Home > World’s biggest uranium enricher frantic to keep dumping waste in Russia

World’s biggest uranium enricher frantic to keep dumping waste in Russia

by Open-Publishing - Monday 5 November 2007

Nuclear International Europe

by Diet Simon

By Diet Simon, collating from German IndyMedia postings

Russian nuclear opponents say they will defy a ban and demonstrate in St Petersburg tomorrow against the massive import of German, Dutch, British and French uranium waste to Russia.

The Dutch ship Doggersbank is expected in the port tomorrow, Thursday the 11th, with the latest shipment of depleted uranium from enrichment plants in Gronau (Germany) and Almelo (Holland).

German supporters of the Russian activists in the Aktionsbündnis Münsterland quote the Russian environment organisation Ecodefense as saying the planned demonstration will take place at 1 p.m. on Friday outside St Petersburg city hall.

Russian nuclear opponents live dangerously. In July Russian neo-Nazis murdered one in Angarsk, Siberia, and another had to spend weeks in hospital. Activists allege the thugs who attacked an anti-nuclear camp were put up to it by the government.

Moreover, Russia is in electioneering mode and all opposition manifestations are viewed very suspiciously.
Last year St Petersburg councillors protested publicly but have now apparently gone to ground.
On 15 October another protest action is to take place in Ekaterinburg, near the probable destination of the depleted uranium, Novouralsk.

The reloading of the latest shipment onto trucks and then rail will take some time.

Anti-nuclear groups in the Münsterland area, where the Gronau enrichment plant is located, have declared solidarity with the Russian environment groups and demanded the retraction of the demo ban and an immediate end to uranium waste transportation.

German pull in Russian government

“The atomic industry hopes to send the uranium waste transports right across the country without the public knowing. Germany, URENCO, its owners [power companies] EON und RWE and the German government are responsible for this filthy uranium waste disposal. But they shirk all responsibility when something goes wrong in Russia.

“That is why the protests of the Russian groups are so important to stop the filthy uranium waste game continuing,” says Aktionsbündnis Münsterland.

German nuclear opponents report at http://de.indymedia.org/2007/10/196502.shtml that German influence in Russia probably made it easy to have the protests banned.

A third of the trinational URENCO company whose waste it is, is owned the German power companies EON and RWE. URENCO is the world’s largest uranium enricher.

Especially EON is heavily involved in business with the Russian government, they write. The honorary consul of Russia in Düsseldorf is Dr. Burkhard Bergmann who in his real job is the CEO of the gas company EON-Ruhrgas and is on the main board of EON.

He is also the only foreigner among the directors of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, where he sits with several members of the Russian government. EON-Ruhrgas imports vast volumes of Gazprom gas to Germany. “With that kind of direct access, EON can easily have protests in Russia against transports of its own uranium waste from Gronau choked off,” say the nuclear opponents.

The SOFA Münster group reports that URENCO is frantically seeking German and Dutch transport licenses to keep sending waste to open-air dumps in Russia before Russia stops the dumping at the latest in 2009.

The group writes that they have information that the Gronau plant, owned largely by German power companies, and the Dutch plant at Almelo currently have no new permits for further nuclear waste transports to Russia.

“That is why URENCO is frantically trying to get new licences from the German finance and environment ministries and the Dutch government.”

This year alone URENCO sent five consignments from Gronau and Almelo to Russia, which amounts to almost 10,000 tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride (c. 7,000 t of depleted uranium) which is created as waste in uranium enrichment.

“URENCO is putting on a lot of pressure because of the increasing public anger in Russia, The Netherlands and Germany and because the Russian atomic energy authority Rosatom has announced an end to the uranium waste transports by 2009 at the latest. Until then URENCO wants to tip as much uranium waste as possible at the Ural and in Siberia on open air paddocks for ‘final storage’,” SOFA writes.

In Germany the permits are issued by agencies of the finance ministry subject to approval by the environment ministry. Both ministries are also responsible for the superordinate general export permit.

“That means the two ‘end nuclear’ ministers, Archangel [Sigmar] Gabriel [environment] and Moneybags [Peer] Steinbrück (finance) have been responsible for the transports to Russia since 2005.

URENCO fans in the German government

“Spicy note in the margin: in February 2005 the state government of North-Rhine Westphalia approved expansion plans for the Gronau enrichment plant – when Peer Steinbrück was premier of the state. The then atomic energy minister [Axel] Horstmann is now lobbyist in North-Rhine Westphalia for EnBW [the third-largest utilities company in Germany]. Just as ‘cute’ is that the original export permit was issued under the then federal minister for the environment, Angela Merkel [now chancellor of Germany]. In other words, the federal government is stacked with loyal URENCO fans.”

SOFA calls for pressure to be put on the Berlin government to prevent a new permit being issued to URENCO. “Export of uranium waste is a purely political decision, because if the waste stayed in Germany the government itself would have to see to final storage – and that is known not to be possible anywhere, least of all in [the German dump sites] Ahaus, Gorleben, Schacht Konrad, Asse, Morsleben, Greifswald etc. So it makes a lot of sense for the federal government to allow URENCO to export to Russia.”

But international resistance is growing constantly, writes SOFA. “The international uranium conference (see http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/stor...) at the end of September and constant publication of protests against secret transports show that URENCO is slowly but surely going on the defensive. In a cyber action 700 mails from Russia arrived in the Dutch environment ministry a few days ago demanding an immediate stop to the uranium waste transports. Only public pressure will achieve anything!”
More at www.urantransport.de in German and English.

“We call for attendance at the nationwide final repository demonstration in Salzgitter this Saturday, 13 October. Nuclear waste can’t be stored safely – not in Siberia, not in Schacht Konrad, not in Gorleben - nowhere!
“Therefore: Immediate closure of all atomic facilities worldwide!”

http://www.sofa-ms.de