1/30 GP Blocks Transport of N-Fuel, Germany to Hungary

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
Original-Cc:      The Greenbase (Green2:Green2:Gnl:Main)
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                   GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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GREENPEACE BLOCKS TRANSPORT OF 235 FUEL ELEMENTS FROM
GREIFSWALD TO HUNGARY:
DON'T SEND GERMAN NUCLEAR FUEL TO A DECREPIT HUNGARIAN
REACTOR!  
 
Greifswald/Hamburg, 30 January 1996: At five o'clock this
morning about twenty Greenpeace activists blocked the train

tracks leading from the shutdown NPP at Greifswald/Lubmin in
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to prevent the transport of 235 fuel
elements in 3 Castor flasks from Greifswald to the Hungarian
NPP at Paks.
 
The Paks NPP, near Budapest, is as unsafe as the Greifswald
nuclear power plant that was shut down for safety reasons.
Greenpeace confronted the operator of the Lubmin NPP, the
Energiewerke Nord (ENW), with its intention to supply German
fuel elements to a foreign nuclear power plant that would not
fulfill German licensing standards.
 
EWN and the German Government are looking for an easy solution
to a nuclear waste problem. The fuel elements are partially
spent and accordingly should be handled and disposed of as
radwaste within Germany. However, after use in Paks, the fuel
would be sent to the notorious Russian reprocessing plant at
Mayak in the south Ural region where it would add to the
already enormous contamination there. In this way, German
radwaste would be disposed of in Russia via Hungary.
 
"We can't allow this transfer of risks to happen. This nuclear
deal clearly subsidizes an unsafe reactor. If this reactor
type is not licensed in Germany, it should not be operated in
Hungary either. This is a threat to all of Europe. Ten years
after Chernobyl the German Government and EWN are playing a
perverse game," said Helmut Hirsch, Greenpeace nuclear expert.
 
In 1989, the 235 fuel elements were used in reactor block 5 of
the Greifswald/Lubmin NPP, a VVER-440/W-213 type reactor.
After the reactor was shut down, the partially spent elements
were stored on site. Both the Greifswald and the Paks NPPs
have serious deficiencies: no acceptable containment in case
of accidents and obsolete control technology. The IAEA in
Vienna has stated that the Hungarian operator of Paks has a
deficient "safety culture". 
 
ENDS
 

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