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
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and hopelessly outdated.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.
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive