The Real Nuclear Threat

Forget about Iraq and North Korea. Let's talk about Temelin.

At Temelin, a small city in the Czech Republic just 50 kilometers north of the Austrian border, a private company called CEZ (which roughly translate as "The Czech Power Company") owns a majority interest in a brand-new nuclear power plant. The plant has been under construction on and off for about 20 years. Its design is based on the same type of reactor that exploded and caught fire at Chernobyl in 1986. In the early 1990s, after the old socialist government fell, international inspectors visited Temelin and declared the reactor unsafe. Instead of mothballing the plant, CEZ added a few Western-style safety and control devices to the design and continued the construction. Last month, overbudget and more than ten years overdue, CEZ finally opened the plant for operation.

And last month, Austrian anti-nuke protesters mobilized against the plant. The protests have been going on for some time, but not on a massive scale. Not, that is, until the chain reaction began at Temelin. In this case, one very dangerous, nuclear chain reaction has caused another, very understandable chain reaction in the activist community.

On Sunday, November 5, Austrian anti-nuclear activists completely closed the border between Austria and the Czech Republic, stranding all traffic, including commercial truck traffic on several key routes between Eastern and Western Europe. Protesters completely blocked 11 border crossings early Sunday morning and, by Sunday afternoon, closed down the remaining 4 crossings.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel met with demonstrators and asked them to withdraw, while the Czech government said it wouldn't negotiate with protesters unless they withdrew from all of the border crossings by Monday evening. As a sign of goodwill, 12 of the crossings were opened to traffic on Monday, but protesters at 3 major crossings held firm, stating that they wouldn't withdraw until the chain reaction at Temelin was halted.

Eventually, the protesters withdrew when the Austrian government declared that it would block the Czech Republic's entrance to the European Union over this issue. In the meantime, anti-nuke campaigners in the German border state of Bavaria announced that they, too, will blockade the German/Czech border within the next few weeks if nothing is done to close the Temelin reactor.

This was not the first time that anti-nuke folks had closed the Austrian border because of Temelin. In October, 6,000 protesters with bulldozers and tractors closed 15 border crossings for an entire week in response to the start-up of Temelin. When that protest ended, anti-nuke activists warned the Czech Republic that they would be back to close the border again, if no progress had been made. They kept their word.

They have valid reasons to be concerned about Temelin. The reactor has undergone two emergencies in the six weeks since it began operations. In October, a pump failure led to a scaling back of the plant's operating capacity. Temelin has been operating at only 2% of its capacity since then. Then, on November 18, the Temelin reactor was shut down completely by its own emergency systems during a test of its reactor cooling system. As of this writing, it has yet to be restarted, although CEZ officials have said they will restart it as soon as possible.

German and Austrian anti-nuke protesters have been joined by Czech activists, who have been pressing the Czech government to close Temelin for some time. The reactor has cost $2.4 billion to build to date. The second reactor is still under construction and due to come on line in 2002, so the costs will only escalate. In addition, Czech anti-nuke activists have pointed out that CEZ has no plans for waste storage. The Czech environment minister has been an outspoken critic of the plant, and even Czech President Vaclav Havel calls Temelin "megalomaniacal." There's a strong feeling all around that the Czech government needs to take responsibility and keep Central Europe a nuclear-free zone.

The border closures and protests have had some impact on CEZ. It has negotiated with the Czech government, which recently announced that experts from the European Union will inspect the safety of the Temelin reactor.

However, the economic pressures to keep it running are strong. CEZ needs to recoup its investment. Its subcontractors, too, won't be willing to give up profits; last week, anti-nuke activists discovered that the U.S.-based multinational Westinghouse has secretly delivered fuel to CEZ for the second reactor at Temelin.