The revelation comes soon after President Sarkozy's decision to
build a second EPR in France.
The alarming evidence was buried in the environmental impact
assessment report from Posiva, the company responsible for managing
waste at the world's first EPR under construction at Olkiluoto in
Finland, and in EU-funded research (1).
"This means that not only will spent nuclear fuel produced by
the EPR be more dangerous than is acknowledged by the French
nuclear industry, but also storage and disposal will be more
expensive than the industry and governments proclaim, and will
increase the overall cost of nuclear energy. The French nuclear
companies Areva and EDF, which aggressively market the EPR as safe
and cheap, have completely ignored the implications of the
increased hazards," said John Large, an independent nuclear
consultant.
No appropriate waste facilities exist or are being planned in
Finland, France, or any of the countries considering buying the
EPR, including the UK, the US, Canada and India. In Finland the
plans awaiting approval for burying the nuclear waste are
inadequate for preventing interim and long-term health risks and
will pass on huge financial liabilities to future generations.
"Nuclear energy is fast becoming the most expensive way to
produce electricity and its highly radioactive waste poses an
ever-increasing problem. Despite the French government's global
marketing of the EPR as cheap and safe, the evidence proves
otherwise," stressed Dr. Rianne Teule, Greenpeace International
Nuclear Campaigner.
The EPR is designed to extract more energy from nuclear fuel
than any commercially operating reactor (high burn-up), in order to
maximise electricity output. This causes the amount of readily
released radioactive substances in spent fuel to increase
disproportionately (2). The storage of the hazardous waste will be
more costly for a range of reasons including required greater
distances between canisters increasing the repository size, more
extensive and longer-term monitoring and increased security.
"Nuclear power is nothing more than an out-of-date, expensive
and failed technology from the last century. Governments that are
serious about tackling climate change need to invest in renewables
and energy efficiency solutions as outlined in Greenpeace's Energy
[R]evolution scenarios, to ensure people have a clean energy future
free from the dangers of hazardous waste," (3) concluded Rianne
Teule.
Other contacts: Rianne Teule, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaigner, +31 (0) 650 640 961Beth Herzfeld, Greenpeace International Press Officer, +44 (0) 7717 802 891
Notes: (1) See page 137, Posiva’s Expansion of the Repository for Spent Nuclear Fuel, Environmental Impact Assessment Report (2008) http://www.posiva.fi/publications/Posiva_YVA_selostusraportti_en_lukittu.pdf Technical Report 04-08, Nagra (2004). http://www.nagra.ch/documents/database/dokumente/%24default/Default%20Folder/Publikationen/e_ntb04-08.pdf (2) If the fuel is disposed of by burying it in an underground nuclear waste dump, in the long-term, the largest health hazard comes from iodine-129. The amount of iodine-129 instantly released, when the nuclear waste dump eventually leaks, is seven times as large in the case of the high burn-up waste produced by the EPR, compared to typical currently operating reactors.(3) See Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution at http://www.energyblueprint.info