THTR Circular No. 113, May 2007

19 pages can be read about nuclear power in China in the "atw" (atomic economy), the belly and stomach gazette for enthusiastic nuclear fetishists. It is also a small homage to Wang Dazong, who at the beginning of the 80s in the brightly decorated pilgrimage sites of Jülich and Aachen eagerly absorbed the pure doctrine of the absolutely inherently safe high-temperature reactors (HTRs) and carried it on into the vast country behind the great wall, to china. Here he became president of Beijing's Tsinghua University in the 90s and immediately built his own HTR test reactor to usher in the beginning of a new HTR era on this continent. The course has been set.
Last year the “Medium and Long-Term Development Plan for Nuclear Energy 2005-2020” was adopted. Among other things, it provides for the further development of so-called advanced reactor concepts. This includes the HTR. It is one of 16 key projects with the highest priority. After the experimental reactor near Beijing has been in operation since 2000, a 195 MW HTR is to be built on the Shandong peninsula. The old German colonial area was until 1914 - what a meaningful hint!
According to Chinese information, construction is to start in 2009 and commissioning in 2013. Somewhat overzealous Berlin engineers (2) from the company TETRA ENERGIE GmbH (Allee der Kosmonauten 28) date the forecasts in the atw three years ago. Obviously, things can't go fast enough for them. They openly admit: “China started developing the nuclear industry early on, but initially specifically for military purposes” (p. 775). The connection in the production of nuclear fuel elements is obvious: “The Yibin Nuclear Fuel Factory (Object 812) is one of the 500 largest companies in China, in which research, development, production and sales (including export) are combined. Initially, the facility was part of the nuclear weapons program; it was geared towards plutonium production and processing, the manufacture of Pu fuel elements and the production of tritium and lithium-6 ”(p. 780).
And in this context the atw authors come to speak of the spherical fuel elements of the high-temperature reactor: “A production facility for HTR fuel was built near Beijing and started up in 1997. Their capacity is 0,5 kg of uranium per day (corresponds to approx. 100 graphite spheres per day). At the time, this was considered sufficient for the HTR pilot reactor (10 MWth) ”(p. 780). The operator of the new HTR on the Shandong peninsula will be the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). CNNC is a state-owned, state-owned holding company under direct government control, with President and Vice-President appointed by the Chairman of the State Council. With the formation of the CNNC, the integration of military production with civilian use of nuclear technology was achieved ”(p. 782). An embellished paraphrase of the fact that atomic power and the production of the atomic bomb cannot be separated.
As early as 1986, supply contracts were signed with Framatome (France) for the delivery of the second nuclear power plant in China near Hong Kong. A comprehensive technology transfer agreement was ratified with Framatome in 1992. So this group is well positioned in the Chinese nuclear market. Together with Siemens as part of today's AREVA Group (3), he is researching the further development of the HTR line across the EU. Good business is sure to be on the way here in the future. Similar to the coal mines in China before 1914 under the German Imperial Protectorate. Same place, just 100 years later.

Horst Blume

Wang Dazong), President of Tsinghua University, and the Bavarian Prime Minister Stoiber signed a research cooperation agreement between the University of Qingdao in Shandong Province (location of the new THTR!) And the University of Beijing with the Technical University of Munich in 2002. The research nuclear power plant in Garching is also part of this cooperation agreement.

Notes:
1. Zuoyi Zhang and Yuliang Sun from INET (Tsinghua University) in “atw” 12/2006, p.792
2. Jürgen Kraemer and Horst Bauer in "atw" 12/2006 "Use of nuclear energy in China"
3. For AREVA see THTR Circulars No. 94 and No. 96

The “Aryan” atomic bomb

“The dream of the Greater German Nazis seems to be coming true. 'German-Aryan scientists' will finally achieve what 'Providence' denied them with the collapse of the 1000-year-old Reich on May 8, 1945: the construction of an Aryan atomic bomb. This dream of German old and neo-Nazis and their long-term 'friends' in well-known business enterprises will have only one flaw. The atom bomb is being built abroad, in Argentina, Brazil or South Africa, and is therefore not yet directly in the control of the Great Germans themselves. "(8)
But the above-mentioned former Nazi Ronald Richter found a little remedy. In Bariloche, at the foot of the Andes and near the Chilean border, he founded the Argentine nuclear research center. Bariloche is the German colony in Argentina par excellence, the vanishing point of many Nazis. Here, together with the heads of the atomic center, they dreamed of a future plutonium and hydrogen bomb. Bariloche with its numerous German schools and associations will be discussed at the end of the article.
Why were Nazis so interested in nuclear technology? Robert Jungk quotes the Jewish physicist Grünbaum in his book “The Atomic State”: “You must have said to yourself at an early stage that a key industry is emerging here that would one day surpass all others in power and influence.” (9) Something like that magically attracts Nazis, the military and large German corporations.
“This technology - in Germany its origin is linked to the military intentions of fascism - after its later 'switch' from military to so-called 'peaceful' use for its political implementation and monitoring, it was authoritarian, if not necessarily fascist Structures. (...) The interwoven administrative apparatuses typical of nuclear policy and their difficult-to-understand decision-making structures and effects even largely elude the traditional decision-making bodies - such as parliaments and parties - and concentrate above all on a narrow circle of interests involved. "(10)
In the 50s, the Adenauer government accepted the ambiguous West German commitment not to manufacture nuclear weapons “on their own soil” (!). “This declaration does not legally prevent the FRG from producing nuclear weapons on foreign territory - e.g. B. in South Africa, Brazil or Argentina. (...) The FRG acted as an advisor in all phases of the Argentine nuclear program and at the same time benefited from the results itself. As early as 1961, it obtained 5 t of uranium from Argentina. "(11)
It was practically a German specialty to do nuclear deals with dictatorships.

In 1974 the Atucha I natural uranium reactor went into operation near the capital Buenos Aires. Siemens had quietly developed this type of reactor so that Argentina would not be dependent on fuel supplies from the United States. Particularly explosive: Heavy water reactors produce a particularly large amount of plutonium, which can be used for military purposes.
The FRG also helped with the financing: "The Federal Government did its best to help with the conclusion, including a DM 100 million loan at particularly favorable conditions and another loan from the Reconstruction Loan Corporation." (12)

Now we finally come to the reactor which, with the help of EHR, is to be completed in Dortmund after 12 years of downtime. In 1979 Kraftwerk Union (KWU) and the Canadian company AECL faced each other as competitors to build the planned 745 MW natural uranium reactor. Although the German KWU offer was 400 million dollars more expensive, it was accepted by the military government. Why?
The KWU offered the Argentine government a broad cooperation agreement in which the particularly explosive atomic bomb-related part was to be supplied by a very specific Dortmund company: "The construction of the heavy water system should be commissioned to the Hoechst subsidiary UHDE from Dortmund." (13)
The US government became aware of the impending deal and began to listen carefully. Serious diplomatic entanglements loomed as the FRG made the construction of an Argentine atom bomb possible with the delivery of the heavy water production plant. In addition, Canadian dockworkers and a solidarity movement critical of the dictatorship prevented the timely delivery of a load of heavy water to Argentina.
The German KWU was not at a loss for a way out. The heavy water system quickly disappeared from the draft contract. The KWU only supplied the nuclear power plant - and the Swiss company Sulzer the controversial heavy water system. The FRG could wash its hands in innocence. In 1980, 1500 people demonstrated in front of the Sulzer company building in Winterthur against the aid to the production of the atomic bomb.
The FRG helped the military in another important point: "With the approval of a DM 1,1 billion loan, the financial framework conditions were first created." (14) And everything nicely secured by state Hermes guarantees.
With the Ezeiza reprocessing plant under construction at the same time, Argentina was on the way to creating an autonomous nuclear fuel cycle. This posed a great risk: from the start, the nuclear program was in the hands of the military, who wanted to make their own policy and did not want others to talk into their policy. In the 70s Argentina even gave refuge to Italian fascist assassins (15).

Due to the rapid economic decline of Argentina and the associated financial bottlenecks, neither Atucha 2 could be completed, nor the reprocessing realized. In 1997, the privatization of Atucha 2 was decided but not carried out (16). It wasn't until the beginning of 2006 that the atomic carousel started moving again, as the Argentinisches Tageblatt reported: “After a week of negotiations at Siemens headquarters, E. Messi, President of Nucleoelectrica Argentina (NASA), and L. Antunez, General Director of the nuclear power plant operator, came to the conclusion that the cooperation of the Framatom group for the completion of Atucha II cannot be expected ”(17). But a few months later, the planning minister De Vido announced an initial success. “For 'pragmatic and strategic reasons', 'the entire scientific, technological and industrial spectrum will be reactivated' - including uranium enrichment” (18).
Atucha 2 is expected to be completed by 2010, which will cost $ 600 million. A total of $ 3,5 billion will flow into the nuclear program (19). The Canadian company AECL, the inferior competitor of the KWU from 2, is said to be in charge of the further development of Atucha 1979. No wonder, because even proponents of nuclear power plants criticize the outdated technology of Atucha 2 and speak out in favor of converting it into a gas and steam power plant.
Even today Argentina does not want to fall behind Brazil. The big neighbor started building a uranium enrichment plant back in 2006, thus keeping a military option open. So the stupid old game starts all over again. The question is, of course, whether Argentina can hold out financially in the long run. But countries like Venezuela, Peru and others are already on the mat and want to have nuclear technology from Argentina. Especially with Venezuela as a large oil country, it is all too obvious: The aim is not to solve an energy problem, but to work on an atom bomb together with the new, anti-Semitic ally Iran. "Left" and right-wing military do not differ too much in their endeavor to resort to extreme means if necessary.

"Oh, good afternoon Ms. Kappler, did you get everything?" - Kappler? Was that the wife of the mass murderer Kappler, who had thousands of Jews killed in Italy? And later, his wife had secretly smuggled him out of the Italian prison hospital in a large suitcase and brought him to Germany, where he was undisturbed? - "Was that really the wife of the mass murderer Kappler?" I asked curiously. Franz hissed unfriendly at me: “What are you thinking again!” (20) - Yes, I had sold organic vegetables to this Ms. Kappler during my agricultural internship and began to sell myself to her husband's employee, SS man Erich Priebke too interested. In March 1944, he was responsible for a massacre in the Ardeatine Caves near Rome in Italy and lent a hand in the murder himself. 335 people were killed, 75 of them Jews.
So I listened up when I read in the weekly newspaper “Freitag” in 1994: “I'll get some ham from the Nazi quickly. In Bariloche, Argentina, almost everyone knew the past of SS man Erich Priebke ”(21). In the climatic health resort - "Houses like in Oberammergau" wrote the Spiegel in 1995 (22) - and the nuclear center, the mass murderer soon moved from the butcher to the chairman of the "German-Argentine Cultural Association". Here, too, the hero of the German National Socialist Air Force, Colonel Rudel, enjoyed his passion for skiing, and concentration camp doctor Mengele stayed here before moving on to Brazil.
By the way, anti-Semitism was or is quite widespread in Argentina. No wonder, with these newcomers, one might think. In 1992 there was a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy (29 dead, 300 injured) and in 1994 an attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. This was the most massive act of violence against Jews outside the State of Israel, with 86 dead and 300 injured.
Only after a US television team "discovered" Priebke in Bariloche did Argentina extradite him to Italy in 1996, the FRG was not interested. The chain of judicial breakdowns, mild judgments, revisions and the protection of the German and Italian fascists for one of their own would fill an entire book. The public excitement was and still is enormous, because many people in Italy are still very conscious of the atrocities of the fascists. With each of his requests for exemption from custody or for conversion of his custody to house arrest in a monastery, the story of the now very old and still unreasonably provocative Priebke comes up again.
Why was Priebke able to live undisturbed in Bariloche for 47 years, although the German authorities knew of his whereabouts and he was often visiting the FRG? The answer leads us to the central office in Dortmund for the prosecution of Nazi crimes and to the Federal Prosecutor General Herman Weissing, who is responsible for this area. The "Westfälische Anzeiger" reported in 1996: "Weissing admitted that the prosecutors had done nothing to find Priebke when they first investigated him from 1963 to 1971 - 'a blatant mistake that should not have happened'. At that time Priebke was living under his real name in Argentina and since 1952 had his passport renewed again and again at the German embassy "(23)
And it gets even worse. The Westfälische Anzeiger headlined: "Ex-NSDAP members investigated Nazi acts" - not (!), The paper should have added better. It is unbelievable that former Nazi lawyers were entrusted with the investigation and "persecution" of their like-minded people in the central office in Dortmund. "From this group of people eight heads of authorities were members of the NSDAP or its affiliated organizations" (24).
The individual elements of the magic triangle “fascists, atomic bombs and crimes” were very closely related to one another and in many cases determined one another. The past is not really past, but continues to have an effect today. The individual crime scenes are interwoven. Connecting lines that have so far been neglected become visible, some of these places are right on our doorstep and have a lot to do with ourselves.

Horst Blume

Notes:
8. “Reaching for the bomb. The German-Argentine nuclear business ". Editor: Research and Documentation Center Chile - Latin America (FDCL), 1981, page 9
9. Robert Jungk, “The Atomic State,” 1977, 128
10. See under 6 .: page 41
11. See under 8, pages 12 and 16
12. See under 8, page 20
13. See under 8, page 22
14. See under 8, page 23
15. See under 8, page 60
16. Ricardo Gamboa Valenzuela: “The Influence of Politics on Economic Reforms,” 2003, p. 210
17th Argentinisches Tageblatt, March 4, 3
18th TAZ, August 26, 8
19th New Germany, August 25th and 30th, 8
20. Horst Blume: "14 scenes about gardeners and murderers" in "Ökolinx" No. 14, 1994
Friday, July 21, 1
22. Der Spiegel, 39/1995, page 98
23. Westfälischer Anzeiger, August 23, 8
24. Westfälischer Anzeiger, August 27, 8

Uranium transports through Hamm Top

“The city of Hamm is not responsible for this task, but the federal government or the states,” wrote the Hamm city administration and refused to answer our questions about uranium hexafluoride transports to Gronau (see last issue). Hammer emergency services are the first to arrive at a possible disaster site, but Hamm is not responsible. - How is that received in the media?
So: "Information refused. Administration behaves 'typical of Hamm' ”(Wochenblatt dated April 11, 4). “This is a poor certificate. Is Hamm prepared for a radiation accident? ”(Westfälischer Anzeiger of April 2007, 5). “Passing off responsibility, refusing to provide information” (Sunday's panorama of April 4, 2007). “Citizens' initiative disappointed. Cities in the vicinity such as Münster, Lünen and Dortmund would have responded to the questions in terms of content. ”(Radio Lippewelle, March 1, 4). Perhaps the Lord Mayor will be comfortable after this brilliant media meltdown after all?
He gets the opportunity right away: On April 24th, 4 the council group of Bündnis 2007 / Die Grünen formulated a parliamentary question on the subject and also criticized the behavior of the administration: “If the matter had been interpreted 'benevolently', the administration of the city of Hamm would have recognized it The aim of the information requested is to provide better information for the residents of dangerous goods routes - here in particular about rail transport with uranium hexafluoride - and to complain about the previous, less transparent procedure. ”Part two of the presentation begins.