News !
Words
of the month
Superphénix
inquiry
Figure of the month
The La Hague reprocessing plants operate very successfully not only
for France but especially for foreign clients. Of the 12,124 t of cumulated
throughtput of light water reactor fuel as of 1 March 1998, close to
60% or 7,105 t were of foreign origin, of which exactly half or 3,552
t were discharged from German reactors. At its current rate, without
any major technical incident or accident, the foreign "base load"
contracts of 7,000 t could be fulfilled by the end of the year 2000
(the foreign UP2 contracts having already been executed). It would take
COGEMA until the end of 2001 to process all of the 8,156 t under contract.
The French utility EDF has not signed any follow-up contract yet. The
only substantial quantity (roughly 2,000 t) under - very flexible -
contract after the turn of the century has been signed up for by the
German utilities. No wonder COGEMA follows election results in Germany
closely.
Reprocessing at the French
La Hague Plant
(in metric tons of heavy metal as of 1 march 1998)
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Words of the month
Bayernwerk AG Chairman Otto Majewski wrote to Federal Minister of Finance
Theo Waigel on 24 June 1997 that if the Federal government goes ahead
with its plans to tax utility reserves which are earmarked for reprocessing,
"reprocessing, as an alternative to geological disposal, would
in the future be eliminated as a spent fuel management option".
He warned that "if reprocessing contracts with France and Britain
are cancelled or limited, [this would bring] unforeseeable consequences
for relations with Britain and France". Given growing opposition
to foreign reprocessing in France, these consequences may be rather
positive.
" One does not solve problems in exporting them», stated
Klaus Töpfer in February 1997, then German minister for local development,
about the reprocessing in France of spent fuel from German nuclear power
plants and the return to Germany of the generated radioactive waste.
Töpfer, now heading the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi, has
been a long time minister for environment and nuclear safety. He continued
by saying in an interview with WISE-Paris that he was conscious that
these problems had to be taken care of "at home": "I
am entirely convinced that, in some cases, we should be more honest
with ourselves and clearly say that we have not avoided the risk but
that we have only shifted it.
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Superphénix Inquiry
The French National Assembly has voted unanimously in favour of the
establishment of an inquiry committee to investigate "the conditions
under which the creation, the building and the abandonment of Superphenix
were decided, its consequences for the fast neutron and breeder reactor
line, and the lessons which have been drawn from this experience in
the scientific, administrative, financial, political and environmental
areas".
The pro-nuclear lobby hopes to be able to put into question the government's
decision to shut down Superphénix for good, and the critical
MPs try to highlight the countless errors and failures of the breeder
programme from the beginning. Also, in July 1977, extremely violent
riot police broke up a demonstration of 50,000 people; one demonstrator
lost his life, and over one hundred people were injured.
The initiator of the bill for the establishment of the inquiry committee,
right winger and long term nuclear lobbyist Robert Galley, had actually
thought limiting the mandate of the committee to look at "the shutdown
of Superphénix and its consequences on employment, research and
orientation of the French energy policy". No surprise he did not
think of investigating the past: Galley was part of the Barre government
which forced through the construction of Superphénix against
massive opposition.
The socialist MP Michèle Rivasi delicately reminded the Assembly
of the fact that a similar request for the establishment of an inquiry
committee was voted down by the right wing majority... in December 1976.
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