1.
Editorial – MOX Battle Goes On.
The UK Government has extended the deadline for responses to its 4th
public consultation exercise on the Sellafield MOX Plant by
a week to 30th May, because of postal strikes in
some areas. So if you haven’t sent in a response yet, please
send a quick e-mail to
Claire Herdman
Radioactive Substances Division
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
4/F6 Ashdown House
123 Victoria Street
London SW1E 6DE
fax: 020 7944 6340
e-mail: mox_consultation@detr.gsi.gov.uk
You
can see the consultation documents at:-
http://www.environment.detr.gov.uk/consult/mox/sellafield/index.htm
The Barrow Evening News and Star (26th May 2001) reported that DETR has
been flooded with a massive
1,500 responses to the consultation. Officials have been astonished
by the scale of the reaction to the latest public debate on
whether the moth-balled plant should be given the go-ahead to
start operating. The third consultation only received 400 responses.
The massive postbag makes it unlikely that the long-awaited
decision on MOX will be announced before July or August at the
earliest. BNFL said it needs a decision by July or it risks
losing contracts.
A ministry
spokeswoman said an explosion in the use of e-mail helped explain
why the final round of public consultation had sparked so many
more responses. But we shouldn’t get too excited, the extra
responses have probably come from BNFL Sellafield workers. Two
years ago, 95 per cent of people said ''No to MOX'' after groups
such as Greenpeace successfully mobilised supporters to write
in. This time, BNFL workers and local businesses have copied
the tactic to even up the pressure exerted by the Greens. The
ministry spokeswoman said: "More than half the responses
have arrived by e-mail, the vast majority from two campaigns,
for and against.
"There
could be a lot more responses in the post because if past consultations
are any guide, lots of people leave it to the last minute. How
quickly we make an announcement will depend on the new government
and the new ministers. We haven't got a date at the moment."
A report by
independent consultants, Arthur D. Little (ADL) on the economic
case for MOX will not be handed to ministers until early in
June.
Meanwhile Friends
of the Earth has filed a High Court action against the Government
over BNFL's plan to start operations at the MOX plant.
Friends of the Earth believes that the Deputy Prime Minister
and the Secretary of State for Health have acted unlawfully,
by deliberately restricting the scope of the final public consultation
exercise. FOE lodged papers at the High Court on 24th
May, applying for a Judicial Review over Government decisions
to:-
(1) skew the economic 'benefits' of the scheme by disregarding
the £482 million of taxpayers money spent so far, mostly on
constructing the plant;
(2) withhold from the public the ADL report until after it is
too late to comment.
Mark Johnston, Nuclear Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
"We are asking the courts to ensure that Ministers act
lawfully and responsibly in their approach to the long-term
management of plutonium. The fact that Government is the sole
owner of the company does not permit it to disregard the law
in order to allow BNFL to start making MOX.The growing stockpile
of separated plutonium is a worldwide
embarrassment for the nuclear industry. It only exists because
of the continuing yet unnecessary reprocessing of spent nuclear
fuel. The 'MOX option' for plutonium is both expensive and misguided”.
Peter Roderick, Legal Adviser at Friends of the Earth said:
"Radiological protection law is intended to protect the
environment and public health. New facilities can only be permitted
if the economic benefits outweigh detriments. This balancing
judgement must include all relevant costs, including the cost
of constructing the plant. It is quite wrong for Ministers to
ignore construction costs and skew the analysis. It is also
unfair and unjust to deny interested parties access to the critical
information on which Ministers will take their decision."
A
spokesman for the DETR told PA News: ``We don't agree with the
basis of this litigation. We believe it to be premature and
misguided and we will oppose it.''
The legal challenge is supported by Greenpeace.
The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR)
commissioned Arthur D Little Consultants (ADL) to undertake
an independent evaluation of the economic case for SMP in April.
Their work has run in parallel with the eight-week public consultation
exercise. Ministers have said they will not be subjecting the
ADL report to public scrutiny before they take their decision
on SMP. This is despite already
having set a precedent by releasing earlier economic reports
(by PA Consulting) in 1998 and 1999. FOE maintains that DETR
is acting unlawfully by preventing interested parties from commenting
on the ADL analysis prior to Ministers taking a decision.
According to
the Cabinet Guidelines, the consultation period should be 12
weeks not 8, and 12 weeks is a minimum period. There have to
be powerful reasons to derogate such as genuine urgency. Beyond
saying “we’ve consulted before” there is no reason given why
it is ‘necessary’, ‘unavoidable’ or ‘really urgent’ to limit
the consultation period.
The March 2001
consultation paper says the consultants to the DETR will report
to the Government two weeks after the public consultation process
has closed. There appears to be no reason why consultees should
not get to comment on the ADL report, other than a perceived
need to speed up the process. There is no question of confidentiality.
ADL will publish their report excluding commercially sensitive
information, so the public will be able to see it, but beyond
the opportunity to comment. In previous consultations, consultants’
reports were released at the start of the public consultation
period. ADL’s report is clearly very important to the decision
making process, consequently consultees ought to be given an
opportunity to comment on it.
ADL has been
given an unduly narrow scope in its remit. Economics is centrally
important and hotly controversial. However, the Government has
directed ADL to make the same assumptions as the economic case,
which ADL is being asked to appraise. ADL has no scope to say
whether or not it agrees with the assumptions being made. The
case being made by many objectors is that the wrong assumptions
are being made.
ADL is being
asked to determine “whether MOX manufacture is justified by
its economic, social or other benefits in relation to the health
detriment it may cause”. No mention is made of the wider detriments
discussed in the Environment Agency’s 1998 Memorandum.
ADL has also
been directed to ignore the issue of sunk costs. In its document
"The economic and commercial justification for THORP(1993)",
BNFL provided profit projections for THORP that included the
need to cover capital costs for both THORP and associated plant,
and also evidence of contracts and associated payments to cover
these capital costs. No such profit projections have been provided
to consultees to date for the
SMP and DETR is wrong to exclude them from ADL's remit.
The urgent
need for a quick decision on SMP, seems to be something made
up by BNFL’s ‘spin unit’. BNFL Chief Executive, Norman Askew
warned the Financial Times that BNFL’s Swiss customers would
have to buy Mox from a foreign competitor unless approval to
start production at the plant was granted in the next three
months (“BNFL pressures government over Sellafield review”,
by Matthew Jones, Financial Times March 28 2001)
A Swiss Sunday
newspaper reported that BNFL is using orders from its Swiss
customers to pressurise the UK authorities to authorise SMP.
It accuses BNFL of giving the wrong impression that Swiss utilities
need to get their MOX fuel very quickly. HSK (the Swiss Nuclear
regulator) is reported to be unaware of any need for urgency
(“Sellafield wirbt mit Schweizer Kunden”, by Hubert Mooser,
SonnstagZeitung
29th April 01).
The tiny Swiss
contracts should not be used as an excuse for rushing a decision,
which, if taken now, would be a gamble that the market situation
for MOX might improve in Japan.
Job losses
are also routinely exaggerated if the plant is not opened, and
take no account of alternative jobs, for example in immobilising
existing separated plutonium. BNFL's original application claimed
only 200 jobs at peak and 100 routine jobs in operating the
SMP. Recent Press Coverage talks of 600 job losses if the plant
remains closed.
Another product of the BNFL ‘spin unit’ was the description
of agreements with Swedish and German utilities as “contracts”,
and the claim that this now means that SMP can “break even”.
(BNFL Press Release of 8th May 2001). To add together
agreements with a Swedish reactor that does not have a license
to use MOX fuel to a “Heads of Agreement” with German utility,
E.ON - based in a country where the government is pushing in
international fora for plutonium immobilization - is clearly
an attempt to bounce the UK Government into a decision to authorize
SMP as soon as possible.
The Swedish
company OKG AB announced at the beginning of May that it had
reached agreement to convert 900 kg of plutonium owned by the
company into MOX fuel at the Selalfield MOX Plant, for subsequent
import into Sweden and use at the Oskarshamn power reactors.
This announcement
was both premature and overoptimistic. OKG does not have the
necessary government permission to import or use MOX fuel in
its reactors. Since the use of MOX fuel in power reactors is contrary to Swedish
government policy, it is far from clear whether such permission
will ever be granted. The announcement was nothing more than
wishful thinking and an attempt to unfairly influence the SMP
public consultation process.
The then Environment
minister, Anna Lindh, in reply to a parliamentary question in1997/98
[1098] regarding MOX fuel said:-
"… the government's position [is] that MOX fuel in principle
shall not be used in Swedish reactors."
Sweden
continues to look for alternatives to MOX according to the country’s
environment minister, who will not predict when a decision will
be made. Environment Minister Kjell Larsson said
“
We have a serious problem. We have plutonium and we have to
do something with it, but it’s not so easy.”
Immediately
following the MOX data falsification scandal, Larsson said he
did not want Sweden dealing with BNFL and he has repeated that
position as recently as April this year.
“…
I am not especially happy about manufacturing MOX at Sellafield,”
Larsson
has not said what alternatives are being considered.
As Nigel Hawkins, a utility analyst at Williams de Broe
told Reuters on 3rd May 2001, BNFL will have to show
progress on possible deals with Japanese customers, since that
country is a key market (Reuters 3rd May 2001).
Japan represents just over 60% of BNFL’s Reference Case. If BNFL received
contracts for all Swiss and German plutonium, but no Japanese
contracts, it would just fail to reach the 40-50% of the Reference
Case it needs to justify opening the plant. Securing firm Japanese
contracts is, therefore, crucial.
BNFL's Executive
Director, Norman Askew stated last September that:
"Without
Japanese orders we cannot justify opening the MOX plant. We
have no time to finesse this: we have until about next January
or February to convince the Japanese, otherwise we shall have
to abandon the project" (BNFL losses at all-time high by
Paul Brown, Guardian, September 15, 2000).
Sources
close to Arthur D Little (ADL) are reported to have told Nuclear
Fuel Magazine that Japanese business prospects would likely
be a prime factor in ADL's recommendation, which will be used
by the U.K. government in its determination whether SMP will
be authorized to fully operate. "It can be expected that
(ADL) is going to draw a conclusion about whether MOX in Japan
will prove to be a real business". A Japanese utility consultant
was also quoted saying, "BNFL is going to need [the Japanese]
business to make its case". (Europeans First in Line for SMP; No Fuel for Japan until
about 2004, by Mark Hibbs, Nuclear Fuel-April 30, 2001).
In
its Memorandum to the Trade and Industry Select Committee (TISC)
in May last year, the Department of Trade and Industry said
"These
[falsification] incidents have led to a breakdown in confidence
amongst BNFL's customers and its key stakeholders. Japan represents
BNFL's most important market for reprocessing services and for
the supply of MOX. Following the data falsification events,
the Japanese utilities have suspended negotiations on future
contracts pending progress by BNFL on its recovery plan".
(TISC 9th report "Proposed PPP for BNFL" (18 May 2000).
Memorandum by the DTI).
This begs the question why BNFL are again seeking an authorisation
for SMP, given that, according to the utilities, negotiations
on future Japanese contracts are still not taking place (see
Safe Energy 19).
In its response
to TISC, the Government observed that:
"SMP is currently undergoing uranium commissioning. A decision
is pending on authorising plutonium commissioning and full operation
of the plant. Japan is a key customer country in relation to
BNFL's projected sales of MOX. Clearly, it is right to delay
a decision on full authorisation of SMP until the Secretaries
of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and
for Health are in a better position to judge whether or not
the MOX data falsification issue has affected substantially
the projected level of BNFL's MOX business and the economic
case for the plant" (Government observations on the ninth
report from the Trade and Industry Committee (Session 1999-2000)
on the Proposed Public Private Partnership for BNFL", 24
July 2000).
Jonathan Watts reporting in the Guardian from the village of
Kariwa in Japan on 28th May said:-
”The future of British Nuclear Fuels' controversial plant at
Sellafield for recycling nuclear fuel was cast into doubt yesterday
by residents of a Japanese village next to the world's largest
nuclear power plant. Residents of Kariwa, 180 miles north of
Tokyo, rejected plans to use Mox, or mixed oxide, fuel at the
nearby Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant. The result is a heavy
blow to BNFL. It had been relying on orders from Japan for Mox,
a mixture of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear
fuel, to ensure the £400m Sellafield plant became viable. Although the 54% to 43% vote is non-binding, the local mayor and the head
of the Tokyo Electric Power company have said they will not
proceed with the Mox programme unless they have the cooperation
of local people”.
Greenpeace
Japan called on the Japanese government to suspend and review
the entire Mox programme. Kariwa ought to be a stronghold for
Mox. One in four of the 1,400 households depends on the nuclear
industry for an income. The government has paid 22bn yen in
grants to the village in return for hosting the facility, and
its acceptance of orthodox nuclear power is reflected in the
names of the Atomic restaurant and the Uranium hostess bar.
"It's
one thing living with a nuclear plant, but another altogether
to have Mox. There is no way I can trust that it is safe after
what BNFL did," said Kuniko Shinoda, a resident who voted
against.
The
Independent (28th May) called the vote “Historic”
and agreed that BNFL’s plans had suffered a setback.
Shaun
Burnie, of Greenpeace, said: "The idea that the [BNFL]
Mox plant can operate without Japanese contracts is a nonsense.
That's it for Tokyo Electric. The issue will now be bogged down
for years."
The
Irish Independent said the vote “will put huge pressure on the
Japanese government and the country's utility companies to rethink
plans to introduce …MOX, in nuclear reactors around the country
over the next 10 years”.
The Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, Takeo Hiranuma
called the vote highly regrettable, as the plan is one of the
fundamental pillars of Japan's energy policy He said he would
do his best to gain people's understanding, as it is the most
important key to the success of the plan.
(NHK Newsline
28th May 2001).
Green
Action in Kyoto called the Referendum result an “astounding
victory [which] signals the end of Japan’s MOX fuel utilization
program and the death-knell for BNFL’s Sellafield MOX Plant”
“The result
of this referendum will have a major effect on Japan’s MOX utilization
program since Japanese electric utilities, including Tokyo Electric,
have clearly stated that they would not go forward with the
program without local approval. The vote will undoubtedly have major repercussions
on MOX implementation plans in Fukushima and Fukui prefectures
where the programs are already frozen.
In February, Eisaku Sato, governor of Fukushima Prefecture,
announced a one year suspension on plans to load MOX fuel into
the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactor, and called for a prefectural-wide
debate on Japan’s energy program including the nuclear fuel
cycle and the pluthermal program.
The percentage
of voters against MOX utilization was 53.6% (total 1925 votes),
those voting “suspend” were 3.7% (131 votes) and those voting
in favor of MOX utilization was 42.7% (1533 votes).
The percentage
of votes against MOX utilization and those voting “suspend”
came to a total of 57.3%. Since
the voting rate was 88.14% (3605 people in a village of total
4092 voters), this means that more than half the total electorate
of the village are against MOX utilization or have voted “suspend”.
Today’s overwhelming
anti-pluthermal result confirms that Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle
is in shambles. The
result is sure to influence the outcome of the energy debate
in Fukushima Prefecture, where the governor has stated that
he “wants to consider alternatives to the nuclear fuel cycle”
of reusing plutonium in the form of MOX fuel.
“The Kariwa
result signals the death-knell for BNFL’s Sellafield MOX Plant.
This is because Japanese contracts for MOX fuel are absolutely
necessary in order for BNFL to obtain its Reference Case to
make SMP economically viable. The Kariwa results mean that Japan’s MOX program
is next to dead. This
compounded by the fact that trust in BNFL remain totally destroyed
in Japan due to the 1999 BNFL MOX fuel quality control data
falsification scandal, no region in Japan will touch BNFL fuel.
It is now unthinkable that Japan will ever use MOX fuel
fabricated by BNFL” stated Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green
Action”.
The
UK Government can only come to one conclusion – it should turn
down BNFL’s application for authorisation to open SMP.
2.
SURVEY OF SMP CONSULTATION SUBMISSIONS.
Greenpeace
The experience of one of the most recent plants constructed by BNFL, the
Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) does not bode well
for the future of SMP. This plant was given authorization to
open based on a projected profit of £500m over its first ten
years of operation. This projected profit was based on a planned
throughput of 7,000 tonnes. Today, after many unplanned breakdowns,
technical problems, and more than 7 years of operation, throughput
has been a mere 3182 tonnes. Most recently the plant was forced
to close in February and was only re-opened in late April. For
the year ending 31st March 2001, THORP was only able
to reprocess 362 tonnes out of a target of 800 tonnes.(“BNFL
plants resume reprocessing work” by Pearl Marshall, NuclearFuel, May 14, 2001)
According to
documents leaked to The Independent newspaper (“Foreign
firms threaten crisis for Sellafield” by Severin Carrell &
Geoffrey Lean, Independent on Sunday 13th May 2001.
And “BNFL moves to head off revolt by foreign firms” by Michael
Harrison, Independent 14th May 2001), BNFL’s customers
are deeply dissatisfied over massive cost overruns and failures
in key facilities at Sellafield, and are considering legal action
if the situation continues. These documents totally contradict
BNFL's assertion that it has rebuilt customer confidence, and
that it will obtain sufficient contracts to justify the opening
of SMP. A statement made by customers in September 2000 rejects
the notion that BNFL is a changed company. As recently as March
2001 the overseas utilities accuse BNFL of returning to:-
"…its previous ways of being unresponsive
and unwilling to help."
The September
statement says:-
"Some
of your customers believe that the situation is now becoming
critical and are calling into question whether BNFL has breached
the implied terms of the contracts due to the lack of performance
in the areas of reprocessing and vitrification …if BNFL's under-performance
continues in these areas, there could be a complete loss of
confidence in all aspects of BNFL's services”.
In the documents
the overseas baseload customers complain of a 10 per cent increase
in THORP operating costs, mainly due to the need for an 11th
year to complete baseload contracts. Given the throughput rate
at THORP, baseload customers might be shocked to realise that
they should be budgeting for a 12th, 13th
and 14th year as well.
It is clear
from these documents that BNFL's key clients remain deeply dissatisfied.
They have accused BNFL of deliberately blocking progress in
negotiations, reneging on earlier agreements, and penalizing
them with costs that go up continually. BNFL is already in negotiations
with its biggest customer, British Energy (BE), which has described
reprocessing as an “economic nonsense”. BE’s nuclear fuel costs
are continuing to shoot up, largely a result of the index-linked
reprocessing contracts it is tied into at British Nuclear Fuels'
Sellafield plant. A quarter of BE's total operating costs are
accounted for by the contracts with Sellafield. It pays BNFL
£300m a year and makes annual provisions in its accounts of
£140m against future reprocessing costs but Michael Kirwan,
BE's finance director reckons that sum could be reduced by £80m
a year if it was able to switch to storage rather than reprocessing
of its spent fuel. Reprocessing is partly blamed for BE’s recent
collapse in profits (“British Energy Sets Sights on Expansion
into North America”, by Michael Harrison, The Independent, 17th
May 2001).
Unless it can
resolve the disagreements with its base-load customers, THORP
will have a very limited future. With hindsight, it is crystal
clear that it was a mistake to license THORP in 1993. The disagreements
threaten to further undermine the limited prospects for SMP.
But there is still time to take a step back and avoid the mistakes
made with THORP by not authorising SMP.You can read the leaked documents, and see
the full Greenpeace submission on their new website www.BritishNuclearFuels.com .
INSTITUTE FOR
RESOURCE AND SECURITY STUDIES Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Institute
for Resource and Security Studies (IRSS) says it is not appropriate
for comments about the proposed operation of the SMP to be limited
to economic issues. Other issues, especially those related to international
security, must be considered.
In particular, IRSS emphasizes that operation of the
SMP cannot be justified if it creates significant adverse impacts
on international security. Specifically, IRSS recommends the development
of new processes for impact assessment and justification. These processes should be applied to the SMP
prior to any decision by the UK government to authorize operation
of the SMP.
Regrettably,
the UK government has not developed the analytic and administrative
processes that are needed to: (i) thoroughly assess the impacts
of a nuclear project such as the SMP; and (ii) properly account
for those impacts in decision making. If deficiencies in UK decision-making processes
are not corrected, the government will make badly-informed,
inappropriate decisions. One
consequence of bad decisions could be the waste of public money.
Other consequences could be much more significant. For example, if operation of the SMP contributes
to the proliferation of nuclear weapon capabilities, the resulting
reduction in international security will be experienced worldwide
and for generations to come.
One illustration
of present deficiencies in UK decision-making processes is the
absence of any systematic examination, by BNFL or the UK government,
of options for the future management of plutonium.
Two independent analysts have recently published a study
of such options (Fred Barker and Mike Sadnicki, The Disposition
of Civil Plutonium in the UK, April 2001). Their study sets a standard for the type of
analysis that BNFL and the UK government should be required
to perform as a precondition for any decision about operation
of the SMP.
If the process
of justification of a nuclear project is to have any credibility,
the full range of impacts and benefits of the project should
be identified, assessed and explicitly acknowledged in the justification
decision. BNFL itself has implicitly accepted the need
to consider a project's full range of impacts and benefits,
by stating that its interpretation of the principle of justification
relies, in part, upon paragraph 115 of publication #60 by the
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP60).
Paragraph 115 of ICRP60 acknowledges the need to consider
a range of impacts and benefits, and includes the statement:
"The justification of a practice thus goes far beyond the
scope of radiological protection."
As a starting
point for the development of impact assessment methodologies,
the UK could adopt the practices used by the US Department of
Energy (DOE) to assess the impacts of nuclear projects.
From this starting point, the UK could develop methodologies
that would set a standard for worldwide application.
DOE's practices are the product of three decades of experience
with impact assessment, but they leave considerable room for
improvement.
DOE has prepared
many environmental impact statements (EISs) for nuclear projects. These EISs always consider alternative options
and their impacts. The
concept of an environmental impact has expanded over the years,
and in EISs prepared by DOE the concept now encompasses socio-economic
impacts, environmental justice impacts, and cumulative impacts.
In recent years, DOE has also prepared some non-proliferation
impact assessments to complement EISs.
Three important
preconditions must be satisfied before the UK government can
make a credible determination that operation of the SMP would
be justified. First, the full range of impacts of the SMP's
operation, in the mode proposed by BNFL, must be assessed. Second, alternative options must be identified,
and their impacts assessed.
Third, any assessment of benefits must be a true and
accurate assessment of the net benefits; for example, the assessment
must account for sunk costs.
When these
preconditions have been satisfied, the UK government could potentially
make a credible determination that operation of the SMP, or
some alternative option, would be justified.
A credible determination would also require the government
to explicitly acknowledge the full range of impacts and benefits
of the project, and to explain how the justification decision
has accounted for these factors.
CND
CND's principal
objection to the commissioning and operation of SMP has always
been, and remains, centred on the proliferation risks inherent
in plutonium separation and its re-use in MOX fuel.
There is no
doubt that the major barrier, today, to the proliferation of
nuclear weapons is access to fissile material. Plutonium separation
through reprocessing and its subsequent incorporation into MOX
fuel (from which it can be relatively easily re-separated prior
to irradiation of the fuel in a reactor) threatens to put fissile
material within the reach of those, be they states or sub-national
groups, who might desire it. MOX fuel is thus part of a fuel
cycle that poses a threat to international security. Its widespread
use would inexorably lead to the growth of a 'plutonium economy'
with implications for civil liberties and political culture.
Unfortunately,
CND can see no evidence that these wider policy issues have
been taken into account, as suggested by the Environment Agency.
Yet again the current consultation is narrowly focussed on the
question of economic benefit whilst the detriments associated
with nuclear proliferation, international security, transport
and safety issues are ignored.
CND urges the
Government to consider, as a matter of priority, the merits
of using SMP as part of an immobilisation strategy for Britain's
growing stockpile of separated civil plutonium. To operate SMP
in such a way would enhance international security. To use it
to manufacture MOX fuel threatens international security.
GREEN ACTION
BNFL states,
“Japan continues to represent a significant and robust market
for BNFL’s MOX fabrication services.”
BNFL attempts to support this claim by quoting the Japanese
Atomic Energy Commission’s “Long Term Program on the Research,
Development and Utilization of Atomic Energy” (hereafter “LTP”).
While the LTP
does in fact state that plutonium recovered from reprocessing
“will be used in existing light water reactors in a process
of MOX utilization”, it does not necessarily follow that it
will be implemented, since electric utilities do not necessarily
abide by the LTP. The
LTP has a dismal track record when it comes to implementation
of plutonium utilization policies.
Japan’s first
LTP was issued in 1956 and has been revised eight times since. The ninth LTP, which BNFL quotes in its documents, was finalized
by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in November 2000. The
track record of previous LTPs is dismal when it comes to plutonium
utilization plans. (Since plutonium utilization targets are regularly
not met, the LTPs credibility with respect to the plutonium
program is regularly being called into question by various sectors
of society.)
For example,
the eighth LTP finalized by AEC in June 1994 specifies that
until Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) technologies can be developed,
plutonium should be appropriately used as MOX fuel in commercial
Light Water Reactors (LWRs) and in Advanced Thermal Reactors
(ATRs). However, neither
of these plutonium utilization plans proceeded as outlined in
the LTP, and no critique has been conducted by the AEC as to
why this happened.
The 1994 LTP
declared that MOX fuel should be loaded in about ten commercial
LWRs by around the year 2000.
However shortly after the plan was finalized, it became
apparent that this target would not be met. On 31 January 1997, AEC adopted a recommendation
urging all electric utilities to fuel at least one reactor with
MOX fuel by the year 2010.
Then on the 21 February 1997, FEPCO announced the utilities’
plans to have four reactors loaded with MOX fuel by 2000 (two
in 1999, and two in 2000). However, to date no commercial LWR in Japan
has ever used MOX fuel except on an experimental basis.
The 1994 LTP
also clearly states that the Electric Power Development Co.
Ltd will begin construction of a demonstration ATR reactor with
the goal of having it in operation by the early 2000’s. On 11
July 1995, only thirteen months after the 1994 LTP was finalized,
the Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPCO) submitted
a letter to the Atomic Energy Commission, Science and Technology
Agency, and Ministry of International Trade and Industry informing
the government that the cost of constructing a demonstration
ATR is too high when compared with that of LWRs.
All mention of the ATR program disappeared with no explanation
from the ninth LTP issued by the AEC in November 2000.
In previous
LTPs, plutonium utilization was to center around fast breeder
reactor (FBR) technology. However, efforts to develop commercial FBR’s
proved to be much more difficult than originally estimated,
and plans to develop a commercial fast breeder reactor have
been put back further and further in time in every single LTP.
Again, no explanation as to why target dates were reset
has ever been given in the following LTPs. After the Monju prototype
fast breeder reactor accident in 1995, the importance of the
FBR program became greatly reduced.
With the ATR program scrapped and the FBR program at
a standstill, the pluthermal program became the main forerunner
for reducing Japan’s plutonium surplus.
The latest
LTP was released in draft in August 2000 for public comment.
After a 50day period 1190 comments were received. In addition three public forums were held (in
Tokyo, Aomori Prefecture and Fukui Prefecture) to directly hear
the views of citizens.
In spite of
the fact that a vast majority of the comments submitted to the
Long-Term Program Council were opposed to the various specific
policies outlined in the draft, (the chairperson Sho Nasu, admitting
during the official deliberations that comments received opposing
Monju outnumbered those advocating restart 9 to 1), the Long-Term
Program Council, its members highly skewed to those with direct
interests in Japan’s nuclear program, virtually ignored these
comments and proceeded to finalize the LTP in less than two
meetings. This failure to reflect public opinion did
not go unnoticed by the media and public, and has backfired
on the AEC and the national government.
Newspaper headlines the morning after the Long Term Program
Council concluded drafting the final plan read, “views of national
citizens hardly reflected.”
The LTP is
not a program that can force the utilities to implement programs,
and this would also include the pluthermal program.
Although the LTP states that the basic policy of the
government is to call for the effective use of such materials
as plutonium and uranium, it limits itself to stating:
“It is hoped therefore that nuclear operators will continue
their activities under this basic policy.” As can be seen with
the ATR cancellation, the AEC can “hope”, but there is no assurance
whatsoever that implementation will actually take place.
Obtaining public
consent is absolutely essential before the pluthermal program
can be implemented. The current LTP confirms this by stating in
its introductory section, “a prerequisite for any nuclear policy
is winning the understanding and confidence of the Japanese
people.”
In Fukushima
Prefecture – the location of the first reactor intended to be
loaded with MOX, after the Takahama reactors dropped out of
the running due to the BNFL scandal, the Governor has announced
plans to establish a task force to review national energy policy
(See Safe Energy 19). With
regards to the pluthermal program Sato stated, “we will take
at least one year to examine the plan and there is no way I
am going to give my approval during that time.”
In addition
to seeking the opinion of prefectural citizens via the internet,
the prefecture will hold an open public forum on 31 May in order
to help decide the topics that will be considered by the energy
review task force. Governor
Sato has also announced that after the task force concludes
its review, the prefecture will submit its findings to the national
government and make a proposal concerning what should be done. The review committee is scheduled to conclude its findings by the
end of the fiscal year (30 March 2002), and a proposal will
be submitted to the national government around this time.
If the review panel concludes that the nuclear fuel-cycle
policy is not as beneficial as a once-through fuel cycle, it
is highly unlikely that the pluthermal program will get off
the ground at any time in the near future.
In Niigata
Prefecture, Tokyo Electric’s plans for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
Unit 3 reactor to be the second reactor to load MOX, have been
thrown into disarray by the Kirawa referendum result.
It is clear
from earlier referendum attempts that even in towns where many
citizens rely on the nuclear industry for their livelihood,
a large percentage of people are willing to sign their names
for the public record calling for a referendum against the pluthermal
program. The referendum
movement in Kariwa is not an isolated movement and only achievable
because of the small population in the village.
Even in the neighboring city of Kashiwazaki, with an
electorate of over 69,900 people, 26,690 voters, or 38% of the
voting public signed a petition to hold a referendum.
In its “Second
MOX Market Review”, BNFL tries to play down the significance
of the delay in Fukushima.
BNFL states, “senior central government personnel and
TEPCO officials have consistently stressed that the plan is
to load MOX fuel at Fukushima at the next possible outage. However, even if the MOX is not loaded in spring
2001, a delay of several months or even around a year does not
alter the conclusion that SMP is economically justified.” It is now quite obvious to all concerned in Japan that it is not
the central government nor electric utility officials who have
the power to decide if the MOX program will go forward or not
in Fukushima. It is also worthy to note that these government
and TEPCO officials are stressing to BNFL that they plan to
load MOX fuel at Fukushima at the next “possible” outage. They are not saying at the “next outage”, or “the outage after this
next outage”. They make
no commitments as to loading date.
For BNFL to assume that MOX fuel will be loaded in Fukushima
by the spring of 2002 is simply wishful thinking and not substantiated
by fact. The political reality is that the conclusion of the
Fukushima Prefecture Energy Policy Review will have a definite
impact on the future of the pluthermal program. BNFL has no means at its disposal of predicting
what the outcome of this Review might be.
Plans to load
MOX fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant will now be at a complete
standstill. The Kariwa referendum will certainly influence the
Fukushima Prefecture Energy Policy Review committee’s debate
and final outcome. If
the utilities are unable to obtain public consent for the pluthermal
program, the program will never be able to commence.
Distrust in
BNFL, runs so deep in Japan due to the 1999 MOX fuel quality
control data falsification scandal, that it will be impossible,
even with time, to obtain the acceptance of Japanese citizens
for BNFL MOX fuel. On
24 April a letter was written to Dr. Jack Cunningham, member
of the British Parliament at the time of his visit to Japan
to address the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum and promote BNFL
SMP contract possibilities with Japanese electric utilities.
Green Action signed this letter along with members of
the Japanese Diet, local legislators, consumer, professional,
religious, and anti-nuclear organizations from Fukui, Niigata,
Fukushima, Aomori, the Tokyo and central Japan regions.
This letter addresses how BNFL is currently viewed in
Japan, and how there are numerous unresolved issues still stemming
from the 1999 falsification scandal.
Mike Sadnicki
In a paper
commissioned by FoE and Greenpeace, Economist, Mike Sadnicki
reviews new information presented for the 4th Consultation.
In the absence
of an opportunity to comment on ADL's appraisal, it is impossible
to draw attention to any observations as to the way in which
BNFL's economic case has been assessed by ADL and the method
and conclusions adopted by ADL. This is a matter for grave regret
and stands severely to limit the ability to draw relevant points
to the decision-maker's attention, for consideration at the
time of the ultimate decision.
An SMP economic
analysis carried out by this author and colleagues in July 1999
concluded: “the provisional view of Ministers that the balance
of the argument is in favour of economic justification appears
to be incorrect; and that the confidence which Ministers have
in the evidence so far assembled should be very limited”. A re-examination of the SMP economic case,
carried out by this author and colleagues in May 2000 after
the data falsification incident(s), concluded that: “SMP operation
is still very unlikely to generate sufficient income to cover
future costs, and that Ministers should have very limited confidence
in any evidence setting out an economic case for operation.”
The overall
conclusion now, in May 2001, is that MOX “market” opportunities
seem to have deteriorated sharply since the last analysis submitted
in June 2000. Estimated future net cash inflows from SMP operation
have declined. There is strong evidence that costs have increased
significantly, and in addition prices may also have fallen.
BNFL’s bargaining power with all potential customers – especially
in Japan - has deteriorated. The very limited confidence that
Ministers ought to have had in 2000 should now diminish even
further.
BNFL’s current
position seems to be predicated on a false importance being
attached to certain European agreements which would in themselves
be loss-making. These European agreements appear insignificant,
when compared with the increased uncertainty and hesitancy -
arising from political, economic and technical drivers - in
the potential Japanese MOX market.
In addition,
plutonium immobilisation has now emerged as a serious cost-effective
competitor to MOX, as a way of disposing of foreign plutonium
which has already been separated at Sellafield. This in itself
seriously undermines much of the underlying thinking behind
BNFL’s economic case.
3.
PHOENIX NEWS
BNFL has made
no secret of its desire to build one or two plutonium-fuelled
reactors in the near future. BNFL has prepared a corporate plan
that has been submitted to the government, and is expected to
be made public shortly after the General Election. The company
is understood to have earmarked potential sites and is urging
the government to accept proposals for new reactors. BNFL has declared it "has the designs for the reactors"
it needs and the sites on which to build them.
British Energy
has said it will approach the Government shortly after the General
Election about reactivating plans for new nuclear power stations.
Hunterston C has been mentioned as a possibility in several
newspaper stories. Robin Jeffrey, British Energy chairman,
said at a conference last year: "To have a plant up and
running for 2010 we need to start now. The clock is ticking."
The Observer
on 20th May reported that the Government is planning
to launch a sweeping review of the sources and security of Britain's
energy supply if it wins the election. Ministers are increasingly
anxious about future electricity shortages, reliance on foreign
sources of fuel - particularly gas from Russia, North Africa
and the Middle East - and difficulties in cutting carbon dioxide
emissions in line with Kyoto agreements as ageing nuclear plants
are shut down. Both major UK nuclear operators have been lobbying
the Government intensively over the need for a new generation
of power stations here, and plans for new plants could be one
result. Ministers
are also aware of energy industry concerns that the New Electricity
Trading Arrangements may discourage companies from building
power plants, which could reduce long-term capacity and lead
to Californian-style blackouts.
There has been
an apparent shift in the Labour Party’s stance on nuclear power,
according to the Sunday Times (20th May). The party's
manifesto dropped its 1997 pledge to block the building of new
plants. Then, it stated, there was "no economic case for
building any new nuclear power stations". This election's
manifesto, however, makes no reference to such a bar, but says:
"Coal and nuclear energy currently play important roles
in ensuring diversity in our sources of electricity generation."
The industry will still face a considerable hurdle in persuading
the next government and potential investors of the economics
of constructing new nuclear reactors. But if they can persuade
the Government to subsidise reactors in some way, either for
using up plutonium, once it has been declared a waste, supplying
the MOD with tritium, or making savings in CO2 for example,
the day when new reactors are built in the UK may not be far
away.
US operator plans to build new nuclear plant By Julie
Earle in New York and Nancy Dunne in Washington May 23 2001
Financial Times.
Exelon,
the largest nuclear operator in the US, said it hoped to announce
construction of a new nuclear plant within the next 12 months.
If it were to go through, it would be the first new nuclear
plant ordered in the US for more than 20 years. Industry executives
believe strong support from the Bush administration has paved
the way for the revival of a sector
once
considered moribund.
The
Chicago-based Exelon, which owns 17 reactors in the US, told
the
Financial
Times it was in talks with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
over a Pebble Bed Modular reactor, which it claims will be "faster,
safer and cheaper" than the current generation of plants.
The new technology compacts carbon-coated uranium granules into
billiard ball-like spheres, which are used as reactor fuel.
The company is working in South Africa with BNFL, and
Eskom, a South African utility.
Representatives
from the NRC and the energy department have made "numerous
visits" to South Africa to view the work, according to
Tom Clements, executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute.
BNFL
has said that construction of a Pebble Bed reactor would begin
in South Africa within a year and that several could be under
construction in the US within five years.
The
Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group holding its annual
meeting, on Wednesday said it expected the sector's share of
electricity production to rise from 19.8 per cent in 2000 to
23.1 per cent in 2020. However, opposition to a nuclear energy
renaissance has begun to coalesce. Environmentalists and other
public interest groups are to hold a press briefing on Thursday
to attack the administration's proposal to renew the Price Anderson
Act, which shields nuclear companies from unlimited liability.
Californians
Favor Nuclear Plants by COLLEEN VALLES Associated Press Writer
SAN
FRANCISCO (AP) -- A surprising 59 percent of Californians now
support building more nuclear plants, according to a poll released
Wednesday. The pollsters said the findings suggest how deeply
the power crisis has affected people in the state, which has
been hit by rolling blackouts and soaring electric bills over
the past few months.
The
last time the organization polled Californians about nuclear
energy was 1984 -- five years after the accident at Three Mile
Island in Pennsylvania -- and it found 61 percent opposed to
nuclear power. ''In my interpretation, the current energy crisis
has some bearing on the public's changed attitudes on nuclear
power,'' said Mark DiCamillo, spokesman for the Field Institute,
a nonpartisan polling organization. ''The public is searching
for clean ways to add to the capacity. I think the poll is saying
that nuclear should be included in that consideration.''
The
Field poll comes as the Bush administration pushes for a renewed
look at nuclear power. Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads
the president's energy task force, has promoted nuclear power
as essential to America's energy needs and said that at least
some of the 65 power plants that need to be built annually to
meet future electricity demand ought to be nuclear.
No
utilities have ordered any new nuclear power plants in the United
States since 1978.
The
poll 1,015 California adults was taken May 11-20. It showed
that 59 percent of Californians favor nuclear power and 36 percent
are opposed. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage
points.
Carl
Zichella, the Sierra Club's regional staff director for California,
Nevada and Hawaii, said Californians have not thought about
nuclear energy for about 20 years and do not have as much information
as they did around Three Mile Island.
''I
think this number really reflects a lack of knowledge on the
part of the public about the problems that drove nuclear power
underground,'' he said. ''The more people know about nuclear
power, the less they're going to like it.''
US attraction to nuclear power BBC On-Line Tuesday,
15 May, 2001
By Stephen Evans in
Washington
In
1979, a controlled nuclear reaction here became an uncontrolled
one, threatening meltdown and the contamination of a continent.
Nuclear power is undergoing a dramatic rehabilitation in the
United States as the new Bush administration reviews the country's
future energy demands. In the middle of the luxuriant forests
and farmlands of Pennsylvania, there is an unlikely tourist
attraction - a working nuclear power station.
A
heroic effort contained the damage within the concrete, but
the closeness of the call changed attitudes. From then, no new
nuclear power station was built in the United States. Now, though,
nuclear is coming back. Most American citizens take cheap energy
for granted and the new Bush administration is trying to keep
those demands satisfied. Three Mile Island is jointly owned
by British Energy and by US company Exelon. Three Mile Island,
once a by-word for nuclear disaster, is now a designated official
historic monument and a magnet for tourists
Exelon's
Ralph De Santa said the old assumption that existing nuclear
power stations would close when their licenses expired has now
gone. "You will see existing nuclear companies put in for
license renewal, to extend the life of the existing plants,"
he said. "So that's very important, because just a couple
of years ago the common thought was that these plants would
be shut down. "Ultimately, they are looking at building
new plants. So that's the future."
Cheaper costs
Apart
from the politics, the economics have changed. Howard Greenspect,
of the independent Resources for the Future think-tank in Washington,
said costs had come down, certainly for running existing stations.
"They are operating more efficiently; their utilisation
rates are higher," said Mr Greenspect. "The plants
are being gathered, instead of being operated individually.
They're now being agglomerated and put in the hands of more
experienced operators. "It's now more economically attractive
to extend the lifetime of those facilities and seek an additional
20-year period."
All
the same, new plants remain expensive to build. However, as
burning coal and oil gets more politically and economically
costly, nuclear power plants will become more attractive. And
there is the problem of waste, which has to be buried for centuries.
Damon Moglan, Greenpeace's nuclear expert in the US, said pinning
hopes on nuclear power meant the Bush administration was dodging
the real issue.
"These
guys are looking backwards by 30, 40, 50 years, instead of looking
forwards," said Mr Moglan. "And it's quite clear that
the real solution is going to be the development of alternative
renewable, clean technology, wedded to energy efficiency and
conservation. "Those are solutions."
New confidence
The
forests around Three Mile Island bristle with monitoring equipment,
continually testing the air: a testament to the fact that, when
nuclear goes wrong, it goes very wrong. All the same, the man
charged with policing this expanding industry, Dr Richard Meserve,
the head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
said lessons had now been learnt.
"We
have been preparing for the possibility of new construction
by staffing, by trying to anticipate the problems that may arise,
that may be presented to us, particularly if new technologies
are something that licensees seek," said Dr Meserve. "Every
indication we have is that there's great enthusiasm in the generating
companies for maintaining their existing nuclear plants and
possibly expanding them."
The Bush administration
reckons that 1,300 new power stations, conventional and nuclear,
will be needed to keep pace with American demand over the next
20 years. The great political attraction of nuclear is that
it seems to offer cheap power to a people suffering power cuts.
Whatever the long-term issues, that argument will be immediately
attractive in Washington.
NEW
YORK TIMES, 16 May 2001 More Nuclear Power Means More Risk
Opinion Editorial by PAUL L. LEVENTHAL president of the Nuclear
Control Institute.]
WASHINGTON - Despite all the talk about nuclear power as the
environmentally clean response to electricity shortages and
global warming, many Americans are understandably wary. The
Bush administration's energy task force announces its report
today, and President Bush would do well to note the public's
concerns about the combination of human fallibility and mechanical
failure that can set off catastrophic accidents at nuclear plants
and about the link between nuclear waste and nuclear weapons.
The nuclear industry's safety and security claims are
often misleading. Its spokesmen still insist that the Three
Mile Island accident demonstrated that the core of a light water
reactor is far more resistant to a meltdown than had been previously
thought. They don't acknowledge that the core at the Three Mile
Island plant was within hours of an uncontrolled melt - with
Chernobyl-like
consequences - when a new shift supervisor came on duty in a
panicked control room and finally figured out that thousands
of gallons of cooling water had poured undetected from a valve
that was stuck open. Advanced designs for presumably safer light
water reactors and simpler pebble-bed reactors still have not
made it off the drawing boards.
Though the nuclear industry claims it is being crippled by over-regulation,
its powerful friends on Capitol Hill have threatened budget
cuts to make the Nuclear Regulatory Commission compliant. The
N.R.C. has begun a process of granting life extension to America's
aging supply of 104 power reactors, for example, despite a rash
of forced shutdowns due to equipment failures caused by aging.
There have been at least eight such shutdowns over the past
16 months, according to an analysis of N.R.C. data by the Union
of Concerned Scientists.
And the agency has decided not to take enforcement action
against weak security at nuclear plants: guards at half the
nation's nuclear power plants have failed to repel mock attackers
in N.R.C.-supervised exercises that test the protection of reactor
safety systems against sabotage. Instead, it is in the process
of weakening the rules of the "game" used in the mock
attacks.
A push for nuclear power, which Mr. Bush supports, isn't
the way to meet America's urgent energy needs. New plants could
not be brought on line quickly enough to offset present electricity
shortages, which many experts believe are caused primarily by
lack of capacity for transmission, not production. Nor could
using nuclear plants make a big dent in global warming. Two-thirds
of the emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas,
are from transportation or other sources not related to power
generation. And worldwide, it would take 3,000 nuclear plants
- a tenfold increase - to replace all coal plants; yet that
increase would reduce carbon emissions by only 20 percent, while
enormously expanding risks that materials from nuclear power
plants would be applied to making weapons. And since reserves
of uranium ore are limited, millions of kilograms of plutonium,
equivalent to hundreds of thousands of bombs, would have to
be separated from wastes each year to help fuel so many reactors
in the future.
There are better alternatives. Energy efficiency measures,
like using the best available existing technology for air conditioning,
lighting and electric motors, could offset the need to build
any new nuclear plants. Renewable energy sources and other alternative
energy systems, including hydrogen recovered from fossil fuels
after removing carbon, could provide new, clean ways to generate
power.
A rapid expansion of nuclear power would compound the
existing dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation. International
inspections of nuclear facilities provide uncertain protection;
Iran, for example, has pledged to put the reactors it will build
under inspection but is still suspected of using civilian nuclear
power as a cover for a nascent nuclear weapons program.
George Perkovich, in his book "India's Nuclear Bo