VLISSINGEN // A tapestry adorns a concrete wall that separates a decade’s worth of radioactive waste from the population of the Netherlands.
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It is a reproduction of a 17th-century weaving of a naval battle from the Dutch war of independence. A golden sun marks the spot on the panorama where, now, the by-products of nuclear power plants and medical research reactors are sequestered in concrete warehouses.
Planned stress tests on European nuclear plants should focus on threats from natural disasters and exclude potential man-made catastrophes such as a terrorist attack, European atomic industry group Foratom said.
European nuclear officials are to decide today on parameters for the safety checks on atomic power plants in response to the Japanese nuclear crisis caused by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The meeting of the European Commission, the EU regulator, and 27 national nuclear safety authorities comes a day after Spain’s biggest earthquake in 57 years killed eight people.
DANNENBERG, Germany -- A shipment of nuclear waste from France reached a storage facility in northwestern Germany on Tuesday after police worked through the night to clear a road blockade by over 3,000 protesters.
For nearly four days, anti-nuclear protesters have rappelled from bridges, undermined roads, and formed human shields across the shipment's route in an attempt to slow it down. A shepherdess even herded 500 sheep and some 60 goats across the road Monday between Dannenberg - where the shipment was offloaded from train cars onto trucks - and Gorleben in a bid to slow it down.
A leaked European Commission draft report says Europe should solve the problem of handling nuclear waste by making industry pay to stash it deep underground, where it will be overseen by independent watchdogs.
"The current situation of spent fuel and radioactive waste management in EU member states is not satisfactory," says the draft, seen by Reuters Thursday.
The European Commission will promote underground storage as the safest option for storing nuclear waste, according to a leaked proposal which has already irked environmentalists.
The draft directive seeks to set up an EU framework for managing used fuel and radioactive waste which is generated by nuclear power plants but also medicine and industry, among others.
Green MEPs say the commission's draft proposals on a nuclear waste directive contains "serious and alarming gaps."
EU energy commissioner Oettinger will unveil the commission's ideas for a directive on the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste on November 3.
The German government is to investigate whether a temporary nuclear waste storage site in the town of Gorleben could be turned into a permanent facility. The review, due to start in October, may be overseen by private bodies.
Energy Solutions is adopting a new international business strategy whereby, rather than importing foreign radioactive waste for processing and disposal at its US facility, it will help overseas customers dispose of such waste in their own country.
The company - which has faced strong opposition to its plan to import waste from decommissioned nuclear facilities in Italy for processing and recycling at its facility in Clive, Utah - said that under the new strategy, no internationally generated radioactive waste would be disposed of at the site.
Brussels is against member states exporting their nuclear waste to countries outside the EU or to store it in joint sites, energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger said, as the commission is working on a set of common safety standards for this dangerous material.
"It is the duty of national politicians to do their homework," Mr Oettinger told Financial Times Deutschland in an interview published on Wednesday (10 March). The German commissioner warned against common storage sites, as well as exporting the radioactive material outside the EU, for instance Russia.
The European Commission will table a legislative proposal on the treatment of radioactive waste before the end of the year, commission president José Manuel Barroso told a conference on nuclear energy in Paris on Monday.
Energy commissioner Günther Oettinger hinted at legislation on nuclear waste management at a European Parliament hearing in January. He said setting the "highest possible" safety standards for disposal would be a priority. "Further costs cannot be a consideration," he warned.
