Finnish nuclear regulator tells Indian official of EPR problems

From The Hindu newspaper: "Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh heard a sobering assessment of the Areva's Finnish reactor project (pictured left) — which is running four years behind schedule, with cost overruns hitting 2.7 billion euros — from that country's nuclear regulator.

In a presentation made to Mr. Ramesh and a visiting Indian delegation in Finland earlier this week, Finnish regulator STUK put the blame for the crippling delay on Areva, for taking on the job without the requisite competencies, without experienced partners, and without completing design and engineering work before it started construction.

“In all of the Areva's earlier projects, the owner and licensee of the French nuclear power plants EdF had played the important role as the architect-engineer and had been responsible for the construction management,” The STUK told Mr. Ramesh. “at the start of the project it was found that many of the experienced nuclear manufacturers who had contributed to the earlier Areva projects had left the business. The Areva had to find new subcontractors and to coach them in nuclear manufacturing.”

The Finnish regulator added that the original schedule was “too ambitious” for a nuclear plant that is the first of its kind, larger than any previous project and built after a long gap in nuclear plant construction in Europe."

Italian Prime Minister attempts to block anti-nuclear referendum

On May 9th Greenpeace activists unfurled a large banner from Mussolini's balcony on Palazzo Venezia in Rome. The banner includes a caricature of Berlusconi saying "Italians, I decide your future" and a call for Italians to vote on the Nuclear Referndum.Michael Leonardi, an ally of Beyond Nuclear in environmental coalition efforts to block the 20 year license extension at Davis-Besse atomic reactor in Ohio (see the Counterpunch article from last month), has reported at Counterpunch that Italian PM Berlusconi is attempting to postpone a national referendum set for June 12th and 13th that would end his proposed nuclear relapse in Italy. The anti-nuclear referendum drive required the gathering of 500,000 petition signatures. Berlusconi privately owns and/or controls much of the media in Italy, and has effectively censored any efforts by the anti-nuclear movement to spread the word about the referendum. Michael Leonardi reports about a moment of deep cynicism, when Berlusconi and French President Nicholas Sarkozy stood together in Rome to promote building new French reactors in Italy on Chernobyl's 25th anniversary on April 26th. Berlusconi said to the assembled press that the Italian voters had been scared by Fukushima, just as they had been by "leftists and ecologists" after Chernobyl, so a year-long calm down period before the referendum should take place. Leonardi quoted Angelo Bonelli, President of the Italian Green Party, as saying: "The referendums will be voted on anyway, despite the fact that the thieves of democracy have returned to action. The attempts of the government to steal the democratic rights of the Italian people to vote against nuclear energy and the privatization of water will not succeed."

Italians stage mock Berlusconi announcement regarding nuclear future

Unfurling a banner that says "Italians, I decide the future" and mimicking the voice of Berlusconi, Greenpeace Italy broadcast a loudspeaker message in Rome that mocked Berlusconi's autocratic style. During his speech, the false Berlusconi promises that Italians will not be denied an audience-getter like Fukushima with its own, better, Fukushima 2 and that there should be no public vote on the future of nuclear power in Italy. (Italy shuttered the last 3 of its total 4 reactors after a 1987 referendum following the 1986 Chernobyl explosion that spewed radiation across Europe). A referendum to end nuclear in Italy is scheduled June 12 and 13: Video in Italian.

800 protest Flamanville reactor in France

Marking the 25 years since the Chernobyl catastrophe, Didier and Paulette Anger, of the Normandy anti-nuclear group, CRILAN, organized a rally near the Flamanville nuclear site where a new EPR reactor is under construction. An estimated 800 people rallied near the site, followed by an enormous water truck that activists used, "dousing" symbolic reactor flames with buckets of water.

India protester killed opposed Jaitapur nuclear project

A protester has been killed opposing the massive French nulcear reactor project proposed at Jaitapur, situated in one of the most precious ecosystems in India. The project - made possible by the nuclear Non-Porliferation Treaty-breaking U.S.-India nuclear agreement, has been imposed against the will of villagers, farmers and fishermen who have been staging mass protests for many months. Please consider signing the petition to urge Prithviraj Chavan, Maharashtra Chief Minister, to listen to his people and abandon the EPR nuclear project, which was determined with no democratic process.