The Background
It’s a sad story. It speaks of the non-principle of our media. About the servility. About censorship. About the creation of public opinion in the interests of capital. Nuclear capital, which has an illegal background, as the Slovenian Court of Audit notes. So, it’s about the capital of the nuclear mafia. This censorship must be recognized and named: nuclear censorship.
Correspondence
There were some comments on the article[1] in the “Delo” newspaper from 15.1.2021, about the seismic safety of the largest power plants. We have agreed to formulate these comments and send them to The Letters of readers. As a member of the ZEG I sent the letter at the end of January 2021, about two weeks after the article was published, just in time, not too soon and not too late.
I’ve been informed that the letter is too long and that if shortened, it will be published. The instruction how many lines and characters the article can have been attributed.
I shortened the letter and sent it for publication. Soon I have received a reply that it has been accepted and an indication of when it will be published.
It wasn’t published, not that day, not a day later, not a week later… I asked the editor Mrs. Katarina Fidermuc what was going on and she replied with one brief sentence: It’s not published. No explanation.
Then I have asked the reporter Mr. Borut Tavčar, the author of the article. His silence was eloquent. Nuclear censorship.
I put the letter on the newspaper’s Delo website, under a commentary article. I had to shorten it further, because the electronic form only accepts to 5,000 characters. I made it, the letter was published. But only until the next morning, when it miraculously disappeared. Nuclear censorship.
On censorship has already warned PhD Leo Šešerko, because the Delo did not publish his response to the article “A nuclear power would survive an eighth-degree earthquake”. The letter is, according to editor Katarina Fidermuc, offensive: it will not be published because of the introduction’s offensive tone towards PhD Leon Cizelj and the Nuclear Expert Association. Judge for yourself, PhD Leon Cizelj is a top nuclear expert who also seeks media’s attention as a Covid virologist.
Now there are two questions: the first concerns the misrepresentation of the seismic safety of the NEK nuclear power plant and the second concerns nuclear censorship. I am much more concerned about nuclear censorship than misleading me about seismic security, because it points to systemic corruption.
Non-published Letter from readers of 31. 1. 2021
Delo, Pisma bralcev, borut.tavcar@delo.si, pisma@delo.si
The largest power plants are seismically safe, Delo, 15. 1. 2021, p. 5
I was happy to read the article “The largest power plants are seismic safe”, describing the seismic safety of both power plants. Such an optimistic article is welcome at a time when we are at risk of a virus, we are being hampered by measures to limit the spread of infections, we are uncertain about current policy, we are threatened with climate change, and we are surrounded by conspiracy theories. However, the article is not meant to be a fairy tale, as it is published on the “topical” page in the newsletter with the motto: “knowing more means having power”.
I wouldn’t waste a word about the seismic safety of the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant. The sooner the coal-fired power plant TEŠ stops, the sooner the environment will relieve, so will the surrounding population.
The Krško NEK nuclear power plant is vulnerable to earthquakes, most of all in Europe. The choice of location in Slovenia was political and did not take into account seismic safety. Therefore, the mention of seismic studies between 1964 and 1968 and between 1971 and 1975 is merely an unnecessary cover-up of unprofessional, political decisions. Focus www.focus.si has published a conversation with Austrian nuclear safety and earthquake scientist Dr. Roman Lahodynsky, who disagrees that the Krško site is suitable for nuclear activities. On the contrary, he submits that it would in no way be responsible for extending the life of an ageing power plant in that location, where there is also an increased risk of increased susceptibility to defects and fractures. It is therefore against the extension of the operation of the existing power plant.
NEK is aware of the seismic threat and is ordering studies to conceal an inappropriate location. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster resulting from the concealment of environmental hazards, GEN energia has been accelerated by new studies to demonstrate the suitability of the Krško site for more nuclear investments: the extension of the operation of an existing nuclear power plant, the LILW (low and intermediate level radioactive waste) warehouse, the SNF (spent nuclear fuel) dry warehouse with HLW (high level waste) and the new JEK 2. However, the results of one study were not at the will of the contracting authority. In its study www.irsn.fr (IRSN) under the contract “GG&S NPP KRŠKO 2”, in a consortium with BRGM from France and GeoZS and ZAG from Slovenia, together with 10 subcontractors, the French Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) considered that the site in Krško was not suitable for the construction of a second block of the power plant, as one of the tectonic fault lines in the area should be considered active. This study was sent by the IRSN to GEN Energija Director Martin Novšak on 9.1.2013 requesting that he also inform the URSJV (Slovenian Nuclear Security Administration) and the NEK Administration by letter.
And then the whole story started to get complicated. The position of Gen Energija’s Director Martin Novšak, who illegally commissioned studies worth millions of euros, even though the JEK 2 construction project was halted, was compromised. It seemed that Novšak got into trouble because, despite the unjustified costs, he received a negative opinion of the IRSN. The “Naš stik” magazine stated that the Director of URSJV only learned of this negative opinion after two weeks. The alleged cover-up against the Nuclear Safety Agency URSJV had already been ruled out by the then November 2013 Supervisory Board of Novšak, but was returned to the position by a court in Krško.
Is the location in Krško really unsuitable for the construction of JEK 2 due to seismic risk? The URSJV administration addressed the IRSN warning in 2013. Seismic safety, meanwhile, has ed the GEN Energija in the simplest way: they have suspended cooperation with the IRSN. Warnings of a potential seismic hazard and the possibility of moving the soil at the NEK site are no longer there. GEN energija d.o.o., co-owner of NEK, subscriber and payer, thus warned the contractors what the studies should show. Since then, the subscriber’s reports have been liked. Subsequent research funded by Gen Energija finds that the safety risks associated with the Libna fault are engineering irrelevant and within administrative constraints. Are they correct just because it’s favorable to the client?
The fact is that if the location of a newer, safer nuclear power plant was not suitable, they would have to close the existing nuclear power plant immediately.
In this light, the planning of the construction of JEK 2 and all nuclear activities in Krško looks different. It’s a fight for a chairs, for positions, for privileges. It’s a demonstration of strength. Illegal spending of state money. No matter what the environmental threat.
Privileged investors in Slovenia often tailor facts to their wishes. In the area of nuclear energy, this is particularly dangerous, as nuclear waste is durable. Director Novšak’s declaration that they “eventually decompose into stable, inactive materials” is highly misleading, as they decompose over an extremely long period of time, some 100,000 years. Because of the statements and the conduct we see with Director Novšak, we must be particularly careful when we talk about nuclear energy.
It is irresponsible to extend the life of an ageing power plant and to design and build other nuclear facilities at this site. Even more irresponsible is the public’s misrepresentation that the disputed nuclear facilities do not pose a risk. It is necessary to observe the “precautionary principle” enshrined in the “Environmental Protection Act” and to assume that all nuclear installations in the disputed site represent unforeseeable adverse effects on the environment or human health.
Matjaž Valenčič, Association of Ecological Movements of Slovenia- ZEG
Nuclear censorship
You are asked to pay attention to publications about nuclear energy. Nuclear censorship does not merely mean official public inspection of works and (no)approval. Preventive censorship of newspapers also means selecting articles, publishing the likes and hiding critical. What proportion of articles on nuclear energy are in favour of nuclear energy? Even in neutral articles, nuclear energy is disguised. Let’s say a banana is more radioactive than a nuclear power plant. Or, because of the cold in Texas, wind farms stopped. Or the effortless claims that the NPP NEK would survive even the eighth-degree earthquake. All this is a covert promotion of nuclear energy paid through money that the nuclear lobby has illegally spent. Is nuclear censorship a precondition or consequence of the operation of the nuclear mafia? How much is it to believe that nuclear waste eventually decompose or compare nuclear waste to a goat?
[1] https://www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/najvecji-elektrarni-sta-potresno-varni/
