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- Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!naughty-peahen
- From: Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,sci.energy,talk.environment
- Subject: NEWS: German Government Fuels Dangerous Eastern European Reactors
- Followup-To: sci.energy,talk.environment
- Date: 20 Nov 1992 01:00:24 GMT
- Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
- Lines: 71
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Message-ID: <Greenpeace.19Nov1992.1700@naughty-peahen>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
-
- [Greenpeace Press Release from Greenbase -- Redistribute Freely]
-
- GREIFSWALD: GERMAN GOVERNMENT FUELS DANGEROUS EASTERN EUROPEAN
- REACTORS
-
- GREIFSWALD, Germany October 25, 1992 (GP) Greenpeace activists
- are trying to stop a transport of fresh nuclear fuel from the
- closed German nuclear power plant Greifswald to the run-down
- Slovakian reactors in Bohunice.
-
- "This will help to make Chernobyl happen again", says Greenpeace
- spokesperson Heinz Laing. "The double-dealing of the government
- becomes obvious here: on the one hand, the German Environment
- Minister, Mr. Toepfer, incessantly stresses the necessity of
- shutting down the 'ticking time-bombs' in Eastern Europe. It is
- a scandal that, on the other hand, these reactors are backfitted
- with German help and are now even fuelled with elements from
- Germany," continues Heinz Laing.
-
- In 1990, a commission of experts prepared a safety report on
- Bohunice for the Austrian government, with shocking results. The
- experts found out that in Bohunice "the probability of a very
- serious accident, similar to the one in Chernobyl, is a hundred
- times higher than in modern nuclear power plants." Yet no one
- thinks of shutting down the Slovakian reactor. The Slovakian
- government even plans to continue operating Bohunice until 2005.
-
- "It can be said that in general a further operation of most of
- the Eastern European reactors would not be possible according to
- German standards," said Mr. Toepfer at the Winter Conference of
- the German Nuclear Forum in January, 1992. But although he calls
- the Eastern nuclear plants 'ticking time-bombs', he now wants to
- make it possible that these reactors can continue to "operate
- for a limited time."
-
- The nuclear power plant in Greifswald, too, was extremely unsafe
- and hopelessly outdated. Even with the most modern technology --
- according to several safety reports -- the plants could not be
- geared up to German safety standards. But outside Germany, these
- dangers do not seem to matter. "German politicians and German
- nuclear industry are double-tongued when they are stressing high
- safety standards at home, while making money with exports
- destined for unsafe reactors abroad," says Laing.
-
- The reactors Bohunice 1 and 2 are of the same type as the
- Greifswald reactors 1-4 and the reactors 1-4 of the notorious
- Bulgarian plant in Kozloduj. Reactor block 3 and 4 in Bohunice
- are of the same type as block 5 in Greifswald.
-
- The present transport is already the second consignment of
- nuclear fuel from Greifswald to Bohunice. A first 120 fuel
- elements were sent to Slovakia in January 1992, according
- to a statement which Energiewerke Nord (EWN), the operators
- of Greifswald, made to Greenpeace. In May and July EWN also
- sent a total of 231 fuel elements to the Czech nuclear plant
- in Dukovany. The whole transaction between EWN and the
- Czechoslovakian utilities had a financial volume of 40 million
- US-Dollars. The government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Schwerin
- confirmed this information to Greenpeace in August 1992.
-
- Only because of the political, economic and technical assistance
- from Germany, countries like the CSFR, Bulgaria or Russia can
- continue operating their run-down reactors.
-
- Greenpeace therefore demands from the German government to stop
- any further export of nuclear fuel from Greifswald to Eastern
- Europe immediately. Instead, the government should work for an
- immediate shutdown of Eastern European reactors. They should
- offer to assist Eastern European governments with the
- implementation of energy efficiency measures and the alternative
- energy supplies, such as gas and steam power plants.
-