The THTR Circulars from 2005

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THTR Circular No. 102, Nov. 2005

SGL Carbon supplies graphite for high temperature reactor!

After Uhde (Dortmund) and RWE NUKEM (Essen, Hanau), another German company, SGL Carbon Group AG (Wiesbaden), has become known that is involved in the provision of nuclear fuel for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) in South Africa and that it has considerable profit expectations connects with it.

According to its own information, SGL Carbon is one of the world's leading manufacturers of carbon and graphite products for industrial and aerospace engineering applications. And also makes products for the "Defense Sector" here! This global group is to supply the graphite required for the 6 cm diameter spherical fuel elements of the planned high-temperature reactor in South Africa. The following details can be found on the group's website under the heading "SGL Carbon has been selected as a strategic graphite supplier. Cooperation with South African nuclear energy technology companies":

"The PBMR technology is to be used in the near future for a cost-effective and Co2-free form of energy generation as an alternative to the finite fossil resources. PBMR has SGL Carbon as strategic because of its expertise in the production and development of high-quality graphite and carbon fiber composites Suppliers selected. Both companies have been working together for several years on the development of materials for use in PBMR technology. The planned construction of a demonstration reactor in South Africa from 2007 onwards could become one for the Specialties business unit of SGL Carbon in the years 2006 to 2008 Turnover of approx. 35 to 40 million euros to lead."

SGL Carbon has 5.109 employees and 26 production sites worldwide. It was created in 1992 from a merger between SIGRI / Germany and Great Lakes Carbon / USA. The turnover of the year 2004 over 926 million euros is distributed to 49% in Europe, 27% in North America and 24% in the rest of the world. The corporation without major shareholders sells its products in more than 100 countries worldwide. The head office is located in Wiesbaden, is a German production site Meiningen near Augsburg. There is also a branch in South Africa.

The company's own production activities in the nuclear industry are named as follows:

• Graphite tubes for holding fuel assemblies and for conducting gas in gas-cooled nuclear reactors
• Graphite powder and components made of graphite and CFC for high temperature reactors

The agile group also has a "vision / mission": "We strive for cost and technology leadership. (...) We concentrate on our core competencies of high-temperature technology as well as materials and engineering know-how."

Anyone who is so determined to make financial success the measure of all things comes into conflict with the law. On April 29, 4, the European Court of First Instance sentenced SGL Carbon to a fine of 2004 million euros in the "Graphite Electrodes" case.

On its homepage, the bustling stock corporation finally refers to the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA. That should demonstrate seriousness. If you click on this link, it reveals itself - honestly and openly, as everyone involved is - in all clarity: This page was sponsored by - well? - SGL Carbon Group, ESKOM South Africa and two other totally unselfish supporters. No comment is required here.

Only poorly camouflaged by "sponsoring invents", SGL Carbon even has a direct influence on them South African government. "Aktienresearch" reported with satisfaction on their homepage at the end of August 2005: "In addition, the South African company (PBMR Ltd, THTR-RB) has SGL Carbon as a partner for a conference this week in the capital Pretoria on the status of the development of the so-called pebble bed reactor -Technology selected. "

According to the VDI-Nachrichten of 9. 9. 2005, "340 representatives of the South African development company, its shareholders and investors as well as the supplier companies from all over the world gathered there" !! And conveniently, a part of the ministerial team from South Africa joined in: "Kriek (from PBMR Ltd, THTR-RB) assessed the participation of the Vice-President and three ministers as proof of how important the government is to the project. 'In our uranium-rich country, it is natural that we use this resource for peaceful and economic purposes' ".

The VDI article emphasizes the importance of supplier for the construction of the nuclear power plant: "Apart from the spherical fuel, PBMR will not manufacture a single plant component and contribute to the reactor. (...) One of the important suppliers is the Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the gas turbines. But German companies are also involved. RWE Nukem will take part in the fuel manufacturing process, signed a contract with PBMR during the congress in Pretoria. The Wiesbaden-based SGL Carbon develops and manufactures graphite reflectors and moderators for the interior of the reactor. "It was found with satisfaction that the tests on the fuel and the system components are on schedule. All of this naturally cost a lot:" In developing the know-how hows of the ball bed reactor including the German work are overall 10 billion euros flowed. "

With so much international pre-financing and political support, the stock analysts can only further incite the greed for extra profits and a clear one for wealthy investors "buy" recommend for SGL Carbon stocks. "Aktienresearch" underpins this recommendation as follows: "According to analysts' estimates, SGL Carbon should achieve additional sales growth of 2007% in 2,3 as a result of the business." For this you can "sponsor" a congress together with a government.

In order to make the measure really full, it must also be reported that the homepage "eco-reporter", who advocates sustainable investments and renewable energies, prints the reports on the PBMR without any critical comment and parrots the chatter of "CO2-free energy generation". The whole thing is garnished with an advertisement of the "Environmental bank"." Sponsored "everywhere nowadays!

It remains only sobering to note that a long-term "exit" from the nuclear industry was decided in the FRG, but that this does not in the least prevent the German corporations (integrated into an international structure) from diligently continuing to do good business with it to make a forced renaissance of atomic energy.

Horst Blume

This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded equally to Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, which he heads.

The Egyptian is married to a teacher who teaches in the kindergarten of the international school in Vienna. He frankly admitted: "I find a lot in common between the way I act and the way my wife Aida treats three-year-old children" (1). This says something about the intellectual horizon and the rational insight of his negotiating partner. However, what is on the agenda is not candy or candy, but nuclear bombs. So weapons of mass destruction and beyond that the most dangerous form of energy there is: nuclear power.

Nobel Prize for a failed institution

On the round anniversaries, the Nobel Prize Committee had so far made very forward-looking and hopeful decisions. In 1985 the International Medical Association against Nuclear War (IPPNW) and in 1995 the Pugwash Conference received the Nobel Prize. This year, the Japanese organization of the US atomic bomb victims Nihon Hidankyo was one of the committee's nominated favorites. The classic nuclear energy lobby organization IAEA was then preferred. The nuclear disarmament talks and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are currently in the deepest crisis in their history.

The IAEA, on whose initiative the nuclear genie was first let out of the bottle, is proving to be largely powerless in its role as a worldwide nuclear police officer. The Nobel Prize ceremony is a desperate attempt to save the out-of-control situation with additional moral support. This is a highly dubious endeavor, as the IAEA itself is the cause of this misery and is doing everything to make it worse in the end.

The IAEA goal: nuclear power for many developing countries

The International Atomic Energy Agency was founded in 1957 as an independent organization within the United Nations. It currently has 2244 employees from over 90 countries (2). Their self-image: "The aim of the organization is to make the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity around the world faster and more effective."

But security and peace are not far off. Nuclear power plants use enriched uranium and produce plutonium, which has now been used in a number of countries for nuclear weapons programs. By promoting and supporting nuclear power, the IAEA itself is contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons! Nor can it guarantee the safety of civil nuclear power. The incidents in countless nuclear power plants (Three Miles Island, Chernobyl, Sellafield) make it abundantly clear. The whole moral depravity of this organization can already be seen in the fact that it repeatedly denies or downplays obvious disruptions and is thus complicit in the illness, death and suffering of many people.

"The IAEA advocates, among other things, developing countries' access to peaceful nuclear technology. 44 countries currently have nuclear facilities that can be used for military purposes" (3). Today the following countries have nuclear weapons: USA, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel. And maybe North Korea and Iran too.

The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, the greater the possibility that some of them can be acquired by extremist groups. The phrase much invoked by the IAOE of zero tolerance for additional nuclear weapons outside of the previous atomic club ("atomic apartheid") requires zero tolerance for civilian nuclear power as a prerequisite.

IAEA: Worldwide pioneer for high-temperature reactors

In the endeavor of the nuclear industry, developing and emerging countries to sell the controversial HTR line, this organization provides every conceivable help. It provides the complete all-round service for the promotion, research and introduction of this line. The high risk of proliferation of this type of reactor has been reported in detail elsewhere (4). South Africa in particular wants to produce its module HTR specifically for export. Here the IAEA is nurturing the next generation of nuclear weapons producers: Generation IV!

Together with the nuclear HTR network, research institutions and energy companies, the IAEA acts as a spearhead for the implementation of this new proliferation variant through countless conferences, workshops, article services, documentation, presentations and consultations on an international level! Tens of thousands of pages (!) Of uncritical praise for the HTR line on their homepage clearly show what to think of their phrases of the "non-proliferation of nuclear weapons". This famous organization has these pages financed by its direct beneficiaries, the HTR industry (ESKOM, South Africa) and its suppliers (SGL-Carbon Group, Wiesbaden) (5) !!

A nuclear policeman does not bring his clients to jail!

The division of the world into those who have nuclear weapons and those who have not is an incessant incentive for irresponsible governments to purchase or retrofit nuclear weapons. The examples of Iran and North Korea clearly show that weaker states also rely on the "deterrent value" of nuclear weapons. So far, the IAEA has not been able to persuade them to clearly renounce it.

According to ElBaradei, terrorist networks represent a real danger, as they have the possibility of obtaining nuclear material via the black market (6). But even if nuclear traders were discovered so far, they were often left unmolested because their activities served certain great power interests. The "father of the Pakistani atomic bomb" Abdul Quadeer Khan, who worked in the German-Dutch Urenco in the 70s, was deliberately left unmolested in order to "neutralize" the nuclear power India, which sympathized with the Soviet Union, through a Pakistani nuclear power (7). This Khan supplied nearly a dozen countries from his nuclear supermarket for the decades that followed.

The review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York in May 2005 made it abundantly clear: The problem of nuclear weapons is no longer manageable because radioactive material can be diverted from "civil" nuclear reactors in innumerable places. It is the complete declaration of bankruptcy for all IAEA policy. No Nobel Peace Prize helps to morally force the completely stupid to take action.

In the meantime, ElBaradei has to initiate investigations against his home country Egypt because nuclear experiments are said to have taken place there, which are related to a nuclear weapons program. "During the experiments, metallic uranium was produced that could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, said a diplomat in Vienna. In addition, preliminary stages of uranium enrichment may have been carried out" (8).

The exit from "civil" nuclear power has to be fought for bit by bit against irresponsible state power politicians and nuclear lobbyists of the IAEA. Nuclear disarmament would then be possible as a subsequent second step. 

Horst Blume

1. Frankfurter Rundschau October 8, 10
2. New Germany October 8, 10
3. See under 1.
4. See THTR circular no.86
5. See the article "SGL Carbon supplies graphite for HTR" in this issue
6. See THTR Circulars No. 95, 98 and 99
7. Young World August 11, 8

Now the DGB unions are again doing common cause with the nuclear companies. Only to secure jobs, of course. This opportunism has a long tradition (see also the article in the ND of November 4, 11 on our homepage under "news").

A few days ago the four largest energy companies and ver.di and the IG BCE - which hardly needs to be described as a trade union, but rather as an egotistical organization of the estates - presented a joint position paper with energy policy demands to the new federal government. In it, the signatories speak out in favor of longer operating times for nuclear power plants, further exploration of the Gorleben repository site and rapid commissioning of the Konrad repository. The wish list signed by the two DGB unions thus puts essential parts of the previously negotiated "nuclear phase-out" at disposal.

Ver.di chairman (and member of the Greens!) Frank Bsirke stated, "that the nuclear phase-out would possibly torpedo the climate protection goals of the Kyoto Protocol because of the then necessary use of conventional forms of energy." (Junge Welt, October 28, 10)

On March 21, 2003 we from the environmental protection group wrote to Hamm Bsirske because ver.di is a member of the Senate of the Helmholz Association of German Research Centers, which is also responsible for high-temperature reactor research in Jülich. Bsirske let us answer on April 15, 2003:

"Ver.di and its predecessor organizations have been advocating the final phase-out of nuclear power generation for a long time and support all measures and steps in this direction both in Germany and on an international scale. (...) The" Energy "program area (in the Helmholz Gemeinschaft, RB) is still pending for assessment. We will take this opportunity to consider the arguments you have put forward. "

We can now see how seriously ver.di meant this. The shadow of the past, in which the DGB unions were compliant accomplices of the nuclear industry in the 70s and 80s, is catching up with us again! - Didn't they understand anything at all?

Horst Blume

Now it becomes clear what clayey feet the atomic consensus brought about by red-green stands on. Because the proclaimed "nuclear phase-out" was not made irreversible. Under a Union-led federal government, the absurdly long remaining terms are to be extended further and the construction of the extremely unsafe repository in Gorleben will be resumed. Atomic energy research can count on a new windfall, so that Germany again exports atomic technology all over the world. The dangers of nuclear power have not diminished a bit.

Nevertheless, the Atomic Lobby and the Atomic Energy Union are trying to present the answer to a climate catastrophe and dependence on energy sources from unsafe regions of the world. They want to mend the public image of this technology, which has been battered since Chernobyl at the latest. However, further inflexible large power plants will not help to move away from dependence on oil. What is needed is the massive expansion of renewable energies, combined with far more efficient, decentralized gas power plants that can be flexibly adapted to the changing amounts of energy from sun, wind and biomass.

Nuclear power plants currently cover just under 3 percent of global energy consumption. Given the extremely limited uranium deposits of the earth, which will last for 40 years with today's consumption, nuclear power is an air number as an alternative to the finite fossil power plants.

Reason enough to oppose the propagated renaissance of atomic energy and to stand up for the further consistent expansion of renewable energies as an alternative. The dirty game between E.ON, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall must come to an end.

Aus: www.ausgestrahlt.de

With two buses and more than 100 opponents of nuclear power, initiatives from the Münsterland took part in the nationwide anti-nuclear demonstration in Lüneburg on November 5th. For the Münsterland initiatives, the demand for an immediate nuclear phase-out was in the foreground. This also includes the closure of the Gronau uranium enrichment plant, a storage stop for the Ahaus interim storage facility and the closure of the Lingen nuclear power plant. A total of around 11 people demonstrated in Lüneburg. The demonstration is also a signal to the Berlin rounds of negotiations between the Union and the SPD to finally abandon nuclear power in the face of insoluble disposal problems and the constant risk of accidents 7000nd of November. Info: www.castor.de

In Morsleben: This is where 348 containers are stored in 200-liter barrels from the THTR. In September 2005, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) handed over the plans for the final closure of the repository to the Ministry of the Environment in Saxony-Anhalt. Public display is likely to take place in about a year. The BfS has so far not disclosed any detailed information on the exact decommissioning concept and has not responded to critical inquiries about this. Large parts of the underground pit system are to be filled with a total of four million cubic meters of a special mixture. The work can start in 2008 and will likely continue for 15 years. The salt dome is in danger of collapsing and huge chunks threaten to break out of the ceiling (see THTR-RB 99). Of the approximately two billion euros in decommissioning costs, only 150 million euros will be raised by the operators of the nuclear power plants (ND of 14.09.2005).

In Ahaus: For the third time after 1999 and 2004, new corrosion damage to the 10.03.2005 THTR-Castor containers was reported on March 305, XNUMX. The matter has not yet been fully clarified. Here is the chronology:

18.03.2005: Request from BI Hamm to the responsible Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia.

21.04.2005: Preliminary answer, further investigations have been announced.

01.07.2005: Another request from BI Hamm.

27.07.2005: The NRW Ministry writes: "A special program has now been created for these examinations, which is now being processed. From the current perspective, however, these examinations will extend into autumn."

07.11.2005: Still no answer from the NRW Ministry.

The article "The atomic triangle" was reprinted in anti atom aktuell no. 166 and quoted in the magazine "Solarzeitalter" no. 3 (2005) by Eurosolar. This makes it by far the most reprinted and cited article I've written for the past 25 years.

A summary of all EU articles in the circular, "The nuclear framework of the EU", is in such serious papers as the "EU circular" No. 8/9 2005 of the German Nature Conservation Ring (DNR) - in which all the major nature conservation associations in Germany are members - and published in the magazine "Environment, communal ecological letters" No. 18/2005.

The media response to issue 100 was very satisfactory. Here is a brief overview:

• New Germany 12.08.2005/XNUMX/XNUMX
• Westfälischer Anzeiger 13.08.2005/XNUMX/XNUMX (large article with two photos)
• Young World 15.08.2005/XNUMX/XNUMX
• Hamm Online (Internet), August 2005
• South Africa No. 4, 2005
• Strahlentelex No. 446-447, 2005
• Grass Roots Revolution No. 302, 2005
• AKP - Alternative Local Policy No. 6, 2005 

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