As of: February 27, 2024, 6:13 p.m
By: Alexandra Heidsiek
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Emsland wants to produce Russian fuel rods.
The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment is currently examining a corresponding application.
Lingen - In Lower Saxony, a manufacturing company for fuel elements for nuclear power plants is being criticized: Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF), which belongs to the French state-owned company Framatome, wants to produce uranium fuel elements for nuclear power plants based on a Russian design.
This is reported by Spiegel,
among others
.
Europe is dependent on Putin's uranium
The demand is great: There are currently 18 reactors in the EU that can only be operated with the special hexagonal fuel elements.
This means that the Warsaw Pact states of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia are completely dependent on the nuclear giant Rosatom.
Its board members - such as the head of the Russian presidential administration, the propaganda expert Sergei Kiriyenko - are close allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian nuclear company Rosatom was founded on Putin's (right) initiative.
© picture alliance/dpa/Pool Sputnik Kremlin |
Alexander Kazakov
Rosatom, the “Federal Agency for Atomic Energy of Russia,” was founded in 2007 under Putin’s decree.
According to a report by the Austrian Federal Environment Agency, Rosatom produces 15 percent of the globally available uranium.
This makes Russia the second largest uranium producer in the world behind Kazakhstan, and almost all Russian exports go to Europe.
Russia apparently wants to further strengthen this trump card: journalists from the
ARD
program “Report Mainz” have uncovered an unpublished presentation according to which Rosatom should ensure world market leadership by 2030.
To this end, Russia is helping to build nuclear power plants all over the world - which can then only be supplied with Russian equipment.
There have long been close ties to Russia in the nuclear sector
For ANF, the ties to the Kremlin are not a problem: the company has been cooperating with Rosatom for a long time.
Between 2021 and 2023 alone, deliveries of over 100 tons of uranium pellets were approved from Moscow, according to a fact sheet on nuclear dependence on Russia that the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation prepared together with BUND and other environmental initiatives.
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This is also completely legal during the war in Ukraine, because uranium has so far been exempt from the European sanctions packages.
The EU's efforts to stop trade are particularly slowing Hungary.
In Germany, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) called for business with Rosatom to be ended.
Politicians are generally not very enthusiastic about the project in Lingen.
An unnamed political decision-maker told Spiegel: “The gas crisis has already revealed Europe’s dependence on
Russia
.
Now we are making the same mistake with nuclear power and fuel.
That's crazy".
However, the Federal Government has difficulty rejecting Rosatom's subsidiary TVEL's request to manufacture the fuel rods in Lower Saxony due to the Atomic Energy Act.
As long as the approval requirements for technical safety described there are met, a rejection is difficult, according to the
Spiegel
report.
Fuel rod processing in Germany: A new report could stop the project
Now, however, a report points to unexpected legal freedom.
Nuclear law expert Gerhard Roller argues that cooperation with Rosatom could endanger Germany's internal and external security.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an unforeseen circumstance, according to which the competent authority could refuse approval.
Putin's nuclear conglomerate is more or less directly involved in this: employees of the company played a decisive role in taking over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment is responsible for examining the application on behalf of the federal government.
This is led by Christian Meyer (Greens), who vehemently criticizes the nuclear deals with the Kremlin.
The paper is currently still available on site at the Ministry of the Environment and online; objections against the project can be made until the beginning of March.
(uh)