Nuclear power station plans criticised by pressure groups

Environmental pressure groups are calling on governments in the US, India, China, Turkey, and Indonesia to abandon new nuclear power stations and large waste dump projects or greatly raise safety standards after it emerged that many of the proposed developments are planned for areas vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. According to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Authority, 20% of the world's 442 working commercial nuclear power stations are in areas of "significant" seismic activity. With the nuclear industry hoping to build 350 new reactors within 20 years to meet soaring electricity demand and to counter climate change, the risk of a nuclear catastrophe from a natural disaster is growing significantly, they say. "Japanese plants were said to be earthquake resistant and the best prepared in the world for disaster, but see what happened. Seismic zones only make them more risky," said Karuna Raina, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace India which is opposing plans for a massive nuclear plant being built in Maharashta state. According to the government's Geological survey of India, the Maharashta site and the surrounding area experienced 91 tremors between 1985 and 2005, ranging up to magnitude 6.3. Turkey meanwhile is planning three nuclear power plants at Akkuyu on the Aegean Sea. The site is only a few kilometres from the active Ecemis fault line and is in an area where large earthquakes have occurred in the past. A 1999 earthquake in Turkey killed nearly 20,000 people. In Chile, which has been hit by successive earthquakes in the last year, the government has declined to comment on plans to build several nuclear plants, despite significant opposition. Nuclear plants are generally built to withstand earthquakes of a maximum of 8.5 magnitude, but proofing installations against tsunamis is seldom considered. The 2004 Sumatra tsunami which forced the temporary closure of the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant near Chennai and four plants in Taiwan also affected nuclear stations on the west coast of the US. "This is going to change the discussion in the US and elsewhere about basing energy supplies on nuclear power. Placing stations in earthquake zones is going to change the debate," said Tom Clements of Friends of the earth USA. Some governments have moved to calm nerves. India's top nuclear bodies said they would revisit all safety aspects of atomic plants in the country and analyse the nuclear crisis arising in Japan after the tsunami as it has offered new lessons to fine tune existing emergency preparedness. "We will not jump to say that our power reactors will not suffer a similar kind of situation but we are planning to revisit all the safety aspects of our plants after doing a complete analysis of the Japanese incident and share the entire safety means with the public in a transparent way," said SK Jain, the chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India. Energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne said: "We take this incident extremely seriously even though there is no reason to expect a similar scale of seismic activity in the UK. I have called on the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman for a thorough report on the implications of the situation in Japan and the lessons to be learned. It is essential that we understand the full facts and their implications, both for existing nuclear reactors and any new programme, as safety is always our number one concern." Nancy Birch, of the anti-nuclear group Kick Nuclear said: "Only last December, Cumbria was hit by an earthquake. It hit an area that has been earmarked by the government to store decades-worth of cancer-causing, high-level radioactive waste. The disaster in Japan clearly demonstrates that nuclear energy is too dangerous to be considered a sustainable form of energy in the 21st century. We want a future, not a disaster." In Germany around 50,000 protesters came out in force at the weekend to urge the government to drop plans to extend the life of its atomic reactors after news of the Japanese disaster. The Japanese disaster has also shaken confidence in the Philippines to revive its mothballed Bataan nuclear plant, a senior government official said on Sunday. Presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte told a government radio station that it was not timely to discuss nuclear energy as source of power for the country. "Alternative fuels [renewables] are less controversial ... you meet less opposition and it might be the win-win solution for everyone," she said. Taner Yildiz, the Turkish energy minister, dismissed critics. "The [Japanese] system shut down automatically right after the earthquake and it opened when everything turned out normal. I can say Japan has tested itself. Nuclear power plant projects will continue in Turkey." "It's premature to make any long term statements,. The situation has to be assessed and then action taken," said Giovanni Verlini, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Authority. in Vienna. • This article was amended on 14th March 2011. It originally referred to the "Richter scale" as a measure of earthquake magnitude. Seismologists no longer use this scale so the phrase has been removed.