34% stake in Areva NP to Areva and leave the joint venture. A few weeks later, Siemens said it had signed a memorandum of understanding on a nuclear power business partnership with Rosatom, a Russian state-owned nuclear conglomerate. After bilateral discussions failed to produce an agreement on the price at which Areva would buy the 34% stake in Areva NP, the erstwhile partners last year asked an arbitration court to decide the matter.

EC competition spokeswoman Amelia Torres said the investigation would be carried out by the EC at EU-level, rather than by national governments. There is no timescale for the investigation as this depends on the complexity of the case and the extent to which the parties cooperate. Torres said she was not able to prejudge whether a fine would be imposed if the arrangement were found to be in breach of competition rules.
Platts, 2 June 2010

U.K.: Waste costs 'not acceptable' for industry.
The nuclear industry has been heavily lobbying to change proposed charges for managing wastes from nuclear reactors. Papers released under Freedom of Information show how the French company EDF pressed the previous government to change the proposed 'high fixed cost' for managing wastes and the timetable for handing the management of wastes to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The previous government made significant changes to the way it proposed changing companies for managing their wastes. It also agreed that responsibility for wastes should pass to the NDA after 60 years instead of the original 110 years. This would reduce the financial liabilities and costs for companies.

EDF told the government the original proposals were "non-acceptable" and made it uneconomic to develop new reactors.
N-Base Briefing 665, 9 June 2010

Chubu delays Hamaoka-5 restart after earthquake.
Japan: The Chubu Electric Power Company has extended the closure of its 1,380-megawatt Hamaoka No.5 reactor by a further two months to the end of July. Chubu Electric said the decision had been taken because the company is still analyzing why the impact of the August 11, 2009 earthquake on the reactor was greater than for other nuclear units. The company explained that, based on this measure of earthquake ground motion, the impact of the tremor was significantly higher than for other reactors. Chubu Electric will report its findings to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. It hopes to restart the reactor after METI and other government  agencies have agreed the report and local communities have consented to the restart of the reactor. The restart of the No. 5 reactor was originally planned for the end of December 2009, but pushed back several times.
Power in Asia 555,  27 May 2010

Bangladesh: cooperation agreement with Russia.
The government of Bagladesh has increased momentum for the installation of the country’s first nuclear power plant. The US$1.5-billion project will be built at Rooppur, about 300 kilometers from the capital Dhaka. A committee headed by the state minister for science and information and communication technology, Yafes Osman, has been constituted to implement the project. The 22-member committee, which has the chairman of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission as its member secretary, will examine funding issues and assess the risks associated with the fiscal arrangements. It will also study nuclear waste management issues. Bangladesh plans to install the 2,000-megawatt plant (for US$1.5billion?) at Rooppur from 2017. It signed a five-year framework cooperation agreement with the Russian atomic energy company Rosatom in May, with the final agreement due to be signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Moscow later in 2010.
Power in Asia 555, 10 June 2010

Go-ahead for Urenco's Eunice plant.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has authorized the operation of the first cascade at Urenco's Louisiana Energy Services (LES) gas centrifuge enrichment plant at Eunice, New Mexico. LES is a wholly owned subsidiary of URENCO Ltd. Urenco said the process to bring the plant from construction status to fully operational will begin later in June. The Urenco USA plant (formerly the National Enrichment Facility)  will be the first commercial centrifuge enrichment plant to become operational in the USA. Urenco formally inaugurated the plant in early June. "At full capacity, the facility will produce sufficient enriched uranium for nuclear fuel to supply approximately 10% of the electricity needs for the US", according to the Urenco press release.
Urenco Press release, 11 June 2010

On April 12, the Russian environmental group Ecodefense released a major new report focused on the use of plutonium as fuel in Russian nuclear reactors. This is the first independent research done during the last decade that exposes the civil plutonium program and its risks for public health and the environment, and comes as the U.S. and Russia prepare to sign an agreement for each nation to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium removed from nuclear weapons by using it to generate nuclear power.

The Ecodefense report ('Russian Plutonium Program: Nuclear Waste, Accidents, and Senseless Huge Costs') finds that the cornerstone of Russia’s program -the BN-800 breeder reactor- has been under construction for over 25 years, has cost over US$6 billion, and remains far from completion.

In the framework of the Russian-US disarmament agreement, each country will “dispose” of 34 tons of weapon-grade plutonium from dismantled warheads. Presently, the governments are planning to use the plutonium in the form of mixed oxide fuel (MOX) in nuclear reactors. Russian breeder reactors BN-600 (in operation) and BN-800 (under construction) will be used for this plutonium disposition. But breeder reactors may be used for both burning and breeding plutonium, which offers to the Russian nuclear industry the possibility of actually producing more plutonium rather than net destruction of the element. Later, the MOX fuel may also be used in Russian light-water reactors (VVER-1200 design).

Environmental groups in both Russia and the U.S. are opposed to the use of MOX fuel and instead promote safer, cleaner vitrification technology to permanently dispose of plutonium.

The report describes the nuclear facilities that will be used for the plutonium program in Russia: * the Beloyarsk nuclear plant near Ekaterinburg city, * NIIAR (Scientific and research institute of atomic reactors) in Dimitrovgrad city, * GHK nuclear weapon facility near Krasnoyarsk city, and * SHK nuclear facility near Tomsk city. The report also focuses on issues of safety, accidents, nonproliferation and public opinion. A public policy issue raised in the report is the lack of liability coverage for a nuclear accident in Russia. This is particularly troubling given the more than 1,000,000 people living in very close proximity of the proposed MOX factory near Ekaterinburg.

On January 21, 2010, Russian government approved a program of advanced technologies development worth 128 billion rubles (US$4.3 billion or 3.1 billion euro). Most of the funding will go to breeder reactor development.

Fast breeder reactors operating with MOX fuel are being promoted as "advanced  technology" in Russia. But it is a little known fact that the BN-800 has been under construction for over 25 years and its design, which pre-dates the 1986 Chernobyl accident, does not meet modern safety requirements. According to the Russian nuclear industry, this reactor will cost nearly US$4 billion, but independent estimates suggest that US$6 billion already has been spent and construction will be finished not earlier than 2014 and likely later.

In a detailed financial analysis, the report concludes that the plutonium fuel program is only viable because of US and European subsidy for weapons grade plutonium disposition, but given that it may result in a net increase in plutonium stocks, the Russian program will undermine this goal.

The full report in English is available at http://anti-atom.ru/downloads/RuPuApr2010.pdf

Source: Press release 12 April 2010, Ecodefense! and NIRS
Contact: Ecodefense, Vladimir Sliviak: +7 903 2997584
Email: ecodefense@rambler.ru or: Mary Olson at NIRS, +1-828-252-8409

According to the Russian government, the number of new nuclear reactors planned to be built by 2015 will be cut by 60%. But even that number of nuclear units will be hard to build. As environmental groups has been saying for years, Russian nuclear development program is far from reality.

Two years after the Russian government approved an ambitious program of building nearly 40 nuclear reactors, mass-media in Moscow are reporting about massive cuts in number of power plants to be built until 2015. According to leading business newspaper "Vedomosti", referring to the data of the Ministry of energy, the number of new nuclear reactors will be cut by over 60%.

Russia may save about US$25 billion (18 billion euro) if it will never build units which currently were removed from the 2015-target list, Russian environmental group Ecodefense estimates. Moreover, spending this amount for construction of natural gas' power plants may bring 3 times more electricity, compared to nuclear, said Vladimir Milov, former deputy energy minister of Russia, to the Nuclear Monitor.

According to the scheme of locations for energy facilities until 2020 (the state program outlining the plan for construction of nuclear, coal, gas, hydro plants during next decade), "Rosatom" planned to put online 13,2 GWt of new nuclear capacity until 2015. This is equal to 13 units of the VVER-1000 design or 11 units of the VVER-1200 design. Under the reduced plan, only 5,2 GWt of new nuclear capacity is planned to be added. But even that reduced number of reactors will be hard to build, environmental campaigners say.

The scheme of locations for energy facilities until 2020 was approved by the Russian government in 2008. Environmental groups organized protests on the day of approval in more than 20 cities, because the plan includes an increased number of nuclear and coal plants which will increase the risks for public health and environment. Campaigners also protested because government excluded environmental groups from the decision-making process, what resulted in an anti-environmental and poor-quality document.

Reducing the number of nuclear reactors to be built in next 5 years is good news but is actually just a reflection of reality. When the plans were approved in 2008, it was already clear that Russia can not afford to build dozens of reactors during the next decade. First of all, "Rosatom" doesn't have enough heavy machinery capacity to produce reactors even for domestic plans, and there are also foreign contracts in China, India and Belarus.

And Russian nuclear industry said it will try to win more contracts in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Why did the Russian government approved the program that can not be implemented?

It looks like "Rosatom" just decided that an increasing number of reactors on paper will bring them more funds from the federal budget. But now plans and funding will be reduced, which will affect both planned and under construction reactors, Vladimir Milov said to the Nuclear Monitor.

The Russian "nuclear renaissance" may well be over, even if it did not start yet. And this is good news because reactors are expensive, inefficient and dangerous just as they were 24 years ago when Chernobyl happened.

Currently there are 31 nuclear reactors in operation in Russia producing 16% of all electricity. Several of the oldest and the most dangerous reactors -such as RBMKs and VVER-440- obtained extended licenses when planned operational lifetime was over.

Source and contact: WISE Russia

For several years, suspicions have swirled about the nuclear intentions of Burma’s secretive military dictatorship. Burma is cooperating with North Korea on possible nuclear procurements and appears to be misleading overseas suppliers in obtaining top-of-the-line equipment. Certain equipment, which could be used in a nuclear or missile program, went to isolated Burmese manufacturing compounds of unknown purpose. Although evidence does not exist to make a compelling case that Burma is building secret nuclear reactors or fuel cycle facilities, as has been reported, the information does warrant governments and companies taking extreme caution in any dealings with Burma. The military regime’s suspicious links to North Korea, and apparent willingness to illegally procure high technology goods, make a priority convincing the military government to accept greater transparency.

ISIS - Suspicions about nuclear intentions followed an agreement by Russia to sell Burma a research reactor in 2001 and intensified in 2007 with the resumption of a formal military relationship between North Korea and Burma, known officially as Myanmar (see Nuclear Monitor 657, 21 June 2007: “Myanmar: A new Iran in the making?”). According to U.S. officials, concerns about military cooperation between North Korea and Burma extend to possible nuclear cooperation, but their information is incomplete. The evidence supports that Burma and North Korea have discussed nuclear cooperation, but is not sufficient to establish that North Korea is building nuclear facilities for Burma’s military junta, despite recent reports to the contrary.

Nonetheless, no one can ignore the possibility of significant North Korean nuclear assistance to this enigmatic, military regime. Because North Korea secretly sold a reactor to Syria, a sale which the world’s best intelligence agencies missed until late in the reactor’s construction, no one is willing to turn a blind eye to the possibility of North Korea selling nuclear equipment, materials, or facilities to Burma. North Korea’s past proliferation activities and the failure to promptly detect the Syrian reactor cannot but lead to more scrutiny over whether North Korea might sell Burma a reactor or other nuclear industrial equipment and facilities, or the means and guidance to manufacture nuclear facilities. When one adds Burma’s own efforts to acquire abroad sophisticated dual-use goods that can be used for nuclear purposes, it becomes essential to determine and constrain as necessary the military junta’s nuclear intentions.

Another dimension is whether Burma is helping North Korea obtain items for its nuclear programs. Burma could act as a cooperative transshipment partner for goods ultimately destined for North Korea’s gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program.

The military regime’s lack of transparency and repressive actions complicate any effort to investigate suspicions about its nuclear program. A priority is getting the military government to accept greater transparency of its activities.

Because Burma is buying a wide variety of suspicious dual-use goods internationally, governments and companies need to be more vigilant in examining Burma’s enquiries, or requests for equipment, whether via Burmese governmental entities, Burmese trading companies, or other foreign trading companies. Companies should treat enquiries from Burma no differently than those from Iran, Pakistan, or Syria.

Minimal nuclear Capability

Currently, Burma has little known indigenous nuclear infrastructure to support the construction of nuclear facilities. Nonetheless, it has sought to purchase a nuclear research reactor for about a decade.

In September 2000, Burma asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for assistance in acquiring a research reactor. The IAEA said that it would assist in such an endeavor once Burma achieved a set of milestones, including bringing its reactor safety and regulatory infrastructure up to a minimally acceptable standard. Meanwhile, without telling the IAEA, Burma started negotiations with Russia over the supply of a ten megawatt-thermal research reactor. A draft cooperation agreement was approved by Russia in May 2002 for the construction of a nuclear research center that would include a ten megawatt-thermal research reactor, two laboratories (believed to include hot cells for radioisotope production), and facilities for the disposal of nuclear waste. However, the draft agreement did not represent an approved sale. The two countries finally signed a nuclear cooperation agreement in 2007 for the sale of the reactor complex, but no construction of the research center had started as of September 2009. In addition, neither side has publicly announced the planned location of this reactor project. Under the terms of its cooperation, Russia has reportedly conducted training of Burmese in fields related to the building and operation of research reactors.

Burma receives a relatively small level of technical assistance from the IAEA in nuclear medicine, agriculture, and fields related to research reactors. It also receives nuclear energy training in South Korea with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

According to a European intelligence official, Russia assists Burma’s uranium exploration and mining efforts, but this effort is relatively small-scale and has not extended into the construction of a uranium mill to process uranium ore. The Myanmar Ministry of Energy lists five areas with potential for uranium mining.

Minimal nuclear transparency

Burma joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992. It insists it is in compliance with all its obligations under the NPT. Evidently in reaction to published reports in the summer of 2009, and in August 2009, a Burmese official denied seeking nuclear weapons.

Burma has a traditional INFCIRC 153 comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA supplemented by a Small Quantities Protocol (SQP) that it signed in 1995. The SQP is in effect since Burma has declared it has no major nuclear facilities and only small quantities of nuclear material. Under the SQP, the IAEA has agreed not to implement safeguards with a few exceptions, mainly conditions aimed at determining when to implement the safeguards procedures in the comprehensive agreement. These conditions include Burma agreeing to report if it imports or exports nuclear material, acquires more than a minimal amount of nuclear material, or has built a new nuclear facility that is within six months of receiving nuclear material. In the case of the reactor from Russia, Burma would implement the full safeguards agreement, no later than six months before receiving nuclear reactor fuel.

Burma has discussed improving safeguards with the IAEA in the context of the reactor purchase. However, Burma has not agreed to update its commitments under the SQP. In particular, it has not agreed to report a nuclear facility when it decides or authorizes its construction rather than six months before Burma introduces nuclear material in the facility. Moreover, it has not agreed to the Additional Protocol, which would obligate Burma to provide far greater information about its nuclear activities and plans and allow the IAEA much greater access to Burmese sites. Implementation of the Additional Protocol could go far in reducing suspicions about reports of undeclared nuclear facilities or materials.

In a new development, it is understood that Burma has indicated an interest in joining the Asia/Pacific Safeguards Network, an Australian initiative which came into operation in October 2009. This network, which comprises authorities and agencies working in safeguards, has yet to consider if Burma should be invited to join.

A new constraint on Burma’s cooperation with North Korea is United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874, which was passed in mid-2009. It prohibits member states from engaging in trade with North Korea in almost all conventional weapons and in sensitive areas, including those related to ballistic missiles and nuclear. Although the Burmese leadership has stated its commitment to fully comply with UNSC Resolution 1874, U.S. officials have expressed worries about the “nature and extent” of Burma’s ties with North Korea.

Conclusion and policy recommendations

There remain sound reasons to suspect that the military regime in Burma might be pursuing a long-term strategy to make nuclear weapons. Despite the public reports to the contrary, the military junta does not appear to be close to establishing a significant nuclear capability. Information suggesting the construction of major nuclear facilities appears unreliable or inconclusive.

Assigning a purpose to suspicious procurements likewise remains uncertain. The procurements are multi-purpose and difficult to correlate conclusively with a secret missile or nuclear program. Although Burma and North Korea appear to be cooperating on illegal procurements, who is helping who cannot be determined with the available information. Is North Korea helping Burma acquire nuclear, conventional weapon, or missile capabilities or is Burma assisting North Korea acquiring this equipment?

Nonetheless, the evidence supports that the regime wants to develop a nuclear capability of some type, but whether its ultimate purpose is peaceful or military remains a mystery. The outstanding questions about the regime’s activities require that there be more scrutiny of Burma to ascertain if there is an underlying secret nuclear program. Because Burma’s known nuclear program is so small, the opportunity exists to both engage and pressure the military regime in a manner that would make it extremely difficult for Burma to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, let alone nuclear weapons.

A priority is to establish greater transparency over Burma’s and North Korea’s activities and inhibit any nuclear or nuclear dual-use transfers to Burma. A related problem is ensuring that Burma is not helping North Korea acquire nuclear and other military goods illegally. Vigorous implementation of the recent U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 on North Korea is helpful to these goals. Governments should continue to press Burma’s military regime to abide by this resolution. To reinforce this message, Burma should be made more aware of the penalties of being labeled a pariah state.

Russia should be privately encouraged that before it provides Burma with a research reactor, the regime needs to meet a set of specific conditions. More effective safeguards would be the principal condition, including the Additional Protocol along with upgraded safety and security infrastructure. Also necessary are verifiable commitments by the Burmese regime to not procure equipment illicitly and to abide by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which would mean Burma would not buy any nuclear facilities, equipment, or materials from North Korea.

Burma’s suspicious procurements as well as its cooperation with North Korea should cause suppliers to be more vigilant. Suppliers need to exercise greater caution about enquiries from Burmese entities or companies in other countries where there is an indication that goods are destined for Burma.

Governments should warn their companies about possible attempts by Burma to acquire high precision machinery or other sensitive dual use items. The countries that supplied the high-precision equipment in 2006 and 2007 should find a legal justification to press for access to the equipment in order to verify that it is being used for its declared purpose.

The United States is planning to hold more discussions with Burma. In these discussions, the United States should press for access to certain suspicious sites as a way to build confidence.

Source: “Burma: A Nuclear Wannabe; Suspicious Links to North Korea; High-Tech Procurements and Enigmatic Facilities” by David Albright, Paul Brannan, Robert Kelley and Andrea Scheel Stricker, ISIS, 28 January 2010, aAvailable at: http://isis-online.org/countries/category/myanmar/

Contact: Institute for Science and International Security, 236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Suite 500, Washington, DC 20002, USA, Email: isis@isis-online.org, Web: http://www.isis-online.org

Burma or Myanmar? In 1989, the military junta officially changed the English translations of many colonial-era names, including the name of the country, to "Myanmar". The democratic elected opposition did and does not recognize the name Myanmar.

While some of the name changes are closer to their actual Burmese pronunciations, many domestic and foreign opposition groups and other countries continue to oppose their use in English because they recognize neither the legitimacy of the ruling military government nor its authority to rename the country or towns in English. Various non-Burman ethnic groups choose to not recognize the name because the term Myanmar has historically been used as a label for the majority ethnic group rather than for the country.

Source: Burma Center Netherlands

On January 20, the lower house of the Duma (the Russian parliament) adopted in first reading a new law on radioactive waste. It is expected that final approval by lower and upper houses of parliament and Russian president will happen by next summer. The legislation was developed last year by state-owned nuclear power corporation Rosatom.

WISE Kaliningrad - After legislation was passed in first reading, environmental groups started to criticize the new law for a vast amount of significant lacks related to the disposal of radioactive waste. Russian anti-nuclear group Ecodefense called for a national campaign aimed to change the law. Otherwise, new legislation will bring many more troubles than benefits, activists said.

A set of amendments for the new law, supported by nearly 30 environmental groups from all across Russia, was sent to the lower house of the Russian parliament. In the first week of February, nearly 500 letters from individuals, small business and scientific communities where sent to parliamentarians to demonstrate the support for the amendments prepared by anti-nuclear campaigners. In an attempt to calm down the protest parliamentarians invited environmental activists to join a special working group dealing with amendments to the law on radioactive waste.

“The goal of this law is to put the financial responsibility for radioactive waste on the national budget instead of that of the nuclear industry as the producer of waste. When 'Rosatom' was formed by the Russian government, its budget was filled with money for the disposal of radioactive waste. And now 'Rosatom' wants to keep this money for other needs and make taxpayers to fund the disposal of radioactive waste one more time. This is also a way for 'Rosatom' to show that nuclear power is cheap and get more subsidies from federal government for new reactors”, said Vladimir Slivyak of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense who joined the parliamentary working group. Activists oppose this attempt by 'Rosatom' because there is a lot of commercial wastes accumulated at civil nuclear reactors and the nuclear industry should pay for it.

Another serious problem with the new law is that it allows dumping of radioactive waste underground. This extremely dangerous practice was banned in Russian legislation in 2002. At the same time, nuclear industry continued to dump liquid radwaste at nuclear weapon facilities near Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk because the license for dumping was issued before the ban was adopted in legislation. As a result, so-called lens with radioactive waste was formed in underground waters threatening to contaminate drinking water for nearby cities. One of the goals of 'Rosatom' is to remove from legislation the ban on dumping liquid radwaste.

Another site where liquid waste dumped underground is the Kalinin nuclear power plant, located about 300 km from Moscow. Surrounding lakes near the plant are already contaminated with radioactive tritium – a highly dangerous substance that may cause cancer and genetic defects.

Environmental groups are strongly opposed to the approval in the new law of liquid waste dumping. Another demand by activists is to include the necessity of public approval for the construction of storage facilities or dumping sites for radioactive waste. According to the proposed law, it will be enough to get the approval for the construction from the local governor. For example, a so-called 'declaration on cooperation' which doesn’t have any legal status, would be enough. In the current situation where governors are not elected, but sent to the regions by the Russian president who may also fire them, it is very unlikely regional authorities are willing to show their opposition to any proposal coming from Moscow.

On the contrary, environmental groups now demand to count public opinion directly, for example in the form of a referendum or a special public opinion poll. This proposal was also met with resistance from 'Rosatom'. Just like another demand by campaigners – to remove from the new law a proposal to give a sort of 'tax-free' status to radwaste dumping sites. Activists say this is another hidden subsidy for the nuclear power industry.

So far, three meetings of the parliamentary working group have been held and on many principal elements of the legislation is still no agreement. It is not clear how the process will go forward if no agreement will be reached. But currently it is planned that the official set of amendments for the new law will be approved in the middle of March and then the date for second reading of the legislation in the lower house of parliament will be set.

Source and contact: WISE Kaliningrad