News
Major concerns’ about new nuclear reactor designs
Do you know many companies like the nuclear industry who have only one product in their catalogue? There was Ford and the Model T, but that was 100 years ago, and they at least knew how to build and sell it.
We wish we’d come up with that joke. The honour however goes to Henri Proglio, the new chief executive of the French nuclear giant EDF. When even the nuclear industry is mocking the nuclear industry, you know things aren’t right.
So how is the nuclear ‘renaissance’ going this week? Not well, in actual fact…
The UK’s safety regulators, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), have just released the third stage of their assessment for the designs of AREVA’s EPR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors. It’s grim reading.
There are a significant number of issues with the safety features of both designs. The regulators still don't have a complete design yet from either Areva or Westinghouse. The HSE will not approve the designs unless this is addressed.
The EPR design has a long list of problems. There are "significant concerns" about the lack of separation between the safety protection and control systems. The HSE says "you could have the same fault occurring on both, so your protection system won't do what it's supposed to do. The company has proposed a way to fix the problem, but has yet to provide details". Concrete reactor shielding may not meet UK standards (the question is whether it meets any standards at all). There are problems with the structural integrity of the reactor but it’s "too early to say whether they can be resolved solely with additional safety case changes or whether they may result in design modifications being necessary". Unbelievably, even simple, fundamental things such as fire doors and alarms are not properly sited.
(You can take a look at some of the many safety failings of the EPR reactor being built at Olkiluoto here.)
Things with the AP1000 are little better. According to the HSE, Westinghouse has significant additional work to prove its reactor is safe across "the majority of the technical topic areas.". The safety case on internal hazards has "significant shortfalls." The regulator criticises Westinghouse for a "lack of detailed claims and arguments". There are major concerns about the reactor design’s new cooling valve but there has been, says the HSE, "minimal progress in addressing our concerns. There is a significant risk that the depth of the issue and the resources and effort that are needed to address it have been underestimated.". On top of all that aspects of the civil and mechanical engineering plans are being questioned, as well as the structural integrity and "human factors".
Wow. That’s quite a list. If the EPR was a car with a list of concerns like that, would you drive it? If the AP1000 was a plane, would you fly in it?
Meanwhile, UK government ministers are complacently unconcerned…
AREVA nuclear scandal: Greenpeace finds radiation on the streets of Niger
Greenpeace has found high radiation contamination levels in the streets of Akokan where children play. What is even more disturbing is that this just year AREVA claimed that those same streets were safe.
It began in 2003 when radioactive contamination was found in towns close to Niger’s uranium mines by the independent laboratory CRIIRAD and local NGO Aghir In’Man.In 2007 CRIIRAD found dangerous levels of radiation levels near the hospital in the mining village of Akokan. The mine operator, French nuclear giant AREVA, admitted to widespread contamination in the village.
In October of that year, the mining company and AREVA subsidiary COMINAK reported the contamination had been addressed. In September 2009 AREVA confirmed to CRIIRAD that a clean up had been done and the streets made safe.
It is clear that this is not true.
There are still radioactive materials in the street of Akokan. Greenpeace’s findings directly contradict AREVA’s assurances. The people of these villages are being exposed to unnecessarily high levels of radiation. In one area Greenpeace tested, the radiation was almost 500 times higher than normal levels.
This is the hidden cost of nuclear power: innocent men, women and children exposed to radiation, exploitation and danger. It’s something you won’t see in the nuclear industry’s glossy brochures and on its impressive websites.
This is what we must accept if we are to continue using nuclear power for our energy needs. The uranium from Niger is used to keep the lights on in France. Nuclear reactors must have uranium. To obtain that uranium it seems that people must suffer. It is a story told wherever in the world uranium is mined. Ask yourself: would you like to live near a uranium mine?
The nuclear industry does not want you to think about the dust in the streets of Niger. Instead it wants you to think about its so-called clean and safe energy. Are the streets of Akokan clean? Are its people safe?
AREVA has shown it cannot be trusted to take care of this problem themselves. An immediate and comprehensive independent assessment and clean up must be done to ensure that the people of the mining villages are protected from AREVA’s radiation.
Press release 8.11.09
This latest announcement by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in favour of the nuclear industry is the latest out of a long series of similar statements over the past four years by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair’s tired and visionless government. Rather than adopting a comprehensive programme for energy conservation and harnessing the various renewable energy technologies, Brown and Blair chose to step back to the mid twentieth century failure that is nuclear power.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate are assessing two reactor designs, namely the Toshiba Westinghouse AP1000, and Areva’s French designed EPR. In the case of the Japanese/American AP1000, nuclear inspectors in the United States have recently questioned how the outer shell could withstand a tornado, an earthquake or even high winds. The NII recently asked both Westinghouse and Areva how the reactors would withstand an attack by a jet aeroplane. In addition to concerns about the effects of possible terrorist attacks, British, French and Finnish nuclear inspectors are worried about the EPR’s safety control systems. This is what British inspectors told Areva in a recent letter:-
“We have serious concern about your proposal, which allows lower safety class systems or manual controls to override higher safety class systems”.
The Finnish inspectors are asking the same questions as Areva try to build a new nuclear power station at Olkiluoto. The project is over 3 years behind schedule and the original cost of 3.2 billion euros has shot up to 5.8 billion euros. What they are trying to do in Olkiluoto is to build new station without a final plan in place. It is not surprising that the German firm Siemens pulled out of the project leaving Areva and the Finnish state owned power company squabbling about cost and the new reactor’s design.
The other major question Ed Milliband totally ignores in his statements is the issue of using high burn-up uranium fuel in the AP1000 and the EPR. The nuclear industry would wish to leave this fuel for a far longer period in the reactor than what is regular practice in the nuclear industry at present. This fuel would create waste which is twice as hot and twice as radioactive as legacy nuclear wastes. It would have to be stored on the site of its production for at least a century. Considering that there is no satisfactory solution to the management of our legacy nuclear waste, what sense is there in moving to completely unchartered territory beyond the experience of the British nuclear industrty?
As for financing new nuclear power stations, companies such as EDF and E.ON were boasting up to two years ago that they could build them without taxpayers’ money. Since spring this year both companies have made it very clear that they could not build new nuclear power stations without substantial public subsidies. That is hardly surprising considering E.ON have debts of £40 billion and EDF’s debts amount to £36 billion. One way of raising this public money currently being discussed is putting a nuclear tax on every electricity bill. Since British state coffers are pretty empty following the big bank bail outs, is it fair to expect ordinary taxpayers to pay expensively for electricity to finance a technology which is dirty, radioactively poisonous and dangerous, and last but not least vastly expensive ?
Nuclear collision between Cardiff and London
Jane Davidson Wales' Minister for Environment confirmed the view expressed by Rhodri Morgan in June 2007 that there is no need for new nuclear power stations in Wales, as we will be more than self-sufficient in electricity generation within a few years. +>>
Anti Nuke Groups to MeetThere will be an all-Wales meeting of WANA, PAWB and other anti-nuclear organisations at The aim of the meeting is to discuss the way forward with our campaign against Wylfa B. Hugh Richards (WANA) will be the presenting the paper he recently gave to the Welsh Assembly government. All are welcome, but this a meeting for anti-nuclear activists, not a public meeting or debate about nuclear power. |
Press Watch: The Independent on Sunday, 8, February 2009
"New nuclear reactors planned for Britain will produce many times more radiation than previous reactors that could be rapidly released in an accident".
Read more>>
Blown Off Course
The Guardian reported on Wednesday 14 January 2009 that:
Areva, the French nuclear plant designer expected to be at the forefront of a British atomic power revival, has become embroiled in a war of words with a Finnish utility over delays at the site of Europe's first new nuclear station for 30 years.
The latest setback will worry ministers in London who are trying to convince sceptics that nuclear can deliver quickly and efficiently to meet the looming energy "crunch" after 2015.
Jarmo Tanhua, chief executive of Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), the Finnish electricity provider, said he was "extremely disappointed" that Areva had told it that the Olkiluoto 3 facility was not going to be completed until 2012 – three years later than originally expected.
But he also attacked Areva and its German consortium partner Siemens for suggesting the embarrassing problems that have given valuable ammunition to the anti-nuclear lobby had been caused by the Finns.
So that bodes well, then!
A little article in Private Eye recently includes the following about RWE, the great white hope of our esteemed pollies on Ynys Môn:
"RWE's contractors on the Staythorpe gas-fired power station in Nottinghamshire are two Spanish firms, Montperssa & FMM. Both announced that that they had no intention of employing local labour, or indeed using UK workers for the vast majority of work on the site, telling outraged construction unions they would supply workers from abroad"...
| Government's Survey found to be "inaccurate" In response to a complaint presented by Greenpeace 13 months ago, the Marketing Research Standards Board has concluded that the second public consultation by Gordon Brown’s government in 2007 on nuclear power was flawed. The government used a market research company “OpinionLeader Research” who conducted polling across Britain on the government’s proposals to include new nuclear power stations as part of the energy mix.The Marketing Research Standards Board scathingly criticised “Opinion Leader Research’s “ methods on behalf of the Brown government as follows:- “information was inaccurately or misleadingly presented, or was imbalanced, which gave rise to a material risk of respondents being led towards a particular answer”.Opinion Leader are now required by the Marketing Research Standards Board “to take corrective action with regard to the process that resultedin the breach in this case”. This leaves Gordon Brown’s energy policy in total chaos after his attempt to promote nuclear power through dubious and inappropriate methods. PAWB calls on the government to abandon its blind commitment to nuclear power, and to concentrate on a comprehensive programme of energy conservation and producing renewable energy from all the available sources. |
So much for the French Connection!
An announcement by the French electricity company EDF that they are selling the land which they only recently bought near Wylfa nuclear power station (see previous item below) underlines the fact that Wylfa is a weak contender for a second nuclear plant. If it were a truly favourable site, then EDF would not have decided to sell this land so recently acquired, so quickly.While EDF moves its attention to more lucrative British Energy sites which they are in the process of buying, the time has come for some local politicians to stop misleading people into thinking that Wylfa has a future as a nuclear power generating site. They should instead focus their attention on the National Assembly Government’s commitment to renewable enrgy and its wish to make Wales a nation which will be at the heart of a green and clean energy revolution.
 |
3 Studies Highlight Cancer Links to Nukes One report found a 117% increase in leukaemia among young children living near all 16 large German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003. News in full >>> |
Company Snaps Up Land Near Wylfa
A French firm with a dubious saftey record, EDF Energy, is understood to have bought farmland around Wylfa, on Anglesey, in anticipation of the Government sanctioning a new station on the island.
The French nuclear safety agency ASN has uncovered a series of defects in the construction of a reactor in Normandy considered to be the template for the next generation of EDF stations threatened for Britain. ASN, says that a quarter of the welds seen in its steel liner are not in accordance with welding norms, and that cracks have been found it its concrete base, both essential for containing radioactivity in the event of accidents.
The reports – in a series of letters covering inspections made between December and April – will cause particular concern because similar defects have been listed in a previous report by the Finnish safety authority into the only other reactor of its type being built anywhere in the world.
The earlier report helped put the Finnish reactor, on the island of Olkiluoto, two years behind schedule, three years after construction began. It is also believed to have helped increase its cost by more than £1,000,000,000. Similar delays and cost overruns here would play havoc with the Government's nuclear programme, and could even lead to it being abandoned.
 |
Dear Albert An open letter to Albert Owen M.P. for Anglesey. ...While discussing nuclear waste, you said with conviction:- |
 |
In an on-line poll on the North Wales Chronicle website between 17-25 January asking if there should be a new nuclear power station in Anglesey? |
 |
DIOLCH >> THANKS! To everyone who came to support PAWB at the Anhrefn / Byd Mawr Gig at Cwm y Glo on Saturday 16 February. Special Thanks to Dewi & the DJs, Sion, Rhys and the owners of Y Fricsan. |
Rhodri says No to Nukes in Wales
At the moment, the main political spanner in the works for pro nuclear aims is that the devolved governments of Wales and Scotland are against building new nuclear plants and are far from being in favour of burying waste under their land. In 12 June [2007] first minister of the newly elected Welsh coalition government, Rhodri Morgan, told assembly members that Wales did not want new nuclear plants.
 |
A confident future for the population of the island. |
No to a New Nuke at Wylfa!
A few politicians, led by Albert Owen MP, are campaigning for a new nuclear power station to be built at Wylfa, Anglesey, north Wales – after the present plant closes in 2010. They hope to win votes by appearing to secure jobs.
The politicians DO NOT like to talk about
- Public health
- Public safety
- Cost to the environment
- The millions it will cost you
The closure of the present site has been known about for four decades, but the politicians have failed to secure safe employment for the island.
A protest held at Sizewell
Nuc
