Yildiz said Turkey would fulfill all criteria of International Atomic Energy Agency in construction of nuclear power plant.
Turkish Minister of Energy & Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said on Wednesday that stance of the European Union (EU) in putting forth criteria regarding nuclear power plants was not meaningful in political sense as it did not open chapter heading on energy with non-technical reasons.
Asked to comment on an EU letter requesting implementation of EU criteria on nuclear power plants, Yildiz said he would talk to European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger on the matter.
When reminded that Greece complained to EU about the nuclear power plant that would be constructed in Akkuyu, Yildiz said the complaint was not realistic. He said Akkuyu was 900 km away to Greece, however, there are nuclear power plants in EU member countries which are 500-600 km away to Greece.
Yildiz said Turkey would fulfill all criteria of International Atomic Energy Agency in construction of nuclear power plant.
Asked to comment of Russia’s statement that it had alternatives in case Turkey did not allow South Stream project, Yildiz said he met with Russian president, prime minister and energy minister last week. He said procedure of this permission was underlined clearly, noting this was not a new development.
“During the visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Turkey last August, it was stated that the permission would be concluded after feasibility reports related to setting of route, environmental conditions, and Environmental Impact Assessment were formed,” Yildiz said adding that, “No new conditions have been put forth. There will be no obstacle regarding construction permission when Russian Federation meet the conditions.”
Ministers should halt plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK following the disaster in Japan, a West MP said yesterday.
Cheltenham Liberal Democrat Martin Horwood has tabled a Commons motion that has attracted support from MPs of all parties.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has already ordered a report from the Chief Nuclear Inspector on the implications for the UK of events at Fukushima power station.
The Daily Press has reported how South West anti-nuclear campaigners want him to shelve plans for new reactors in the UK, including those proposed for Hinkley Point in Somerset and Oldbury in South Gloucestershire.
Mr Horwood’s Early Day Motion, which applauds the courage and expertise of those working to make the Japanese power stations safe, welcomes Mr Huhne’s decision.
But it adds: “Events in Fukushima underline the extreme dangers inherent in nuclear power, the relative resilience of a completely safe, decentralised and renewable energy supply and the inability of even the highest design and safety standards to protect us from unforeseen events.”
The MPs are calling on Mr Huhne “to suspend Government’s plans for a new nuclear power programme”.
Mr Horwood said: “Events in Fukushima are reminding everyone how dangerous nuclear energy can be.
“As if the Japanese people weren’t suffering enough, their electricity supply has been disrupted, hundreds of thousands evacuated and anxiety spreading throughout the civilian population.
“Unforeseen events do happen – even in this country – and Fukushima demonstrates how dependence on nuclear power can add to the crisis.”
So far the EDM has been signed by MPs from five other parties, including high profile Tory environment campaigner Zac Goldsmith and Caroline Lucas, the sole Green MP.
Meanwhile the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has launched an inquiry into UK research and development capabilities.
Committee chairman Lord Krebs said: “Although this inquiry was conceived before the recent tragic events in Japan, this underlines the importance of ensuring that our research and development capabilities meet out future nuclear energy needs not just for generation capacity, but also for ensuring safety.”
(Reuters) – Turkey should abandon plans to launch nuclear power plants, because its proximity to geological fault lines means it could face a nuclear crisis like the one in Japan, Greenpeace said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said plans for a Russian-built plant on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast and a second one for its Black Sea coast, which is under discussion with Tokyo Electric Power Co and Toshiba, won’t be affected by the risk of a natural disaster like the earthquake that struck Japan.
Turkey is crisscrossed by fault lines, and small and medium earthquakes are a near daily occurrence. Two large quakes in 1999 killed more than 20,000 people.
“It is a mistake to go nuclear after what has happened in Japan,” Uygar Ozesmi, Greenpeace’s Mediterranean director, said at a news conference. “In a quake-prone country like Turkey, you cannot launch a nuclear power industry.”
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear complex has been torn apart by four explosions since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami hit on March 11. Nuclear experts have warned the crisis in Japan may rival the extent of the 1986 Chernobyl accident, which spewed a cloud of radiation across Europe..
Energy officials have said Turkey will use third-generation technology that is safer than that used at Fukushima.
“Regardless of the dangers of an earthquake, nuclear technology itself is the main risk,” Ozesmi said. “Whatever generation you use requires a cooling system, and when we look at any major nuclear incident, the cooling system is at fault.”
Turkey has enough wind and solar power potential to more than compensate for the electricity it hopes to generate from nuclear, Ozesmi said.
The government says Turkey must diversify its energy mix and boost supply to keep up with soaring demand amid rapid economic growth. It targets generation of 20 percent of power from nuclear by 2030.
The site planned for the Mediterranean nuclear station is only a couple of dozen miles from a fault line, which geologists fear is at danger of sliding at any time, said Hayrettin Kilic, a nuclear physicist who campaigns against atomic power.
“The Russian technology does not comply with Western standards, and Japanese companies have struggled to get licenses elsewhere. Both have design problems with their cooling systems,” Kilic said,
During a visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Erdogan said construction on a plant might start next month.
“We will take every possible precaution in the construction and management of the nuclear power plant,” Erdogan said at a news conference. “But there are things that human power is inadequate to prevent, like natural disasters. This will not affect our plans and schedule for the nuclear power plant.”
(Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley, editing by Jane Baird)
via Greenpeace: Quake-prone Turkey should drop nuclear | Reuters.
ISTANBUL // Turkey will press on with plans to build the country’s first nuclear power plants despite the latest nuclear accidents in Japan, a decision the opposition and environmental activists say is irresponsible in the face of widespread earthquake risks in Turkey.
Japanese medical personnel check a child for radiation exposure in Fukushima. Turkish officials say that what happened at Japan's nuclear facilities will not stop the nation's plant to build power plants. Asahi Shimbun / EPA
“We will not give up on our determination in the nuclear field,” Taner Yildiz, Turkey’s energy minister, said this week.
The minister added that the reactors causing trouble in Japan after last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami were outdated. “It is a technology from 40 years ago,” the minister said. “Today’s safety systems are much more advanced.”
The minister’s statement came as other countries, including Germany and Switzerland, announced they were reviewing their positions regarding the use of nuclear power in the light of events in Japan.
Plans to build nuclear facilities in Turkey go back several decades but gathered fresh momentum in recent years. In 2009, Ankara sent out a tender for the construction of the country’s first reactor, which is scheduled to go online between 2016 and 2019.
Opponents of nuclear power say the risk of earthquakes in almost all of Turkey makes the technology too dangerous. Smaller quakes are registered in the country almost every day, and tens of thousands of people have died from massive quakes in the past few decades. Close to 20,000 people died in an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale in the north-west of the country in 1999. A quake measuring a 4.6 magnitude shook the eastern Turkish city of Van late on Monday. There were no reports of injuries or damages. (The moment magnitude scale has generally replaced the Richter scale, though the scales are comparable.)
Countries around the world were taking a new and critical look at nuclear technology, Pinar Aksogan, an energy expert of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, said in a statement. “And what is our energy minister Taner Yildiz doing? He keeps the nuclear crisis hidden from the public and acts as if everything is under control.” She accused the minister of “putting all of our lives at risk”.
A small group of demonstrators gathered at Taksim Square in the centre of Istanbul this week to protest against the government’s determination to build nuclear reactors. “We do not want nuclear power plants,” they shouted.
Ankara argues that Turkey needs nuclear energy to help fuel the country’s rapidly growing economy, to avoid environmental pollution and to reduce dependence on natural gas imports, mostly from Russia and Iran. About half of Turkey’s energy needs are met by natural gas and roughly one third by coal-fuelled power plants. Turkey’s economy has doubled in size in the past 10 years and is expected to grow by 4.5 per cent this year.
Environmentalists say Turkey should do much more to boost renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power and could make its energy system more efficient by taking steps towards more safe energy sources and to avoiding energy waste.
Turkey’s power plant is scheduled to be built in Akkuyu, near Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, while another one is planned to be built in Sinop on the Black Sea. Russian companies are to build the reactor in Akkuyu, while negotiations with Japanese companies to build the plant in Sinop are ongoing. The projects are expected to cost around US$20 billion (Dh73.4bn) each.
Mr Yildiz, the energy minister, conceded that there were lessons to be learnt from recent events in Japan and that those lessons would form part of the negotiations for Turkey’s reactors. But he stressed that nuclear power would be safe despite the risk of earthquakes and that the situation in Japan was not comparable to conditions in Turkey.
“Of course there is no danger of a tsunami here,” the minister said. “And we do not expect an earthquake here, even if one occurs, God forbid, to be that strong,” he said in reference to the 9.0-magnitude quake in Japan last week.
Because the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, seems determined to push ahead with its nuclear plans, the debate will probably heat up further before parliamentary elections scheduled for June 12. Ali Riza Ozturk, an opposition deputy in parliament representing Mersin, the city near the planned nuclear site of Akkuyu, called on Mr Yildiz to explain why he wants to stick with the project despite the risks.
“Does the minister have firm evidence that there will be no earthquake in Akkuyu, or is Mersin not important to the AKP government?” Mr Ozturk asked in written questions addressed to Mr Yildiz, which under parliamentary rules the minister is obliged to answer.
Some observers also voiced doubts about the safety of the Akkuyu site. Necdet Pamir, an energy expert, told Vatan newspaper that the permission to build a nuclear reactor in Akkuyu was issued in the 1970s, at a time when seismologists were unaware of a tectonic fault just 20km to 25km to the north-east of the site. “After the events in Japan we have to fundamentally revisit the permission for the nuclear power plant at Akkuyu.”
tseibert@thenational.ae
via Full: Turkey sticking to nuclear plans despite Japan disaster – The National.
Japan and Turkey agreed Friday to reach a “certain conclusion” in about three months on whether Japan will build a nuclear power plant on the Black Sea coast, an industry ministry official said.
Building ties: Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akihiro Ohata and visiting Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz field questions at a Friday news conference in Tokyo. KYODO PHOTO
The agreement was reached during talks in Tokyo between Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akihiro Ohata and visiting Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz, who also signed a memorandum on civil nuclear cooperation in the development of human resources and other areas.
At a joint news conference after the talks, Ohata pitched Japan’s nuclear power technologies as safe and earthquake-resistant, while the Turkish minister seemed eager to seek cooperation.
“We are expecting that the construction of a nuclear power plant in Turkey could be achieved under the cooperation of both the public and private sectors of the two countries,” Yildiz said.
Japan has been trying to export its nuclear power technologies. But there is no guarantee negotiations with Turkey will go smoothly.
via Turkey nuke decision due by March | The Japan Times Online.
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — Turkey is holding exclusive talks with Japan to build its second nuclear power plant after failing to reach an agreement with South Korea.
Turkey aims to conclude a deal with Japan in three months, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said today in an interview in Tokyo. Yildiz is due to hold talks with Toshiba Corp., Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Itochu Corp.
South Korea and Turkey failed to reach an agreement to build a nuclear power plant in Sinop on the Black Sea coast because of “differences in issues including electricity sales price,” South Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Nov. 13. Japan, which won a nuclear plant contract in Vietnam in October, plans to spur economic growth by exporting more nuclear reactors and technology products.
“We have some targets to recover the time we have lost” to build the nuclear plant, Yildiz said. “Within three months, main frameworks should be determined,” including financing, treasury, insurance, partnerships and power tariffs, he said.
Yildiz said his visit to Japan comes after officials from Toshiba and the Japanese government held two rounds of technical meetings in Turkey on the project. “They told us their first impression is quite positive,” he said.
Turkey received an offer from Japan to build a nuclear plant in the country, CNBC-e television said on Oct. 7, citing Yildiz. The offer is an “aggressive one,” the Istanbul-based news channel cited the minister as saying then.
‘More Aggressive’
“Major players including Japan are getting more aggressive in the global nuclear market after they were beaten by South Korea last year to the United Arab Emirates’ $18.6 billion order,” said Shin Min Seok, an analyst at Daewoo Securities Co. in Seoul.
South Korea emerged as a competitor in the global nuclear market after Korea Electric Power Corp. beat General Electric Co. and Areva SA in December last year to the U.A.E. order.
Yildiz and his Japanese counterpart Akihiro Ohata are due to sign a memorandum of understanding on nuclear power cooperation tomorrow, Japan’s trade ministry said in a statement yesterday.
On Dec. 25, the Turkish minister is scheduled to visit Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world’s biggest atomic power station, according to an e-mailed statement by the ministry. Tokyo Electric officials including Executive Vice President Sakae Muto will meet Yildiz at the plant in northern Japan, company spokesman Norio Takahashi said by telephone today.
Calls to the offices of the spokesmen for Toshiba and Itochu weren’t answered as businesses and markets are shut for a public holiday today. An Itochu spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a voice message seeking comment left on his mobile phone.
Russia and Turkey signed a contract in May to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant with four reactors, at a cost of about $20 billion after more than a year of negotiations. Russia’s Rosatom Corp. will operate the plant in Akkuyu for 60 years, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said Dec. 15.
“My expectation and hope is that the cost will not be higher than numbers we have been talking with Russia and South Korea,” Yildiz said today.
–With assistance from Shinhye Kang in Seoul. Editors: Amit Prakash, John Viljoen.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at aprakash1@bloomberg.net.
via Turkey, Japan in Exclusive Talks for Nuclear Plant – BusinessWeek.
