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The THTR Circulars from 2004

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THTR Circular No. 90 June 2004


EU request for HTR funding

After the Federal Research Ministry has been silent for over three months and did not answer our detailed questions about the EU grants and our own behavior, and the State Research Ministry in Düsseldorf also briefly signaled after two months that an answer to a similar catalog of questions would take a while , we have succeeded in making the subsidization of the HTR line an issue at EU level. Hiltrud Breyer, MEP from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, kindly put questions to the European Commission in close cooperation with us. The starting point is the 17 million euros for HTR research in 2001 in the 5th EU framework program. We document the questions:

1. If such funding has taken place, by whom were the applications for funding submitted and by which body were they approved? What were the main reasons for the approval?

2. Is this funding a one-off payment from 2001 or was there any other funding before or after? If so, how much were these grants?

3. For which projects was the money approved and which research institutions were entrusted with this task?

4. What are the reasons for promoting the further development and research of high-temperature reactors in Europe? What is the research goal?

5. Have the negative experiences at THTR Hamm-Uentrop (for example the accident in 1986 at the same time as Chernobyl) been included in the assessment of eligibility for funding?

6. Were the German federal government and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia asked about their experience with this reactor line when the funding was approved?

7. Are further research and funding for high-temperature reactors planned for the future? If further funding is planned, what are the reasons for this? "

We can look forward to the highly official answer. In the future, we should urge that HTR funding is also increasingly discussed at the EU level. But this is only possible if appropriate Information in English be available. I have revised a long article about the current global situation, which I wrote in the May issue of the "Grassroots Revolution" and which is also available on the Internet, and added a chapter on the risk of proliferation. Kai-Uwe Dosch, newsletter subscriber from Hamm, former member of the DFG / VK national board and delegate at the next WRI (War Resisters International) triennial conference in Macedonia, has translated the text. In the future, this will not only be available on our own homepage, but will also be offered to various internet forums around the world. The Opponents of the War (WRI) has already mass-mailed this article to its constituents and many individuals. 

Media response to the HTR

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The magazine "anti atom current" (aaa) reported in its April issue (No. 151) on a total of seven pages about the HTR line and mostly published texts from our homepage. In particular, reports by Lothar Hahn from 1986 and 1988 were made available again on paper. In addition, in this special issue "Renaissance for olle Kamellen" reference was made to the fourth generation of reactors and the mirror article "The return of the reactors", which also reported on the THTR, was printed.

The "Grassroots Revolution"published a detailed article in its April issue (No. 288) about the current situation in South Africa and the PBMR, which is also available on the Internet.

The "FugE-News" from Hamm published an article by me about EU funding for HTR research in May with a print run of 2.500 copies.

The Federal Ministry of Research in Bonn has not responded to our inquiries for three months and Jülich is right next door. Reason enough to get closer to these people in terms of media. In the June issue of "Bonner Umwelt Zeitung" (BUZ) I put the newer HTR development under the microscope in an edition of 8.000 copies. The starting point is the open-door day of "Research center Julich" am June 27th. By the way: If you want to pay the FZJ a little visit on this day, please contact the editorial team!

Conversations, lectures, demos and slick eels

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On April 21st it was MDB Wiefelspütz, domestic policy spokesman for the SPD, visits FugE because of the nuclear export from Hanau to China. Since this topic has obviously been dealt with, the opportunity was used for a detailed exchange of information on HTR funding.

On May 15th I attended the well-attended general meeting of the Münster district association of Alliance 90 / The Greens gave a lecture on the current situation with the Europe-wide HTR funding. We have agreed that after the foreseeable meager responses from government agencies to our inquiries, Münster-based KV will take new initiatives with us.

Am Chernobyl anniversary (April 26.04th) a demonstration with 300 people from the main train station took place in Münster. There I distributed a leaflet with a reference to our, this homepage, so that our topic is given more attention within the environmental protection movement. The result of countless references in articles and classifieds: Lately around 8.000 people have clicked each month. In order to get a reliable statement about the actual frequency of visits, we only count those who have selected at least three different pages on our homepage and then it is still an amazing 2.000 per month!

This internet presence (also with the search engines) is the nuclear industry probably also attracted attention and that's why she set up her own homepage for the THTR a few weeks ago. It is a slippery presentation, as is typical in interest-driven companies. There have never been any incidents or problems. This cheap nuclear propaganda will most likely also be paid for by the taxpayer, because the operator of the homepage is HKG, which is known to be bankrupt and is staying afloat with government subsidies. But it also shows that the HTR line will be an important project for the nuclear industry in the future and that it does not want to leave the field to us alone.

During the Gustav Heinemann educational institution In Malente (Schleswig-Holstein) on May 23, Horst Blume gave a literary-political lecture on the possibilities and limits of the THTR resistance in the 80s District representative Hamm-Uentrop and in the Hamm City Council (and of course about the important role of citizens' initiatives), which will be published in a yearbook together with other contributions over the next few months.

Horst Blume

HTR: Cooperation between China and South Korea

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The Chinese Tsinghua University in Beijing, on whose premises a 10 MW HTR research reactor has been in operation since 2000, has formed a joint HTR research company with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to set up a research center for atomic hydrogen production. China itself plans to build a 150 MW HTR in 2006, which should be operational in 2010. Korea is planning a 300 MW HTR and claims it will cost $ 900.000. In reality that would be only 10% of the real construction costs.

Source: Nucleonics Week, March 25, 2004; cited in Nuclear Monitor (WISE) No. 607, April 02.04.2004nd, XNUMX

Aachen: Right professor for HTR!

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The far right Landsmannschaft newspaper "Ostpreußenblatt" * vehemently advocated increased funding for high-temperature reactors in Germany on June 30, 6 with the article "Ausstieg in den Abstieg" by Prof. Heinz M. Kottowski-Dümenil. Numerous authors of this paper also write in "Junge Freiheit", to which up to nine pages are regularly devoted in NRW reports on the protection of the constitution. The Ostpreußenblatt, in which members of the so-called Republicans also publish, wrote:

"One shouldn't forget one thing: energy issues are power issues. What the bread basket is for the individual, the energy supply is for the nation. An inherently safe nuclear technology, the HTR in Hamm, which was developed to the point of series production and worked without problems, was not created for ideological reasons only mothballed, but simply torn down. Our current Federal President played a major role in this. It must be noted that our domestic coal is far too good to burn. However, it can be refined in an environmentally friendly manner with HTR technology. (...)

Our neighbors support us in this bourgeois prank. You know, why. Even if our government is downplaying it, research is being carried out vigorously on new types of nuclear power plants in the USA and other countries. The US Senate has approved industrial funds to work with Russian scientists to develop a high-temperature reactor with spherical fuel elements. At the same time, researchers there, in South Africa and China, are investigating the possibilities and advantages of the pebble bed reactor. Japan is seriously studying the high temperature reactor for converting CO2 and use water to methane. "

If you look at the curriculum vitae of the author Kottowski-Dümenil, it is noticeable that he was a professor at the RWTH Aachen University, who worked intensively with the research center Julich cooperates. In the second half of the 90s, he was the chairman of the Haider and FPÖ-affiliated groups in North Rhine-Westphalia "Federation of Free Citizens" (BFB) and assessor in the federal association of this party. In the six-page NRW constitutional report on this association in 1999, "actual indications for suspicion of right-wing extremist tendencies" were found. Among other things, it was pointed out that the BFB stirs up anti-Semitic resentment. In the summer of 2001 the Antifa project at the Aachen universities, following a tip from the VVN-BdA, made the metallurgy and materials engineering student body aware that this professor was in the neo-fascist think tank "Nation & Europe" published and referred to his work at RWTH. In the 80s, this magazine even printed advertisements in support of the apartheid regime South Africa from: "Solidarity with White Africa"! After these activities became known, the lectures of Prof. Kottowski-Dümenil were canceled.

"The Ostpreußenblatt" has been calling itself the "Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung" since 2003 and has been promoting it with a "national liberal" orientation ever since.

What does the NRW Ministry of Research know?

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On March 23, 2004 we wrote the following letter to the NRW Ministry of Research:

"In the last few months, our new findings on HTR research and funding at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), among others, have revealed dimensions that we did not expect in this form. We are very astonished that how little has just been and is being done on your partto name all connections and activities in this area really openly and transparently and thereby make a public dialogue and public opinion formation on this matter possible in the first place.

With the 10% participation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the FZJ, you are responsible for the activities there and also for failing to avert danger by tolerating a targeted, planned and possibly unauthorized promotion of a highly hazardous form of energy initiated by the FZJ. Your responsibility is particularly great, because countless negative experiences were made with the HTR technology in North Rhine-Westphalia - i.e. your area of ​​responsibility - which ultimately led to the shutdown of the THTR in Hamm-Uentrop.

It is the most well-known magazine of the nuclear power operators themselves that clearly names the leading role and responsibility for the targeted, worldwide promotion of the HTR line by the FZJ and thus also by your ministry: "An important point will be the relationships with the American generation IV International Forum. This research project is intended to coordinate international cooperation in the design of several fourth-generation reactors, including the South African 'Pebble Bed Modular Reactor', for which the fundamental development work was carried out at Forschungszentrum Jülich. " ("Atomwirtschaft" - atw - in the report on the event "International cooperation from the perspective of the IAEA" on October 24, 10 in Bonn)

In the meantime we have learned that in NRW too under your supervision and responsibility the scientific basis for a new, 2nd generation of HTR nuclear reactors was laid. (...)

For us, this information gives rise to the following questions, which we ask you to answer:

1. How does your ministry assess the experiences made in North Rhine-Westphalia with HTR technology and what conclusions do you draw from this?

2. Has State Secretary Hartmut Krebs as a member and deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Forschungszentrum Jülich and as a representative of your ministry in the past as part of a debate on the research policy of this center on the negative experiences made in NRW pointed out with the HTR technology, pushed for an end to HTR research and gave a clear vote in the discussion about the research goals and used all other possibilities of influencing in order to express the - possibly - negative position of the state government towards this form of energy ?

3. Parliamentary evenings, working groups, symposia, specialist conferences, panel discussions, workshop discussions and conferences take place every year on numerous dates in the FZJ. Have members of your ministry so far taken the opportunity here or in another form to critically question the policy of this research center - to re-establish the HTR line worldwide - and to press for an end to this strategic research orientation?

4. Did you know about the funding of the HTR line at EU level?

5. Which EU bodies does your ministry work with in coordinating and aligning research funding in the field of energy policy and what have you done specifically to prevent HTR funding in this area? Have you or the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia approved the use of EU funds for HTR research?

6. How will you react in the future to efforts to continue researching the HTR line in NRW with EU funds?

7. As part of the globally operating HTR Technology Network (HTR-TN), which is massively committed to the renaissance of high-temperature reactors, the NRW-based Bund Deutscher Techniker e. V. Hagen (BDT) active. In view of the activities of the HTR-TN and its members - which obviously also receive public funding for their projects - do you feel compelled to take initiatives that make a more critical view of this reactor line towards these associations and organizations on the part of your ministry clear or find them Activities welcome?

8. (...) How do you see the proliferation risk of the HTR line today, especially in the light of the offensive efforts of the FZJ to help this reactor line achieve a breakthrough worldwide? "

The administration's complaint to the committee

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After the appointment to deal with our application "Hamm-Cape Town exchange of experience via HTRs" was put on hold for six months in the complaints committee, things suddenly moved suspiciously quickly. Within two working days of notification, the application, and in particular the latest, negative administrative draft, should be waved through quickly on March 31st. This template 3946/04 had the following content, among other things:

"The planning and approval procedure for the construction of the HTR in Hamm-Uentrop was started around the middle / end of the sixties, and the shutdown took place in 1989. The 'experiences' of the city of Hamm with regard to operation and safety thus relate to one Period that is around 15 - 40 years ago Due to technical progress, legal changes and social developments, the knowledge gained in this period of time that was long ago can no longer be used for a project that is in the planning stage.

The desired 'exchange of experience' would only make sense if advice appropriate to the topic can be made possible. Otherwise an initiative would be promoted where technical aspects are not in the foreground. The city of Hamm has no scientifically trained employees with the necessary specialist skills due to a lack of responsibilities. "

Speech by Horst Blume before the complaints committee of the city of Hamm on March 31.03.2004, XNUMX:

"First of all, I would like to express my dismay that we had to assume, until last Friday, that the complaint committee would only be able to deal with this complaint after 6 ½ months. That this meeting has now suddenly been called after 5 months at short notice, is a real surprise, because within two working days, of course, there is no officially legitimized request from the Cape Town city council asking for an exchange of experience on high-temperature reactors.

The content of this submission is not only aimed at an exchange of experiences, but also at the solidarity of the citizens of Hammer. The connecting element is a globally unique reactor line with which the city of Hamm and its citizens had to collect decades of experience as guinea pigs due to countless incidents and breakdowns. In our opinion, these experiences should be passed on to the city of Cape Town.

When a person puts himself in great danger without his or her own knowledge, he is usually warned by those around him. Nobody would want to excuse himself with the flimsy justification that the person at risk had not asked specifically. In politics, other standards are applied, as we can see from the draft resolution.

(...) If the city administration now wants to postpone the experience of the city of Hamm with this reactor to the 60s, then this is a transparent attempt to dispose of a troublesome problem in a distant past. But still 1992 radioactively contaminated water escaped into the ground in the so-called tritium accident. To 1995 a round table took place at which municipal representatives also discussed the problems of the THTR. The responsible Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia still speaks of the "decommissioning" in the monthly radiation protection reportOPERATION"of the THTR!

By the end of 1995, the city of Hamm had employed a physicist for around DM 120 as part of an AB measure. His assignment, I quote: "Presentation of the historical development of the THTR 300 in Hamm and its shutdown with special consideration of the technical safety aspect". That wasn't 40 years ago, it was just over 8 years ago! The city of Hamm has a comprehensive archive of reports, statements and acquired knowledge. It is precisely this knowledge that should be made available to other municipalities and interested parties in a non-bureaucratic manner without great expense and effort.

The design principles of the pebble bed reactor have not changed fundamentally in recent years. The research reactor in Beijing, which went into operation in 2000, works much the same as the THTR in Hamm-Uentrop. The same applies to the planned Pebble Bed Modular Reactor near Cape Town.

Prof. Knizia from the THTR operator side wrote in the magazine "Atomwirtschaft" (atw No. 2) in 2002 In a long article (which took up almost a quarter of the entire newspaper) again pointed out that the basic concept of the high-temperature reactor line is based worldwide on that of the THTR in Hamm-Uentrop and that today's planning versions are all based directly on the Hammer reactor.

(...) Since Hamm is the only HTR in the world that has gone beyond the stage of a research reactor, you can gradually get used to the idea that numerous inquiries about the Hammer experiences will be made in the next few years.

The FAZ on December 5th last year wrote on page one: "The high-temperature reactor invented in Germany (...) is meanwhile being developed for series production in South Africa and China. From there it could one day come back." The minority vote of the "Sustainable Energy Supply" commission of inquiry from the CDU and FDP in 2002 announced massive funding for the HTR line and the construction of these reactors in Germany.

I think the city of Hamm cannot run away from its own past. It should face the fact that it was and is the location of a highly controversial, breakdown-prone reactor line worldwide.

In the future, it should be a matter of course that information about experiences with this reactor will be made available to interested institutions unbureaucratically so that other people can get a comprehensive picture and are not only dependent on the information from nuclear power plant operators and their research institutes. "

Course of the meeting:

After Horst Blume had justified the citizens' initiative's application in a speech, a lively discussion arose with a total of seven participants, in which, in addition to questions of understanding, some parliamentarians also expressed their own supportive considerations for an exchange of experiences. In the vote, the administrative proposal not to take any initiatives from Hamm received a majority. However, representatives of the Greens and the SPD urged that the city of Hamm provide existing reports and materials in the event of future inquiries from foreign institutions. Mayor Hunsteger-Petermann, who was present, could not ignore this request, provided that existing laws, ordinances and agreements were not violated. After all, that's something.

Dear readers!

In these weeks the Baden-Alsatian citizens' groups are celebrating their XNUMXth anniversary. They still show today that this movement is still very much alive. To keep it that way, we could - for example - use a few euros for this newsletter .....

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