German nuke more vulnerable than Forsmark
Deutsche Umwelthilfe / Diet Simon - 17.08.2006 05:06
An environment protection group says a German nuclear power station near Hamburg is worse prepared for a critical breakdown than the Swedish one that allegedly only just escaped a meltdown two weeks ago. The Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) makes the claim about the Brunsbüttel station at the North Sea mouth of the Elbe River about 90 kilometres northwest of Germany’s second largest city, where 1.7 million people live.
"The claim of the operators that a mishap like the one in Sweden could not happen in German reactors is definitely wrong,“ says DUH manager, Jürgen Resch. “Maybe it would happen differently in details than in Forsmark, but the Brunsbüttel reactor is recognisably worse prepared for critical mishap situations than the one in Forsmark.”
Forsmark is the location 150 km north of Stockholm where a short-circuit in the high-tension power lines outside the nuclear plant, caused by maintenance work, cut off all its power systems and almost caused a meltdown. One expert said that worst conceivable incident was only seven minutes away.
But who’s Deutsche Umwelthilfe (www.duh.de)? This is the first time they’ve turned up on my radar and I’m always sceptical about unfamiliar sources. This was their reply to my inquiry:
“We are mainly funded from public project funds, private donations, cooperations with ecological- orientated enterprises, last but not least from industry sponsoring environmental projects. We have much fewer members than most of the other environmental organisations like BUND or Nabu. Most of our Board Members are professionals with BUND.” (BUND is the German member organisation of Friends of the Earth.)
So from here on, it’s their media release, which I’ve translated from German. I’ll intervene only if anything needs explaining.
“For years experts have demanded unsuccessfully that the flawed emergency power supply of the Brunsbüttel power station be raised to modern standards. The operators, Vattenfall and Eon are refusing the retrofit and at the same time are demanding a longer running time.”
Under an agreement between the previous German government (Social Democrats/Greens) and the nuclear power industry, the last German nuclear power station is to close in 2021. But the industry is lobbying hard to overturn the deal and is finding willing listeners among Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.
“After the Forsmark mishap, Deutsche Umwelthilfe publishes internal details (about Brunsbüttel) and demands the immediate closure of the plant or a fundamental retrofit until the regular closure according to the atomic energy exit act.
“Amongst all the (17) German nuclear power stations, the Brunsbüttel boiling water reactor has the most vulnerable security management system to deal with operational disturbances. The emergency power supply is worse prepared for operational disturbances than the Swedish reactor in Forsmark, where a serious accident occurred on 25 July.
“The Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has pointed this out after intensive study of many internal documents of the reactor security commission of the federal government, the Society for Plant and Reactor Security (GRS) in Cologne, technicians of the power station and the Schleswig-Holstein supervisory authority.”
Time for some explanations. The commission is convened by and answers to the federal environment ministry; it ostensibly consists of independent experts and advises the ministry in all matters concerning the safety of reactors, other nuclear installations and the disposal of nuclear waste. The GRS describes itself as an “independent scientific-technical expert and research organisation” although it was formed by government. Schleswig-Holstein is Germany’s northernmost state; the states have supervisory powers over nuclear installations.
“It emerges from protocols and expertises that since 2002 the German supervisory authorities have been trying unsuccessfully to push the Brunsbüttel operators, Vattenfall and Eon, to carry out a fundamental modernisation of the reactor.
“This followed grave flaws in the safety management technology of the reactor which were only recognised with the start-up of a new simulator for training operating crews and which no one had noticed for decades.
“It emerged from this that the complex and flawed safety electrics in Brunsbüttel could possibly not cope with serious mishaps like the one now in Forsmark.
“The claim of the operators that a mishap like the one in Sweden could not happen in German reactors is definitely wrong. Maybe it would happen differently in details than in Forsmark, but the Brunsbüttel reactor is recognisably worse prepared for critical mishap situations than the one in Forsmark.”
The Deutsche Umwelthilfe release says that during the installation tests of the simulator, power station technicians had communicated by faxes about “Planning Mistakes in the Emergency Power Supply and the Control of Several Units in the Emergency and Post-Cooling Facilities” (the title of a GRS document).
“The faxes, which are in the possession of the DUH, give an impression of the scale of confusion that reigned about flaws and contradictions undiscovered for decades.”
And the next bit is such technical gobbledygook that I’ll give it to you in German first, and attempt a translation afterwards. Have mercy and make any improvements you can find:
“Die GRS stellt in einer unveröffentlichten Analyse fest, dass "die in Brunsbüttel gefundenen Fehler sowohl bei Störfällen innerhalb der Auslegung als auch bei auslegungsüberschreitenden Ereignissen and bei weiteren zusätzlich zu unterstellenden Fehlern teilweise zu hohen Unverfügbarkeiten im Sicherheitssystem hätten führen können and so die Beherrschung der Ereignisse gefährdet hätten. Es hat sich zudem herausgestellt, dass die zum Teil vor über 20 Jahren vorgenommenen Inbetriebnahmeprüfungen verborgene Fehler in den komplexen Systemen nicht immer aufgezeigt hatten."
So nobody laugh, please. This is tough stuff!
“In an unpublished analysis the GRS states that ‘in disturbances and out-of-design events and other inferable flaws, the flaws discovered in Brunsbüttel could have led to partial high unavailabilities in the safety system and thus have endangered control of the events. It has also emerged that tests run before start-up, some more than 20 years ago, did not reveal hidden flaws in the complex systems.”
The DUH release continues: “After the welfare ministry in Kiel, which is responsible for nuclear supervision, several expert organisations (TÜV Nord, Energiesysteme Nord in Kiel, GRS) and the Reactor Security Commission of the Federal Government had spent months in many sessions in 2002/2003 examining the deficits discovered in the security electrics of the boiling water reactor, after a few changes in detail, the reactor was allowed back on to the grid, although all the experts were agreed that the fundamental problems were not solved.”
More gobbledygook:
“Der RSK-Fachausschuss ´Elektrische Einrichtungen´ kam "zu dem Ergebnis, dass auch nach Herstellung des Soll-Zustandes (Erfüllung der sicherheitstechnischen Anforderungen) ein Anlagenkonzept im KKB vorliegt, welches hinsichtlich einiger Auslegungsmerkmale, z. B. Abstimmung des Schaltkonzeptes zwischen Verfahrenstechnik and Energieversorgung, Unabhängigkeit der Teilsysteme and Einfachheit der Leittechnikfunktionen, nicht mehr dem Stand von Wissenschaft und Technik entspricht."
I boil that down to mean that the specialist “electric installations” committee of the government’s reactor safety commission found that safety systems were no longer state-of-the-art. And the commission even went on to say that not even any amount of retrofitting could bring them up to speed:
“Nicht einmal eine - theoretisch mögliche - Nachrüstung mit modernster Leittechnik, urteilte die RSK abschließend, könne die Sicherheitsdefizite heilen, weil "dies die Defizite im Anlagenkonzept hinsichtlich des Aufbaus der Notstromversorgung nicht ausgleicht."
"Not even this devastating assessment was able to prevent the Brunsbüttel reactor being put back into operation in March 2003,” writes Gerd Rosenkranz, policy director off the DUH.
Rosenkranz reports that in contrast to the public perception, not even internally a final judgment has been made yet about the likeness of the events in Forsmark and Brunsbüttel.
He points out that the Kiel supervisors last week had reported the all-clear for two other north German nuclear power stations, Brokdorf and Krümmel, to the federal environment minister, Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel, but not for Brunsbüttel.
Rosenkranz finds an “astonishing admission” in the Brunsbüttel operators’ statement that they hadn’t yet had enough time to respond to the “open issue” of “the effects of concurrent failures” of switching equipment in case the grid supply breaks down. That was the scenario in Forsmark, according to Lars-Olov Höglund, the former head of the construction division of that reactor ( http://de.indymedia.org//2006/08/154515.shtml).
“That is an astonishing admission,” says Rosenkranz, “because up to now it was officially claimed that inverters were irrelevant to the safety of German atomic power stations.”
Deutsche Umwelthilfe called on the Vattenfall and E.on power companies to immediately cease demanding a longer operation time for Brunsbüttel and other old reactors in Germany.
“The Brunsbüttel power station is worse prepared for mishaps than the stricken reactor in Sweden. The only alternative can be extensive retrofitting and shutdown in line with the agreement on nuclear exit, or premature switchoff of the boiling water reactor.”
Under the exit law, Brunsbüttel is due to be shut down in 2009.
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On its website, DUH carries a storey on the summer heatwave in Germany having forced nuclear and coal power stations to reduce their output
“This summer is again showing that nuclear power is neither secure nor limitlessly available, neither environment-friendly nor cheap. The next higher power bills for consumers are on the horizon. Like in the summer of 2003, several nuclear and coal power plants had to massively reduce their output in recent weeks. Some coal stations were even shut down.”
DUH explains that both kinds of plants need large amounts of cooling water, which is taken from streams. In many cases, the heated water goes directly back into the streams. This adds to warming the streams.
Every additional temperature increase in the streams reduces their oxygen content. Water quality may also be compromised because many bacteria and algae can spread better at higher temperatures.
To limit the negative effects of running cooling water back into streams, German regulations have set maximum temperatures to which streams may be heated by discharged water. During the heatwave many streams reached 25 degrees Centigrade, which caused several nuclear and coal power stations to drop production substantially.
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Original Brunsbüttel text: Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V.
Digital press kit: http://presseportal.de/story.htx?firmaid=22521
Press kit by RSS : feed://presseportal.de/rss/pm_22521.rss2
Contacts:
Jürgen Resch, Manager, Hackescher Markt 4, 10178
Berlin; Tel.: mobile.: 0171 3649170, Fax.: 030 258986-19,
 resch@duh.de
Gerd Rosenkranz, policy director, Hackescher Markt 4, 10178
Berlin; Tel.: 030 258986-0, Fax.: 030 258986-19, mobile: 0171 5660577,
rosenkranz@duh.de
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