The THTR Circulars from 2009

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THTR Circular No. 125, February 2009

125 issues: Not always THTR ...

After the Daily Horror Trip Reaktor (THTR) had ceased to be one, it went on to shine quietly in front of itself and only attracted attention less often. Since radioactivity and nuclear waste do not go away any more than the efforts of certain politicians to resurrect this type of reactor, we have been saying since 1987: Stay vigilant and document the full extent of the bankruptcy for future generations in the THTR circular.

But there was still time for the more pleasant things in life, including reading our local newspaper. Because without a doubt it was important to know where most of the garden gnomes were in Hamm or what the rabbit breeding club next door was up to. This extremely remarkable focus of information in the local paper created the basis for the THTR circular to shine with background articles, for example to explain why the paper is the way it is: "Typing for Ippen" and "God made me a publisher "in No. 51 first appeared in the TAZ, but then with us. It should now be explained to younger readers at the latest that the THTR-Rundbrief documented numerous articles from other newspapers up to issue 52. To date, the total length of all newsletters is around 2.600 pages.

The average intellectual horizon, widespread in a provincial town like Hamm, produced the right personnel in the political parties. The popular, so far 19-part series on "Leithammel Laurenz" with the proud German regulars' table and wage cone king, the shameless VEW lobbyist and his interview with the far right-wing newspaper "Junge Freiheit" clearly shows how certain figures in this society stay on top for decades (without necessarily to have been elected by a majority).

But nothing stays as it was. In the meantime, even the WA is imitating the THTR series of circulars and caricatures Meyer's core competence: "Meyer at McDonalds, Meyer at the gas station, Meyer baking potato pancakes in the pedestrian zone, Meyer at the Oktoberfest, Meyer underground and Meyer laying the foundation stone for the RWE coal-fired power block." (11/10/2008). Meyer satire has obviously arrived in the mainstream and this is beginning to surprise in a positive way. The only thing left for me to do now is to hope for a new, lucrative Meyer candidacy in order to investigate the exciting question of whether he will manage the 30% hurdle in Hamm this time? Because our dear fellow citizens are not completely blind either.

A Meyer caricature, which is definitely not to be found in the mainstream, printed the THTR-Rundbrief in issue 64. The draftsman was Siegbert Künzel. In number 78 he also wrote a longer article about the destroyed synagogue in Hamm and the new forms of remembrance on Synagogenplatz. The causes and consequences of nationalist arrogance have always been a topic in this newspaper.

The preoccupation with the resurgent anti-Semitism in the FRG led to the fact that this newspaper (No. 75) reported in detail how the descendants of several million Jews in Russia and Ukraine processed the Chernobyl catastrophe in klezmer music Kiev region is an old Jewish settlement area - it has to be said now.

In many ways, it was inevitable that there would be a confrontation with the party that had originally chosen our shining ruins as their favorite reactor. Some of these politicians openly mourn him or still covertly afterwards - positions in municipal utilities, supervisory boards and committees in which the alleged advantages of the miracle reactor were underlined with the help of lavish donations were all too attractive. Partly until today. I was also a member of this party when I was 17 and hope that it will pass as a youthful sin. From my own painful experience, the party-soldier Bismarxism of the SPD was under closer scrutiny. There was a lot to report:

NRW Environment Minister Matthiesen was exposed as a master of disinformation (No. 48). NRW Interior Minister Kniola defamed opponents of nuclear power plants in Ahaus, but let SS mass murderers go and spy on those persecuted by the Nazi regime (No. 56). We commented on the statement by NRW economics minister and THTR accident assessor Jochimsen that the HTR line was "preferable and safe": "A drug dead person was found and his dealer was asked for an investigation report" (No. 63). The tireless efforts of NRW finance minister Schleusser to prevent the THTR shutdown at the last minute (No. 66) was recognized, as was the nationwide SPD newspaper for local politicians "Democratic Community" (No. 64). Even after the Chernobyl disaster, this sheet of paper overflowed with pinned-in nuclear propaganda and paid advertisements from the nuclear industry for many years to come. The social-democratic realpolitik usually looked accordingly.

This high level of depravity in politics was difficult to endure. Under these conditions, not to resort to armed struggle, but to consciously resort to nonviolent action, remained a constant challenge. The experiences of old nonviolent fighters like Gandhi and Thoreau had to be further developed for the modern citizen initiative movement. An important aid was the "Movement Action Plan" (No. 51), which was designed by Bill Moyer, an employee of Martin Luther King, as a dynamic and strategically oriented proposal for action. Moyer ascribes different roles and tasks to the various participants, which can complement each other and which should all be made usable. These are the critical citizens, the "rebels", the social change activists and the inevitable reformers who will betray our cause the moment the pressure subsides.

When it became increasingly clear a few years ago that a new THTR should be built near Cape Town in South Africa, an unexpected cross-connection arose with one of the most important pioneers of the BI movement. In the extensive anniversary edition 100 it was reported that Mahatma Gandhi had lived as a lawyer and activist in South Africa (at times even in Cape Town) for 21 years. The coal miners' strike movements he supported took place in Osttransval, today's partner state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Some companies in the Ruhr area are now building parts of the THTR in South Africa. Reason enough to take a closer look at this country in this newspaper. And to neighboring Namibia (No. 101 +103), formerly a German colony, where the uranium comes from. - It is not far from here to the greatest atomic bomb smuggling scandal of all time. The article "The Atomic Triangle: Germany, South Africa and Pakistan" (No. 95) became the most-read of this paper with a good dozen reprints in other high-circulation newspapers. This scandal is an issue again in this issue.

And then there was Hartz IV. Quite a few people from the environmental protection movement didn't say anything at first because, due to their privileged class situation, they believed quite selfishly that they didn't have to deal with something so mundane. Even before this social robbery became legally binding, several special issues appeared in 2002 (No. 73, 76) on this topic. And then we reported what to think of the "resistance" of the DGB against Hartz IV: Almost all federal MPs who were members of the DGB have approved the law! What else can be done than to say with the songwriter Georg Kreisler: "It no longer makes sense to make songs instead of putting down those responsible" (No. 85)?

Citizens' initiatives arise when parliaments are governed against the declared will of the majority of the people. This applies not only to the Bundestag, but also to local politics (see Lippesee, No. 108). In 2009 we are in a "super election year" in which, contrary to all previous experiences, some people harbor the illusion that they are doing something right with a cross in the right place. All they have to do is delegate their own affairs to a few windy political bureaucrats! In order to show the incorrigible ballot-boxers how the Hammer Council dealt with the highly explosive topic of THTR accidents one year after the Chernobyl disaster, we take a look at an older issue. Here is how the local voter initiative Grün-Alternative Liste fared after it managed to get into the city council of Hamm:

"Listen to speeches, hands up, hands down, look for the next template from the pile, are deliberately overlooked by the management when asked to speak, but still fight for the right to speak, to give a speech to the THTR for once, take the senseless route to the microphone , then hear the senseless applause from a few onlookers, the next day stand in the newspaper and the reactor continues to run, possibly interrupted by a frightening number of reportable incidents and renewed repair work.

His speech was not only answered with arguing about what could be tolerated. It was not infrequently interrupted by scornful laughter from the other elected officials. Laurenz then demonstratively chatted with the man behind him. Some of them went to the toilet or had a quick beer just now and only came back to vote down their proposals. "(No. 97)

Anyone who has experienced this disgusting circus not only loses respect, but also the hope of improvement within the given political representation systems. Whoever manages to get into parliament or even the government - perhaps with good intentions - will be able to change terrifyingly little. Because the real power is held by others. Bad conditions are really questioned and changed mainly through direct actions, mass mobilizations and extra-parliamentary movements - citizens' initiatives.

On November 5, 2008, DPA published the article below under the heading "Costs are causing South Africa to move away from expanding nuclear power". In various very shortened newspaper versions, it caused certain irritations among some readers: Does this move also apply to the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR)? - Here is the long version of the message: 
"South Africa has initially given up the planned expansion of its nuclear power plants against the background of increased capital costs. The state energy company Eskom said on Friday that the planned new construction of a second pressurized water reactor had been canceled. The French Areva group and the US manufacturer were in the final selection Westinghouse.
So far, the Cape State has operated Africa's only commercial nuclear power plant in Koeberg (near Cape Town). The uranium producer South Africa is currently developing a mini-reactor (PBMR) parallel to China, the prototype of which should be completed by 2012.
The PBMR modeled on the German high-temperature reactor is also to be exported later. In view of the acute energy crisis in the country, Eskom had planned 150 billion rand (15 billion euros) for a five-year renewal program. However, the global crisis made raising capital on the international financial market more difficult than expected. So far, the country has produced around 94 percent of its energy from coal and 5 percent from the Koeberg nuclear power plant, which was built in the 1980s and whose two reactors deliver 1800 megawatts. Just one percent comes from renewable energy. "

So South Africa only has to refrain from the pressurized water reactors planned as the next but one for financial reasons, because it has no money for them. The nuclear industry and the South African government are determined to continue building the PBMR. The nuclear-critical magazine "Nuclear Monitor" reported in its issue 681 of December 18, 12 about the background to this new development. Here are some excerpts:

"In 1998 it was expected that construction of a prototype of the PBMR would begin in 1999 and that it would be completed before 2003 in order to subsequently make commercial use possible. In March 2007, a spokesman for the PBMR operators announced that the Construction of a prototype might not start before 2008 or early 2009.

In 2007, the nuclear-critical scientist Steve Thomas expected that the demonstration model would not be able to deliver electricity until mid-2014. That would be more than 10 years later than the future operators predicted in 1998.

In April 2006, the South African Minister Alec Erwin announced that he had asked the energy supply company ESKOM whether it could build a pressurized water reactor (!) To meet the country's urgent needs for electricity. The answer was that such a nuclear power plant with an output of 200 to 300 MW could only deliver electricity in 2014. And would cost $ 9-11 billion.

According to the analyst Van der Waal of Frost & Sullivan, the current "standstill" in ESKOM's general nuclear program will also delay the commercial use of the PBMR by four years until 2020. The press spokeswoman for the business associations, Portia Molefe, also feared on December 5, 12 that this situation could cause severe damage to the PBMR project and urged an early fundamental decision so that it could continue.

Even before the financial crisis, the cost of a 165 MW prototype of the PBMR was given optimistically at 3 billion US dollars. So you've already doubled in size, Uranium Intelligence Weekly wrote. The commissioning process and the storage of nuclear waste are not yet included. "

So much for the excerpt from "Nuclear Monitor". The nuclear lobby in South Africa has sweated a lot and will have to come up with a few more ideas in order to maybe pull the cart out of the mud with a lot of money. However, money has become tight. The critical THTR study by the Jülich scientist Moormann, written in English, is now well known in South Africa and is a hot topic of discussion. Far-reaching export hopes are associated with the PBMR. South Africa and the nuclear industry would like to persuade dozens of emerging economies and Islamic states to use this "miracle reactor". And they also think of one thing: atomic bombs!

The project, which the nuclear industry started with a lot of euphoria, has stalled and will still be good for many a surprise. It's just a real high-temperature reactor.

Additional articles on the PBMR in South Africa can be found in THTR Circulars No. 110 (2007) and 114 (2007).

In the next few years, a high-temperature reactor, called the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), is to be built in South Africa. The preparations are already in full swing. Companies from the Ruhr area are helping. South Africa has been an extremely unsafe area, and not just since the gangster attack in the middle of the control room of the Pelindaba nuclear center, where the five atomic bombs of the old apartheid regime are still stored.
South Africa repeatedly emphasizes that it wants to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that it would work constructively with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In view of the ongoing construction of the PBMR near Cape Town and the associated and planned export of nuclear facilities with proliferation opportunities to emerging countries, these promises are no longer worth too much.
The events surrounding the nuclear smuggling process in Stuttgart in 2008 clearly showed that South Africa's behavior in the world's largest nuclear weapons scandal of all time under Pakistan's "father of the atomic bomb", Abdul Khadir Khan, is irresponsible and hypocritical.

During the apartheid period, the racist regime strove to become a nuclear power and made numerous connections to dodgy business people, engineers and officials from various states in order to obtain components. So this country not only became a hub of the nuclear smuggling network, but also a production site for various highly sought-after individual parts for uranium enrichment plants.

After Libya had to give up its atomic bomb plans in recent years and disclosed information about who it was working with, arrests and lawsuits occurred in the FRG and Switzerland. The competent courts, however, had to contend with massive cover-ups by secret services and states when providing evidence. This scandal sheds telling light on the inability (often also the unwillingness) of states to put an effective stop to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. On October 16, 10, Focus Online wrote the following report on the trial of the accused practicing in South Africa:

"The German engineer Gotthard Lerch has been convicted for his role in Libya's secret nuclear program. The Lerch case brought the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court to its limits. The accused followed the proceedings in silence and often with a stoic grin, and in the end he had reason to smile : The State Security Senate of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court sentenced the 65-year-old German engineer Gotthard Lerch, who lives in Switzerland, to five and a half years in prison.

The reason is a deal between the Federal Prosecutor's Office, Lerch's defense lawyers and the court: Lerch then admitted that he was involved in the construction of a uranium enrichment facility in South Africa. However, he does not want to have known anything about the end customer Libya. In return for his confession, he was assured in advance that he would not face a prison sentence of more than six years.

Five and a half years in prison. That sounds tough. But the 66 months are "shortened" by 12 months "because of the lengthy duration of the proceedings". The engineer with no criminal record has already served 21 months in custody. There are still 33 months left. But they will repay a "remainder of the sentence", which the defense is now applying for and which the Federal Prosecutor's Office will approve. So the deal.

In his plea, Federal Prosecutor Wolfgang Sigmund justified this "agreement" by saying that the process "had shown the limits of establishing the truth". The controversial events involved international operations with reference points for the secret service, which could no longer be resolved without extensive legal assistance from a number of states. In several cases, this legal assistance did not materialize and is not expected in the future either. Therefore, Lerch's admission is legally "of high value".

The presiding judge Jürgen Niemeyer agreed with this assessment in the grounds of the judgment. The Lerch process is characterized by "peculiarities" that do not occur "in normal processes". Almost all crime scenes, evidence and witnesses are located abroad. He gave a rebuke in particular to the Republic of South Africa, which had simply shown "no reactions" to numerous requests for legal assistance. This would be in stark contradiction to South Africa's assurances to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would help to clear up the Khan network. "

On October 16, 10, the Rheinische Post commented on the outcome of the trial as follows: "The Federal Prosecutor's Office had demanded six years in prison. The defense demanded a milder sentence and justified this with the thesis that the deal might have been initiated by international secret services. The court did not follow this claim, but was critical of the role of intelligence services and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Their involvement made it almost impossible to research the truth. "

Three members of the Swiss Tinner family of engineers, who are suspected of being very active members of the Khan network, were released in quick succession by January 2009 after several years of pre-trial detention. Only after their atomic smuggling was exposed did they cooperate with the American secret services. In a decision kept secret, the Federal Council of Switzerland ordered on November 14, 11, apparently under pressure from the USA, to have extensive, highly explosive data carriers from the Tinner proceedings destroyed! This new scandal now preoccupies Switzerland in February 2007. Sequel follows.

International control authorities and secret services made common cause with unscrupulous criminal gangs. South Africa blocked any constructive cooperation with the judiciary to expose the nuclear scandal. This country does not even adhere to the extremely lax and unreliable minimum international standards. This is another reason why the PBMR construction must be prevented!

The rail transports with the highly dangerous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) via Hamm to Gronau have led to numerous discussions in the past few years. Now Hamm is affected again. So far, the depleted radioactive material has been sent via Rotterdam to Siberia, where it is stored in the open air. - But on December 8th, 2008 the train transported it via Hamm to southern France to the AREVA / Eurodif nuclear company. According to the Gronau operator Urenco, seven wagons with four barrels each drove to southern France. That was a total of 350 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride.

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