nuclear-news

Nuclear lobbies fight to weaken Europe’s planned nuclear safety rules

EU nuclear safety testing row in meltdown, Google News, By Roddy Thomson (AFP) – 13 may 11, BRUSSELS — Fractious talks on testing the safety of European nuclear reactors broke down Thursday as calls to include terror attacks and other man-made disasters in the tests faced resistance from powerful nuclear lobbies in London and Paris.

“No final decision has been taken,” the European Commission said after some six hours of talks in Brussels broke up with fresh discussions among the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) set for next week, May 19 and 20, in Prague.

“The public expects credible stress tests covering a wide range of risks and safety issues,” said EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger. “This is what we are working on.”

Oettinger wanted stringent and exhaustive checks to take into account human factors, cyber attacks and plane crashes.

The German commissioner had told the European Parliament on Tuesday that he would refuse to sign off on “softer stress tests”.

But diplomats and officials said the all-powerful nuclear lobby in France and Britain was resisting pressure to design far-reaching simulations that may be difficult to implement, with results hard to sell.

Paris and London between them control more than half the 143 nuclear power plants in service in the EU, where 14 of the 27 nuclear states have nuclear generators.

Greenpeace EU nuclear policy adviser Jan Haverkamp insisted: “What national nuclear regulators appear to want from stress tests is a largely toothless paper-shuffling exercise”.

Tests, the group said, should be carried out “independently and transparently, be mandatory, comprehensive and lead to the rapid closure of those plants that fail”.

The EU’s 27 heads of state and government entrusted ENSREG in late-March with the job of checking whether ageing power plants can withstand the sort of natural disaster that triggered the Japan meltdown, but set no deadline for testing implementation….

AFP: EU nuclear safety testing row in meltdown

May 13, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international