(407.4028) WISE Amsterdam - Second Victory A victory in the Netherlands by opponents against Urenco on 5 February 1994, when the Raad van State (Council Of State) in The Hague destroyed a license of Urenco Almelo for the second time. The now destroyed license was for a production capacity of 1300 ton swu/year (separative work unit = measure for isotope seperation capacity). The reasons the Council gave are:
- it had not been proven that expansion was not dangerous
- recent scientific insights were not taken into account
- the juridical procedure was wrongly not fully followed, which was obliged because of the great public resistance.
The first time a license from Urenco was destroyed was on 27 March 1991. That one was for a production capacity of 3500 ton swu/yr. (See Table I) However, in spite of their destroyed license Urenco did not shut down their plant. They said they could partly fall back on an old license from 1981 (!), which permits for a production capacity of 1085 ton swu/yr. For the other part, they asked again for a tolerance of the government. A partial closure would cost them Hfl. 1 million a day (about US$ 525.000), according to Urenco. We question this claim on good grounds. Besides, Urenco said, on 30 December 1993 we got a new license, for a production capacity of 3500 ton swu a year.
The final fight
To fight this newest license we have asked for a suspension which was automatically granted, so Urenco can't make use of their newest license. So legally they have to shut down the part of their plant that goes beyond the capacity of 1085 ton swu. We expect that Urenco may go on producing enriched uranium, till the court judges on this suspension request, which will take probably 2 months. II we loose that round, Urenco is allowed to double their production capacity from 1300 ton to 2500 ton swu/yr. But we have of course already presented appeal against this license. So the fight goes on. We expect that this newest license will be destroyed too, because it is nearly exact the same as the now destroyed one.
| Licenses | Tolerating | Allowed Prod. Cap. | |
| Given | Destroyed | Agreement | (ton swu) |
| 1981 | 1085 | ||
| 1987 | 27-3-91 | 3500 | |
| July 1991 | 1085 | ||
| Jan. 1992 | 5-2-94 | 1300 | |
| 30-12-1993 | Asked for: Febr.94 | 2500 | |
Radiation limits exceeded
In the newest license of 30-12-93, which is now suspended, it is written that the maximum allowed radiation dose at the border of the waste disposal is put at: 40 microsievert/yr. Recent measurements at the border of the plant show that the real radiation dose is about 1100 microsievert/yr.
So the maximum allowed radiation dose is exceeded by a factor of 27. The Ministry of Economic Affairs tolerates this because, as they say: 'This is an existing situation. It is unreasonable to ask Urenco to change this, because that will be expensive". In the near future, the radiation doses at the border of the plant will further exceed the maximum limits as even more depleted uranium will be stored there.
The biggest waste dump in the Netherlands
The newest license approves for disposal of 50 million kilogram of radio-active depleted uranium in the form of uraniumhexafluoride (UF6). Quite a part of this quantity will be depleted reprocessed uranium. Urenco is specialised in enriching reprocessed uranium and contracted recently to do this for utilities in Belgium, England, France, Japan and Germany.
Reprocessed Uranium (or REPU) is 10 to 15 times more radioactive as natural uranium. This endagers the workers, the neighbours and the people along the transport routes. The REPU is stored in cylinders in the open air. In 1992 a fighterplane crashed near by. If an aeroplane crashes on the radio-active dump, a disaster can occur when a fire heats the cylinders for more than 30 minutes. The highly toxic fumes of Hexafluoride and other gasses will spread quickly and poison or kill workers, passers-by and neighbours. There is no limit for the duration of the stored UF6, nor on obligation to store it in another form such as uranium-oxide (U3O8), which is solid and is for less dangerous.
| Country/ Company | Civlilian Prod Cap. (million swu) |
| USA | 19,4 |
| Eurodif | 10,8 |
| Russia | 14 |
| Urenco | 2,9 |
| China | 0,6 |
| Japan | 0,3 |
| South Africa | 0,3 |
| Others (*) | 0,1 |
| Total | 48,4 |
| * = India, Pakistan, Brazil, Argentina | |
No need for expansion
At the moment, there is an enormous overcapacity of uranium enrichment capacity of 100 percent. In 1993, worldwide enrichment demand for nuclear power plants was 24 million swu, worldwide production capacity was 48 million swu.
In the eighties there was a lot of overproduction, so now there are huge stocks of civil enriched uranium. Moreover, military stocks of enriched uranium in Russia are sold on the civilian market as are big quantities of high enriched uranium from dismantled nuclear weapons. Together, these represent some 15 years of future consumption.
As a result prices came down, from $150/swu in 1986 to $70/swu and lower by now. Driven by their hunger for hard currency, Russia overfloods the Western market with supercheap enriched uranium.. They can export about 10 million swu/yr.
Although the Western uranium enrichers (Urenco, Eurodif and USA) charge Russia with offering enriched uranium at dump prices, they can't prove that. Experts assume that the low Russian prices are real prices because they have old, written-off plants, made up from low-cost ultra-centrifuges and so have low production costs. In fact, the Western enrichers have been heavily subsidized, with many billions of dollars. So with a really free market, Russia will conquer 40 percent of the world market. But the reality is that the Western markets are protected. In Europe, Russia may only deliver 20% of the demand, in the USA their market share is even less, by means of import limitations.
History
As you perhaps know, Urenco is an European uranium enrichment enterprise with plants in 3 countries:
- Almelo, Netherlands
- Capenhurst, England
- Gronau, Germany
In each country Urenco has research facilities, ultra-centrifuge manufactering plants and uranium enrichment plants. Urenco was founded with the Treaty of Alnielo in 1970.
From the beginning, the consortium was fought by opponents. In the Netherlands the opposition became fiercely in the seventies when Urenco wanted to increase their production capacity and signed a contract with Brazil to deliver enriched uranium for the Angra nuclear power plant.
Demonstrations of 40.000 people were held in 1978. Blockades were organised in 1979/80/81. There was a site-occupation in 1985 (resulting in 24 arrests) and two blockades of a UF6-transport in 1983. It was all of no use: Urenco got a license for expansion from 200 to 1085 ton swu/yr.
Some opponents continued their opposition legally. They fought the license in 1985 at the Council of State. The case was held up for a long time: only in 1989 the court gave judgment, which was not in our advantage. We did not gave up of course, so when-ever Urenco applied for a new license, we fought it.
Urenco also applied for a license in the USA for a 1500 ton swu plant. Because of licensing difficulties, construction (once planned for 1993) is now delayed till 1996 at least.
Source and Contact: Joop Boer, Marwixstraat 31, 9726 CB Groningen, Netherlands. Tel: + 31 50 126 174; Fax: +31 50 129 022 |
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