Train carrying most radioactive cargo ever to leave France for Germany

On November 5 and 6, a train carrying vitrified radioative waste from the La Hague reprocessing facility in France will begin its Germany to Gorleben, Germany, constituting the most radioactive train cargo to date. Eleven CASTOR casks will travel to Germany's temporary waste site, the scene of numerous protests. The transport risks exposures to citizens along the route as well as posing a serious security target. The French anti-nuclear network, Sortir du Nucleaire, has published the cask transport timetable and has expressed grave concerns at the risks posed by the transport. The network also points out that it is reprocessing that has necessitated the dangerous transport of this highly radioactive waste in the first place.

No new partner yet for EDF as Constellation departs U.S. reactor project

Constellation officially dropped its demand to sell its former partner, Electricite De France, a large portfolio of conventional power-generating stations but exited its partnership with the French utility to build a French reactor at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. Constellation departed with a $140 million buyout and will get back 3.5 million Constellation shares bought by EDF in December 2008. However, as a foreign corporation, EDF cannot move forward with the Maryland reactor project without a majority U.S. partner. To date, no new candidates have stepped forward. Constellation withdrew due to financial concerns after the U.S. Energy Department asked for a fee of $880 million to compensate taxpayers for the risk they would take on a loan guarantee of about $7.6 billion, a fee Constellation said would doom the project.

French ambitions for the EPR are "cooling"

Peggy Hollinger of the Financial Times reports that Constellation Energy's withdrawal from the Calvert Cliffs 3 new reactor project in Maryland has sent shock waves through the French government owned companies Areva and Electricite de France. She writes of the Areva Evolutionary Power Reactor's (EPR) global prospects "...the EPR has suffered a series of devastating blows, and even the [French] government today questions whether it has wasted years of research and billions of euros on a highly complex white elephant."

More woes for EDF

While its nuclear projects go south in France and the U.S., EDF is also under assault in the U.K. A new movement - Boycott EDF - is underway. Boycott EDF is a campaign against nuclear power, and targeted at the main perpetrator of nuclear new build in Britain. In addition to blockades, Boycott EDF asks British electricity customers to switch to another company. At left is a picture of the EDF Hinkley Point blockade by protesters opposed to the EDF plans to build a new reactor at the site.

Documents reveal major safety flaws at EPR and other French reactors

On Monday 27 September, the French Nuclear Phase out Network "Sortir du nucléaire" received internal EDF documents, showing that the design and manufacture of the vessel closure head for the EPR in Flamanville could lead to a Chernobyl-type accident. Worse still, according to a memo written by the Head of nuclear fuel from EDF in 2001 (1), a Chernobyl-type accident is possible on all French nuclear reactors. The EPR is also concerned. Several EDF documents show that the number of welds and the type of steel used in some parts of the reactor vessel at Flamanville EPR may cause leaks. EDF considers that the leaks may, in turn, degenerate into a Chernobyl-type accident. This type of steel and welds are part of the emergency shutdown system of the EPR and cover 89 points of entry into the reactor vessel.  Read the full press release.