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Asse nuclear dump contains explosives

Asse nuclear dump contains explosives The Local 26 Jun 09 CETOnline: The controversial salt-mine nuclear waste storage facility in Asse, Lower Saxony is not only crumbling but also contains unknown amounts of explosive, it has emerged………………………………The DDP report said an explosives storage chamber still containing a variety of dynamite-related substances, can be found near the area where the radioactive waste is being kept.

Files from the Research Centre for the Environment and Health (GSF), which used to run the storage facility, show that over the last few years a bog of radioactive salt water has built up by the entrance to the explosive chamber.

Asse nuclear dump contains explosives – The Local

June 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

‘The question now is not whether nuclear energy is clean, but is it sustainable to provide power?’

‘The question now is not whether nuclear energy is clean, but is it sustainable to provide power?’ indian express.com by Neha Sinha Jun 06, 2009 – “FRANZJOSEF SCHAUFHAUSEN, Deputy Director General of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, s………………………..Germany is trying to phase out nuclear energy and we don’t support nuclear energy becoming CDM projects. We have scientific studies on the table showing that it is possible to have a future without nuclear energy. We had a very long discussion in Germany on nuclear energy.

The question now is not whether nuclear energy is clean, but is it sustainable to provide power? The position of the German government is that nuclear energy is too risky. At the moment in Europe, we don’t have the possibility to store the very dangerous nuclear waste which is produced from nuclear energy. Also uranium is limited. We have to construct an energy future working with energy efficiency and renewable energy.

‘The question now is not whether nuclear energy is clean, but is it sustainable to provide power?’

June 6, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY, Germany | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive | 2 Comments

Gorleben nuclear storage site developed illegally

Gorleben nuclear storage site developed illegally The Local 29 May 09lThe salt dome at the Gorleben nuclear waste depot was developed illegally to be permanent storage facility, according to an internal assessment by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) attained by daily Frankfurter Rundschau on Thursday. Since work began on the underground facility in the 1980s, only permission for “exploration” has been granted. But even without an official authorisation, the paper said that costs for assessing the salt dome for its suitability had been high because “the construction of the permanent storage depot was begun parallel to the investigation.”

The Federal Office for Radiation Protection did not want to confirm the existence of the document, but did admit that costs had been higher than necessary.

Some €1.5 billion has been invested in the site.

Work at Gorleben has been suspended since 2000, when the government decided to wait until 2010 to resume the controversial project.

The appearance of the documents has confirmed the doubts of nuclear energy opponents, who believed that Gorleben had been earmarked as a permanent storage depot before the safety of the salt dome had been adequately investigated.

Nuclear energy is deeply unpopular in Germany

Gorleben nuclear storage site developed illegally – The Local

May 29, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans

Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.

Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local

May 24, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Germany | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium railed through densely populated Germany – to France?

1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium railed through densely populated Germany – to France?

Sydney Indymedia April 29th, 2009 By Diet Simon, adapting Cecile Lecomte’s report A 25-car train half a kilometre long has just carried 1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium through the most densely populated region of Germany – destination unknown, presumably France.

The train left Germany’s only uranium enrichment plant at Gronau (52° 12′, 160 km south of Hamburg) in the night from 27 to 28 April.Usually trains from the German-Dutch-British-owned enrichment plant close to the city of Münster and the Dutch border have taken depleted uranium to Rotterdam for shipment to Russia, where it’s been dumped in the open air.

The Urenco company is extremely secretive about the transports. This time journalists were told by federal police that the train headed for Duisburg and on to France.That would have taken the dangerous cargo through the densely populated Ruhr and Rhineland areas – if the police information is correct…………….
…….The train from Gronau was held up by two hours because a female French activist who lives in Germany, 27-year-old Cécile Lecomte, had abseiled over the tracks from a road overpass. She and other climbers have made such a name for themselves in disrupting nuclear transports that police now always have climbing specialists along on the trains to take the protesters down……….
………….”The aim is to reveal the secret atomic transports from the Gronau uranium enrichment plant and to draw people’s attention to the policy of Urenco,” she writes. ………………………..

“Radioactivity knows no borders. What kind of an end to atomic power is it if Gronau is expanded, thereby supporting the construction of new nuclear plants – such as the EPR in Flamanville, France – by supplying the product to power stations all over the globe.

“The waste is carted right across Europe in secret transports. That is no solution to the nuclear waste problem. On the contrary, the population is exposed to ever more dangers, the environment is polluted ever more…..”………………….’

1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium railed through densely populated Germany – to France? | Sydney Indymedia

April 29, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive | Leave a comment

Several nuclear waste trains in Germany next year?

Several nuclear waste trains in D next year? Indymedia 17 April Diet Simon

Several transports of highly radioactive nuclear waste may roll through Germany next year, nuclear opponents have researched, and another 1,000-1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium are being readied for transportation to Russia in about 25 railcars.

The Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg (BI), which fights waste dumping at the northern village of Gorleben, and other anti-nuclear activists have found out that waste consignments are due next year to all three “interim” dumps at Ahaus (45 linear km northwest of Münster), Lubmin (120 km east of Rostock) and Gorleben (155 km northeast of Hannover).

The BI comments that “thousands are going to take to the streets to oppose this” and says the anti-nuclear movement has had a surge in numbers since last autumn 16,000 delayed another waste load to Gorleben.

“In the autumn we’re doing a tractor run to Berlin to generate pressure to end the crazy plan to make Gorleben the final repository and to get out of nuclear power production.“In 2010 there’ll be a stocktaking across the country, the waste transport continue to be a provocation because they symbolize the disposal dilemma” (of there being no safe storage system anywhere on the globe).

Several hundred nuclear casks with highly radioactive waste, so-called Castor CSDC 28’s, are to be taken from the French plutonium factory at La Hague and a German research facility at Jülich (65 km west of Cologne) to Ahaus. A special high-pressure waste compacting facility has been built in La Hague for the purpose.
The BI notes that this creates a new category of waste which starts medium-active and becomes highly active from heat……………

……..Meanwhile activists have observed another large depleted uranium train being assembled in Germany’s only uranium enrichment factory at Gronau, to go to Russia for dumping in the open air…………………..

………..Anti-nuclear activists are planning an inter-regional demonstration in Münster for 25 April. It will be one of three central ones taking place throughout Germany on the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl explosion. The other two will be outside nuclear power stations at Krümmel (40 km southeast of Hamburg) and Neckarwestheim (170 km south of Frankfurt) on the 26th.

de.indymedia.org | Several nuclear waste trains in D next year?

April 17, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear-waste dumping site also poisonous

Nuclear-waste dumping site also poisonous

BERLIN, April 16 (UPI) — A leaking nuclear-waste storage site in Germany is also contaminated with several toxic substances.

The problematic site in the Asse mountain range in northern Germany has been abused for several years by companies eager to get rid of toxic substances, including mercury, lead alloy and arsenic, German news magazine Stern reports………………………

Asse was meant to be a place for temporary storage and research but was instead used by companies for careless dumping of waste never intended to see the light of day again.

The cleanup of Asse is estimated to cost at least $2.5 billion.

Nuclear-waste dumping site also poisonous – UPI.com

April 17, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive | Leave a comment

15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany with 52 kilometres of light

15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany Sydney Indymedia February 27th, 2009 by Diet SimonBy Diet Simon Despite icy weather and light rain some 15,000 Germans demonstrated against nuclear power generation their Thursday evening, our early Friday morning, with a chain of light 52 kilometres long.The route linked Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel and Salzgitter in the north, an area that contains two frighteningly failing underground nuclear waste dumps, Asse II and Morsleben, and another to start operating in 2013, Schacht Konrad in Salzgitter.Although most protesters were from the region, people travelled from all over Germany to the demo, called by trade unions, churches, advocacy groups, local governments, neighbourhood associations, firms, farmers with their tractors, to protest against irresponsible handling of nuclear waste……………………..

The anti-nuclear movement is particularly incensed about a recently passed law that will have taxpayers footing the bill for nuclear dumps although the waste in them was produced by power companies, which will not be paying.

If waste disposal costs were completely factored into the power price, opponents say, the legend of cheap nuclear electricity would be blown away.

15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany with 52 kilometres of light | Sydney Indymedia

February 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, politics | Leave a comment

Finds of Radioactive Steel on the Rise in Germany, probably from India

SPIEGEL ONLINE

By Christian Schwägerl 16 Feb 09

German authorities in recent months have found a disturbingly large amount of radioactive steel in factories across the country. Much of the contaminated metal is thought to have originated in India………………….radiometers indicated unusually high levels of radiation. They measured a level of 71 microsieverts per hour, a level that in 24 hours would exceed the amount permitted for an entire year………………………..For months, similar cases have been found across Germany, all involving bits of metal contaminated with radioactive cobalt. And most of them come from the same source: three steelworks in India, in particular a company called Vipras Casting, based in Mumbai. Germany’s environmental authorities are alarmed……………………………..Since last August, a total of 150 tons of contaminated metal has been seized. Some of it has been sent back to India. The rest is being stored by the companies that discovered the radioactivity, pending a decision on how to safely dispose of the material……………………..

Authorities noted that there is already a European Union directive designed to prevent the import of radioactive materials. Enforcement, however, apparently remains problematic………………..

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,607840,00.html

February 17, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Germany, India | Leave a comment

Tons of Radioactive Material From India Found in Germany

Tons of Radioactive Material From India Found in Germany DETSCHE WELLE 15 Feb 09

Germany is investigating 150 tons of steel items imported from India which were contaminated with radioactivity, a leading newsmagazine said in a report to appear in its Monday issue.

It said the most serious case was five tons of stainless steel wool which had to be disposed of by a nuclear-waste company, GNS.

The contamination was thought to be the result of the radioactive isotope cobalt 60, which is used in nuclear medicine, being inadvertently mixed with steel scrap and being melted down at three Indian steel works.

Anyone near the container of steel wool, which had been intercepted in August last year in the German port of Hamburg, would have received one millisievert of radiation in 24 hours.

Der Spiegel said German regulations treated more that one millisievert in an entire year as unsafe………………….

The ministry also said it would like to see an initiative developed on the international level to address the issue of irradiated goods.

In France, Sweden and the Netherlands, radioactive steel from India was discovered which in some cases had been used to manufacture buttons used in elevator control panels.