Block restart raises concerns

Reported plans to restart of Block II of Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Plant have provoked a protest by Greenpeace, which cited safety concerns surrounding the possible contamination of its fuel rods.

“There are rumours that part of the nuclear fuel rods used for the Paks 2 re-start have rested before in a pool together with damaged fuel rods from an accident in 2003,” Greenpeace wrote in a July news release. “These used fuel rods could therefore be contaminated, which could have a negative influence on the stability of the reactor, once started up.”

But authorities claim the worries are unfounded. “The fuel elements are in good shape,” said Istvan Vidovszky, president of the Hungarian Nuclear Society. “However, if there should be any kind of problem, it will be discovered during the startup procedure.”

Vidovszky noted that this start-up will proceed with more caution than usual, due to the long outage time. Greenpeace has appealed to Hungary’s prime minister, the Hungarian Nuclear Energy Agency and others calling for cancellation of the restart and an independent safety study.

Hungary’s monopoly electric power distributor is running at a deficit, according to Greenpeace, which has raised financial pressure for the restart at Paks.

Temelin leak provokes Austrians

A broken pipe allowed 3,000 litres of radioactive water to leak onto the containment floor of Temelin Block II in the Czech Republic on June 6. The Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB) claimed no radioactivity was released into the environment, and Greenpeace issued a statement agreeing there was no need for panic.

However, the Czech chapter of the World Information Service on Energy, an anti-nuclear group, claimed that the 40-hour delay before the Czechs notified authorities in Austria was longer than necessary. The incident was widely reported in Austria, and the reaction by NGOs was vehement.

NGOs: Nukes not the answer

	POWER POLITICS: Slovakia’s Mochovce Nuclear Power plant, a Soviet-designed facility activated in 1998 over protests from Austria and the people of Vienna 180 km to the east. Photo: PRESSPHOTO BTA

Environmentalists have questioned Slovakian energy authorities for their declared intentions of building new nuclear power plants to replace the 1,700 MW in capacity that will be lost in 2008 when both the units at Bohunice V1 and four coal-fired plants will shut down.

Greenpeace and the Energy Centre in Bratislava claim Slovakia can compensate with cleaner, safer sources, such as natural gas or renewable technologies. Slovakia’s Industry Minister Pavol Rusko claims two new nuclear power stations will be needed in Mochovce. President of the Slovak Nuclear Forum Tibor Mikus said Slovakia had no extra capacity for hydro power and could only meet its Kyoto goals with new nuclear capacity.

Juraj Rizman of Greenpeace in Slovakia and Igor Ilias of the Energy Centrum Bratislava claim that 860 MW of capacity could be created with a combination of biomass, solar and small hydro if Slovakia would bring in place proper support measures.

This would compensate for the closure of Bohunice V1. Economically effective energy efficiency measures could add the equivalent of 2.95 MW, Ilias claimed.

Bulgarian-spent fuel in Russia

The news agency ITAR-TASS claims that Russia has received 48 tonnes of nuclear waste from Bulgaria’s nuclear power plant, Kozloduy.

The waste was shipped to the Zheleznogorsk mining and chemical combine in Krasnoyarsk Kray, a political region in Siberia, according to the report. Within a week of arrival, the fuel was to be immersed in a pool of water, where it would sit for 20 years before being moved to dry storage.

The accuracy of the report could not be verified, but Russian contacts of the Bankwatch Network questioned one of the particulars, stating that Krasnoyarsk Kray has no dry storage for nuclear waste and has no plans to build one. Still, the gist of the story could be true, said Petko Kovatchev of the CEIE/CEE Bankwatch Network. Although, Russia has outlawed the storage of radioactive waste, it permits storage of spent fuel that can be processed for future use. Kovatchev said the designation of the material can be easily changed for political convenience.

An e-mail query to the Bulgarian energy ministry went unanswered, which didn’t surprise Kovatchev. As long as the Bulgarian government is pressing for a new nuclear power plant at Belene, it will make little effort to elicit public comment on the issue. The government wants to show European donors that storage of spent fuel presents no obstacles to the project, he said.

“So far the issue was kept more or less out of the public’s eyes,” Kovatchev wrote. “They do NOT want to have an open and honest discussion.

Putin offers quid pro Kyoto

	Photo: PRESSPHOTO BTA

Speaking at a joint press conference with EU leaders in Moscow in May, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had changed its attitude toward the Kyoto Protocol in exchange for Europe’s approval of Russia joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), Russian and Western media reported. The EU "met us halfway on certain issues during the WTO negotiations. This cannot but have a positive effect on our position on the Kyoto Protocol. We will speed up Russia’s moves toward ratifying the protocol," Putin said.

Earlier this year, some influential Russians had raised their voices against the country’s ratification of Kyoto, which would effectively doom the protocol. Putin’s conciliatory remarks are good news for the protocol’s proponents, but they shouldn’t be taken as gospel, said Maria Khovanskaia, a project officer at the REC’s Climate Change Programme. “As long as there is no ink on paper I would be cautious,” she said. “And Putin has left the escape door free. If Russia fails to ratify, he can always say that it’s all the Duma’s fault.”

Still, during a June meeting on technical aspects of Kyoto “the Russian delegation acted as if the KP had been already ratified,” reports Khovanskaia. The Muscovites seemed especially enthused about the potential for European investments in joint implementation (JI) projects.

“Chances for KP ratification have improved but they’re still not 100 percent,” Khovanskaia concludes.

Denso to expand Hungary car parts plant

Denso Corporation, Japan’s top auto parts maker, announced it plans to invest EUR 95 million to expand production of common rail systems in Hungary, adding it would receive a state subsidy for the investment. The expansion of the plant in Szekesfehervar, where Denso also produces diesel injection pumps and enginerelated components, will create 1,000 new jobs, it said. The expansion will bring annual production to 700,000 units by 2006 from 300,000 now.

The common rail system, which uses electromechanics to control the amount of fuel injected into car engines and which can reduce exhaust emissions, will mainly be supplied to Toyota and Ford car makers, Denso said.

Common rail systems are used to make diesel motors less noisy and malodourous and more fuel-efficient. According to Denso’s website, a two-litre engine equipped with the common rail injector has 24 percent more power than a conventional motor, produces 6.5 fewer decibels, and emits significantly fewer particulates and nitrogen oxides.

Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag reported that the national government was planning to grant investment subsidies worth some EUR 120 million to eight foreign firms to attract capital in a race with other EU states.

Slovakia plans crackdown on illegal dumps

Slovakia will clamp down on illegal waste dumps, according to a draft government proposal.

The country’s environment minister, Laszlo Miklos, put the number of illegal dumps nationwide at 9,000 and the price tag for cleaning them up at about EUR 2.5 million per year.

The proposed law would establish for the first time an integrated framework for investigating and prosecuting illegal landfills.

There would be a maximum fine of up to SKR 10 million (EUR 250,000). Currently, Slovak rules on illegal landfills are dispersed in sectoral legislation, and there are few successful prosecutions.

An environment ministry official told the Environment Daily that he expected fierce opposition to the proposed law from other ministries and industrial companies.

The 1999 EU landfill directive requires all landfills to be licensed. This is posing significant challenges in many EU members, old as well as new.

Baltic fishermen targeted in trawling protest

Environmental groups urged the United Nations to ban bottom trawl fishing in international waters, a method that counts fishermen of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as its main practitioners.

In bottom trawling, fishing boats drag massive nets along the ocean bottom in extremely deep water near underwater mountains known as seamounts, destroying coral, sponges and deep-sea habitats. The technique is unregulated in extensive areas of the world’s high seas because most seamounts are located beyond the reach of national laws, according to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.

The grouping includes the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace International, the World Conservation Union, Conservation International and WWF International.

The coalition announced its push for a global ban at the start of this spring’s informal U.N. consultations in New York on Oceans and the Law of the Sea.

Together with the Baltic states, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia and Spain took 95 percent of the fish caught in bottom-trawl fisheries on the high seas in 2001, according to one estimate.

Croatia holds line on illegal buildings

In the face of rabid protest by property owners, the Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection has held strong in an ongoing campaign to eliminate the blight of illegal construction in the country’s scenic tourist areas.

This spring, the ministry took aim at unpermitted developments on the Dalmatian Coast. A private investor from Split began building a large tourist vacation centre, and despite the lack of a building license, managed to sell all the resort’s flats, including one to the popular Croatian singer Mladen Grdovic, who has well-known connections to the country’s political elite. Grdovic angled for public sympathy by protesting in front of the state’s bulldozers, but the stunt backfired. The public applauded the state for targeting rich and powerful violators, not just poor ones.

The campaign against illegal structures started in 2000 along the seacoast, and marked the government’s first tough measures to assert the rule of law in the physical planning of the country. The campaign’s first salvos were seen by some as heavy-handed, particularly when the violators were living in the structures. But with strong support from environmental NGOs, along with some favourable media coverage, the image of violators as hapless owners has given way to a picture of opportunists who care little for the country’s environment or long-term prospects as a vacation destination.

Bulgarian villagers protest EU financed incinerator

	Photo: PRESSPHOTO BTA

Villagers from the Stara Zagora region are protesting a proposed national hazardous waste centre, a project funded by the EU and sited on nearby land.

Following a recent presentation on the centre by the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment, locals arrived at the planned project site with banners declaring, “No to the hazardous waste centre” and “We yearn for a breath of clean air — understand us.” The project includes a hazardous waste incinerator and is similar to a project the ministry proposed several years ago. At a public meeting designed to allay local fears about the project’s impacts, local villager Georgi Binev commented to officials, “Why are you still lying to us? You’ve been showing us the same presentation for the last four years. Tell us about the dioxins!”

The National Hazardous Waste Center is planned to be located near the village of Kovatchevo. It will include two hazardous waste incinerators with capacities of 15,000 and 30,000 tonnes of hazardous waste per year, a tank farm for liquid organic waste, a solidification facility and landfills. An additional landfill is to be built in the Sofia area. According to the project’s feasibility study, half of the EUR 55.5 million investment is expected to be covered by an ISPA grant and half by a European Investment Bank loan.