WISE - NIRS Nuclear Monitor 612-613

What happened 25 years ago? We go back to news from our 1979 WISE Bulletin, comparing anti-nuclear news then and now.

Then
In WISE Bulletin 6 we reported on plans for a Urenco enrichment plant in Gronau, Germany: "Urenco plans to build a third enrichment plant in Gronau [...] The Gronau Citizens Committee against Uranium Enrichment is organizing a protest campaign. The committee points out that uranium enrichment is a vital link in the nuclear fuel cycle and has been neglected by the international movement against nuclear power. The committee is asking all concerned citizens in Gronau and throughout the world to register their protest against the Urenco plant". (WISE Bulletin 6, October 1979)

Now
The first enrichment unit opened in August 1985 at the Gronau plant, located close to the Dutch border. It reached a capacity of 1,000 tons SWU (Separative Work Units) until the late 1990s and will increase to 1,800 tons by the end of 2004, enough to provide fuel for 18-35 NPPs. In 1998, Urenco applied for an expansion license under the Federal Atomic Law to increase its capacity to 4,500 tons, which is the maximum capacity as designed in 1979. (www.urenco.de)

The request for expansion made in 1998 was opposed by many environmental and anti-nuclear groups and individuals. They objected to the capacity increase because it would have given indirect permission to further increases in nuclear energy worldwide. No assessment had been made at the time about the worldwide effects of uranium mining and transport risks. Urenco, apparently, was also not required to include measures to protect the plant against accidental or targeted air attacks. (Letter NRW State Office for Nature Protection, 30 April 2002)

A total of 6,700 objections were sent to the state ministry of Energy in 2003. (WISE Uranium, www.wise-uranium.org)

The 1998 expansion request also included plans for storage buildings for depleted uranium. The annual feed of 2,730 tons of natural uranium results in just 300 tons of enriched uranium for NPPs compared to the huge amount of 2,430 tons of depleted uranium. Part of this depleted uranium is usually sent to Russia for re-enrichment, but will in the future also be stored as uraniumoxides in special storage buildings. On 22 June, a train carrying 19 wagons of depleted uranium left Gronau and was blockaded several times on its journey to the Dutch harbor of Rotterdam. (www.urenco.de; www.aku-gronau.de)

Protests are regularly held at the gates of Gronau by the Working Group Environment Gronau (AKU Gronau) and every first Sunday of the month, a "Sunday's walking tour" is held. (www.aku-gronau.de)

WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS

ISSN: 1570-4629

Reproduction of this material is encouraged. Please give credit when reprinting.

Editorial team: Tinu Otoki (WISE Amsterdam), Michael Mariotte (NIRS). With contributions from Friends of the Earth Australia, Gianni Mattioli and Massimo Scalia, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, Harri Lammi and Kaisa Kosonen, Herman Damveld, the Laka Foundation and Linda Gunter.

Oops! In issue 611, we gave the incorrect reference to an earlier WISE News Communiqué article relating to an in brief story on Prof. Youri Bandajevsky. The correct article reference is 551.5289.

Apologies for the late delivery of issue 612, which was postponed due to illness amongst our editorial team and is now combined with this issue.

The next issue (614) will be mailed out July 30, 2004.

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