By Karl Grossman, Op-Ed News, Sept. 3, 2010

This past April 26th marked the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. It came as the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear government officials in the United States and other nations were trying to “revive” nuclear power. And it followed the publication of a book, the most comprehensive study ever made, on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Search for http://www.greens-efa-service.org/medialib/media/flash/torch/ -- it will take you to a media flash presentation based on a report by The Other Report on Chernobyl – the TORCH report – on radiation plumes after the Chernobyl disaster. It is hosted by the European Greens Party website.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences. It is authored by three noted scientists:

–Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president;

–Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and

–Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

The book is solidly based — on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports — some 5,000 in all.

It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.

The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency — still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is under-estimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.

Alice Slater, representative in New York of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, comments: “The tragic news uncovered by the comprehensive new research that almost one million people died in the toxic aftermath of Chernobyl should be a wake-up call to people all over the world to petition their governments to put a halt to the current industry-driven “nuclear renaissance.’ Aided by a corrupt IAEA, the world has been subjected to a massive cover-up and deception about the true damages caused by Chernobyl.”

Further worsening the situation, she said, has been “the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization in which the WHO is precluded from publishing any research on radiation effects without consultation with the IAEA.” WHO, the public health arm of the UN, has supported the IAEA’s claim that 4,000 will die as a result of the accident.

“How fortunate,” said Ms. Slater, “that independent scientists have now revealed the horrific costs of the Chernobyl accident.”

The book also scores the position of the IAEA, set up through the UN in 1957 “to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy,” and its 1959 agreement with WHO. There is a “need to change,” it says, the IAEA-WHO pact. It has muzzled the WHO, providing for the “hiding” from the “public of any information “unwanted” by the nuclear industry.

“An important lesson from the Chernobyl experience is that experts and organizations tied to the nuclear industry have dismissed and ignored the consequences of the catastrophe,” it states.

The book details the spread of radioactive poisons following the explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. These major releases only ended when the fire at the reactor was brought under control in mid-May. Emitted were “hundreds of millions of curies, a quantity hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The most extensive fall-out occurred in regions closest to the plant–in the Ukraine (the reactor was 60 miles from Kiev in Ukraine), Belarus and Russia.

However, there was fallout all over the world as the winds kept changing direction “so the radioactive emissions “covered an enormous territory.”

The radioactive poisons sent billowing from the plant into the air included Cesium-137, Plutonium, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90.

There is a breakdown by country, highlighted by maps, of where the radionuclides fell out. Beyond Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the countries included Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The radiological measurements show that some 10% of Chernobyl poisons “fell on Asia “Huge areas” of eastern Turkey and central China “were highly contaminated,” reports the book. Northwestern Japan was impacted, too.

Northern Africa was hit with “more than 5% of all Chernobyl releases.” The finding of Cesium-137 and both Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-240 “in accumulated Nile River sediment is evidence of significant Chernobyl contamination,” it states.

“Areas of North America were contaminated from the first, most powerful explosion, which lifted a cloud of radionuclides to a height of more than 10 km. Some 1% of all Chernobyl nuclides,” says the book, “fell on North America.”

The consequences on public health are extensively analyzed. Medical records involving children–the young, their cells more rapidly multiplying, are especially affected by radioactivity–are considered. Before the accident, more than 80% of the children in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia extensively contaminated by Chernobyl “were healthy,” the book reports, based on health data. But “today fewer than 20% are well.”

There is an examination of genetic impacts with records reflecting an increase in “chromosomal aberrations” wherever there was fallout. This will continue through the “children of irradiated parents for as many as seven generations.” So “the genetic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe will impact hundreds of millions of people.”

As to deaths, the list of countries and consequences begins with Belarus. “For the period 1900-2000 cancer mortality in Belarus increased 40%,” it states, again based on medical data and illuminated by tables in the book. “The increase was a maximum in the most highly contaminated Gomel Province and lower in the less contaminated Brest and Mogilev provinces.” They include childhood cancers, thyroid cancer, leukemia and other cancers.

Considering health data of people in all nations impacted by the fallout, the “overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated as 985,000 additional deaths.”

Further, “the concentrations” of some of the poisons, because they have radioactive half-lives ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 years, “will remain practically the same virtually forever.”

The book also examines the impact on plants and animals. “Immediately after the catastrophe, the frequency of plant mutations in the contaminated territories increased sharply.”

There are photographs of some of these plant mutations. “Chernobyl irradiation has caused many structural anomalies and tumor like changes in many plant species and has led to genetic disorders, sometimes continuing for many years,” it says.

“Twenty-three years after the catastrophe it is still too early to know if the whole spectrum of plant radiogenic changes has been discerned. We are far from knowing all of the consequences for flora resulting from the catastrophe.”

As to animals, the book notes “serious increases in morbidity and mortality that bear striking resemblance to changes in the public health of humans–increasing tumor rates, immuno-deficiencies, and decreasing life expectancy.”

In one study it is found that “survival rates of barn swallows in the most contaminated sites near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are close to zero. In areas of moderate contamination, annual survival is less than 25%.” Research is cited into ghastly abnormalities in barn swallows that do hatch: “two heads, two tails.”

“In 1986,” the book states, “the level of irradiation in plants and animals in Western Europe, North America, the Arctic, and eastern Asia were sometimes hundreds and even thousands of times above acceptable norms.”

In its final chapter, the book declares that the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant “was the worst technogenic accident in history.” And it examines “obstacles” to the reporting of the true consequences of Chernobyl with a special focus on “organizations associated with the nuclear industry” that “protect the industry first–not the public.” Here, the IAEA and WHO are charged.

The book ends by quoting U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s call in 1963 for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

“The Chernobyl catastrophe,” it declares, “demonstrates that the nuclear industry’s willingness to risk the health of humanity and our environment with nuclear power plants will result, not only theoretically, but practically, in the same level of hazard as nuclear weapons.”

Dr. Sherman, speaking of the IAEA’s and WHO’s dealing with the impacts of Chernobyl, commented: “It’s like Dracula guarding the blood bank.” The 1959 agreement under which WHO “is not to be independent of the IAEA” but must clear any information it obtains on issues involving radioactivity with the IAEA has put “the two in bed together.”

Of her reflections on 14 months editing the book, she said: “Every single system that was studied — whether human or wolves or livestock or fish or trees or mushrooms or bacteria — all were changed, some of them irreversibly. The scope of the damage is stunning.”

In his foreword, Dr. Dimitro Grodzinsky, chairman of the Ukranian National Commission on Radiation Protection, writes about how “apologists of nuclear power” sought to hide the real impacts of the Chernobyl disaster from the time when the accident occurred. The book “provides the largest and most complete collection of data concerning the negative consequences of Chernobyl on the health of people and the environment.

The main conclusion of the book is that it is impossible and wrong “to forget Chernobyl.’”

In the record of Big Lies, the claim of the IAEA-WHO that “only” 4,000 people will die as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe is among the biggest. The Chernobyl accident is, as the new book documents, an ongoing global catastrophe.

And it is a clear call for no new nuclear power plants to be built and for the closing of the dangerous atomic machines now running — and a switch to safe energy technologies, now available, led by solar and wind energy, that will not leave nearly a million people dead from one disaster.

Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and host of the nationally syndicated TV program Enviro Close-Up.

Source:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/New-Book-Concludes-Cherno-by-Karl-Grossman-100902-941.html

Acid Mine Drainage -the Eastern basin is currently experiencing an ingress of 120-million litres of water and only has the capacity to treat about 80-million litres of water

If relevant to your concerns and environmental issues,  kindly raise your concerns regarding Mine Waste Solutions’ (MWS) Water Use License authorisation and positive environmental authorization for its Centralised Tailings Storage Facility (super dump) within the KOSH goldfields, one kilometer from the highly compromised Vaal Barrage River system. MWS is of the intention to reprocess 15 uraniferous tailings dams, to reprocess 1.9 million tons per month of uraniferous tailings (producing 922,000 lb/yr U₃O₈ in yellowcake) and to establish a new centralized tailings storage facility of about 1 400 ha, one kilometer from the Vaal River.  The properties adjacent to the proposed super dump are game farms and conservancies.

Your concerns and objections (please see subjoined “gaps in information”) should be submitted to:

Mr. Scot Sobey (scot@firsturanium.com)

Mr. Tshepo Moremi (Tshepo@nwpg.gov.za)

Ms. Deborah Mochotlhi (mochotlhi@dwaf.gov.za)

Mr. Willem Grobler (groblerw@dwaf.gov.za )

Mr. Piet Theron (PietT@nda.agric.za)

Mr. David Klein (DavidKl@nda.agic.za )

In terms of Mine Waste Solutions’ Environmental Management Report, it was submitted that the following gaps in the environmental impact assessment exist:

1. The existing groundwater monitoring network at MWS, Buffelsfontein and Hartebeestfontein does not meet all the requirements of [an effective ] monitoring network. (The purpose of groundwater monitoring network is to provide an early warning of possible adverse effects of the activities in the vicinity of the tailings complex, on both yield and quality of the shallow groundwater system.) No dedicated monitoring boreholes are available for the existing MWS plant site and the proposed extension site. The leachate from the proposed TSF will lead to long-term groundwater pollution.
2. A detailed geochemical assessment was not incorporated; only static laboratory test work was included on available tailings samples for the purpose of the geochemical assessment because of the limited time frame.
3. A  geophysical assessment must be done to confirm the structural geology to the east of the proposed site.
4. Certain areas were excluded re aquifer related flow parameters.
5. The status of groundwater users and uses was not confirmed.
6. The proposed reclamation sites (existing TSFs) are mostly located on dolomite/chert formations.  Ground water characteristics for these sites are unknown and NO site specific aquifer data exist.  MWS solutions will take responsibility for existing contamination plumes BUT these are not clearly  identified.  Future positive impacts of the proposed reclamation activities can therefore not be demonstrated.
7. After closure, the mine workings will flood and the dolomite aquifers will largely recover to pre-mining levels.  There are currently no management options in place to cope with contaminated decant water.
8. The flora assessment was incomplete since most of the investigations were conducted during the winter period, and no investigations were conducted during or after the high rainfall seasons.
9. The wetland assessment was incomplete since the investigation was undertaken at the end of the dry season which made plant species identification very difficult.

In view of the aforesaid gaps it perplexes how a water use licence and a positive environmental authorisation could have been issued by the Department of Water Affairs and the North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development respectively.

The impacts of mining on the environment is current and the long term impacts from Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and heavy metal accumulation, including Uranium,  in the vicinity of the CTSF, Tailings Storage Facilities and reprocessed footprints within the KOSH goldfields have been acknowledged.  (Please see the DMR’s Regional Mine Closure Strategy for the KOSH goldfields and the Environmental Management Report of Mine Waste Solutions, March, 2009.)

In terms of MWS’s  Environmental Management Report “Mine Waste Solutions will be responsible for the existing pollution plume and zone of influence.  The anticipated zone of influence (SO₄ plume) falls within The Koekemoerspruit# and Vaal River Catchment* areas.”

#(The Koekemoerspruit, is a tributary of the Vaal River.  The Koekemoerspruit catchment is already compromised.  The transport of dissolved uranium from slimes dams is a major pathway for environmental contamination of the Koekemoerspruit. Reference:  “Gold tailings as a source of waterborne uranium contamination of streams –  The Koekemoerspruit (Klerksdorp goldfield, South Africa) as a case study.  Part I of III: Uranium migration along the aqueous pathway”. Frank Winde, Peter Wade and Izak Jacobus van der Walt)

*( In terms of the Water Research Commission Report No. 1397/1/07, entitled “Monitoring Environmental Water for the Presence of Toxic Agents:  A Pilot Study in the Vaal Barrage Catchment” it was found that “mining operations, even after they have been discontinued, are still having a major impact on the water quality in the Vaal Barrage catchment to the extent that it can no longer be compared with other natural water systems…only 21% of the sites showed no evidence of cytotoxicity at any time.  This suggests a failure on the part of those agencies responsible for the enforcement of existing  regulations and is an unacceptable situation, bearing in mind that source water from this survey area impacts directly upon the Vaal Barrage, a national water resource….Substantial deposits of immobilized toxicants could have accumulated in the southern Gauteng river silts over a prolonged periods.  Experience elsewhere suggest that such deposits pose long-term health and environmental risks”.)

With gratitude,

Mariette Liefferink.
CEO:  FEDERATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

On 1 September the Federation for a Sustainable Environment submitted the following request for information in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act:

Dear Mr. Sobey,

In terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Section 32 (1) of the Bill of Rights “everyone has the right of access to any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights”.

In the context of Mine Waste Solutions’ establishment of a Tailings Disposal Facility, 1 (one) kilometer from the Vaal River, the rights that interested and affected parties wish to exercise and protect are:

1. Everyone has the right to life (Section 11);
2. Everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and wellbeing; and to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; and secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development (Section 24);
3. Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient water (Section 27).

I am of the intention, in the public interest and on behalf of members of affected communities, and the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, to submit my request for access to public documents such as the Water Use Licence, the Social and Labour Plan, the amended Environmental Management Programme and Environmental Impact Assessment Report, etc. to Mine Waste Solutions, in terms of the provisions of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, No 2 of 2000 (PAIA).  Please advise me what Mine Waste Solutions’ prescribed format is.

I shall appreciate your response before  the 5^th of September, 2010 since your response will ripen my judgment.

Sincerely,

Mariette Liefferink.

CEO:  FEDERATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

19th World Congress – Basel, Switzerland

March 25‐30, 20010

RESOLUTION

Adopted on August 29, 2010

Title of Resolution: Global call to action for a ban on uranium mining

Submitted By: Helmut Lohrer

Affiliates: IPPNW Germany and PSR/IPPNW Switzerland

Date Submitted: August 18, 2010

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

Uranium ore mining and the production of uranium oxide (yellowcake) are irresponsible and represent

a grave threat to health and to the environment. Both processes involve an elementary violation of

human rights and their use lead to an incalculable risk for world peace and an obstacle to nuclear

disarmament.

The International Council of IPPNW therefore resolves that:

IPPNW call for appropriate measures to ban uranium mining worldwide.

Reasons for Above:

Uranium mining contaminates groundwater and radioactivity remains in the heaps, tailings and

evaporation ponds. Uranium and its radioactive decay elements are highly toxic. They attack inner

organs and the respiratory system. Scientific studies have shown that the following diseases are caused

by exposition to radon gas, uranium and uranium’s decay elements: Bronchial and lung cancer; cancer of

the bone marrow, stomach, liver, intestine, gall bladder, kidneys and skin, leukemia, other blood

diseases, psychological disorders and birth defects.

Approximately three‐quarters of the world’s uranium is mined on territory belonging to indigenous

peoples. The inhabitants of affected regions are (for the most part) vulnerable to exposure from

radioactive substances that threaten them with short‐ and long‐term health risks and damaging genetic

effects.

As well as the direct health effects from contamination of the water, the immense water consumption in

mining regions is environmentally and economically damaging – and in turn detrimental for human

health. The extraction of water leads to a reduction of the groundwater table and thereby to

desertification; plants and animals die, the traditional subsistence of the inhabitants is eliminated, the

existence of whole cultures are threatened.

This is not all. Ending uranium mining ‐ also because of its relevance to the processing of uranium, its

military use, the production of nuclear energy and the unresolved problem of how to permanently

dispose of nuclear waste ‐ would represent a provision of preventive health care, as well as a policy of

peace and reason.

Banning uranium mining would reduce the risk of proliferation. It would make uranium resources more scarce,

thus accelerating the abandonment of the civil use of nuclear energy. The pressure on political decision‐makers

to find safe methods of permanently disposing of nuclear waste would increase. Banning uranium mining would

thus promote the phasing‐out of the irresponsible practice of using nuclear energy and increase pressure

globally to force a change‐over to renewable energies.

Describe how this resolution might be implemented and by whom:

In order to achieve the goal of an international ban, IPPNW will strengthen its public education on this issue and

exert influence on both national and international political decision‐makers.

Estimate for amount of staff time and resources required to implement this resolution:

Minimal staff time will be required, mainly for coordination of activities and communication between

activists.

Estimated expenses and sources of funding:

Minimal cost for shipment of information material.

3rd of September 2010

On the First of September 2010, Cabinet held a “secret” session on the closure of the PMBR company. Earthlife Africa Jhb has learnt that all may not be as it seems, and that issues such as conflicts of interests, accounting for taxpayer money spent, and rehabilitation of PBMR staff are being swept under the carpet.

The PBMR company has bled the taxpayers of this country of a staggering R10bn. This money has come from the wages of workers, and represents R10bn not spent on social services. Furthermore, there has been nothing of substance to show for this expenditure, and the question must be asked what were the citizens of South Africa paying for? Is it for retrenchment packages for PBMR board members in excess of R2 million each?

While Earthlife Africa Jhb regards the closure of the PBMR company and the ending of the nuclear project to be the correct course of action—and has advocated for such for over ten years—it is extremely concerned that no proper accounting of this expenditure will take place. If R10bn of taxpayer funds has been spent on a project that failed, then an open, transparent audit should be undertaken. Citizens of South Africa have a right to know on what their money has been spent, and the appropriate vehicle for this is an open investigation in Parliament and an audit by the Auditor General.

The rumours of conflict of interests, poor governance and management, and improper use of funds within the PBMR Company can only be dispelled through an open and transparent investigation. The Department of Public Enterprise, Eskom and the PBMR Company must put their books out in the public domain for examination.

Further, the issue of PBMR staff has been largely ignored. South Africa needs to retain many of those staff members and use their skills to right South Africa’s social ills; rather than have nuclear scientists, engineers, clerks, etc. selling their skills to the highest bidder on the global market. While Earthlife Africa Jhb does not believe that nuclear power is an appropriate choice for South Africa, there are other, more socially friendly areas in which these skills can be applied. For example, the National Nuclear Regulator is currently struggling to deal, due to lack of capacity, with uranium being leached into South Africa’s waterways from gold mines. We also have to deal with the legacy of nuclear power in South Africa; Koeberg will need to be decommissioned (an expensive process that will likely take a 135 years to complete) and the high-level waste will need to be stored. At the moment, there are no concrete plans to deal with this waste anywhere in the world, let alone South Africa.

Secrecy within the nuclear sector is contrary to the public interest, and the closure of the PBMR is no exception. If this process is being kept away from the public gaze, what will the situation be if the government’s information and media bills (which Earthlife Africa Jhb is opposed to) are passed? Already, the energy sector is littered with secret agreements and confidential pricing arrangements, those misguided, regressive and reactionary pieces of legislation will only make an already bad situation even worse.

As Tristen Taylor, Project Coordinator for Earthlife Africa Jhb states, “There is only one honourable and democratic path open to the government; a full, complete, honest and transparent examination of what happened at the PBMR Company, who benefited from it, and how ten billion rand of our money was spent. Anything less will only raise suspicion for years to come and be festering sore within the energy sector.”

For more information, please contact:

Tristen Taylor
Project Coordinator
Earthlife Africa Jhb
Tel: +27 11 339 3662
Cell: +27 84 250 2434
Email: tristen@earthlife.org.za
Website: www.earthlife.org.za

BEIJING – China National Nuclear Corp. is in talks over building a nuclear power plant in South Africa, a CNNC official said Tuesday, in the latest sign that China is gearing up to export nuclear technology at the same time as it rapidly expands its domestic reactor fleet.

Negotiations involve the potential transfer of nuclear technology to South Africa, during the visit of South African President Jacob Zuma to China, the official, who declined to be named, told Dow Jones Newswires.

China has its own CPR 1000 nuclear technology and its own operating Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR). South Africa and China signed a nuclear cooperation agreement over the PBMR in 2009.

Environmental activists in China have reportedly been jailed, disappeared or sentenced to years of “Re-education Through Labour” for endangering state security after following attempts to petition officials over severe radiation poisoning affecting local residents”, focussing on “nuclear pollution” and “human rights violations” relating to uranium mining. http://www.wise-uranium.org/udasi.html

Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) and South African President Jacob Zuma inspect a guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony held for Zuma in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 24, 2010. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

However, China and South Africa signed a raft of commercial deals in mining, finance, nuclear energy and other sectors during a visit by South African President Jacob Zuma end of August, hot on the heels of his visit to Russia during which he also signed deals involving mining and nuclear technology. China and Russia are both nuclear weapons states.

None of the details of these deals have officially been made known to South Africans.

However in an interview with Reuters, it emerges that Standard Bank has agreed with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company to work on nuclear power opportunities in South Africa, the chief executive of Africa’s biggest bank said last Friday.

Jacko Maree, who had just returned from China, told Reuters on 27 August the deal was reached during the visit this week to Beijing by South African President Jacob Zuma and more than 300 business representatives.

The Chinese firm operates over 40 percent of China’s nuclear power generating capacity.

“We are working with Guangdong Nuclear Power Company on cooperation in nuclear power projects with South Africa,” Maree said. He did not say there were any specific deals on the horizon or give any indication of how big such deals might be.

The decision on how many nuclear plants to build and who would run them is to be decided in a new electricity plan which is still in the works. Chinese firms believe they are well placed given the growing political ties between Pretoria and Beijing.

The electricity plan which aims to map out the energy future for South Africa over the next 50 years is, however, currently subject of a consultative process with stakeholders and is not completed.  Civil society is fighting tooth and nail to ensure that nuclear power is excluded from the plan, in favour of clean and less risky renewable energy options.

The agreement between Standard Bank and the Chinese nuclear firm also involves Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by market capitalisation. It has a 20 percent stake in Standard Bank, Reuters said.

The list of more than 10 deals, the total value of which wasn’t announced, reflects China’s focus on expanding its resources and energy reach in South Africa to fuel continued growth in China’s booming economy.

Separately, an official at China National Nuclear Corp. said it is in talks to build a nuclear-power plant in South Africa. A deal on that would mark the latest sign that China is gearing up to export nuclear technology at the same time as it rapidly expands its domestic reactor fleet. The talks involve the potential transfer of nuclear technology to South Africa, although nothing concrete was expected to be signed during President Zuma’s visit, the official said.

China is working to become self-sufficient in advanced nuclear technology so that it doesn’t need to award multibillion-dollar contracts to foreign companies to build domestic plants in the future. It is also looking at selling nuclear technology overseas in countries such as Vietnam, Belarus and Argentina.

Meanwhile, in another report, Standard Bank Group Ltd. announced a memorandum of understanding with Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China’s largest lender, which owns a minority stake in Standard Bank, to promote nuclear cooperation between the countries, according to a South African government statement. The two banks are working with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co. to engage with the Chinese and South African governments, the statement said.

According to Abdullah Verachia, a director at consultancy Frontier Advisory and a faculty member at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, the deals were done in the mining, power transmission, finance and nuclear energy sectors, among others.

Zuma visited China with 13 cabinet ministers and a 370-strong business delegation to strengthen ties between South Africa and what has become the world’s second-largest economy, with gross domestic product (GDP) worth $1.3 trillion (R9.5 trillion) in the second quarter.

A comprehensive strategic partnership agreement was also concluded during the trip.

Zuma’s visit to China is part of a push to be part of the BRIC grouping of countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and China, and follows trips to the other three countries.

Zuma last week called for China to import value-added goods as well as raw materials and to invest in the manufacturing sector instead of focussing solely on projects involving commodities.

Financial Times reported Rob Davies, South Africa’s trade minister, “revealed some frustration by saying it wanted China to do more than just import its raw materials” and suggested that he wants China to help South Africa to do some more sophisticated (and profitable) minerals processing and manufacturing itself.

South Africa’s current plans to expand its nuclear programme include its announcements to enrich uranium. The Y-plant and Z-plant were South Africa’s working uranium enrichment facilities. The facilities were decommissioned during the 1990s and South Africa now meets its fuel requirement through the world market. The Y-plant was pivotal in South Africa’s weapons programme.

Zuma himself told a forum of business executives from China and South Africa: “We envisage meaningful future cooperation in infrastructure, the benefaction of minerals, engineering, energy, information and communications technology and electronics. There are also opportunities to be explored in manufacturing.”

Africa is a prime hunting ground for China’s future energy security. China has established a strong foothold in the Sudan for petroleum. But, Africa is rich in uranium deposits.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703447004575448911926722310.html

Dow Jones Newswires

Wall Street Journal

http://www.france24.com/en/20100824-safricas-zuma-china-talks-growing-ties

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/08/24/china-south-africa-talks-nuclear-power-cooperation/

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5624822

http://af.reuters.com/article/southAfricaNews/idAFWEA592020100827

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2010/08/24/88906/

_________________________________________________________

For background information on SA, China, Westinghouse & the PBMR it is worthwhile to glance over some of the articles featured in the pro-nuclear Idaho Samizdat:Nuke Notes. Here is the link to the briefs below:

http://nuclearstreet.com/blogs/idaho_samizdat_nuke_notes/archive/tags/PBMR/default.aspx

PBMR joins forces with China on pebble bed technology

It’s a quantum leap in overcoming the “not invented here” paradigm Hat tip to Rod Adams at South Africa and China have agreed to joint development of pebble bed reactor technology A press release from Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd ( PBMR ) of South Africa indicates that firm has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Beijing on 26 March 2009 between the Chinese and the South…

Posted Mar 30 2009, 10:08 AM by Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes

Filed under: PBMR, China, pebble bed

•  Pebble bed fuel fabricated in South Africa

Target application is Idaho’s Next Generation Nuclear Plant World Nuclear News reports that PBMR in South Africa has successfully manufactured nuclear fuel “pebbles” at 9.6% enrichment for use in a planned high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR).  The company said the fuel design and fabrication milestone is linked to work on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Next Generation Nuclear…

Posted Jan 18 2009, 02:50 PM by Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes

Filed under: PBMR, South Africa

•  China launches Pebble Bed at Shandong

High temperature gas cooled reactor design is being developed at Tsinghua University China’s Huaneng Group has launched a demonstration of its PBMR nuclear power project, at a plant in Shandong Province according to an English language report on CCTV. Parties involved in the project signed agreements in Beijing on Oct 7. The HTR-PM project, which stands for “”High Temperature Gas-cooled…

Posted Oct 11 2008, 12:24 PM by Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes

Filed under: PBMR, China

•  For Mitsubishi size doesn’t matter

Firm will start making large forgings and may invest in Pebble Bed  Reuters reports that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) plans to get into the business of manufacturing large forgings for nuclear reactors including its own 1,700 MWe PWR .  It joins firms in Korea, France, and the U.K. who are seeking to gain market share in this field. The only firm making the components now is Japan Steel…

Posted May 27 2008, 11:03 PM by Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes

Filed under: PBMR, Mitsubishi

• Westinghouse moves out on four reactors for China

Plus staking its claims to PBMR reactor technologies and for NGNP The ink is dry on a contract between Westinghouse and the State Nuclear Power Technology Company of China (SNPTC) to build four AP1000 nuclear plants in that country. The announcement comes one day after Westinghouse announced its acquisition of IST Nuclear (ISTN), a provider of services to South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Read…

Posted Aug 10 2007, 04:30 PM by Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes

Filed under: PBMR, AP100, China, hydrogen, Westinghouse

•  SA, China unveil PBMR cooperation agreement

10 Apr 2009 … Its shareholders are China Nuclear Engineering and Construction … PILOT PBMR: China’s research PBMR/MHTGR building at INET in Beijing …

www.engineeringnews.co.za/…/south-africa-china-pbmr-projects-to-cooperate-2009-04-10 – Cached – Similar

•  NRC: Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR)

Protecting People and the EnvironmentUNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION secondary … Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Reactor Power: 400 MWt …

www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/pbmr.html – Cached – Similar

Westinghouse signs Chinese contracts, buys into PBMR

Westinghouse signs Chinese contracts, buys into PBMR. 24 July 2007. Westinghouse has signed definitive … Indian cabinet changes nuclear liability bill …

www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=13762 – Cached – Similar

Green Car Congress: Mitsubishi Heavy Signs MOU with PBMR Pty on …

7 Feb 2010 … With the newly concluded MOU, PBMR development will now move forward …. Therefore I suggest sending used nuclear fuel to China and paying …

www.greencarcongress.com/2010/…/mhi-pbmr-20100207.html – Cached – Similar

AECL Chinergy PBMR SNC-Lavalin Nuclear Washington Group …

14 Apr 2006 … state-owned China Nuclear Engineering and. Construction Corporation. ….. software systems manager for PBMR. “The nuclear …

www.intergraph.com/…/NuclearIndustrySpotlight.pdf – United States – Similar

PBMR Contract – 4th Generation Nuclear Power Plant by 2014 – Red …

25 Aug 2008 … PBMR Contract – 4th Generation Nuclear Power Plant by 2014 … reactor operating in China – the 10 MWth HTR-10 at Tsinghua University. …

redgreenandblue.org/…/pbmr-contract-4th-generation-nuclear-power-plant-by-2014/ – Cached – Similar

US support for PBMR intensifies Areva, Westinghouse contest

2 Oct 2009… to research the pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) nuclear technology, … by 2020 – the others being China, the US, the UK and Italy. …

www.polity.org.za/…/us-support-for-pbmr-intensifies-areva-westinghouse-contest-2009-10-02 – Cached – Similar

Nuclear Fuel Pellets Offer the Future of Energy that is Clean and …

For now, at least, that leaves nuclear power. The PBMR’s small size and relative simplicity … PBMR technology is also being pursued in China and at MIT. …

www.hightech-edge.com/future-nuclear-energy-power/1283/ – Cached

Atomic Insights Blog: Pebble Bed Reactor MOU Between China and …

30 Mar 2009 … PBMR CEO Jaco Kriek welcomed the collaboration with China. … It is joint investment by China Nuclear Engineering & Construction …

atomicinsights.blogspot.com/…/pebble-bed-reactor-mou-between-china.html – Cached – Similar

Eskom’s proposed nuclear power station to be built next to Koeberg could pose a serious threat to residents as the power utility had failed to address a number of concerns such as health risks and an emergency evacuation plan.

This was said at a meeting yesterday of the city council’s planning and environment portfolio committee (Pepco), which raised a number of concerns about the proposed nuclear station during a discussion on the draft environmental impact report by Eskom.

The committee said the report had failed to address issues such as an emergency plan, health risks, nuclear waste, security and economic growth.

Pepco’s concerns were highlighted on the same day that the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) told Parliament that public objections to building a nuclear power plant must be based on proven threats to either health or the environment.

Briefing members of Parliament’s economic development select committee, NNR strategy executive Joe Mwase said these were the only factors considered by the regulator when deciding on a nuclear power plant application.

The city’s strategy and planning director, Keith Wiseman, told Pepco: “The decision on the site will be made without consideration on the impact on health. A key implication in Cape Town is around the emergency plan. The possible impact on the city has not been assessed and that’s a problem for us as a city.”

Between 5 000 and 10 000 people would work on the construction of the site and this would take at least 10 years.

“So housing is also a challenge that’s not assessed. This will also have a significant impact on tourism and will also push up rent prices,” he said.

Councillor Gisela Jespersen (DA) said she found it “extremely irritating” that Eskom had not taken the issue of land availability into account.

“When Koeberg was built it was supposed to be far away. And we have discussed (the existing) evacuation plan, but no one has ever tried it,” said Jespersen.

Eskom’s five proposed sites for the nuclear station had been narrowed down to three: Thyspunt (Eastern Cape), Bantamsklip and Duynefontein next to Koeberg.

Frank Raymond of the DA failed to understand how the Northern Cape had been removed as an option.

The report says that as a result of the difficulty to integrate with the electricity transmission system, the Northern Cape sites had been removed from further consideration.

“How can Northern Cape be discarded, it makes more sense. The EIA at this stage is seriously flawed. In 2004 Greenpeace landed on the dome (of Koeberg) so clearly there’s no security. They can’t look after a key point. The area is already densely populated and they now want to have a second (nuclear plant). This is a real danger and a real threat,” said Raymond.

Vincent Bergh of the ACDP said all the nuclear waste lying in Koeberg was already a “real threat”.

“People living in the area (near Koeberg) are not covered by normal insurance. If anything happens all the properties will be evacuated and won’t be used for the next 100 years,” said Bergh.

He said although Eskom had two other sites, “Eskom is moving ahead because in any event they intend to build in the future on that site”.

babalo.ndenze@inl.co.za
This article was originally published on page 3 of The Cape Times on June 02, 2010

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100602044028533C468333

10 August 2010

Having put the public at risk by failing for decades to address the radioactive Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) seeping into our drinking water, the Pelindaba Working Group is astounded that the National Nuclear Regulator has recently employed the services of a branding agent to “create a positive public image” and now also pleads poverty over funding a single meeting with key civic stakeholders.

The NNR has come under attack for failing abysmally as a regulator and unsuccessfully trying to put a lid on the growing problems of radioactive acid water threat to rivers, farming and drinking water[i]. It also dismisses growing public concern over the stock-piling of radioactive waste and radiotoxic releases into the Crocodile River at Pelindaba and the Atlantic Ocean at Koeberg among other sites.

The performance of the NNR should be judged on their fulfilment of their fiduciary function, namely to protect the public, property and the environment from nuclear damage. To protect their image is an inappropriate triviality which is of very little importance in comparison to the more serious alleged failures of the NNR.

NNR regulates the entire fuel cycle and is beholden to the nuclear industry

The NNR currently regulates the entire nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mine exploration to decommissioning and radioactive waste.

The public have a right to know what is being spent on at least the one branding agent – Zanusi Brand Solutions – whose employees falsely identified their company as “Zanusi Grand Solutions” to solicit an interview from nuclear monitor groups and then failed to phone back.  Zanusi lists DEAT and the SABC among their other illustrious clients.

In 2008, erstwhile Minister Alec Erwin squandered over R4m taxpayer funds by employing FreedThinkers to give nukes a “make-over” and to “turn anti-nuke activists into pro-nuke ambassadors” in his desperate bid to save the discredited PBMR nuclear white elephant. It seems the nuclear industry will stop at nothing to promote this industry against all odds. And, pro-nuclear propaganda in South Africa is set to intensify and be funded by taxpayers starting at schools.

NNR has addition marketing study running

To make matters worse, a second NNR-sponsored “tracking study” is being simultaneously conducted by JGR Marketing Resources which has for years been paid to report on “levels of satisfaction amongst its key stakeholders”. None of these reports were ever made public.

Neither company knew about the other. Neither company followed through on their planned interviews and showed more interest in views over the NNR’s logo, for example, than views over NNR’s handling of radiological issues.

Yet in February this year the NNR asked about 50 civil society groups for “an engagement meeting” and for discussion items, and indeed the NNR budget reflects substantial funding – almost R13 million or 10% of its budget – requested for “stakeholder management”.

To date the NNR has failed to respond to a growing list of questions and concerns that directly impact on public safety in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria from past and existing nuclear activities – past and present – from public groups and this week finally turned down a request for a mere scaled-down R6, 000 after months of negotiation to bring civil society stakeholders together for the meeting.

Why is critical information on failures of the NNR Act being withheld?

Stakeholders had also asked the NNR to provide details of a thought provoking talk by NNR senior lawyer Rodney Elk on the NNR’s legal challenges and difficulties with reference to the implementation of the National Nuclear Regulator Act.

The cotton-wool approach

This initiative is now in jeopardy as the NNR pleads poverty and suggests it meets with stakeholders individually which appears to have begun despite talks about national talks. This is nothing less than anti participatory ploy or cotton-wool approach similar to that used by the consultants on nuclear Environmental Studies to whitewash public sentiment.

Stakeholder groups are situated at each of the five coastal regions earmarked for nuclear reactors, as well as Hartbeespoort, Koeberg and the Namaqualand, site of South Africa’s nuclear waste dump.  In addition, Gauteng and North West host NECSA and most of the uranium mines.

Pelindaba Working Group is aware that the NNR holds lavish pro-nuclear related conferences at upmarket venues that exclude civil stakeholders and spares no cost on the travel expenses of its executives – over R5,5m in 2008/9 and forecast at R7,640,080 in the 2011/12 financial year.

The NNR derives its income by issuing nuclear authorisations.  This compromises its ability to be an independent regulator, as opposing the granting of licences will impact directly on its ability to continue.  A body set up, with an independent funding model similar to the Water Research Council, would be more appropriate.

NNR lacks skills & is has missing funds

Its own annual reports reflect a dire shortage of skills and know-how at the NNR, while media reports and labour disputes indicate that significant funds have gone missing from its coffers.

The NNR has blatantly ignored requests by affected communities for critical information, including details on abnormal discharges of radioactive gases from Pelindaba emergencies, nuclear liability insurances, as well as the issuing of authorisations to hazardous nuclear vessels in our coastal waters and ports without at least requesting that our Mother City and her residents and businesses is insured against a potential nuclear disaster.

Last week residents around Pelindaba again reported hearing loud sirens but these were dismissed by the NNR and the Nuclear Energy Corporation as a “possible hoax” or someone else’s siren.

What of the legacy of nuclear waste stockpiles in South Africa?

The nuclear/radiotoxic legacy of this country is long standing.  Its most toxic impact is through radioactive acid water from mines throughout Gauteng, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.  However, the impact of stockpiles of nuclear waste over the coming centuries is part of that legacy and cannot be assessed.  World-wide studies are pointing strongly to the danger presented by such waste to future generations, who may not understand the labelling because of the shifts in language alone.

It is imperative for this country to have a strong nuclear regulator, particularly in the face of new legislation which recently exonerated the Department of Environmental Affairs from dealing with environmental radioactivity – even in Environmental Impact Assessments. Instead law now places this duty solely at the door of the NNR, where such studies cannot be funded and would be retrospective to the granting of the Record of Decision.  Additionally, the NNR lacks capacity to do anything more than to acquiesce to all nuclear developments. This is clearly untenable as it puts communities at risk and, by default, forces the NNR to grant the licence.

Informed of the failures and inadequacies of the NNR, the EIA consultants Arcus Gibb reply that it is not their responsibility to assess the competence of the NNR.

South Africans need to awaken to the potentially dire consequences for generations to come of a weak[ii], corrupt[iii], incapable and inept[iv] regulator if nuclear expansion in South Africa is to be pursued, and indeed even if it does not.

Issued by:

>Dominique Gilbert

PELINDABA WORKING GROUP

083 740 4676

>Christine Garbett

CANE – Gauteng / Northwest Province

>Judith Taylor

Earthlife Africa Joburg

082 389 3481

[ii] See supporting document http://www.cane.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/Articles-on-National-Nuclear-Regulator-in-support-of-media-statement-published-on-CANE-10-Aug-2010.pdf

[iii] See separate document http://www.cane.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/Articles-on-National-Nuclear-Regulator-in-support-of-media-statement-published-on-CANE-10-Aug-2010.pdf

[iv] See separate document http://www.cane.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/Articles-on-National-Nuclear-Regulator-in-support-of-media-statement-published-on-CANE-10-Aug-2010.pdf

Residents near Pelindaba last Thursday, 5 August 2010, reported that they twice heard sirens around 8am from near NECSA’s Gate 3 to the Nuclear Complex. Both NECSA and the NNR deny that sirens went off at NECSA, passing it off as a possible hoax or “someone else’s siren”. A local block watch in the area was contacted but said they knew of none other than Necsa with sirens in the area.

Go to Important Info page for map

Initially not a single person at the communications division of NECSA could be reached around 8.30am Thursday – even on cell numbers – and finally NECSA’s Elliot Mulane answered his mobile. He was not at work but did phone back with his findings.

Both NECSA and the National Nuclear Regulator subsequently denied that sirens went off at Pelindaba that morning, but Mr Mulane said the routine siren tests had taken place on Monday the 2^nd August.

However:

1. Residents in the area were not notified about
2. Residents in the area say they did not hear Monday’s sirens (but NECSA said it happened)
3. The NNR admitted it had not been informed of the Monday tests. A spokesman said they should have been notified.

This is all very worrying for people who live in the region as they may never know when there is a real emergency at Pelindaba. Last year, after the sirens repeatedly went off over a period of month, we alerted the media and it turned out an emergency situation had triggered the sirens and confined all staff indoors. The siren was triggered by an abnormal release of “noble gas” during a regular production of isotopes.

Residents were not contacted at all. NECSA claimed the radioactive gases that escaped were contained within their fenced area (on a windy day!!!) We submitted numerous questions to the NNR over this incident – subjoined hereunder – and have still not had appropriate replies. Since this incident, sirens have not been heard again from Pelindaba – not even routine monthly siren tests – until Thursday morning. NECSA are supposed to test their sirens on the first Monday of every month but have stopped notifying residents, whether or not they continue this practice.

It is a mystery and residents have a right to know what’s going on. There are worrying health risks to children and mothers from the harmful effects of ionizing (man-made) radiation. You cannot see it, smell it, taste it yet it needs only the smallest particles to cause leukemia, a variety of cancers, spontaneous abortions and genetic abnormalities in unborn children.

THE QUESTIONS THE NNR HAVE NEVER ANSWERED:

The National Nuclear Regulator

Dear Gino Moonsamy and Thiagan Pather

Further to your media release, I am pleased to know the NNR will continue with its investigation. We trust you will inform us once this is complete, and ask that you indicate how long this investigation is likely to continue?

In terms of your legislated mandate to protect the environment, humans and property, however, I trust you will also provide us with answers to the following questions:

1. Can you confirm the chemical structure of the xenon and krypton that was released?
2. Can you confirm that the xenon and krypton were radioactive? If so, what can you tell us about the nature of that gamma radiation?
3. Can you confirm the suspected amount of the xenon and krypton that was released over legitimate levels? And for how long?
4. Please confirm the legal daily limit of these emissions?
5. Please outline known health and environmental implications of xenon and krypton – especially the particular Xe and Kr that is believed to have been released.
6. Please provide information on the exact building stack that triggered the alarm? Was it the Safari 1 reactor or another building, and if so, please name the building and describe the exact nature of the processes that take place in this building?
7. Since it was established within a short period after the emergency that xenon and krypton were released, could you indicate whether ANY emissions of ANY OTHER substance was released simultaneously, whether considered hazardous or not?
8. Why were no residents informed? Instead residents contacted Necsa to enquire about the alarms.
9. If the emergency warranted all personnel being mustered to safe designated areas behind locked doors, closed windows and switched off ventilators as indicated by NECSA’s Emergency Control Centre, why were the closest residents to Pelindaba not evacuated until the emergency was called off?
10. Mr. Rob Adam indicated to me personally that NECSA has detectors onsite and also off-site. Can you confirm this?
11. The emergency took place on a relatively windy day. What assurances are there that the event was of a localized nature?
12. Who is responsible for the emergency?
13. The NNR has indicated to Parliament last year it has a skills and manpower shortage. Is this likely to affect your investigation?
14. What will be done to prevent a recurrence of abnormal levels of radioactive emissions at Necsa’s Pelindaba site?
15. Can you please indicate how many other events of abnormal levels of radioactive emissions have been recorded at Pelindaba over the past that have warranted an on-site emergency– whether or not these were deemed to have posed a threat to the public and workers at the facilities or not.

Please can you ensure that I am on all your emailing lists? I sent you and other officials at the NNR an email request the night before the emergency at Pelindaba and have still received no reply, let alone a copy of your media release – which I now have via people based in the Cape! I am, as you know, a resident in the Pelindaba region.

It is sincerely hoped you will provide a prompt response to these questions in light of the now scaled-up activity at the Pelindaba Complex which makes it more imperative than ever that the public can rely on the NNR.

Sincerely

Dominique Gilbert

From: Gino Moonsamy [mailto:gmoonsamy@nnr.co.za]
Sent: 18 March 2009 09:49 AM
To: Pelindaba Working Group; Thiagan Pather
Subject: RE: Media Release – National Nuclear Regulator Assures Public of Safety – Pelindaba

Dear Dominic

Your contact details have been added to our mailing list.

Your enquiry is noted and currently being attended to.

best regards

Gino Moonsamy

National Nuclear Regulator

“Safety first, Safety always”

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia and its former Soviet neighbours were left to deal with the legacy of the Soviet nuclear programme.

From warheads and decaying submarines to radioactive lakes, a complete map of the area’s radiation hazards has not yet been drawn.

The world’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 is a nightmare that will haunt scientists and engineers for years to come.

The structure – which covers nearly 200 tonnes of highly radioactive fuel, dust and debris – is leaking and unstable, prompting fears of another nuclear disaster.

But as power sources in Ukraine are scarce, the remaining reactors of the plant are still used to produce electricity. The US Vice President, Al Gore, renewed calls for the closure of the plant by the year 2000 on his recent visit to Ukraine.

More Chernobyls?

Chernobyl was not the first accident of the Soviet nuclear programme. The secret Mayak bomb-making plant near Chelyabinsk in the Ural mountains was responsible for a whole series.

According to some reports, radioactive waste equivalent to roughly 20 Chernobyls was pumped from Mayak into a lake that even today is capable of delivering a fatal dose of radiation within an hour.

Mayak was also the scene of an explosion in a nuclear waste storage tank in 1957, when an estimated 70 to 80 tonnes of radioactive materials blasted to the air.

A similar explosion happened at Tomsk in Siberia in April 1993.

Several tonnes of uranium and plutonium salts were scattered over the surrounding countryside. Tomsk is described as the worst post-Chernobyl disaster.

Russia’s main nuclear reprocessing plant is in Krasnoyarsk, some 600km to the east of Tomsk.

The two plants are responsible for the radioactive contamination of two of Siberia’s great rivers, the Ob and the Yenisei, which flow north into the Kara Sea.

Nuclear hotspots are still being discovered, sometimes in unexpected places.

One source of contamination was located in 1997 in a military base outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi, after soldiers mysteriously began to fall ill.

Unmotivated staff

The Russian nuclear facilities have faced serious economic problems which have had direct effects on their safety.

There have been drastic cuts in the defence budget.

And heavy industry and other electricity consumers do not or cannot always pay for the electricity the nuclear power stations deliver.

This means that the operators at the stations can go months without being paid, and general maintenance becomes neglected.

Recently, workers at several Russian nuclear centres have been striking in protest against huge wage backlogs.

In Soviet times, Russia’s nuclear specialists were among the privileged who had access to special shops and luxury items, but now their families are going hungry.

Scrap sub problem

Neither has there been enough funds to dismantle the rusting submarine fleet in the north of the country.

The environmental threat was highlighted in 1996 by the Norwegian environmental group, Bellona.

Their report says the Kola peninsula, which borders on Norway and Finland, has a mountain of nuclear waste, comprising 29,040 fuel elements, nine reactor cores and 21,067 cubic meters of solid-fuel nuclear waste.

In May this year, a Russian official report voiced alarm at the situation in the Adreyev Bay area used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

Some 95 submarines have been decommissioned and dumped at the site and demand constant and costly work to keep them from deteriorating dangerously, or even sinking, the report says.

Smuggling fears

Environmental groups say the Russian nuclear industry has not managed to address the question of nuclear waste disposal in general.

The Bellona group says the storage facilities for radioactive waste and used fuel elements are filled to capacity and in very bad condition at all the 11 nuclear power stations in Russia.

Used fuel elements are stored temporarily in ponds at the stations, awaiting transport to the reprocessing facility, the group says. There is no central storage for such nuclear fuel.

Russia has also been embarrassed this year by a series of reports in US newspapers that it has been supplying sophisticated nuclear and missile technology to India and Iran.

The West is worried about leakage of technology and expertise. There are allegations that private companies are selling technology without the government’s consent.

President Boris Yeltsin’s administration maintains that Russia is creating special supervisory bodies at all companies dealing with nuclear technologies to prevent illegal export.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/197295.stm

_________________________________________

Russia‘s nuclear dangers

Russian nuclear power station: – safety ‘ a low priority’

By Russian affairs analyst Steven Eke

The sinking of the Kursk submarine and the fire at Moscow’s Ostankino television tower are indicative of the poor state of much of Russia’s infrastructure.

But nothing raises as much concern as Russia’s nuclear facilities.

Russia has not officially responded to a European Commission warning on Wednesday that Russia’s only nuclear reprocessing facility – Mayak – was at risk of a serious accident.

The Mayak plant was built in 1949, and it sits on a spot described as ‘the most polluted place on earth’.

It has seen a series of serious accidents, many involving the release of radioactivity.

But Mayak is just one of Russia’s nuclear facilities. The country has almost 100, situated in 10 ‘nuclear cities’.

These were – and mostly remain – closed cities. But today they are also the location for some of Russia’s most dangerous rotting infrastructure.

‘Disregard’ for safety

As life has become harder, the cities can no longer attract the best specialists from Moscow and St Petersburg. The central authorities have little money for investment and maintenance is a low priority.

The difficult economic conditions have damaged the working culture at Russia’s nuclear facilities. During the Soviet era production took priority over safety. There is still a very low level of safety awareness.

This disregard for safety has led to nuclear plants dumping radioactive waste into rivers and lakes. The Russian military poured liquid and solid radioactive waste from submarines and icebreakers into the Arctic seas. But it was only in 1993, that Moscow confirmed that 18 nuclear-powered submarines had been dumped.

Incredibly – even today – Moscow refuses to sign international agreements prohibiting the dumping of nuclear waste at sea. Russia just does not have the resources to construct suitable storage facilities.

Smuggling

The nuclear safety worries are not limited to the military sphere. There is also grave concern over the civilian use of nuclear technology.

Poor controls over radiation sources used in hospitals and research institutes mean that there have been several cases of smuggling of stolen radioactive material. And almost 60 Soviet-designed nuclear power stations remain operative in the former USSR and Eastern Europe.

Their flawed design means that radioactive contamination would be unavoidable, should an accident occur. Unlike Western reactors, the Soviet-designed models don’t have containment devices.

But the international community does not have the will – let alone the funds – to close and replace them with safer alternatives. And turning them off is not a viable option in countries with an unreliable electricity supply.

Russia needs extensive international assistance to deal with its nuclear legacy. International involvement is already fairly extensive, with the United States leading the way in clear-up programmes.

But the responsibility for creating an effective regulatory framework – and for the desperately needed shift in attitude – is ultimately Russia’s.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/936461.stm

As an act of goodwill to determine the energy plan for the coming 25-35 years South Africans are currently involved in a “participatory & consultative” Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2) process – a supposed blueprint for South Africa’s future, in spite of objections that government’s Integrated Energy Process is still far from completion.

Among others the Civil Society Energy Caucus, a coalition of numerous civil society organisations that engage on energy issues, submitted detailed comments on the IRP2 and presented views at stakeholder plenary session of 8^th June. They have still not had any response to their submission from the Department of Energy or anyone else.

The deadly legacy of radioactive toxic contamination of water in the Witwatersrand from uranium and chemicals from mining has yet to be adequately addressed.

When you’ve done reading this, please Google “Russian nuclear legacy” showing a litany of horror stories from warheads and decaying submarines to radioactive lakes and rivers, massive nuclear explosions in addition to the Chernobyl accident, growing discoveries of radioactive “hotspots”, over-filled radioactive storage facilites in very bad condition, neglected maintenance and unpaid nuclear workers.  Environmental groups say the Russian nuclear industry has not managed to address the question of nuclear waste disposal in general.

Russia’s nuclear reprocessing facility – Mayak – is described as “the most polluted place on earth” and has seen a series of serious accidents. But Mayak is just one of Russia’s nuke facilities. The country has almost 100, situated in 10 “nuclear cities”, mostly closed and the location for some of Russia’s most dangerous rotting infrastructure. Reports indicate there is still a very low level of safety awareness in that country.

Highlights of Zuma’s deal with Russia:

• Medvedev, Zuma make deals in metals and nuclear industriesRussia to control almost half of South Africa’s low enriched uranium market
• Russia to control almost half of South Africa’s low enriched uranium market
• Deliveries begin this year
• Russia to provide SA nuclear power stations with uranium until 2017
• Russians to help build new nuclear plants in SA
• Eskom confirmed it has already signed contract with Russian U-trader

Maxim Shipenkov / AP

President Dmitry Medvedev welcoming South African leader Jacob Zuma in the plush Kremlin ahead of talks Thursday.

Medvedev, Zuma Oversee Dealmaking

06 August 2010 (which marks the 65^th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshma, Japan)

By Maria Antonova

President Dmitry Medvedev met with his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, on Thursday in Moscow, where the two oversaw deals in the metals and nuclear industries.

Under the deal, Russian state uranium trader Tenex will sell enriched uranium to Eskom Holdings for use at South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear station, which accounts for 5 percent of South Africa’s energy needs.

The contract is an extension of one reached 15 years ago that is about to expire. Under the new contract, deliveries will begin in 2011 and last until 2017 to 2018. Russia hopes eventually to control 45 percent of the low-enriched uranium market in South Africa, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters.

Additionally, Norilsk Nickel signed a memorandum with the South African government to create a joint mining venture in South Africa.

“We will be engaged in the exploration and production of minerals in the framework of this venture with the South African government,” Norilsk Nickel head Vladimir Strzhalkovsky said, Interfax reported.

The metals giant is already involved in a joint venture with African Rainbow Minerals, which mines for nickel, zinc, cobalt, chromium and platinum.

On the governmental level, the two countries agreed to cooperate on space issues and may jointly launch satellites using Russian equipment, Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov said, adding that Russia would also build a space data collection center in South Africa.

Among other deals reached in the course of the visit were agreements to cooperate on agricultural trade issues and visa-free diplomatic visits.

Medvedev and Zuma, who led a delegation of 11 ministers (75 officials from 13 departments, including five young people from the newly revamped youth entity, the National Youth Development Agency…and business delegation, which is expected to be led by the chairman of the SA-Russia Business Council, Robert Gumede*) and about 100 businessmen in his first visit to Russia since taking office in May, also discussed South Africa’s potential participation in the BRIC bloc.

Brazil, Russia, India and China, which have been grouped together as “BRICs” because of their fast-growing economies and regional influence, formalized the grouping when they started holding official summits last year.

“South Africa’s participation in discussing various issues in the BRIC format would be very productive” since South Africa is also an emerging economy, Medvedev said, according to the transcript of the conference posted on the Kremlin’s web site.

“Our countries share the commitment to a more fair distribution of power and influence on the global economic scene,” Zuma said, adding that Russia and South Africa were “natural partners.”

Russia has always been “sympathetic to the struggle of African countries for independence” and is “open to developing relations of a new kind,” Medvedev said.

Zuma offered Medvedev his condolences for the Russians who have perished in the wildfires that are currently devouring the central part of the country. He also invited Medvedev to visit South Africa in 2012, the year of Russia’s presidential elections.

© Copyright 1992-2010. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.

Highlights from other reports:

Business Report reports:

-          South African power utility Eskom on Friday confirmed that it has signed a contract with Russian state uranium trader Techsnapexport (Tenex) for the supply of low enriched uranium to Eskom.

-          Russia’s nuclear regulatory body Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation suggested that Russia was ready to build a nuclear power plant in South Africa.

The Nambian reports:

-          No tenders have been issued yet, but discussions have taken place, according to Trade Minister Rob Davies.

-          A delegation visited Rosatom’s subsidiary Tvel, which makes nuclear fuel, on Monday, Tvel said in a statement Wednesday.

Bloomberg reports:

-          Russia, South Africa Discuss Potential Nuclear, LNG, Titanium Co-Operation

-          Zuma led a delegation of more than 50 politicians, including 11 Ministers and businessmen to Russia this week.

-          Trade Minister Rob Davies  said SA sees mining, energy and transport as areas where ties with Russia can grow.

-          “We see deepening relations with the BRIC countries,” Davies said, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China, an acronym combining the biggest emerging markets. Trade between Russia and South Africa reached 4 billion rand ($550 million) in 2008, he said.

-          Tenex, a unit of Russian nuclear holding company Rosatom Corp., is in talks over supplying South Africa’s Koeberg power plant, Davies said. Russia is also interested in being involved should South Africa decide to build more plants, he said.

-          Russia may also deliver LNG to Mossel Bay, Davies said, without giving further details. PetroSA, South Africa’s state- owned oil company, needs to secure replacement supplies to feed the Mossel Bay refinery as its natural gas reserves dwindle.

-          South Africa also hopes to use Russian technology to develop a mineral sands deposit that could yield titanium, zirconium and silicon, Davies said. Rare Metals Industries Ltd., a venture with South African, Russian and U.S. investors, said in February it may list shares to fund the $1.5 billion cost of a processing plant needed to turn sands into metal.

RTT News reports:

-          Russia has agreed to provide technological support and uranium in building South African nuclear power stations until at least 2017.

-          A contract to this effect will come into effect next year.

-          Addressing a news conference in the Kremlin after talks with Zuma, Medvdev said the deal was ‘just a beginning’ in developing the immature relations between the two countries.

-          The deal includes defense and aerospace

-          Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s nuclear power corporation ROSATOM, told reporters that the deal enabled Russia to control nearly half of South Africa’s uranium market.

-          Russia, possessing the world’s biggest uranium-enrichment capacities, is planning to set up the world’s first nuclear fuel reserve to ensure uninterrupted supplies for the world’s power reactors.

-          Russia’s critics have accused it of using its energy supplies as a political weapon.

Fin24 reports:

-          Deliveries under the contract will begin in 2011 and last until 2017-2018, Kremlin documents seen by Reuters showed.

-          Bilateral trade between South Africa and Russia remains tiny, totaling just $517m last year, a fraction of a percent of Russia’s total external trade turnover of $469bn, according to Russian statistics. Some investment bankers in Moscow say that Russia has been much slower than China to appreciate the potential benefits of investment in Africa. Zuma, who leads Africa’s biggest economy, is seeking to increase trade with Russia and China, which are forecast to grow about 4% and 10% respectively this year.

EarthTimes.org reports:

-          The South African Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency are also to sign an accord on cooperation in the area of earth observation. Last year, Russia launched South Africa’s first satellite aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

-          Zuma’s visit is part of a diplomatic and trade blitz of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) bloc of four biggest emerging markets. Earlier this year, Zuma visited Brazil and India. Later this month, he will also visit China.

Business Day reports:

-          Russia, in hosting SA, is on a quest to regain lost ground as an influential player on the continent. Its influence has waned significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union almost two decades ago. During those days, most exiled African leaders who belonged to liberation movements – including the African National Congress – received their tuition, including grounding in economic policy, in the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union not only reduced Russia’s influence in Africa politically but also saw its communist economic principles discarded. Russia is now a democracy pursuing a free market economic system, the very system it detested so passionately during its days as the Soviet Union.

-          Also on the agenda will be cooperation in the field of energy affairs. GazProm, a Russian energy enterprise, is looking to explore new natural gas deposits along SA’s western coast.

-          There are also plans to hold further discussions on the proposed Kudu power plant on Namibia’s border with SA. It is estimated the plant will yield 50-billion to 60-billion cubic meters of gas. Energy utility Eskom has reportedly shown interest in acquiring 500MW of the 800MW output from the Kudu power plant to increase its electricity supply to the local market.

-          Mr Zuma and Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev are expected to sign memorandums of understanding in the fields of plant quarantine and visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders. Other memorandums of understanding to be discussed or signed include maritime transport, aviation safety and an extradition order between the two nations.

SOURCES:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/medvedev-zuma-oversee-dealmaking/411794.html

ttp://www.fin24.com/Companies/Eskom-signs-Russian-nuclear-deal-20100805

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/338110,russia-trade-talks-medvedev.html

*http://allafrica.com/stories/201008030041.html

_____________________________________________

SOME BACKGROUND TO THE STORY:

By John Helmer in Moscow

Posted On March 18, 2008 In Africa-Russia

Russia has been locked out of the largest nuclear power contract ever prepared in Africa, despite two years of promises from the South African government that it would invite Russia’s nuclear industry to join a competitive tender with the French and American companies, Areva and Westinghouse.

The lockout appears to be regional in scope, blocking a bid by the Russians to build a nuclear reactor in Namibia, that country’s first. It also makes unlikely that ambitious schemes to draw Russian investment into uranium mining, ore concentration, and uranium fuel enrichment will materialize in southern Africa.

According to the SA utility Eskom, the first SA reactor to be commissioned would cost an estimated R120 billion ($15 billion); six power stations to produce an estimated 20,000MW would cost more than R720 billion ($90 billion), Eskom officials have publicly estimated.

The circumstances in which SA officials made their decision to exclude the Russians have been kept secret for weeks, while crisis talks were held by officials of the two governments, first in Moscow on February 12, and then in Pretoria on March 10.

The secret spilled out after SA Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma came to Moscow, along with the acting director-general of her ministry, Gert Gobler. A communiqué issued by Pretoria claimed their meeting was a routine session of the SA-Russia inter-governmental trade and economic committee (ITEC).

The communiqué claimed there was progress on nuclear power issues, although both Dlamini-Zuma, Gobler and their Russian counterparts knew the reason for the meeting was Russian anger at being shut out of both the nuclear power and the aerospace sectors.

The conflict between Moscow and Pretoria in aerospace follows the recent breakdown of agreements for the Russian space agency Roskosmos to launch SA satellites, one of them the civilian Sumbandila satellite; and another, a South African military communications and reconnaissance satellite.

According to Dlamini-Zuma last month: “the two sides welcomed the establishment of the Joint Co-ordinating Committee for co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to ensuring a proper and structured implementation of the agreement signed during the visit of President Vladimir Putin to South Africa in September 2006.”

This is a reference to agreements reached, not only during Putin’s visit to Cape Town, but to subsequent reiteration of SA promises to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in March 2007, and at meetings in Sochi with Putin and other Russian officials in mid-2007.

Dlamini-Zuma also claimed there was no problem in the aerospace sector. She reported on February 13, after her Moscow talks, that “the two sides considered enhanced South Africa – Russia co-operation in the sphere of space research and the finalisation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between South Africa and Russia in this regard. “

On February 26, Gobler briefed reporters ahead of the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Leaks in the French press had earlier reported that Areva believed it was SA’s preferred bidder for the first nuclear contract.

Gobler referred to a paper leaked to his ministry in February, which disclosed the crisis that had erupted in Russian-SA relations over the cancellation of the invitation to Atomstroyexport (ASE), the Russian reactor builder, and thetit-for-tat cancellation by the Russian space agency Rosatom over agreements to launch SA satellites.

“Many of those allegations are totally unfounded, if not simply untrue,” Gobler said. “The real fact is the insinuations that there are major problems between Russia and South Africa is [sic] simply also not true.”

But Gobler admitted that the nuclear reactor bid was one “of the issues that were raised in that article [and] were up for discussion between the two governments.” The discussion, he added, had been “in a constructive and amicable spirit”, and “that issue is being currently discussed on a government to government level.”

The report on crisis between the SA and Russian governments, Grobler said, was a “list of questions, allegations and insinuations that obviously… involves a number of government departments and that I would not like to comment on this at that point because it needs further consultation with these departments who are accused or allegations are made.”

Although Gobler insisted on February 26that “the relations between Russia and South Africa are in fact very good,” he did not mention that First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was expected to visit Mbeki shortly after Sarkozy had departed.

Ivanov arrived on March 10, accompanied by two ministers:Yury Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources, is co-chairman with Dlamini-Zuma of ITEC; and Yury Levitin, the Minister of Transport.

An announcement was issued in Pretoria by Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka just ahead of Ivanov’s arrival. This claimed the visit was “within the context of South Africa’s priority to strengthen bilateral political, economic and trade relations with the Russian Federation. In this regard, relations between Russia and South Africa are driven through the Inter–sessional Intergovernmental Trade and Economic Committee (ITEC)”. The SA statement added that Ivanov was expected to discuss “the status of bilateral political, economic and trade relations between the two countries…[and] preparations for the ITEC that will be hosted by Russia in May 2008.”

Ivanov’s spokesman told Mineweb that the visit to the SA capital, where he met President Mbeki, was not decided until the week before their March 10 meeting. Trutnev said through a spokesman that he had no agenda for the visit, but was there to accompany Ivanov. Levitin told Mineweb, also through his spokesman, that he was accompanying Ivanov, and had no discussion bearing on the satellite controversy.

A newspaper report in Moscow, published immediately after Ivanov’s meetings with Mbeki and Mlambo-Ngcuka, cited a Trutnev deputy, Igor Maidanov, as saying”the supply of energy is top on the agenda.” Maidanov is the director of the Natural Resource Ministry’s international cooperation department. “Russia is aware of South Africa’s present energy problems. I believe that the delegation will discuss this issue in order to find ways to help.”

Russia’s nuclear assistance was the cat Maidanov let slip from the bag SA officials were determined to keep shut.

As co-chairman of ITEC, Trutnev has been a public promoter of deals in the uranium mining, fuel processing, and reactor building segments of the nuclear market. Russia “would invest as much as needed” in new nuclear power stations and joint uranium mining ventures, he told the SA audience last year; a sentiment repeated in SA communiqués on the progress of ITEC.

A source close to Atomstroyexport (ASE) has revealed that early in March, just before Ivanov decided on his SA visit, officials from the SA Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) and the SA Embassy in Moscow had conveyed Pretoria’s message — the decision had been taken at the highest level not to include ASE in the nuclear tender.

An announcement from Levitin and the Russian Transport Ministry claimed the object of their visit to SA this month was to check on the operation of a Russian satellite navigation system, GLONASS; to inspect Russian aircraft modification and flight operating plans for the Antarctic; and to call at Novolazarevskaya, the 47-year old Russian scientific station on Queen Maud Land.

Roskosmos was also represented in Ivanov’s delegation. But asked to say if Ivanov had discussed the satellite problem, Roskosmos spokesman, Alexander Ryadinskiy, replied: “nothing extraordinary happened”.

Ivanov has not commented publicly on the substance or outcome of his SA talks. But a source close to him denied the purpose of his trip had been to visit SA. The source told Mineweb that Ivanov was intending to visit Russian operations in the Antarctic. He had stopped off in Pretoria on his way south, the source now says. Ivanov’s spokesman, Pavel Zinovich, told Mineweb that Ivanov’s talks had “nothing to do with the intergovernmental commission”.

Before he visited SA, Ivanov was on record as urging Roskosmos to do more for the GLONASS system and for Russian satellite launches.

Tseliso Maqubela, who heads the nuclear division of the DME, and Bheki Langa, the SA Ambassador, refuse to answer questions about the crisis triggered by the nuclear power exclusion, and the satellite launching spat.

In Moscow in March, junior SA officials told the Russians they may be invited to bid for the second round of reactor contracts; these are scheduled to be tendered at the end of the 5-year construction period for the first reactors.

This is a sop. Nuclear sector experts in SA and Russia acknowledge that, on account of the differences in technology, training protocols, site and fuel specifications between the French, American, and Russian nuclear reactor systems, it is very rare for a country to buy and operate more than one type of system. South Korea is the exception, however.

In a report this week on Russian marketing efforts for its nuclear power exports, Moscow analyst Yury Humber suggested that outside of China and India, where ASE reactors are dominant, “the competition for nuclear-plant sales may broadly play out along Cold War lines, with Russia grabbing contracts among former Soviet satellites such as Bulgaria and the Czech Republic and African allies including Namibia.”

He quoted US sources as confirming that “Russia is likely to be shut out of U.S. and Western European markets partly because of historical ties to local manufacturers, said Gene Clark, chief executive of U.S. consulting firm TradeTech. ‘The markets that Russia’s going for, I’m not too worried about,’ said Dan Lipman, senior vice president for nuclear power plants at Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse. ‘Myanmar’s not on my list.’”

A source close to ASE told Mineweb that Namibia, a major international mine source for uranium, has made no firm commitment to a reactor tender, or to inviting the Russians to bid.

A visit to Windhoek a year ago by Mikhail Fradkov, then Russia’s Prime Minister, proposed a variety of options for launching nuclear power generation for Namibia. One of the options reported by Mineweb at the time as discussed with Namibian President Hifikepunya Pohamba was a low-capacity floating nuclear power plant. “We want our own power plant utilising our own (uranium) resources… We are pleased the Russian Federation wants to assist Namibia in this field,” Pohamba was quoted as saying.

Last month, the Namibian government repeated its policy target to develop nuclear power generation, and the beneficiation technology to convert locally mined uranium for fuel.

Article printed from Dances With Bears: http://johnhelmer.net

URL to article: http://johnhelmer.net/?p=356