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Friday, March 07, 2008

AREVA'S Recent Spills
By @ 11:34 AM :: 1618 Views :: Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste and Contamination, Action Alert!

Please check-out these two recent articles for the most up-to-date information regarding AREVA's recent spills in France. This is the company that wants to build a facility in Idaho. After the articles you can find background information about uranium enrichment and why AREVA chose Idaho for their facility. Please contact your legislators and local papers to voice your concern about a company with this record of radioactive leaks building there plant in Idaho.

From the Idaho Mountain Express, July 30th, 2008
Is Idaho prepared to monitor uranium enrichment plant?
Threaded through every U.S. decision in recent years to either relax environmental protection standards or not enforce more stringent safeguards is one theme: Spare industry of expensive environmental programs and worry about profits while ignoring the environment.
Americans know where that national policy has gotten us---greenhouse gases, global warming, accelerated meltdowns of glaciers and threats to human health.
So, it behooves the state of Idaho to be vigilant about the operations of a proposed nuclear enrichment plant west of Idaho Falls. The starry-eyed state Legislature's go-ahead on the plant was based almost entirely on sugar plum visions of building a $1 billion-plus facility and creating 250 permanent jobs in Bonneville County.
Idaho lawmakers were so blinded by the glamour of an international energy giant locating here they couldn't dole out tax breaks fast enough. They forgave taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars of buildings and personal property.
The plant owner, French-chartered international nuclear and energy mammoth Areva, is an impressive financial empire, with operations worldwide.
However, it also is the operator of two nuclear facilities in France that have leaked uranium products into two rivers and the environment this month. One spill "slightly contaminated" 100 workers. One leak may have been dripping deadly liquids from a ruptured pipe for years.
The French government is now investigating the quality of groundwater around all of that country's 59 reactors.
Boosters of the Areva plant in Idaho dismiss alarms, arguing that leaks in France should be of no concern here.
Twaddle.
Carelessness in France can result in carelessness in Idaho. Engineering slipups in France can occur just as easily in Idaho.
Areva in France is Areva in Idaho. The worry should be that Idaho government lacks the technological competence to watchdog Areva's operations. What also of the enforcement power to intervene when engineering plans or, later, operations are too risky to the huge underground aquifer in south Idaho?
It's worth mentioning that except for a moratorium on their construction, legislators showed zero interest in creating a state authority to decide where electric generating plants should be located.
Now that the Areva giant's failings in France have been disclosed, responsible Idaho legislators are obliged to question state agencies about their technical expertise and competence to deal eye-to-eye with Areva as watchdogs with teeth.
Waiting for an accident is worse than slamming the barn door. It would be criminal.

From Business Week, July 28th, 2008
Will French Leaks Harm Nuclear's Revival?
A spate of problems at French nuclear facilities stir long-simmering fears and cast a pall over global nuclear giant Areva
by Matt Mabe
France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear plants, more than any country in the world, and its largely unblemished track record is often cited as evidence that nuclear power can be safe and efficient. But recent problems at French nuclear facilities have shaken confidence in the industry, just as French nuclear giant Areva (CEPFI.PA) is joining the government in pushing for a global nuclear power revival.
None of the incidents involved radioactive leaks from nuclear reactors, but even so they stirred lingering public concerns over the safety of atomic energy. The timing couldn't be worse, given that nuclear power is just now reemerging from decades of disrepute after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. Faced with rising oil prices and concerns over carbon emissions, countries from the U.S. to Britain to Germany are reviving dormant nuclear programs or rethinking long-standing anti-nuclear policies (BusinessWeek.com, 7/11/08).
The trouble started July 7, when uranium leaked from a nuclear waste management plant run by an Areva subsidiary near the southeastern French town of Tricastin. The leak, which occurred when a storage tank overflowed, involved unenriched uranium, which is only slightly radioactive. Although authorities said there was no serious risk, they barred fishing and swimming in a nearby river and advised some local residents not to drink tap water. The plant manager was fired.
Employees Exposed to Radiation
Then, on July 18, Areva said it discovered enriched uranium seeping from a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel processing site in Romans-sur-Isère, about 60 miles (100 km) from Tricastin. The same day, utility company Electricité de France (EDF.PA) said 15 employees had been exposed to low levels of radiation at a nuclear plant in the Rhône Valley south of Lyon. And on July 23, EDF said 100 employees at its nuclear plant in Tricastin, which is separate from the Areva facility, had been exposed to low-level radiation. EDF said none of its employees faced serious health risks.
"All the facts, if you put them together, show that there is a real problem in safety and protection from radioactivity," says Bruno Chareyron, a nuclear physicist at the Research & Independent Information Commission on Radioactivity, a French nonprofit group created after the 1986 Chernobyl accident to provide the public with an independent assessment of the country's nuclear operations. "It's really frightening."
The news comes at an inopportune time for France's nuclear industry. Days before the July 7 leak, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans to start construction of the country's 60th nuclear plant, the second in a new generation of pressurized-water reactors that France also hopes to build worldwide (BusinessWeek, 7/24/08). "More than ever, nuclear power is an industry of the future and an indispensable energy source," Sarkozy said at the July 3 announcement of the project.
Areva Shares Take a Beating
The incidents also cast a pall over Areva, the global No. 1 nuclear energy company, whose shares have fallen 5.8% since mid-July. Areva provides nuclear fuel and waste management services to utilities worldwide. The government-controlled company also has secured billions in contracts to build reactors in China and other countries, and it plans to bid on construction of a planned new generation of U.S. reactors as well (BusinessWeek, 6/26/08).
Because the recent incidents at Areva's French facilities involved fuel processing and waste treatment, rather than live reactors, they'll likely have no impact on the company's efforts to obtain licenses to build reactors in the U.S., a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tells BusinessWeek.
Still, the publicity has clearly upset the public and embarrassed Areva, whose safety record has been one of its strongest selling points. At a July 18 press conference in Tricastin, Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon reiterated that the leaks had caused no public health risk. But, she said, "I am truly sorry for all the worry this has caused."
Polls Show Public Mistrusts Government
A poll by survey group IFOP, published July 21 in the newspaper Le Monde, showed that 81% of respondents considered the Tricastin leak "serious" and that 70% didn't trust the government to alert the public to nuclear health risks.
Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo now has ordered safety inspections at all 58 currently operating nuclear plants, although industry experts say such reviews are common after even minor incidents. Authorities say none of the recent events rated more than Level 1 on the 1 to 7 scale used to measure the severity of nuclear incidents. An average of 120 such events occur in France each year, the government says.
Despite the controversy, France is likely to keep finding buyers for its nuclear exports, as more countries seek alternatives to expensive, polluting fossil fuels. Holger Rogner, an economist at the International Atomic Energy Agency, expects the recent incidents to have "negligible" effects on nuclear's renewed global momentum.
But after three largely trouble-free decades, France's nuclear industry may now have to focus more on public relations at home. "For us it's a good surprise," says Frédéric Marillier, a spokesman for Greenpeace France, a longtime industry critic. "It's the first time that there has been so much attention shown in France."
Matt Mabe is a reporter in BusinessWeek's Paris bureau .

BACKGROUND
Uranium Enrichment—A Radioactive Proposal

Areva, a giant nuclear corporation controlled by the French government, first saw how compliant Idaho’s state and local governments can be when it came here to push the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Now it’s come back to eastern Idaho to look for a building site—and financial incentives—for a uranium enrichment plant.

The “Incentives” Proposal

The Idaho State Legislature is considering two bills to give millions of dollars in tax breaks to Areva, which says its proposed factory would cost $2 billion but will only employ 250 people. One bill would cap Areva’s property assessment in Bonneville County at $400 million, less than a quarter of its true cost. The other bill would exempt Areva’s equipment purchases from the state sales tax. This exemption might not be as weighty as it appears, since Areva may well import most of its pricier equipment. Both bills sailed through the House Revenue and Taxation Committee and were quickly approved by the full House earlier this week. The Senate is poised to seal the deal as soon as the week of March 10.
Areva recently hired a full-time, well-connected lobbyist in Boise and is pushing hard for the tax gimmes. It’s making its proposal—and looking for a dowry—in Idaho, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, and New Mexico. (New Mexico is probably tapped out, since Lea County, NM, has already been lured into backing a uranium enrichment plant—half owned by Areva—to the tune of $1.7 billion.) Areva’s staff will recommend a US site to its board of directors in Paris at the end of March.

The “Enrichment” Process

Tracking uranium from a mine to a reactor is a study in nuclear power’s complexity—and pitfalls. First uranium is mined, then it’s milled, then it’s converted, then it’s enriched, then it’s converted again, and then, finally, it’s fabricated into nuclear reactor fuel.
Most steps involve transportation. Every step costs money, produces nuclear waste, and threatens workers, other people, and land, water, and air.
Uranium ore contains several different forms, or isotopes, of uranium. All of the uranium is first concentrated out of the ore. It’s then mixed with fluorine to make uranium hexafluoride, UF-6. Gaseous UF-6 is spun in centrifuges, and the heavier isotopes are spun off with centrifugal force, leaving behind the lightweight U-235, which is used in both nuclear reactor fuel and nuclear bombs. How often the gas is spun determines how pure, or “enriched,” the uranium U-235 becomes. The uranium to make nuclear bomb material is much more enriched than uranium for reactor fuel.
What is spun off is depleted uranium hexafluoride, DUF-6, the primary waste stream of uranium enrichment.

Some Real Problems

No Need: Uranium enrichment capacity has exceeded demand for many years, and the supply-demand balance will not change any time soon.
But the bulk of uranium enrichment occurs overseas, and one of Areva’s selling points is that its enrichment plant would ensure US “energy security.” Not even Congress buys that argument.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 cut proposed federal subsidies for uranium enrichment even as it shifted billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize nuclear reactor construction. And speaking of US energy security: 1) Areva is not a US corporation. 2) The sole US enrichment firm doesn’t operate its plant at full capacity and exports most of its product to Asia.

Nuclear waste: About 90% of what comes out of a uranium enrichment plant is depleted uranium hexafluoride waste. DUF-6 is radioactive and chemically toxic. When it is exposed to moisture, even damp air, it releases highly corrosive gas in a fairly violent chemical reaction. The gas damages kidneys and lungs and can kill people who inhale it.
There is no place to dispose of DUF-6 in the United States.
The Department of Energy already stores more than 57,600 stainless steel cylinders of solid DUF-6, about three-quarters from nuclear power and the rest from bomb production. Each cylinder weighs 10 to 14 tons and emits low levels of radiation. Maintenance of the cylinders gets harder over time, and some of the older cylinders have already corroded and leaked.
Two deconversion facilities (Yes. Another step!) are under construction in the US to change DUF-6 into a less dangerous form that might be suitable for disposal and would certainly be safer to store. Though both are substantially over-budget and behind schedule, there’s no reason to think they will not come on-line eventually. However, the current backlog of DUF-6 will occupy the deconversion plants for decades, so cylinders would be stored on concrete pads in Idaho for decades, too, since Areva does not plan to build its own deconversion facility.

Nuclear Bombs: Highly enriched uranium is used in nuclear bombs, and enrichment plants are invitations to proliferation. In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Bush Administration repeatedly, though erroneously, pointed to some aluminum tubes similar to enrichment centrifuges as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Last fall, President Bush suggested Iran’s uranium enrichment program might spark World War III.

Here’s How to Say No!

Call or write your State Senators today by finding their contact info at www.legislature.idaho.gov, then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, and talk with your friends.

• The State should not give breaks to a single nonrenewable energy company. Idaho isn’t giving similar support to renewable energy companies as is called for in its own State Energy Plan.
• Tax breaks to Areva are not fair. Areva wants a $400 million property tax cap in exchange for 250 jobs. The State capped Micron’s property tax twice as high ($800 million) even though it had 9,000 jobs, 1,000 fewer than before it got its tax break. Furthermore, the sales tax exemption Areva wants is to help companies producing retail goods. Nuclear fuel is not sold in the retail market.
• There is no “clawback” clause or sunset provision. A clawback clause would ensure that the state could recover any benefits the company receives if it doesn’t perform. Any tax exemptions should also “sunset” in five years, as do those for renewable energy companies.
• Uranium enrichment is a poor investment of taxpayer money and Idaho resources. Areva’s 2006 sales totaled $14 billion. We’re already shortchanging public employees and infrastructure repair.