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La finlande et l’industrie minière

Talvivaara - from benefactor of struggling rural area to environmental enemy No.1

By Veera Luoma-aho and Anssi Miettinen

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Talvivaara+-+from+benefactor+of+struggling+rural+area+to+environmental+enemy+No1/1329104187219

One euro – that was the price of the whole deal.
It was February 27th, 2004 between two and three in the afternoon. Mining engineer Pekka Perä took a one-euro coin and extended it to a representative of Outokumpu at the headquarters of the metallurgical company in Niittykumpu in Espoo.

The excavation rights of the nickel deposit in Talvivaara switched owners. The Outokumpu negotiator appeared perplexed. What should he do with the coin? Pekka Perälä knew. He bought the coin back for two euros and put it in his safe.

Perä had a mind for history, even though it came out only a few years later that this was a real lucky coin. The deal was to make Perä one of Finland’s richest men.

For a while he was hailed as the champion of the whole suffering region of Kainuu. Nobody since President Urho Kekkonen has done so much good for Kainuu. But then came the smell.

Stop Talvivaara - kansanliike vesistöjen puolesta

http://www.stoptalvivaara.org/fi/newsstream.html

TALVIVAARA LEAK - NEWS STREAM

After a short essential introduction, you can find links to latest news and resources in english:

For years the local people and activists have brought up the fundamental violation of environmental legislation in case of Talvivaara:

the extraction of uranium has been part of the operation of the mine from the very beginning, but uranium wasn’t mentioned by a single world in Talvivaara’s environmental impact assesment procedure - and there was not a single word about uranium in the environmental permit that was granted. Nevertheless Talvivaara has been allowed to extract hundreds of tonnes of uranium per year from black schist ore - since 2009.

We encourage shareholders not to support the poisoning and ruining of our lakes and rivers.

And we encourage international media to pay close attention to what is really happening in Finland.

Finland’s biggest chemical catastrophe in history | Greenpeace International

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/chemical-spill-finland/blog/42935

Blogpost by Brian Fitzgerald - November 9, 2012

Greenpeace Finland is bearing witness and taking samples at a toxic spill that began on Sunday in the north of the country. The Talvivaara metal mine, owned and operated by Talvivaara Mining Company plc, has been leaking water containing high concentrations of nickel and uranium at a rate of between 5000-6000 cubic metres an hour. It is believed that the leak took place when the mine’s waste-water pool was breached on Sunday.

Mining Boom Underway in Finland in the Search for Mineral Deposits
Klondike in Lapland Mining Companies Swarm to Finland’s Far North

SPIEGEL ONLINE 11/02/2012

By Renate Nimtz-Köster

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/mining-boom-underway-in-finland-in-the-search-for-mineral-deposits-a-864561.

Mining companies are flocking to northern Finland as new deposits of gold, nickel and other minerals promise vast profits. But the area’s fragile wetland ecosystem is paying the price. Conservationists are so far fighting a losing battle.

Greenpeace Statement on TEPCO admission of full meltdown and reactor core breach at Fukushima-Daiichi reactor 1

Press release - May 16, 2011
Tokyo, Japan, 16 May, 2011 – Greenpeace today criticised TEPCO and the Japanese government for continuing to underplay the seriousness of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, after TEPCO yesterday admitted (1) that a partial meltdown of the reactor 1 core at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant occurred a mere five hours after the tragic March 11 earthquake and tsunami, followed by a full meltdown within 16 hours.

The environmental organisation says that TEPCO’s admission – that with temperatures reaching 2,800°C, melted fuel dropped and accumulated at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, which was the breached, causing radiation to leak from the core and to spread via cooling water to the ground and ocean - clearly shows that there are significant risks to the marine ecosystem along the Fukushima coast (2).

“That it has taken TEPCO more than two months to confirm that a full meltdown took place at Fukushima demonstrates the nuclear industry’s utter failure to deal with the severity of the crisis or the risks involved in nuclear power,” said Jan Beránek, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaign Leader. “TEPCO should have known that water pumped into reactor vessel 1 would become highly contaminated - it is appalling that company did not do more to prevent massive volumes of contaminated water being released into the ocean, spreading long-lived radioactive contamination along Japan’s East coast.”

“The nuclear industry has claimed situations like Fukushima could not arise with this type of reactor, due to lessons learned in the past. It has taken far too long for Japan’s authorities to admit that they were wrong,” said Beránek. “This has major implications to all previous assumptions about nuclear safety, and it is clear that the public should not put their faith in the nuclear industry to protect their health and safety.”

“TEPCO must immediately make public any other information about the state of the other reactors at Fukushima.”

No data or analysis has been provided on the meltdowns that have probably taken place in units 2 and 3. Those two reactors are significantly larger than unit 1 and contain almost double amount of nuclear material.

ENDS

CONTACTS:
Greg McNevin, Greenpeace International Communications, Tokyo +81 80 3930 3341
Greenpeace International Press Desk Hotline, Amsterdam +31 20 7182470

For more on Greenpeace’s work in Fukushima, visit:
http://t.co/csFsCvF
http://www.greenpeace.org/fukushima-data
Google map of locations and radiation readings: http://bit.ly/gaMGnf
Receive Greenpeace International press releases via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/greenpeacepress

NOTES:

1) http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e10.pdf

2) Greenpeace marine radiation monitoring teams have found high levels of contamination in seaweed along the Fukushima coast: http://bit.ly/juh3U5

#nuclear #fukushima #japan #reactor #meltdown

Source : Greenpeace Statement on TEPCO admission of full meltdown and reactor core breach at Fukushima-Daiichi reactor 1 | Greenpeace International
►http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/Greenpeace-Statement-on-TEPCO-admission-of-full-meltdown-and-reactor-cor

Greenpeace Statement on TEPCO admission of full meltdown and reactor core breach at Fukushima-Daiichi reactor 1 | Greenpeace International

►http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/Greenpeace-Statement-on-TEPCO-admission-of-full-meltdown-and-reactor-cor

Greenpeace Statement on TEPCO admission of full meltdown and reactor core breach at Fukushima-Daiichi reactor 1

Tokyo, Japan, 16 May, 2011 – Greenpeace today criticised TEPCO and the Japanese government for continuing to underplay the seriousness of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, after TEPCO yesterday admitted (1) that a partial meltdown of the reactor 1 core at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant occurred a mere five hours after the tragic March 11 earthquake and tsunami, followed by a full meltdown within 16 hours.

The environmental organisation says that TEPCO’s admission – that with temperatures reaching 2,800°C, melted fuel dropped and accumulated at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, which was the breached, causing radiation to leak from the core and to spread via cooling water to the ground and ocean - clearly shows that there are significant risks to the marine ecosystem along the Fukushima coast (2).

“That it has taken TEPCO more than two months to confirm that a full meltdown took place at Fukushima demonstrates the nuclear industry’s utter failure to deal with the severity of the crisis or the risks involved in nuclear power,” said Jan Beránek, Greenpeace International Nuclear Campaign Leader. “TEPCO should have known that water pumped into reactor vessel 1 would become highly contaminated - it is appalling that company did not do more to prevent massive volumes of contaminated water being released into the ocean, spreading long-lived radioactive contamination along Japan’s East coast.”

“The nuclear industry has claimed situations like Fukushima could not arise with this type of reactor, due to lessons learned in the past. It has taken far too long for Japan’s authorities to admit that they were wrong,” said Beránek. “This has major implications to all previous assumptions about nuclear safety, and it is clear that the public should not put their faith in the nuclear industry to protect their health and safety.”

“TEPCO must immediately make public any other information about the state of the other reactors at Fukushima.”

No data or analysis has been provided on the meltdowns that have probably taken place in units 2 and 3. Those two reactors are significantly larger than unit 1 and contain almost double amount of nuclear material.

#fukushima

Wikileaks reveals #Arctic could be the new cold war | Greenpeace International
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/wikileaks-reveals-arctic-could-be-the-new-col/blog/34735

And the terrible irony of it is that instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, the leaders of the Arctic nations are instead investing in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it. They’re preparing to fight to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place.

#pétrole #guerre #russie #Etats-unis

Conséquences de Tchernobyl, par Alison Katz (Le Monde diplomatique)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2010/12/KATZ/19944

En janvier 2010, toutefois, l’Académie des sciences de New York (NYAS) a publié le recueil le plus complet de données scientifiques concernant la nature et l’étendue des dommages infligés aux êtres humains et à l’environnement à la suite de l’accident de #Tchernobyl. [...] le nombre de décès à travers le monde attribuables aux retombées de l’accident, entre 1986 et 2004, est de 985 000, un chiffre qui a encore augmenté depuis cette date. Des 830 000 « liquidateurs » intervenus sur le site après les faits, 112 000 à 125 000 sont morts.

En revanche, je ne sais pas si le chiffre est tiré de cette même étude de la NYAS :

Pour les vingt premières années, les dépenses directes provoquées par la catastrophe pour les trois pays les plus touchés dépassent 500 milliards de dollars, ce qui, rapporté au coût de la vie dans l’Union européenne, représente plus de 2.000 milliards d’euros.

#nucléaire