New safety concerns over European nuclear plants

Some international organisations and governments in industrialised countries are pushing for further development of nuclear power, but amidst growing doubts over the safety of several nuclear installations.

Concerns have arisen particularly over nuclear power stations in France, Germany, and Bulgaria.

Environmental organisations are condemning the involvement of French bank BNP Paribas in construction of the Bulgarian one, which is located in a seismic zone, has insufficient protection against a possible terrorist attack, and it has no means for processing nuclear waste. The German engineering group Siemens and the French nuclear power monopoly AREVA are also a part of the project.

Late in April, the German and the French governments jointly decided to stop transportation of radioactive waste from the French nuclear recycling plant La Hague to a temporary deposit in Gorleben in northern Germany following a government materials testing agency's report that the caskets that carry the waste are not proof against contamination of the atmosphere and might not remain intact in the event of an accident. (See http://www.sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/53802/edit.)

Jochen Stay, leader of the environmental groups that oppose the storage of nuclear waste in Gorleben, told the IPS news agency that "we are aghast in the face of this scandal. We have always been very sceptical vis-à-vis the nuclear power industry, and we never believe their assertions on the safety of their installations, but the real conditions of how the industry works are obviously beyond our imagination."

Now a new scandal is emerging in Germany. The prosecution office in Stuttgart, some 400 kilometres south of Berlin, is investigating allegations that cement of poor quality was used in construction of the nuclear power plant Neckarwestheim. German environmentalists have called for a temporary shutdown of the plant.

See the full IPS report at http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42328#share.