PR:Shoddy nuclear technology and poor safety culture should not be exported from Russia to Finland

Ecodefense

PRESS-RELEASE Moscow, Sept 9, 2013

Shoddy nuclear technology and poor safety culture should not be exported from Russia to Finland
Finnish nuclear operator Fennovoima publicly announced on September 3 the intention to buy a VVER-1200 (AES-2006) reactor from Russian state nuclear corporation "Rosatom". The deal may cost around 6.4 billion Euro and include transferring 34% of Fennovoima's ownership to "Rosatom".

"It is truly shocking that Fennovoima decided to help "Rosatom" in building of Russian-designed nuclear reactors in Finland and the European Union. This is highly risky and unacceptable, and may lead to a repetition of the Fukushima disaster inside Europe", said Russian Ecodefense in their statement today.

Corruption scandals involving Rosatom over the past several years clearly demonstrate that the Russian nuclear industry cannot be trusted to produce quality equipment for nuclear plants. In February 2012, for example, a Rosatom-owned company was accused of selling shoddy equipment to nuclear plants inside and outside Russia.

The poor safety record of Russian nuclear industry is widely known, as well as its complete failure to clean up contaminated territories in Russia. It's important to notice that VVER-1200 have never been operated in Russia or anywhere else, this design doesn't have confirmed safety history. Also, VVER-1200 has never been tested for the case of a large airplane crash.

According to Russian experts, VVER technology is far from perfect: "If an uncontainable leak breaks out in the primary circuit of a VVER-type reactor, or other failures cause water to stop circulating in the cooling system, core damage could occur, complete with the resulting massive release of radiation."

"Rosatom" attitude towards safety has been traditionally disastrous. It keeps 11 Chernobyl-type reactors still in operation while other countries shut all of it down. Thousands of Russians forced to live on radioactively-contaminated lands and "Rosatom" doesn't care. The equipment produced for nuclear reactors is sometimes just shoddy. Fennovoima is playing Russian roulette importing "Rosatom" safety culture to Finland", said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Russian environmental group Ecodefense.

For more information: http://ecodefense.ru
 * Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Russian environmental group Ecodefense, phone +7 903 2997584, e-mail: [mailto:ecodefenseATgmail.com ecodefense AT gmail.com],

Ecodefense is Russian environmental group established in 1989. It has several branches across Russia - in Moscow, Kaliningrad, Ekaterinburg, etc. Ecodefense has been historically criticizing nuclear industry over the danger of nuclear reactors and transportation of nuclear waste. Latest campaign of Ecodefense against construction of Baltic nuclear plant (with VVER-1200 reactors, near Kaliningrad) resulted in freezing this project for indefinite time.