[NukeNet] Sign-on letter to keep Australia and Canada out of GNEP

Thu Aug 30 17:15:46 EDT 2007

Dear Friends,

Below is an organizational sign-on letter, initiated by The Wilderness
Society in Australia, opposing Australia and Canada joining the Bush
Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Please
consider signing your group on!

Unfortunately, the time is short for signing on - we need to know by
Sunday night (Sept 2) - because President Bush and Prime Ministers
Howard (Australia) and Harper (Canada) are going to talk about expanding
GNEP next week at the APEC Summit in Sydney.

To sign your group onto this letter, simply email your name, group name,
and full contact information to Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear,
kevin at beyondnuclear.org. (Please do not simply hit "reply" to this
e-mail). A final draft will be sent to Bush, Howard, and Harper, as well
as to all groups signing on.

Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership seeks to expand nuclear power
internationally by reviving commercial high-level radioactive waste
reprocessing. For more background information on GNEP, go to:
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/n
ukewaste/reprocessing/

An article about Australia joining GNEP can be read at: 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Australia-may-join-nuclear-group-Dow
ner/2007/08/27/1188067031210.html

Thanks for your help!

Michael Mariotte

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

nirsnet at nirs.org; www.nirs.org <http://www.nirs.org/> 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada 

Prime Minister John Howard, Australia 

Dear Prime Ministers: 

We are writing to urge you to reject the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP), launched by President George W. Bush last year.
Under GNEP, the U.S. and a few other selected countries would reprocess
the world's commercial nuclear waste, and use the separated plutonium in
fast neutron reactors. If implemented, GNEP would result in an enormous
increase in polluting processes and highly proliferation-prone
technologies, as well as in the need to dispose of numerous, large
radioactive waste streams. For reasons of environmental protection,
public safety and non-proliferation, GNEP must be rejected. 

As a member of GNEP, Australia may be permitted to become a nuclear fuel
supplier and to build an enrichment plant and possibly a reprocessing
plant. (Canada too may be awarded nuclear fuel supplier status.) Uranium
enrichment is a dangerous and polluting process. It creates depleted
uranium, which is both radioactive and a toxic heavy metal that poses
serious health risks to people when ingested or inhaled. Disposing of
depleted uranium safely is highly problematic. The U.S., for example,
has no safe, sound depleted uranium disposal policy after decades of
uranium enrichment. This has led to risky ad hoc storage of depleted
uranium on-site at uranium enrichment plants for decades on end, with no
solution in sight. Uranium enrichment is also a proliferation-prone
technology. Its expansion anywhere, including in Canada or Australia,
would encourage expansion elsewhere. Any country with uranium enrichment
capability could divert it, either openly or secretly, to nuclear
weapons production. 

Reprocessing will inevitably cause environmental devastation wherever it
is carried out, by increasing the volume and ecological mobility of
nuclear waste. The world has already witnessed severe cases of
radioactive contamination from reprocessing: Lake Karachai in Russia,
Hanford in the U.S., THORP in the U.K, La Hague in France. Billions of
dollars annually continue to be invested in clean-up operations that
have yet to succeed. Even if operational problems were to be solved,
reprocessing would not eliminate the need for nuclear waste repositories
and would actually increase the number and risk of radioactive waste
streams to be managed. 

Far from advancing non-proliferation and disarmament, GNEP will add to
proliferation risks by spreading nuclear technologies, materials, and
know-how. Reprocessing makes it easier for terrorists to obtain the
fissile material needed to make nuclear weapons, and undermines
nonproliferation efforts. As a result of global commercial reprocessing,
250 metric tons of plutonium have been separated and remain vulnerable
to theft. This amount of plutonium is sufficient to manufacture more
than 30,000 nuclear bombs. Governments engaged in reprocessing could
also divert weapons-usable plutonium streams from reprocessing - again,
either openly or secretly - into nuclear weapons programs, expanding the
arsenals of current nuclear armed states, and/or adding to the number of
nuclear armed states. 

The question of nuclear weapons proliferation is not only unresolved; it
has become significantly worse in recent times, leading the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists to move the Doomsday Clock forward by two minutes - to
five minutes to midnight. Their announcement on 18th  January this year
included the following statement: "We stand at the brink of a Second
Nuclear Age". Far from advancing non-proliferation and disarmament, GNEP
will only add to proliferation threats. 

In order to reduce the radioactivity of the reprocessed waste, it would
be necessary to build one fast neutron reactor for every three light
water reactors. Apart from the astronomical public expense, the history
of fast neutron reactors throughout the world has been marked by serious
safety failures, including fires, explosions, leaks, and a partial
meltdown. Over twenty of these reactors have been built worldwide since
1951 in seven countries, all of which have been funded by governments.
Only three fast reactors still operate in the entire world, one of which
is slated for shutdown in the near-term. 

Despite global expenditures that already exceed US $100 billion, no
country has successfully commercialized reprocessing and transmutation
technologies. As a result, each of these programs is heavily subsidized
by their governments. Australia and Canada would better serve their
citizens by spending limited resources on sustainable, clean
technologies, not by exacerbating the environmental and health problems
caused by the dirty nuclear fuel chain industries already borne by their
peoples. 

It is clear that the price for Australia's full membership in GNEP would
be to become an international nuclear waste dump. In all likelihood,
international nuclear waste dumps would be located on land owned by
indigenous peoples, despite the fact that such land is likely to be
unspoiled, of high conservation value, and essential to the livelihood
of the people who live there. The Australian Government has already
passed legislation that paves the way for the Commonwealth to impose a
nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory, probably on remote
Department of Defense land, immediately adjacent to Aboriginal-occupied
land. 

Although it has not been publicly discussed or disclosed, Canada too
could one day be targeted for other countries' highly radioactive
wastes, due to its so-called sparsely populated granite regions in the
north. But for environmental justice and hydrological reasons alone,
this would be highly problematic and controversial, as Canada's search
for a geologic repository for domestically generated highly radioactive
waste has already shown. 

Moreover, international shipment of highly toxic radioactive waste along
sea lanes, through sea ports and along public highways and railways is
high risk (for people, communities and the environment) under any
circumstances - but especially now, given the potential for terrorist
incidents in addition to non-terrorist related accidents. 

We strongly urge you to reject GNEP. As an alternative, the world must
pursue efficiency measures and clean energy reforms. Such a direction
will prove a safer, cleaner and more cost effective way to meet global
energy needs and to address climate change. 

Sincerely, 

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Sign the Simple Statement on Nuclear Power and Climate: "We do not
support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing
the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency
technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for
reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power."

Sign now at: http://www.nirs.org/petition2/index.php 

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