JÁVORT Az EU-BA!

Támogasd Te is küzdelmünket a zöld és igazságos jövőért!

Red mud disaster: there was a catastrophe but no one is responsible

The conclusion of the five year long court case on the red mud disaster seems to be that the regulations of Hungarian authorities are not suited to prevent environmental disasters or to sort out who is responsible for them. Almost everyone in the case was aquitted. According to ‘Dialogue for Hungary’ (Párbeszéd Magyarországért- PM) the willingness to find those responsible is also missing, however, the real solution would be a comprehensive, European regulation concerning industrial activities with big environmental risks.

 

Barely 5 years passed since the red-mud disaster that caused the death of 10 people and spilled one million cubic meters of alkaline tailings and there is already a first instance court decision: no one is responsible, everyone was aquitted. Certainly, finding answers to the question of who did what wrong does not take this much time: already in the months following the accident an independent analysis was listing where the authorities and the owners made mistakes. This, however, made no difference, the responsibility of the authorities was not even examined by the court and the concerned company management was aquitted.

 

This decision reveals the shortcomings of the national regulation and official practices: we cannot prevent environmental damage, nor can we find responsible persons for the damage, the price is paid by the taxpayers. ‘Dialogue for Hungary’ hopes that the repeals will lead us closer to those who are really to blame and will continue fighting for a decision at the European level which will apply to all Member States concerning industrial installations with high risks.

 

28 Jan 2016

Benedek Jávor MEP

PaksII: Do not issue the environmental permit!

It has been a bad week for the government and all the avid supporters of the Paks expansion project. The European Commission announced the launch of three procedures in the last seven days in connection with the plans of the new nuclear power plant. First an infringement procedure was launched by the Internal Market Commissioner on the violation of EU public procurement rules. Secondly, the DG for Environment decided to further examine the classification of information contained in the Paks documents, as they might violate rules concerning the publicity of environmental information. These two procedures were launched subsequent to my complaints. And lastly, yesterday Margrethe Vestager, the Commissioner in charge of competition, drew the conclusion following her preliminary investigation that  state aid by the Hungarian government cannot be excluded  despite the contrary clames of the government; therefore, she wishes to have a more thorough investigation on the question.

Bet let us not be misled: the biggest problem with the Paks expansion is not that it violates EU competition or public procurement legistlation, but the fact that this is an investment that causes serious damages not only to Hungarian tax-payers and Hungarian electricity consumers, but also to the environmental heritage of our country. Furthermore, the Hungarian society is constantly deceived about the project; this is how this corruptive Eldorado is being sold to those who – for some reason – are unwilling to see the facts.

Furthermore, this is not only  hypothesis. Today I published an 80-page expert analysis,  on the environmental impact assessment documentation (EIAD) of the new plants, done by experts I hired. The conclusions of the expert analysis are devastating. They reveal that the EIAD on the expansion is extremely low-quality; it is based on false data and false assumptions and has very little to do with reality. What is being given a permit in this case is not the actual power plant, but some surreal dream, as a consequence of which reality is constantly being distorted in order to somehow justify this delirium.

 

Come, lie something adequate!

The dates for the system-integration of the two new blocks are already wrongly indicated in the permit-request: the permit for system-integration is released for 2025 and 2030, even though we know that the target dates prescribed in the Russian-Hungarian execution contract are 2025 and 2026. The significance of the four-year-difference is quite grand: this is what decides how long the four old and two new blocks will operate simultaneously. However, from an environmental perspective, the transition between the old and new blocks is critical, because during this time, the Danube River will be loaded with 232 m3 of heated cooling-water (the old blocks producing 100, the new ones 132 m3 of extraction), for example. The EIAD generously cheats off 4 years, that is, nearly half of the time lapse in questionfor this critical condition.

Beyond the above, the plan of the facility waiting for the permit is also false. It becomes clear from both the EIAD and tother documents that while they wish to solve the storage of spent fuel in a temporary storage facility, which is yet to be built in the vicinity of the power plant, this facility is nowhere to be found in the permit-request or the EIAD. The permit and description of the “high-technology cooling system”, which the EIAD itself deems necessary to avoid overheating the Danube, that is, constantly exceeding limits pertaining to the Danube’s temperature, is also missing.

The estimation on expected electricity prices is completely false; practically, they have been keeping, for years now, to their estimation of 1.3% increase in consumer demand, which has not been not been the case ever since the financial crisis of 2007-2008; instead, in reality there is stagnation or sometimes even decrease. The price calculations and estimations on the expected price of electricity are false.

There are harsh distortions in the assumptions about the water flow and water temperature of the Danube River. The first – rather ridiculous – point of reference in the water discharge calculation made by tthe EIAD was 1500 m3/sec. But this was too much even for the other times quite flexible authority, so it noted that warm-water extraction will cause problems not in case of average water levels, obviously, but when the Danube has lesser water flowing through, during times when the river is warm anyway, that is, hot summer drought periods. The authority has prescribed the necessity to develop heat-load-models for a 950 m3/s of water discharge as well (let me add here that the Danube’s lowest water levels are around 750 m3). Although during the process of completing deficiencies, this problem was formally resolved, trickery wasn’t avoided. They take a single year’s data as basis to declare a negligible probability for the Danube’s background temperature to be high and at the same time its river-flow to be low. However, if they had looked back on the past 30-40 years of data, they wouldn’t have written down such a statement, because as these data show, there can be multiple occasions in a year of such critical weeks, when, predictably, temperature limits will be impossible to keep to. In such a case the power plant will either be shut down – further exacerbating the already horrifyingly bad return on the investment – or they exceed the limit, pay a probably less harsh financial penalty, and that’s it. Which option do you think they will choose?

However, even a model based on these extended series of data could not completely reflect reality, because we have to take the effects of climate change into account: decreasing water flow and increasing temperature. Even the conductors of the assessment did not dare to completely ignore climate change in 2015; however, their applied climate-model – well, saying it’s hurrah-optimistic is quite an understatement. A 1.8 degrees Celsius rise in the average global temperature by 2100, estimated by the developers of the Paks project, is literally the smallest estimation I have come across during the preparation for the Paris climate summit at the end of the month. Even the 2 degrees Celsius, which is the target of the climate agreement, and the reaching of which currently seems to be light-years away, is higher than the Hungarian estimation.

Moreover, the estimations for utilizations are false as well. Without collateral investments – about which the documentation is silent about – the two new blocks will be utilizable only in a schedule-tracking mode, especially during the phase when the new blocks will operate simultaneously with the four old ones – this will deeply undermine their utilization below the planned 95%, which is something that even a recent national  Transmition System Operator (MAVIR)  study warned about. Lower utilization, in return, will cause increased production prices , thus crushing the last pillars from under the calculations of the developers of the Paks project that were completely flawed anyway. Produced electricity will, therefore, be expensive, so in order to be able to sell it and not push the entire power plant into bankruptcy, you, dear tax-payers, will pay the price. Worth it, is not it?

 

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for

Given the above, we can seafely say that the EIAD is based on a series of flawed assumptions and false data, but what is not included at all is also worth noting. The fact that the planned new power plant on Paks will be a Russian type that was never used in any other part of the world, is completely left out. We don’t even exactly know what it will contain: only the basic template or did we ask for additional, e.g any safety-increasing extensions? Will the Hungarian NPP be similar to the Belarus or the Finnish one? In the case of such a prototype, uncertainty is always greater: there are solutions here that are being tested for the first time, the practical performance or reliability of which we know very little about. The EIAD generously ignores to analyse these risks and uncertainties. ‘We will build up the new power plant in ten years and it will operate at a 95% utilization,’ they say. In the meanwhile, altogether three Russian power plant constructions were given over in the last ten years, all of which took 19-27 years to build. And what if PaksII will not be built in ten years? Failure, thanks to the government to have signed a loan with the Russians, in which we bind ourselves to pay back that loan from  15th of March, 2026, even if the power plant is not completed by that time. An annual 2-300 billion forints will have to be produced in a way that will only take but not produce money in the first stage. In comparison: the entire annual income of the current Paks Power Plant (not the profit, mind you – the income!) is around 170-200 billion forints. This is what we will have to force 2-300 billion reimbursement out of.

The EIAD does not take possible cooling alternatives into consideration, either. The environmentally more beneficial but also more expensive solution of closed systems, such as a cooling tower, was among the more strongly supported solutions in earlier studies (the documents of the Lévai-project); now the EIAD generously stepped over this option and focused solely on the examination of fresh-water cooling (extract cool water out of the Danube and releasing warm water back into it). Necessary collateral investments are scarcely mentioned.

The need for a 400-kilovolt wire is mentioned to drive produced electricity away, but not its costs. The question of a safety reserve is also left unresolved. Briefly, it is about the fact that in all electricity systems, it is necessary to build a reserve for the system’s largest electricity producing unit in order for it to become an immediate substitute in case of malfunction without causing a blackout in half the country. Currently, the biggest units of the power plant are the 500 MW blocks. We have reserve capacities for these. The new blocks, however, will be 1200 MW blocks, which means that there is a need for the establishment of a 700 MW reserve capacity (one and a half times larger than the current Paks block) in order to comply with the system requirements. Has anyone heard governmental officials tweet about this at any point? Anything on how and with what technology and at what cost will this be constructed? Well, the EIAD is also deeply silent about it. As it is silent about the necessary system regulation elements as well, even though during simultaneous operation – if they do not wish to operate the plants at half-performance – these have to be concerned, because of night-time overcapacities, for example (the six Paks blocks together will, in themselves, produce more energy than what the country actually consumes, ie more than the base load). Hitherto, there has been only one expert recommendation for this issue: a pumped storage facility, which can cost 3-400 billion forints and wonderful debates about which hill we should destroy for its construction.

My uncle, called Reality

However what is not a lie and is not missing from the documentation, i.e., what is more or less seemingly realistic, also gives reason for serious concern. Although heat-load models are based on false data, they still suggest the possibility of constant difficulties with keeping the prescribed limits for the Danube’s temperature. The recommendation for such an occurrence is either temporarily shutting down the power plant or the development of the so-called “high-technology cooling system”. Do we find any allusion in the EIAD to the permission of such a high-tech facility (e.g. a cooling lake)? Of course not.

The principle of multi-level security is commonly accepted when it comes to NPPs; however, what raises safety concerns in the Paks case is exactly the question of cooling-water supply, which is the Achilles’ heel of power plants in general – because in Paks we will only have a single security system. There is only one cool-water canal transmitting cooling water to the plant; if something happens to this canal, there is no cooling water. What this means is that we have not a single, but actually merely half-security, as the very same single cooling canal will be the one supplying the new blocks as well. The capacity of this canal, in its current form, is not sufficient to supply all of the six blocks (4 old + 2 new) simultaneously, therefore it has to be deepened by two meters. This will be executed in a way that PaksI will constantly operate in the meantime. I repeat: the cooling canal will be dug up while PaksI will be constantly operating at full performance. This infers unacceptable safety risks. What would you think about a car mechanic who recommend fixing your car’s cooling system on the M1 highway while going with 130 km/h?

We could go on and about, describing the series of problems with the documentation. For those who are interested in the details I would suggest reading the complete study (note of the editor:the executive summary is avialable in English).

However, based on all the above, we could safely say that this EIAD cannot be taken as a basis for an environmental permit for the Paks expansion.

 

We demand the authority to refuse issuing a permit due to the provision of false data!

We demand the conduction of a new impact assessment documentation, based on real data and real models, that truly analyses all occurring problems!

We demand the prescription of an entirely new conceptual approach for the fulfilment of environmental requirements, e.g. for the solution of the cooling system (cooling tower, cooling lake, etc.)!

And above all, we demand all insidious lies to be stopped!

We will not let small-scale political interests to bring on unbearable financial burdens to be paid back by current and future generations, we will not let them to make the Danube River constantly overheated for 60 years in advance and we will not let them create safety risks that have never been authorized by anyone!

Expert opinion in the Environmental Impact Assessment Documentation

The environmental impact assessment documentation (EIAD) provided by the investor is incomprehensible, including a mass of information which is often contradictory and difficult to follow. It is possible that even the authors themselves had problems seeing that mass of information to an extent that would have been necessary for coherent editorial follow-up of changes. The study shows serious signs of hastiness; conditions to concepts created in different time phases are mixed in both the written and graphic materials. The editing, which was seemingly aimed at producing a mass of information rather than relevant content, resulted in a study full of redundancies with materials that are either irrelevant or are not necessarily connected to the project concerned.

The conditions and requirements for building nuclear facilities have undergone significant changes in the last few decades. The amount of electricity produced in nuclear power plants has reached its peak during the 90s; it has shown a descending tendency ever since.

The costs and time need for realizing new European reactors show significant risks. The complete expenses of these investments can only be estimated with great uncertainty, they are, in fact, unpredictable. The financial impact of the construction delays exceeding the deadlines are of a similar magnitude than those coming from the inflation of costs during construction periods.

The consequences of cost-escalation, which are typical of building nuclear power plants, occur even with projects undertaken by European nuclear power plant investors with significant routine, such as EDF and TVO. Not even the EPC contract is guarantee enough against cost-escalation by itself, as higher costs are in the interest of the main investor. The expected risks of the Paks expansion project cannot be adequately assessed, because neither the financial agreements nor the EPC contracts are accessible. Most of the experts who have experience in similar major investments have retired. It is highly improbable that the employees of Paks II Ltd., who were mainly selected from the operator circles, or the members of the MVM-ERBE Ltd. are capable of avoiding the risks of cost-excess.

The time needed for the construction as stated in the EIAD is underestimated. The planned operational date for the new blocks is not in line with what has been hitherto communicated: operational dates do no correspond with the published dates of construction, credit uptake or the dates included in the EPC contract. The information in the study could be understood as if to suggest that the second block of the expansion will probably not be realized. It would be reasonable to modify the permit request and adjust it to the actual requirements.

The 60 years of lifespan that the EIAD works with is, for now, merely a theoretical assumption, not yet evidenced with empirical operational data. Economic evaluations regarding the 60-year-lifespan can thus only be seen as no more than a theoretical mathematical example.

The claim that the new PaksII nuclear power plant is exempt from the risks of using the prototype, is also not backed by evidence.

The electricity-production costs of the planned investment are underestimated as well; they also contradict values that were estimated in connection with the Hungarian project by both international and Hungarian expert organizations. According to the calculations of the International Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency the assumption about cheap nuclear energy is not correct, since its cost-level depends on multiple factors, primarily on the costs of financing; thus, compared to renewables it becomes less competent. The cost of electricity produced by the Paks expansion is significantly higher than the expected market cost-level; therefore, it is not market-compatible. The project’s market entry and the return of the investment is dubious or improbable without some kind of market entry assistance. Such assistance, however, can cause damage in the price contests, therefore, the European Commission decided that the aid construction of the government was against EU competition law, which, in turn, could lead the produced electricity to be squeezed out of the market because it is too expensive. This complex problem can bring about unexpected changes.

All of the above point to the fact that the preparation and the planning of the project is weak. Essential uncertainties and questions about risks remain open.

Conditions that are inevitable to the operation of the block are also missing: the means to system-regulation, reserve insurance and schedule balancing are not even referred to. In order for the planned facility to become a capacity that produces highly utilizable and cheap electricity, the conditions for system-regulation and effective operation should be planned.

The energy and electricity market environment used in the EIAD is outdated. The electricity need and the future needs also seem exaggerated in the current context.

It would be reasonable to improve the graphic capacity plan of the study, as it lost its timeliness and lacks the description of what can be expected after the implementation of the electricity producing capacity of the planned expansion, and which therefore barely has any valid content remaining.

The expected role of the import, as well as the calculations for the expected amount of import for both middle and long terms were also left out from the capacity plan of the EIAD. This is closely connected to the size of the necessary domestic producing capacity as well as the ideas on reducing the extent of energy dependence.

The implementation of the two new blocks will alter the production structure. The means necessary for realizing n-1 security requirements and for schedule-tracking will be changed substantially. The necessary changes should be handled in a complex manner – regarding reserve insurance, regulation, schedule tracking – and be modelled in the most cost effective way. It is misleading that the document handles additional investments necessary for the system separately from the planned investment, as this merely reduces the perceived costs of the investment, not the actual ones, as these extensions are only necessary because of the introduction of the new blocks. Separating them from the planned investment can result in the failure of implementing them, which can, in turn, cause cost-excesses and restraints in the electricity producing system as well as an additional increase in energy dependency.

The means of system-integration and system-adjustment need to ensure that the most optimal utilization, the highest cost-efficiency, and that the highest utilization of the nuclear capacity be possible. According to the EIAD, currently no one is in charge of the task of system-integration.

It is an inevitable condition of the two-block Paks expansion to balance system-loads as well as to increase minimum nighttime system loads (base loads). If this remains unaddressed, an approximate 5 TWh/year reduction in production can come about in the already operating plants, and an additional 2 TWh/ year reduction can come about in the new blocks of the expansion. The economic value of a 7 TWh/year reduction is so significant that there is no argument for ignoring it in the EIAD.

Minimizing or eliminating downward balancing makes intervention necessary in the period of small system loads. From the perspective of system load, significant and regulated amount of nighttime loads would be needed.
With the introduction of the new blocks, systematic power outage reserves, that is, the n-1-safety-reserve-capacities, will approximately be increased by 700 MWs, as the performance of the largest block of the system will be increased from 500 MWs to 1200 MWs. At the same time, the already existing 500 MWs of outage reserve capacity will reach the end of its lifespan. Measures have to be taken in order for the 1200 MW reserve to be accessible and for the costs to be covered. Cost recovery is the responsibility of MAVIR Ltd. as the system manager, regardless of the fact that the overcapacities are needed not because of system management or the operation of the transmission network, but because of the introduction of the new high-performance nuclear power plant blocks.

The PAKS1 cooling-water system was never in compliance with the n-1 safety requirements. The examples to be mentioned are the warm-water canal or the energy dissipater that can cause a complete system failure in the entire nuclear power plant. The reparation of the dissipater has been unresolved for years now. The new cooling-water system for PaksII described in the EIAD does most probably not comply with the n-1 safety requirements or the nuclear safety and protection requirements laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There is a lack of means to eliminate the consequences in case of abnormal system operation, as well as to prevent further escalations. There are no built-in protection devices.

The need for the establishment of n-1 security and the necessity of and possibility for the elimination of a single safety measure has skipped the attention of the authors of the documentation. With an adequate construction, the cooling of the new blocks of the expansion could provide an opportunity to modify single safety measures and to establish n-1 safety.

Based on the EIAD, it is without doubt that the review of the cooling concept is needed. Possible cooling alternatives were not assessed to their full extent in the EIAD. Neither does the document present the conditions that could substantiate a decision between fresh-water cooling or cooling tower solutions. The cost-effect analysis is substituted with a rudimentary SWOT table without numbers.

According to the EIAD only the open-system fresh-water cooling mechanism was examined, but even this needs to be improved on: the cooling of the new blocks should be developed with regard to the conditions of the given location and in a way that the conditions for cooling do not limit electricity production and that they do not cause hindrances to the neighboring area’s economic development (such as boating) during the planned lifespan of the power plant.

From the possible solutions of fresh-water cooling, the writers of the study chose the one corresponding with the alternative already used. They excluded the water extraction beside the mainstream of the Danube River with a false reason and the explanation of the decision shows ignorance. Developing a cooling system similar to that of the previous one is flawed for multiple reasons.

It would be preferable to learn from past mistakes instead of repeating them. Both the examples of Százhalombatta and Paks prove that the construction of the cool-water canal to function as an alluvial trap did not live up to expectations in river forks without flows. Neither the constant need for dredging, nor taking the risk of silting is necessarily justifiable. There are examples for other solutions even within country borders.

In order for the creation of an adequate cool-water canal, a near-two-meter deepening was proposed. Given the continuous operation of the current power plant blocks, the execution of deepening and widening the channels, as well as making paving constructions is highly problematic. The safety of ceaseless operation would make it necessary to find a solution for constructions independent of the operating facilities. The document does not contain tendencies regarding changes in the water level and bed-depth of the Danube River; neither does it convey data about water discharge. Therefore, the two-meter deepening of the cool-water canal is meaningless concerning the entire lifespan. The study does not contain any calculations or explanations about the extent of deepening or whether cooling-water supply is secured in all circumstances regarding the Danube River’s water flow.

The execution of the warm-water canal’s branching as well as its reconstruction during the operational phase is also questionable. The security of ceaseless operation makes it necessary to find a solution regardless of the facilities’ operation in this case as well. The amount of water discharge brought in through the energy dissipater is currently 100m3/sec; this would be 132m3/sec at the planned new recirculation point. The description of the means of this mechanism is also missing from the study. Another section of the study explains that the entire amount of water flow will be brought in through the new recirculation point. If the latter is true, all flow-models are wrong. Either the concept or the coordination is missing.

The study does not contain size-proportionate graphics or river-bed measures regarding warm-water recirculation. In the absence of these, there is no way of examining the water flow models in the case of cool-water extraction or warm-water recirculation. Therefore, the amount of recirculation of warm water cannot be properly estimated.

The idea of a hydropower plant co-constructed with an energy dissipater is a vocational paradox. Energy is either dissipated or utilized. The descriptions of the second lead-in point and the recuperating hydropower plant show signs of vocational incompetence. The contradicting statements of the study suggest that the project manager has never run even an elementary quality-assurance check.

The compliance with the limits of wildlife protection seems to have been of complete unimportance for the EIAD. The proposal on the establishment of a monitoring system to ensure compliance with heat load limits is also absent; there is a mere reference to information contained in the self-monitoring plan.
The water temperature cannot exceed 30 Celsius degrees at any point of the segment from the extraction point to the next 500 meters in the direction of the river-flow. The Directive of the European Parliament and the Council is stricter: the temperature cannot exceed 28 Celsius degrees at the edge of the mixing zone. In the meantime it is to be expected that requirements will become stricter and will place limits to the amount water extraction. According to the Directive, temperature limits can be exceed in 2% of the time. In order to see what possible damages this can cause to the aquatic life, it would be advisable to examine how aquatic organisms react to the conditions that temperature loads will create in the standard time phase concerned.

Following the implementation of the planned expansion, during the summer period, there is a theoretical possibility for becoming unable to keep water temperature limits in the small and middle water-flow periods. According to calculations, on a standard summer day the limit of 30 Celsius degrees cannot be kept within the reference segment.

The estimation of 1500m3/sec water discharge from the Danube, taken as a basis for warm-water transfusion, is not correct; it is too high. According to hydrological studies made for the expansion of the operational time of the Paks Power Plant, the small water discharges from the Danube are actually below 900 and 1000m3/sec. The mistaken selection of base data for modelling suggests that the adequate assessment of accessible data was not carried out. It is highly improbable that a 1500m3/sec water discharge from the Danube and a 33-Celsius-degree extraction-water would occur simultaneously. The modelling of warm-water transfusion should be done again, this time taking realistic values of water flow and water level as well as with the realistic distribution of water recirculation.

The descriptions of flow and heat load models contain redundant information to an unmanageable extent. This information pertains to the actual subject only on a theoretical level; its practical significance in terms of the operation and effects of the project is non-existent. The legality of use for boating/navigation data for the EIAD is also questionable.
It is important to notice that the study uses various 1D, 2D and 3D models for seemingly irrelevant reasons. What these have in common is that they are all based on some freely downloadable software. There is no complete 3D model for the examination of transfusion/water mixture in the EIAD. As the simplifications and approximations of these free softwares is not included in the study, the results of these models can be misleading.

The contradicting statements in the EIAD suggest that its authors did not develop a unified system of criteria to rate the effects.

As a solution for the possible excess of water temperature limits, the EIAD proposes the down-balancing or the shut-down of the blocks, clearly excluding all other possibilities. Both down-balancing and shutting down create a need for availability and auxiliary capacity in the electricity system. The conditions for the above were probably not assessed, thus the cost of insuring additional reserves cannot be estimated.

The effects of locating the extractions from the cool-water canal near the new point of warm-water recirculation should be examined as well as its functionality in the entire operating range. Non-permitted negative effects should be eliminated through technical means.

There is an urgent and inevitable need for expert revision and quality assurance! The greatest investment of the country would have deserved a documentation better prepared and researched than the one published.

200 pages of classified information on Paks

I am almost sorry for János Lázár and his gang, as the entire pile of lies that they gathered over the past years falls right back onto them (okay, I admit I, too, helped to make that process easier). There is a new result to my perseverant efforts to pressure the European Commission: a couple of days ago they sent me 200 hundred pages of classified documents including internal notices, correspondence between the Commission and the Hungarian government, and the official inquiries of the Commission as well as the Hungarian responses. To read the full set of documents click here.  . Although significant parts of the document labelled Confidential – business secrets” have been concealed, it still contains very interesting issues and they also refute some of the popular, albeit misleading, sayings of the government. It is also interesting to see why certain pieces of information have been concealed or refused to be published.

 

I will try to summarize the most important pieces of information, but I have to start by apologizing that despite all my efforts for brevity I will be a bit too long, even though I will emphasize the nine most exciting questions of the document.

 

  1. My previous information, which the Prime Minister’s Office belonging to János Lázár was unwilling to ascertain, is now proven to have been correct. Based on the sent materials we can see that contrary to what the government communicated earlier, we won’t be able to ship the spent fuel of PaksII back to Russia, which means that their storage will take place on the area of the power plant until the storage facility responsible for its disposal will be finished (probably not until after 2050). This is exciting, because the environmental impact assessment documentation (EIAD) for the permit of PaksII, currently in progress, obviously does not mention this temporary storage facility. The permit-request, therefore, does not pertain to the actual institution of facilities, but to a hypothetical construction to which additional elements will be built, although these cannot be granted a permit at the moment. We called attention to this aspect in our expert analysis on the EIAD.
  2. All details pertaining to financing are concealed in the document, which in itself poses the question: how great the convincing power is of the conditions that are being kept secret so anxiously? What becomes clear anyway is that in case, for example, we do not draw the credit planned for next year (because, for example, the construction was not finished on time and so work financed from that credit could not be done), we will have to pay a 0.25% charge. This means that even if drawing a 10-billion-dollar credit calculating with a 5% error rate (the execution is almost always delayed by that much in Hungary), it would mean a 1.25 million dollar (300-350 million forints) extra cost. This is only one example, but given that almost every part pertaining to financial details is concealed, and what I found comes from the very little they did leave uncovered, it is not unrealistic to assume that the contract can be full of similar hidden expenses. (Update: the above mechanism is real; however, because of swift calculation a decimal point was missed: instead of 1.25 million dollars, the text was about 125 million dollars. Thus the conversion to forint was also flawed, for which I apologize. I do, however, stand by the rest of my statements).
  3. There are serious safety issues as well. The internal notices of the European Commission call special attention to the fact that in Finland, the client Fennovoima requested additional, increased safety changes from Rosatom, beyond the Russian base construction. For example:

– internal and external risks, among others, in case of fire or flood

– for the separation of the control center and the facility

– for the construction of an independent primary pressure-release system

– for the possibility of a plane crash

– in case of incident management

– for the purpose of testing passive safety systems

 

What we don’t know, however, is whether Hungary has asked for the same modifications or will the cheaper solution suffice for us? Are the facilities that are being built in Belarus or St. Petersburg good enough, once they are part of the Russian circle of interest? I turned to János Lázár in this matter to clarify whether Hungary has asked for the same modifications as Finland.

 

  1. There are fascinating details in the documents about utilization and schedule-tracking, Based on these I can safely say: PaksII is the greatest transformation artist the world has ever seen. To the question how the expenses of the investment will be returned, the answer is that, apart from compulsory maintenance, the new power plant will operate at full capacity – Attila Aszódi consistently talks about a 95% utilization. Only to find out that when it comes to system integration or the question of heat-loads for the Danube, the very same power plant in the very same time phase will operate in a schedule-tracking mode, of course, (that is according to the actual needs); the plant can also be shut down regularly in order to keep to the environmental limits. Please! Not only the Constitution can be hacked with a two-thirds majority, the rules of form-logic can also be overwritten.
  2. The completely false modelling of the prospects for energy market environment is a recurring problem, as well as ignoring the problems that come with it. Last week already, I pointed out that the assumptions related to the growth of energy demand (1.3% growth by 2020) are the complete opposite of the truth. And yet, even the Hungarian documents that were sent to the Commission include this completely false assumption, consistently. The estimations on the expected price of electricity produced in the new power plants are also false; in addition, the analyses pertaining to the expected prices of the EU electricity market upon the integration of PaksII are also missing. The Commission, therefore, also asks the question: what will happen in case electricity prices stay below what’s expected and what is needed for the return of the investment? How will this be managed? Do you know what the government’s well-founded, scientific answer is? Ah, there will be no such thing! Many power plants will be outdated by then and thus electricity will certainly be quite expensive. The thorough consideration of what electricity-producing capacities could enter the EU market in the meantime and at what expected price they will produce that electricity – in competition with the electricity of PaksII – apparently exceeds the intellectual horizon of the government.
  3. The Commission’s decision to consistently conceal all the information relating to earthquakes and the forecasts of extreme weather circumstances is completely unacceptable and incomprehensible. The qualification of the documents is based on protecting business secrets; the probability of natural disasters, their extent, or forecast scarcely falls under that category. Safety reasons also fail to explain such a decision. There is no apparent reason to conceal such information from the material, neither is it understandable why they did so, unless they did it upon the request of the Hungarian government (with whom they consulted in connection with the provision of data – as it turns out from the annex of the letter, which also explains that requests had been taken into account). And the Hungarian government does not want us to see something here.
  4. There is obvious clarification on the fate of the Central Nuclear Financial Fund (KNPA), however. The government answered, on multiple occasions, with great certainty upon the inquiries of the Commission in this matter: according to them the expenses of the disassembly of the facility and the disposal of harmful waste will be covered by KNPA. This also means that if the government stays true to its intention of stealing the Fund, it will at the same time lose the EU’s approval for PaksII, because the Commission will only approve of and contribute to the construction of the plant, provided that the costs of waste management and disassembly are covered via the permanent financing of the KNPA.
  5. There is one other very interesting problem connected to the corrosion of various equipment. The Commission asks whether the power plant will serve as base-load or operate in a schedule-tracking mode. The significance of this lies with the fact that according to previous experiences with pressurized water reactors similar to that of the Paks ones, in case of a schedule-tracking mode there were regular corrosion processes in the steam generators – or so the Commission says. They ask what the plans are to prevent such occurrences or to detect them in time. The Hungarian response is that although the plant will operate in a schedule-tracking mode (and here I would like to refer back to the stark contradiction with Attila Aszódi’s statements envisioning a 95% utilization), there won’t be any corrosions here or if so, we will discover it in time. This sounds extremely reassuring, especially from the perspective of the power plant in relation to which I revealed, earlier this year, that no more than two years ago the corrosion-proof Russia-manfuctared pipes in the circulation system of the spent fuel pools in block 3 have rotten so badly after 30 years that cooling liquid was leaking out of them through entire holes. As a result, 60.000 liters of radioactive borated water had leaked by the time they managed to even detect this – from none less than the fact that liquid was constantly disappearing from the spent fuel pool. That substance has been there somewhere under the plant ever since. Following this revelation, when it came to the supervision of the rest of the blocks by this „there-won’t-be-corrosion-or-if-so-we-will-discover-it” type of power plant, it was revealed that the same occurrence happened in four out of four blocks. Bingo! In addition to all of the above, the permit for the 20-year-expansion of the lifespan of Paks 1 block 1 was issued without either the power plant or the authority detecting these problems. So we can rest assured: these guys are very confident in knowing how to handle this.
  6.  And the last issue: upon the Commission’s question on what will happen with the spent fuel elements, with whom will the ultimate responsibility lie, and who the final owner of waste will be, the Hungarian government confidently says – by the way, in accordance with EU law – that it will naturally belong to Hungary. Let me remind you of a minor fact here: in the end of July, 2014, Hungary shipped nuclear waste by train to Russia through the war-ridden Ukraine; these were the damaged fuel rods of the 2003 Paks accident. The purpose of transportation was recycling and final disposal – as I have finally managed to make the government officially state so. This could not have been possible according to EU or Hungarian laws – exactly because, according to EU law the final owner of nuclear waste is always the country where it was generated and the responsibility of final disposal cannot be transferred to another country (except for rare cases that cannot pertain to this type of shipment). Apparently, the Hungarian government was also very well aware of this when it attempted to request a permit for PaksII. Then they must also be aware of the fact that last year’s shipments of waste was against the law, regardless of their forever-changing, ridiculous and forced reasons to explain the opposite. I’m just saying: this case is also being examined by the Commission. And the last two weeks didn’t bring much joy to Paks on the Commission’s part.

 

As a conclusion, a last remark: the documents I received, even in the reduced form they were sent to me, pose a series of uncomfortable questions. All in all, it is incomprehensible and unacceptable, on the one hand, that several of the documents were refused to be released without any convincing explanation, and on the other hand, that parts were concealed from the sent material with the allusion to secrets which can hardly be explained by the mentioned reasons (protection of business secrets, protection of institutional decision-making processes, protection of personal data or the guarantee of nuclear safety). Therefore, I turned to the Commission with a letter again, requesting withheld documents and access to the concealed parts of the sent document.

 

This is where we stand now. What becomes clear from these 200 pages that there is reason for – unlawfully – classifying the Paks documents. Every newly published detail proves over and over again that the Paks expansion is even crazier, more harmful and more absurd than we have originally thought. We gradually find out that it will pollute the Danube, that there is no VAT included in the price, that we won’t be able to ship spent fuel back to Russia for recycling and that they will have to be kept in the vicinity of the power plants, that the modelling of the prospects for the market environment was forgotten, or that the government is all over the place with its lies about the utilization of the power plant.

 

I wouldn’t hire them to build even a shed at the back of my yard.

UN climate change talks EU must push for UN deal to avoid dangerous climate change say MEPs

The European Parliament today adopted a resolution, setting out its position on the UN climate change negotiations ahead of the forthcoming UN climate summit in Paris (COP21). Commenting after the vote, Green MEP Benedek Javor said:

“The European Parliament has today underlined the need for the EU to push for a binding UN climate deal that aims to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to below 2 degrees.

“Beyond the general goals in today’s resolution, it is clear that the EU will need to seriously up its ambition if it is to play a constructive and proactive role in shaping the UN talks to this end. As Greens, we are concerned that the EU risks being a bystander at COP21 if it does not up its game.

“The EU’s 2030 climate change targets are acknowledged to be low on ambition. The headline figure of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% is already far below what is necessary, both to limit global warming to 2 degrees and to spur the green economy. A positive signal from the EU that it is willing to increase this ambition depending on an agreement at the COP21 would provide some momentum and impetus for the Paris talks.

“Long-term emissions goals will be a key issue at the COP21. We need to be phasing out carbon globally by 2050 and moving to zero emissions to prevent dangerous climate change. The EU should join the other countries calling for this in the UN negotiations. Simply aligning the EU’s position with that of the G7 (a global reduction of emissions between 40-70% by 2050) is out of sync with the EU’s goal of limiting the global increase in temperature to below 2°C. 

“Finance for assisting developing countries most affected by climate change will be a crucial factor in agreement at the COP21. If the EU is to try and positively influence the outcome, we need to both deliver on commitments up to 2020 but also commit to fair and predictable scale of public climate aid beyond 2020.

“It is important that any climate change agreement is binding and its implementation will not be subject to challenge by corporations in private tribunals. We welcome support from MEPs for a Green amendment to this end today.”

Lessons learnt 5 years after the Hungarian red mud disaster

The red mud case in the Hungary 5 year ago was one of the worst European environmental accidents causing 10 deaths and leaving hundreds injured and over 300 houses destroyed. It was the first „major case” where the Environmental Liability Directive 2004/35/EC (ELD) was applied. Our conference held on October 5th 2015 examined what lessons have been learnt from the accident and how European legislation and implementation could be further improved to ensure the prevention or best remediation of similar accidents.

In the opening we shortly spoke of our visit to Kolontár and Devecser with Ulrike Lunacek on 2nd of October and presented a video that you can watch here: https://youtu.be/QOT_f3fHz90

In the first session speakers described what exactly happened in Kolontár, Hungary and what the underlying reasons to the disaster were. Mr György Bakondi described the events in detail and outlined the actions taken by the relevant authorities firstly to stop the sludge reaching the natural waters and secondly to restore the damages caused by the red sludge as far as possible and thirdly to prevent further spills from the reservoir. Zoltán Ferencz researcher from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences detailed the social impacts of the crisis on the towns it affected. Furthermore, the recovery process following the disaster included several categories of damages: property damage, environmental damage, economic damage, and damages to the physical and mental health of the affected communities. Infrastructural repairs were done and financed by the Hungarian Relief Fund and contributed to new schools, health centres, and public spaces. However, more relief is still needed in the affected towns including local economic development, ongoing psychological assistance, air pollution control. Ferencz suggested that regular health screening, community development programmes and capacity building of local stakeholderswould be advisable steps to take to continue aid the towns in need. More than anything, he emphasized the necessity of clarifying responsibilities and ensuring increased transparency and communication between private donors and government relief efforts.

At the end of the first session Mr Gergely Simon held a presentation about the lack of proper risk assessment, the authorities’ failure to identify the instability of the dam and take action accordingly. Through frequent (geological) monitoring the catastrophe could have been prevented, however, the mining authority was not involved in the permitting either. Another grim fact he faced the audience with was that red mud was not classified as hazardous waste after 2002, easing requirements both for monitoring and waste disposal. Amongst additional causes of the disaster he mentioned the lack of mandatory financial security deposits, no proper information on the composition of the sludge, the site operator not fulfilling remediation obligations set in the privatisation contact and the lack of independent and strong Hungarian authorities. Had laws been interpreted and applied well or politics had been stronger and included environmental guarantees in the privatization contracts, the impact could have been not so severe. Finally, he drew the attention on other similar cases still unsolved and the consequences at a national level.

During the second session, Mr. Vito A. Buonsante gave a presentation reviewing the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). The objective of the ELD is to establish a framework of environmental liability, to implement the polluter pays principle and to prevent and repair future environmental damage. He identified several problems with the directive, including its very limited scope (as set out in Annex III, failing to encompass fossil fuel infrastructure and many other activities covered in the Environmental Impact Assessment Directives), governance structure and vague and restrictive definitions of terms such as significant adverse effects and environmental damage. While recognizing that the ELD is positive because it creates a right to access justice for environmental issues, Buonsante also recommended that in order to improve, the scope of the ELD should be extended by phasing out exemptions and redefining environmental damage (to go beyong land, water and biodiversity aspects) and make operators of all occupational activities strictly liable for all environmental damage.

In Mr Simon’s second presentation he focused on the prevention of possible disasters in the future after Seveso III Directive was adopted in 2011. He stressed that red mud ponds are still not covered by the legistation and the objective of prevention cannot be fulfilled by the current legislation. Remaining gaps like the lack of requirement for compliance with Best Available Technologies and for elimination hazardous substances, introducing an adequate financial liability scheme, frequent and effective inspections, regular safety studies as well as transparency are to be solved.

Overall, the conference was informative and stimulating. While there was much reflection on the red mud disaster, there was also ample discussion of the future of environmental liability and conservation. Learning from the mistakes made before and after the red mud disaster and sharing ideas on how to improve future actions was the highlight of discussion.

You may find the presentations from the conference below.

Vito Buonsante Kolontar

Gergő Simon Kolontar Hungarian aspects

Gergő Simon Kolontar European aspects

Zoltan Ferencz Kolontar

ITCO intergroup pressures the European Parliament to ban salaried side jobs

The intergroup on Integrity, Transparency, Corruption and Organised crime calls for a revision of the Code of Conduct for Members of the European Parliament, in order to ban side jobs for MEPs. Under the current rules, MEPs can have various paid side jobs. The Volkswagen emission scandal, about which a debate in the European Parliament was held yesterday, illustrates that it is exactly the close bonds between the automobile industry and the European institutions that has enabled the widespread fraud with emissions.

The emission fraud scandal in the automobile industry should trigger a sharper focus on the tight relation between the car-industry and European institutions. So far, MEPs have been allowed to have side jobs, as long as they register these through their declarations of interest.

The code of conduct has a provision on conflicts of interest, which are defined as follows: a conflict of interest arises when a Member of the European Parliament has a personal interest that could improperly influence the performance of his or her duties as a Member. The Code of Conduct obliges members to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest before speaking/voting in the plenary or when proposed as a rapporteur. Apart from that, MEPs can have as many side jobs as they want. This leads to the current situation that some MEP’s are involved in the car-industry. Currently the EP is revising its internal rules and, therefore, the ITCO intergroup proposes to ban paid salaried side jobs as soon as possible.

Dennis de Jong states in his capacity as co-chair of the intergroup: ”There is an urgent need to end the ties between the industry and members of the EP. We should start by implementing a ban on paid side jobs. This is the best possible guarantee against conflicts of interest arising”. Benedek Jávor as vice-chair of the intergroup highlights that: “Without transparent rules concerning the functioning of MEP-industry forums and a ban on paid side jobs for MEPs, European legislation will continue to be governed by industry priorities, even at the expense of the health of European citizens.”

5th anniversary of the Kolontár industrial catastrophe: we have not learnt our lessons, we are waiting for the next catastrophe

Five years ago, at its own expense, Hungary has learned that we live in the shadow of environmental catastrophes that result in the loss of human lives. Not much has happened in the last five years to reduce the possibility of industrial accidents happening.

The government has taken one small step towards risk reduction: with the amendment of the mining law it clarified the authorities responsibilities for the technical supervision of facilities, such as red sludge reservoirs; however, the government simultaneously increased risks, with light-speed: it eliminated the autonomy of supervision authorities like the environment protection authority and mining inspectorate, both became part of governmental offices under political guidance and mining has become part of the office for consumer protection. In addition, it further restricted supervision capacities by radically decreasing public funding and human resources of the authorities.

As to the functioning of this authority system – it is clearly shown by the mismanagement of the poison-case at the Illatos road in Budapest

This time, however, it is not about the capital, but Kolontár, Devecser, Ajka and all the other areas affected by the red sludge catastrophe. The dam of the red sludge reservoir, located between Ajka and Kolontár, collapsed five years ago on October 4, 2010, as a result of which the escaping mass of thick alkaline sludge caused almost immeasurable and certainly unprecedented damages: ten people died and hundreds more were hurt either physically and or psychologically; the life of thousands has changed irreversibly. The sludge flooded an area of 40 square-kilometres and the government spent nearly 40 billion forints (approx. 130 million EUR) on renovation – as it later turned out, the money went to the then still important Simicska-Nyergest interest group, but larger amounts were pumped in the quarry of the Orbán-family as well.

Since then, houses have been either renovated or rebuilt, the land has more or less been cleared, the collapsed dam and the remaining sludge have been stabilized. Much less was spent on stitching damaged social ties in the region (many have moved away permanently, new rural areas were developed, traditional human relationships have loosened), mitigating psychological harm, and the long-term assessment of health damages, which would have been well-reasoned after such a shocking incident.

In addition, no measures have been taken towards the prevention of similar incidents, even though the task is not even remotely unfeasible: previously, together with environment protection NGOs and scientific think thanks we published a series of proposals from which, despite the almost unanimous consensus among relevant experts. Only the ones about short-term, emergency interventions were implemented.

  • We initiated that the EU send an independent committee with a wide scope of effect on location, which would help Hungarian authorities (following the assessment method used in the case of the cyanide pollution in the Tisza river) in assessing environmental damages, in exploring the causes of the incident; the Orbán-government did not want to hear about this.
  • No person within the authority and state administration responsible for the incident was identified, efforts were not to significant either.
  • We requested the supervision of the emergency plans of national hazardous industrial facilities, mines, reservoirs – whether they address reality and whether the expectable consequences of a possible incident are adequately modelled. To this day no such supervision has taken place despite the fact that the catastrophe in Kolontár had such a destructive outcome precisely because the facility’s emergency plan was flawed.
  • We suggested the development of a compulsory assurance system that guarantees responsibility with an adequate amount of insurance. The development of such a system, by the by, has already been prescribed by the environment protection law for twenty years now Such an assurance framework would make factory owners interested in the prevention of incidents; the insurance would cover the expenses of any possible damage done, so that it is not always tax-payers who are charged with compensation. The government, again, ignored this proposal.
  • We urged the establishment of an EU-level safety foundation for hazardous facilities, which would be funded by payments coming from facilities with large environmental risks and would financially compensate for damages that could not be covered otherwise or that have no one to hold accountable. The Orbán-administration was not partner in this either; however, recently, the European Parliament is discussing the question.

 

The majority effort from the government’s part was put into shepherding towards Fidesz-friendly circles the assets and production capacity of the Mal Ltd., the owner of the Ajka alumina plant. This is obviously connected to the fact that the above-mentioned corporation is the biggest employer in Ajka and the neighbouring areas, none of which brought much success to Fidesz in recent elections. However, the basic question is still not answered, namely, the question of how the Central Transdanubian Inspectorate for Environment Protection could release a permit to MAL for regular waste-disposal, when the pH level of red mud is 13-13.5, i.e. it is high in alkali. This means that even according to the rules then in effect, the disposal was related to tailings undoubtedly categorised as hazardous waste.

No one, who could truly be held responsible, was ever found, and, naturally, all expenses had to be covered by the budget, that is, from tax-payer’s money. There is still no regulation that could effectively prevent similar catastrophes from happening and guarantee that companies, which, unless a problem occurs, produce profit, would not transfer expenses to tax-payers when, precisely because of “cost-effective operation” a problem does occur. It was not five years ago when Hungary first experienced such a problem. Fifteen years ago, the tailings dam in the Aurul gold-mine in Nagybánya, Romania, collapsed and flooded almost the entire Hungarian territory of the Tisza River with cyanide. The Hungarian state could not realise any compensation claims from the company or Romania in connection with a 29-billion-forint damage. It was also paid by us, Hungarian tax-payers.

The basis of the EU environmental policy follows the “polluter pays” principle. Well, in reality, it is valid in a slightly different way when it comes to industrial catastrophes: the polluted pays. The harm is caused in our societies and communities. And they are the ones paying for their own poisoning afterwards. This is unacceptable. It has to be changed and this is exactly what we are working on in the European Parliament on the fifth anniversary of the Kolontár catastrophe.

 

Furthermore you can read a report on the details here:

http://engineeringfailures.org/files/Kolontar-report.pdf