Brussels, 22/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Greens/EFA Group of the European Parliament is sceptical over the independence of the tests of the resistance of the 143 nuclear reactors active in the EU to various risks, proposed by the European Commission. They believe that there are problems with more than half of the reactors.
According to Rebecca Harms, the stress tests “could be an important step on the road to a phase-out of nuclear power, but only if they are based on robust criteria and, crucially, carried out by independent experts”. “That the nuclear industry will play a crucial role in defining the criteria raises serious question marks about the whole process. In the recent past, the nuclear industry engaged in an intense lobby to successfully prevent strict common safety standards for nuclear plants”, said the German MEP, in a press release published after the Energy Council of 21 March.
Harms goes on to criticise the fact that “it is also unclear how cumulative emergencies and multiple failures can be assessed in such a procedure or how human error can be factored in”. “We may question the reliability and coherence of these texts, given that the implementation of criteria used will have been agreed by the nuclear sector”, added her French colleague, Michèle Rivasi. “The priority today is to close down a number of nuclear reactors of which the dangers are known to us. We are therefore calling for the immediate shut-down of the most dangerous nuclear reactors, and the rapid adoption of a coordinated process to phase out nuclear”, state the Greens.
In view of the Greens, there are problems with more than half of the reactors. In particular, they point the finger at reactors built before 1980, the first-generation reactors and those which have previously had serious safety problems, reactors situated in areas of seismic activity, such as Fessenheim in France, Cofrentes in Spain, Krsko in Slovenia, reactors without secondary confinement or with full pressure, such as Bohunice and Mochovce in Slovakia and Paks in Hungary, and boiling-water reactors using a single cooling system and those where spent fuel is stored outside the confinement area, as is the case with the Brunsbüttel, Krümmel, Isar 1, Philippsburg 1 and Gundremmingen power stations in Germany. The Greens are also calling for the construction of the PWR at Flamanville in France to be suspended. (E.H./transl.fl)