The planned completion of the nuclear reactors Mochovce 3 and 4 in Slovakia by the Italian energy utility ENEL contains a lot of problems. The reactors 3 and 4 are two pressurised water reactors based on soviet technologies of the 1970s with a building permission of the year 1986. Thus, this nuclear power plant counts among the most dangerous in Europe even before its completion.
The following points are the most critical and call the environmental impact assessment into question:
1.Construction work without completed environmental impact assessment: Construction works respectively tenders for building contracts are done even before the environmental impact assessment has been completed. That is fundamentally inconsistent with the environmental impact assessment which shall assess expected environmental impacts and their prevention or reduction. A completed environmental impact assessment is a condition precedent for a building license and not for an operating license!
2.No assessment of alternatives: The operating company did not assess any other alternative for the power supply, although the assessment of alternatives is provided in the Slovakian, European and international legislation. Alternative energy carriers such as wind power were excluded with only one sentence “ not suitable for Slovakia”:
3.Security matters are not addressed specific enough: Only a few technical specifications were provided, thus questions regarding cross-border impacts of serious accidents can not be pre-estimated.
4.No protection against plane crashes: For Mochovce 3 and 4 only the crash of small planes is assessed. There is no justification about why the crash of big planes shall not happen. That does not comply with any ongoing safety standard at all.
5.The problem of final storage is obviously not solved neither from a technological point of view nor from a socio political or financial point of view.
6.Insufficient liability: The projected amount of liabilities of Euro 74 million is far to low. Furthermore, from the project documents it cannot be derived that any payments will be made form Slovakia to neighbouring countries in case of nuclear accidents.
The European Greens militate against the expansion of the nuclear power plant in Mochovce and the erection of the reactors 3 and 4. We demand the immediate cessation of any building measures.
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