Skip navigation.

Chernobyl anniversary protest

The nuclear waste crisis in France

30 May 2006

Since the origins of the French nuclear industry some 50 years ago, the management of nuclear waste has been largely neglected.

Even today, large quantities of waste remain in unconditioned and unstable form, inventories of historical dump sites are lacking or were lost and one of the largest dump sites in the world near the La Hague reprocessing plant is leaking into the underground water.

Now evidence is emerging that a new nuclear dumpsite in the Champagne region of France is leaking radioactivity into the ground water threatening contamination of tritium and at a later stage other radionuclides. The French nuclear waste authority ANDRA has only a partial inventory of the multitude of existing waste categories, as large quantities have not yet been declared by the main waste producers EDF and Cogema, including spent nuclear fuel or waste from the uranium enrichment industry. Even French government regulators are expressing their concerns over the conditions at both dump sites.

Download Document (369 Kb)

French Electric authority statement on waste leak

30 May 2006

Problems at a radioactive waste dumpsite in Soulaine were reported by its operator, ANDRA, to the French nuclear safety authority on May 24th, 2006. According to their report "the wall of a storage cell fissured" while concrete was being added to a recent layer of waste.

Download Document (27 Kb)

Assessment of the operational risks and hazards of the EPR when subject to aircraft crash

19 May 2006

This is a brief review of a confidential Electricite de France (EdF) document that has been leaked to the public domain in France.

The EdF document relates to the projected performance of the AREVA designed Generation III EPR reactor. The first of this reactor type is presently being built at Olkiluoto in Finland and construction of a second EPR is expected to commence shortly at the established nuclear power station site at Flamanville in France.

In or about 2003 it seems that EdF prepared a statement to the Direction Générale de la Sûreté Nucléaire et de la Radioprotection in response to its request to demonstrate the safety of the EPR design against the deliberate crashing of a large civil aircraft onto the nuclear island. The resulting EdF document endeavours to prove the ability of the plant to withstand such attack and it claims to do so by comparing the footprint and time sequencing of the impact of a small military (fighter) aircraft to that of a large, fully fuelled commercial airliner.

However, this leaked EdF document shows the claim to be flawed in a number of important respects.

Download Document (291 Kb)

Nuclear Power - Unsustainable, Uneconomic, Dirty and Dangerous

04 May 2006

Greenpeace International Briefing for the Commission on Sustainable Development CSD-14 -- Energy for Sustainable Development

Download Document (383 Kb)

The nuclear calendar - 365 reasons to oppose nuclear power

26 April 2006

Did you know there is a nuclear accident or radioactive release for every day of the year? Check out our nuclear calendar and decide for yourself the answer to this question: Do the few have the right to expose so many to such danger?

Download Document (4 Mb)

Chernobyl – A Nuclear Catastrophe 20 years on

24 April 2006

This review considers Chernobyl as it is today and how it might be in future decades. It gives regard to past decisions on how to isolate and cope with the radioactivity and contamination, and it reviews the present approach to management and remediation being undertaken or at various stages of planning for future years.

Download Document (1 Mb)

Chernobyl sampling operation briefing (October 2005)

23 April 2006

The Greenpeace sampling operation of October 2005, was concentrated in the area west from the Chernobyl reactor outside the so-called 'exclusion zone' at publically accessible territory. In total, some 40 samples at different locations of soil, berries, fruit and milk were analysed in the CREMZV laboratory at Kiev. Another 2 samples were brought to the Oekologie Institute in Vienna for analysis.

Download Document (323 Kb)

The Chernobyl Catastrophe - Consequences on Human Health

18 April 2006

The difficult truth about the Chernobyl catastrophe: the worst effects are still to come.

Download Document (1 Mb)

Europe's radioactive secret

01 December 2005

Transportaion and dumping of nuclear waste into Russia is illegal. Why then do tons of the stuff get shipped to St. Petersburg every year?

Download Document (1 Mb)

The Real Face of the IAEA's multilaterals nuclear approaches

26 September 2005

The International Atomic Energy Agency is dedicated to the worldwide expansion of nuclear power. But these plans face insurmountable obstacles. The growing problem of nuclear waste and the threat of proliferation being two of the most pressing. The IAEA is now seeking to resolve these problems through the concept of multilateral control of the nuclear fuel cycle as laid out in report to the IAEA Director General in February 2005.

Download Document (1 Mb)
Action at the nuclear power plant at Tihange on the 10th anniversary of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Enlarge Image

Nuclear Reactor Hazards: ongoing dangers of operating nuclear reactors

25 April 2005

A comprehensive assessment of the hazards of operational reactors, new 'evolutionary' designs and future reactor concepts and the risks associated with the management of spent nuclear fuel, this report describes the characteristics and inherent flaws of the main reactor designs in operation today and assesses the risks associated with new designs, 'ageing' operational reactors, the terrorist threat to nuclear power and climate change impacts – such as flooding- on nuclear.

Download Document (2 Mb)

The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age

01 June 1989

The Hidden History, the Human Cost
From the introduction: "This book will introduce you to the black briefcase in the red shack, take you on a helicopter ride over a burning nuclear core, into a damaged reactor in which life-forms are breeding, and through a realm of black humour and mystical coincidence. Because the effects of radiation take decades to reveal themselves, almost all the stories in this book are current, even though some of them begin in the mid-1940s. In this context, information develops its own half-life - the amount of time it takes for official truth to leak out of the canisters in which it is contained."
Note: This is an automated, and imperfect, scan of a paper document.

Download Document (3 Mb)

Go to your national site

World websites

GREENPEACE EMAIL

Sign up for international email updates
SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Related news stories

Related news releases

Related Reports

Related campaigns