No, Greenpeace Did Not Stop Depleted Uranium Shipments by Areva
June 3rd, 2010
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Our friends at Areva have been subject to a number of crimes of vandalism by Greenpeace. Now the criminal organization is claiming that it is because of their sabotage that the company is no longer shipping depleted uranium waste (which isn’t even really waste) to Russia. However, Areva has attempted to set the record straight, although I’m sure many will ignore the facts.
AREVA Sets The Record Straight On The Termination Of Depleted Uranium Transports To Russia
Despite explanations provided by AREVA, the press this week-end reports Greenpeace’s allegations that the AREVA group decided to end transports of depleted uranium to the Russian enriching company Tenex this year, suggesting that this decision was made due to pressure from the anti-nuclear organization. These claims are completely unfounded.
Termination of these transports end of 2010 results from the completion of a commercial contract that the parties decided not to renew back in 2006. The final transport of AREVA’s depleted uranium to Russia, within the scope of this contract, will occur as planned in the weeks to come. This topic was raised during an Haut Comité à la Transparence (Transparency committee) meeting back in November 2009 in presence of Greenpeace representative, Mr. Yannick Rousselet. In addition, Mr. Rousselet contributes to the drafting of the Haut Comité à la Transparence report on the fuel cycle in which the transport termination deadline is referred to.
For Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, AREVA spokesperson, « This situation illustrates that Greenpeace has extensive imagination but little memory. Locked in its anti-nuclear dogma, Greenpeace is once again fighting the wrong battle. »
In April, Greenpeace vandals tore up train rails to stop a nuclear waste shipment to Russia. According to a report by RIA Novosti, Greenpeace activists tore up the train track near the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in southeast France to stop a shipment of nuclear waste to Russia, the organization said. Depleted uranium hexafluoride was due to be transported via rail to the port of Le Havre and on to St. Petersburg.
“Yet another Greenpeace protest is a clear manipulation of public consciousness. They [Greenpeace activists] demanding the halt of shipments while it was widely known in 2006 that deliveries of uranium hexafluoride expire in 2010. Each time a shipment occurs, they chain themselves to the train tracks and put their heads on the tracks pretending to fight against further deliveries which will not take place after 2010,” Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said, adding that the protestors are “drawing attention to an issue that doesn’t exist.”
Activists say that shipments of nuclear waste to Russia violate French law and an EU directive banning the import and export of dangerous waste. In February, activists held several protests against nuclear waste transportation to Russia and its storage in the country.
What is so disgusting about this is that it demonstrates, yet again, that Greenpeace believes that they are not only justified in lying about the facts, but are above the law. Greenpeace seems to believe that they have the right to do anything they want, destroy any property they want and violate the laws of any country with impunity. Simply because they believe nuclear energy is so terrible, they may do anything and everything, acting as if there is no authority higher than themselves.
These self-appointed authorities are all too often allowed to get away with their crimes, simply because they are popular or their cause is seen as being valid. Not even a legitimate national government has the powers they seem to believe they are entitled to. With no courts, no balances or division of power, they claim the right to deface or destroy any property, to blockade any transportation and to harass any group or individual they decide to.
In case you missed it, their “protest” was vandalizing or dismantling the rails which are used to transport materials to and from nuclear energy center outside Pierrelatte France. This “protest’ was not simply waving signs or picketing, calling for boycotts or yelling on bullhorns, it was taking wrenches, prybars and hammers and taking apart railroad tracks.
Greenpeace had this to say on their blog:
Yesterday morning at 8am CET, eight Greenpeace activists dismantled the railway tracks between the Tricastin nuclear facility and Pierrelatte in order to stop a shipment of nuclear waste being shipped to Russia. The Russian ship, Kapitan Kuroptev, is waiting at Le Havre to receive the shipment.
French nuclear companies AREVA and EDF say depleted uranium is sent to Siberia to be enriched and then returned to France. This is spin and deception. This isn’t ‘recycling’ or ‘reuse’. This is making nuclear waste somebody else’s problem. It only demonstrates once again the industry’s complete inability to deal with the dangers of nuclear waste.
Not only are there bold-faced lies in this statement, but they again flaunt their criminal activities with a smug disregard for the rules of a civil and just society.
They did, however, state that they will not be attempting such protests in Russia:
“In Russia, taking apart rails is fraught with serious consequences,” Tchouprov said referring to routinely tough response by Russian authorities to any action they deem as a security threat.
Well YEAH! In this circumstance, I have to be a little critical of France for allowing this to go on without arresting those involved and subjecting them to considerable prison time (like years). In Russia, they would certainly not avoid such punishment, assuming they were not shot on sight, which quite honestly, is not entirely unjustified when someone is clearly attempting to sabotage a life-critical piece of infrastructure like a railway.
I’m not aware of exactly what the punishment is for this kind of vandalism in France or the EU in general is. In the United States, intentionally compromising the safety or integrity of a railroad or attempting to cause a train derailment is a very very serious Federal crime. Simply committing the act of sabotage on railways carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. If the act results in an actual derailment with loss of property and injuries, additional charges would be included, and if anyone dies as a result, the crime becomes a capital offense, eligible for the federal death penalty.
Why is Greenpeace exempt from rule of law on these actions? Hopefully they won’t be forever.
As for the uranium bound for Russia, the truth is far different than they would like you to believe.
Why the material was being shipped to Russia:
The material had been shipped to Russia for processing at a large uranium defluorination plant run by TENEX. When uranium is enriched, it is done so by converting it to a gaseous compound, uranium hexafluoride. After enrichment, the enriched uranium hexafluoride is converted to another form of uranium, usually uranium oxide, but occasionally uranium carbide, uranium metal or some other compound. However, since the process of converting the uranium hexafluoride back to solid uranium requires energy and chemical processing, it is common practice for the depleted uranium to be stored on site as uranium hexaflouride gas in cylinders.
After many years of enrichment, the cylinders of depleted uranium hexaflouride tend to accumulate at enrichment sites. Eventually, warehousing them becomes an issue simply due to the space they take up. More than 95% of the depleted uranium in the world is in the form of uranium hexafluoride. In addition to taking up space, the gas is reactive and can be dangerous if a cylinder were to spring a leak. Compared to many other industrial chemicals shipped by rail (such as chlorine gas) the uranium hexafluoride is not unusually dangerous, but there have been some accidents in years past.
Therefore, defluoridization and conversion of the uranium hexafluoride to uranium oxide or uranium metal is the preferred method of dealing with the material. The process produces allows for the recovery of uranium, which can be used for downblending of highly enriched uranium to produce fuel. It can also be used for any of the number of uses depleted uranium metal has found (ranging from semiconductors to radiation shielding to armor-penetrating munitions.) Alternatively, the chemically stable uranium oxide can be stored, taking up less space and without the potential dangers of uranium hexafluoride. The process also results in the recovery of fluorine which can be sold commercially, most commonly in the form of hydrofluoric acid.
At least some of the depleted uranium also was destine for re-enrichment. While depleted uranium has had most of the uranium-235 removed, it often does have enough remaining to make re-enrichment economically viable, depending on the price of uranium and the enrichment technology being used. Tenex would have re-enriched the depleted uranium at one of its Russian plants. A portion of the enriched uranium would be returned to France.
Areva had contracted with Tenex to process the material, which had become backlogged at their facilities. As part of the contract, Areva sold the surplus material to Tenex at a low price and Tenex resold the fluoride recovered from the processing of the uranium hexafluoride.
By all accounts this was a mutually beneficial business relationship, but the contract is now over and Areva has reduced its surplus of uranium hexafluoride. The decision not to renew the contract does not mean that either party was necessarily dissatisfied with the arrangement. It is just as likely that Areva is satisifed with the reduction in their depleted uranium inventory and may not see much economic benefit in continuing to send it to Russia for processing.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Nuclear, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 4th, 2010 at 12:21 am
By the way: Thanks to DV82XL for emailing me this story.
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June 4th, 2010 at 3:21 am
It is funny you mentioned this story because I am actually working in Areva transports division and my colleagues are (were) in charge of this transport. Nothing to add, you nailed it; just some comments:
- as a common rule, AREVA walks a thin line in its relations with Greenpeace: we try to keep it cool, not escalating the conflict but controlling it as much as we can. France is different from the not-so-democratic-Russia and a big hit on Greenpeace head, although relieving, would be counter-productive in the long run. Police knows Greenpeace, has good intel. In the long run, they are more of nuisance than a major problem, it is all a big theater. Like you say in French: “Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe” = the dogs bark, the caravan goes by.
- I am much more critical regarding the press who generally suck for all things more complicated than 1+1=2, and does not take the time to understand and explain it to the public. They are really copy-pasting Greenpeace propaganda.
- French state is the major shareholder in AREVA and the Energy minister, Mr Borloo, who got the hand on sensitive transports, does not like us. We have to tone down a little until the next minister.
- regarding prosecution, AREVA recently ramped up a little bit with court orders restraining future actions by Greenpeace. Let’s see the effect of that.
- eUF6 is not so much a radiological risk than a chemical one: not good when inhaled, really not good if firemen put some water on it (after a fire during road accident for example). We usually train fire brigades regarding this problem and there is a crisis room open 24/7 in any case. Our competitors in front-end transportation are not so thorough though.
Thanks for the blog. Keep on like this.
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June 4th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Greenpeace doesn’t really feel it’s above the law as such, merely it’s followers are of the blind belief that their actions are justified by some sort of higher purpose – that despite being intentionally criminal it’s okay because they believe they’re right.
In which respect they’re not really much better than the militant Christian-right with the lovely “God hates fags” message or Islamic extremists who feel it’s justified to slam airliners into skyscrapers.
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June 4th, 2010 at 8:32 am
I work in nuclear material shipping for a public power utility and am occasionally involved in sending spent fuel to a research facility for failure analysis. The security surrounding these shipments is very tight, and only a few people are allowed access to the schedule and information on the shipping routes. Whenever someone new gets involved in the process they always assume that the secrecy is based on threats of terrorism; which it is, but not in the way that they think. It always surprises them (as it did me on my first trip) to learn that our biggest concern is not jihadists; it’s Greenpeace. Inevitably, stories like this are brought up at the security briefings as an example of what a pain in the ass (and potential danger) these people can be.
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June 4th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Paul said:
I agree that the material can be a hazard in its own right due to the chemical properties, and so it’s totally reasonable to take precautions. There have been accidents with uranium hexafluoride and a couple of them have been fatal.
You really can’t single this one out, though, imho. The shipping security, the integrity of the containers and the emergency response far exceeds that of many other hazardous materials that are routinely shipped by rail.
Every day, across the industrial world, equally or more hazardous materials are shipped by rail in enormous quantities. Chlorine gas is the big one, and the containers are not nearly as well protected as UF6. Usually all goes well, but people can and have died due to derailment of chlorine-carrying trains. Of course there are plenty of others: hydrofluoric acid, vinyl chloride, Titanium tetrachloride, ethylene oxide, hydrazine, nitrosyl chloride, sulfuric acid, fuming sulfuric acid – to name just a few.
To argue that it is dangerous to transport uranium hexafluoride misses the fact that this is routinely done with railroads. It also ignores the fact that the material was destine for a conversion plant to be refined into a much more stable and safe material.
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June 4th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
What surprises me is that the French used to be no more squeamish than the Russians, in dealing with outrages like this. At one time in the not so distant past, the response from the Sûreté Nationale would have been as swift as it was harsh, and no one in Greenpeace would have been left in any doubt of the magnitude of their error.
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June 4th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
From what I have seen of how these groups respond to various measures, I do not believe it actually helps politically to go light on them. Governments and law enforcement is afraid to come down hard and really deal with this because of the bad publicity and the masterful whining to the media Greenpeace gets away with.
However, no matter how you dispense with them, they’ll cry just the same and get some support because of it. If you haul these idiots off with a slap on the wrist, they’ll use it to prove they’re oppressed. If you sentence them all to heavy prison terms, they’ll do the same.
However, if you dish out a tough enough punishment, you’ll only have to deal with it once. Take them down with some very very serious charges and very serious sentences and they’ll be unlikely to try it again.
What I really want to see is more than the protesters get arrested and put away though. These Greenpeace PR people, bloggers, organizers and other managers sit there with impunity because they’re not dumb enough to get their hands dirty. However, they are the ones who organize and fund this, and that makes this a case of enterprise corruption and organized crime. It’s no different than a Mafia godfather who never physically commits a crime but facilitates their commission through others.
These jackasses need to have some fear put in them by seeing what happens to those who so boldly disregard the law.
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June 5th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
There are railroad tracks right below my house. If I were to try and rip them up, I would be in jail in to time.
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June 12th, 2010 at 2:26 am
Paul said:
It’s the curse of “churnalism” — journalists today are so pressed to time that they often resort to simply copy-pasting pre-packaged press releases…
I’mnotreallyhere said:
Actually, I think that the Westboro Baptist Church — along with Islam4UK (under all the names it has used in the past) — simply revel in their own infamy.
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June 12th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
George Carty said:
That is certainly one problem, but it is not the only one. Of course, journalism is a wide field with many many players. Of course, quality varies greatly. However, it seems that there are few that are that high.
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June 12th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
George Carty said:
Yeah, calling the Westboro Baptist Church (about 70 people, all part of one extended family who, IIRC, get most of their money by suing people) representative of the Christian Right is like using Stalin as the representative of atheism. Not really accurate.
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October 8th, 2010 at 5:01 am
Greenpeace are a bunch of terrorists, and ought to be jailed and sued for 2x every penny of damage and lost income they’re responsible for, as well as for any personal civil suits for injuries they are liable for. I can’t believe people treat these scumbags like heroes.
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November 6th, 2010 at 9:56 am
It’s happening again right now… This time greenpeace even posted the exact train route and schedule online to foster protests. So far the train made it with difficulty to the German border and had to be rerouted twice because of exceptionally strong demonstrations or even activists on the tracks.
And that’s only the beginning because the opposition is expected to be even more violent in Germany…
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