[E-rundbrief] Info 952 - Russische Schiff-AKWs

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 952 -  Rémi Parmentier: Still
afloat: floating nuclear reactors. (Russische
Atomkraftwerke auf Schiffen im Bau - geplant auch
für Arktis und Antarktis.)

Bad Ischl, 27.9.2010

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Still afloat: floating nuclear reactors

Rémi Parmentier

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Since I've started sharing six or seven years ago
my concerns over Russian plans to build, operate
and sell floating nuclear reactors (including my
drafting and promotion jointly with Alexi Yablokov
of an IUCN resolution that was adopted in 2004), I
think a lot of people thought I was excessive.

Most people believed these floating nuclear
reactors were just a scam mounted by clever
Russian engineers who were very creatively ripping
off public administrations and private investors
with crazy plans that would never see the light.
The dominating view a few years ago was that
floating nuclear reactors would never exist beyond
the drawing boards of a few mad Russian nuclear
scientists.

So now I invite all floatingnukes-skeptics to
watch the story the BBC has just released last
night, which includes a video taken inside the St.
Petersburg shipyard where the construction of the
first of a series of nine floating nuclear
reactors is underway, and set to be completed in 2012.

The Director of the company constructing that
thing, Sergey Zavyalov has told the BBC "We can
guarantee the safety of our units one hundred per
cent, all risks are absolutely ruled out." One
hundred per cent! All risks ruled out! Does this
make you feel better? Isn't such a degree of
self-confidence in an untested technology a little
bit scary? One hundred per cent! This would be the
first time it can be guaranteed that a floating
object under extreme weather conditions cannot
sink under any circumstances. One hundred per
cent? What contingency measures are envisaged and
will be in place in the remote areas where the
nuclear reactors will be tugged? What safeguards
against human errors and sabotage are also
envisaged? (I'll stop here; the list of questions
could be very long)

A few weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph also reported
that Russia and China have signed a deal to
further develop floating nuclear reactors. The
story suggests that in addition to the Arctic,
Antarctica is also envisaged as a place to deploy
floating nuclear reactors to extract mineral
resources (what do the Parties to the Antarctic
Treaty and its Madrid Protocol think of this great
idea?), and the Middle East too, to provide the
energy necessary to desalinate water (what does
the CIA, and Bin Laden, think of this other great
idea?).

Rémi Parmentier (is a former head of the Political
Unit of Greenpeace International and is now
director of Varda)

http://chezremi.blogspot.com/

-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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