‘We Should Focus on Stopping Nuclear Power Plants Instead of Contracts’

We had a comprehensive interview with Nukleersiz.org Coordinator Pınar Demircan, which included useful information about the laws enacted in October regarding the responsibilities towards third parties in the field of radioactive waste and nuclear energy, and the dangers of nuclear energy.

In the first part of our long conversation with Pınar Demircan, we focused on the contracts concerning third parties in the field of radioactive waste and nuclear energy, which were announced in the Official Gazette in October. Demircan says that the contracts that have entered into force are the ones that Turkey is obliged to sign. According to Demircan, instead of focusing on these contracts, we should try to prevent the implementation of nuclear power plants with all our strength: ‘Our issue should not be that these contracts pass the Parliament, but that we allow the establishment of a risky, cumbersome, wasteful and costly facility such as a nuclear power plant. In this context, I should add that what we need to focus our attention on is to protect our rights against these nuclear power plants that we do (can) not prevent.’

What do you think about the newly passed laws on liability to third parties in the field of radioactive waste and nuclear energy? What differences will there be in practice with these contracts?

The issue of radioactive waste is an issue that has a place in the legislation in Turkey whether there is a nuclear power plant or not. Because radioactive waste in the form of nuclear waste is generated in nuclear power plants, and materials that fall under the scope of radioactive waste are used in medicine, agriculture, various industrial areas, such as large dam constructions. This includes the equipment and clothing of those working with radiation sources. Since radioactive wastes directly concern human and environmental health, namely ecology, the disposal of these materials should be carried out very carefully, meticulously and in accordance with the procedures.

These processes, which were previously among the duties of the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK), were transferred to the Radioactive Waste Management Coordinatorship within the Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mineral Research Agency (TENMAK), which was newly established after the transition to the Presidential Government System in 2019, and where TAEK employees were transferred. Thus, the collection, acceptance, processing, classification, transportation, labeling, packaging, storage, and disposal of radioactive waste became the task of this unit. However, the existence of an institution dealing with radioactive waste does not mean that the application is done properly. In order for the application to comply with the procedures and regulations, it is necessary to carry out inspections, report non-conformities and even impose sanctions.

‘One of the World’s 20 Most Important Radioactive Accidents Occurred in Turkey’

Since these inspections were not carried out, for example, we experienced an incident such as the disposal of the radiotherapy device used in cancer treatment in İkitelli during the TAEK period, as ‘scrap’. With this event, Turkey was included in the list of ‘20 most important radioactive accidents in the world’. A person who came into direct contact with the radioactive material died of cancer 10 years later, while 12 members of the family continue their lives suffering from various diseases that developed later, to the extent that they had relatively less contact with the radioactive material. The court found the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK) seriously flawed. It decided to pay the 13 members of the Ilgaz Family in material and non-pecuniary damages exceeding 3 million TL, including the interests. When TAEK did not pay the money, the family applied to the European Court of Human Rights. TAEK paid the compensation to the family during the ECHR process. This incident was not the last, and then it was reflected to the public that there were cases of radioactive waste that were not kept on the agenda, but above all, the biggest case that shows how the state institutions are ignorant of the issue of radioactive waste stands before us with the fact of İzmir Gaziemir.

What are the dimensions of the danger in Gaziemir and what is being done as a precaution in this regard?

As a result of the burning of radioactive materials, including the nuclear fuel rod, which was brought to that site to be processed in waste recycling processes in a lead factory in the middle of the neighborhood with the increasing urbanization in the 90s in Gaziemir, today there are nearly 100 thousand tons of nuclear contaminants in the form of slag, and therefore nuclear waste. TAEK, which was aware of this issue at least in 2007, did not take any responsibility and today TENMAK is not interested in this issue. Unfortunately, while the nuclear and chemical wastes that need to be disposed of are mixed with the soil, a scientific nuclear waste disposal process, which requires the participation of non-governmental organizations and professional chambers, has not been started by obtaining the EIA approval. Moreover, this nuclear waste site is in the middle of a settlement and there is a primary school very close to it. Our readers who are interested in the details of Gaziemir can refer to my article ‘Some new facts about Gaziemir and the Authoritarian State of Neglect’.

‘These Contracts Have No Benefit, They Remain Unfulfilled’

Therefore, unfortunately, it is not possible to believe that if the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant becomes operational, there will be no problems in nuclear waste in this country. Moreover, there is insistence on the Sinop project. Since 2007, when the Gaziemir issue was brought to the public, all non-governmental organizations and professional chambers demand the disposal of these radioactive wastes according to world standards, while state institutions openly disregard the health of the people. The disposal of the said radioactive cleaning and nuclear wastes was previously the responsibility of TAEK, and today, as is the responsibility of TENMAK, the hands of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which supports civil society forces and argues that radioactive wastes threaten public health, are also tied. Besides, nuclear waste disposal requires very high costs, I think it would be a bit of a dream to expect these costs to be met out of nowhere in a country where thermal power plants are allowed to operate without filters. This shows us that while TENMAK officials remained ignorant of the nuclear waste problem in Gaziemir, developments such as the signing of the Joint Convention on the Safety of the Used Fuel Administration and Radioactive Waste Administration signed by Turkey, the procedures and regulations on this issue remained on paper and unfulfilled.

Frankly, I am reading this as part of the requirement to provide assurance that the 4th reactor for Akkuyu NPP follows world standards and regulations at the stage of approval for the construction license. Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, ratified by parliament on October 6, 2021, and the Additional Protocol of 28 January 1964 and the Protocol Amending the Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy of 29 July 1960, as amended by the Protocol of 16 November 1982, are two contracts that Turkey must sign while the construction of nuclear power plants is currently underway. In addition, Turkey, as a country that has opened tenders for nuclear power plants four times since the establishment of TAEK in 1956, until the Akkuyu project, signed these contracts for the first time during the previous governments. On the other hand, associating them with the approval of the Paris Climate Agreement, as they coincide with the date of ratification, would be a misleading approach to the public. Moreover, the Paris Agreement is also very valuable for us nuclear opponents because the necessity of adapting to climate crisis policies will enable us to get rid of thermal power plants. Because while I care about the destruction of nuclear on ecology in the real sense, I do not find it ethical and sincere to beautify another energy source that extinguishes life. For this reason, I think that those who fight against coal-fired power plants should object to those who make propaganda for nuclear in the form of energy.

If we go back to the Protocol Amending the Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy, what does the signing of this protocol mean?

This protocol concerns the agenda of the neighboring countries, which are parties to the convention, on compensation for the grievances caused by nuclear leaks and incidents in a country where the construction of a nuclear power plant is close to being completed, in accordance with the condition of ‘approving international agreements’, which is Article 90 of the Constitution. In other words, compliance with the Paris Convention, which is an international agreement that can be directly applied, is sought. I would like to point out that the Paris Agreement here is based on the protocols prepared by the Nuclear Energy Agency in the 1960s, that is, it has nothing to do with the Paris Climate Agreement, which was opened for signature in 2015, it is similar in name. Frankly, I should also point out that for Turkey, which is in the position of a country that intends to own a nuclear power plant, there are more contracts, laws that need to be arranged, and protocols that need to be signed. In fact, these are also indicators of how the nuclear issue does not concern only one country. In other words, we need to adapt to world standards on how you carry out the process from raw material to waste. For this reason, our issue should not be the passage of these contracts by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, but allowing the establishment of a risky, cumbersome, wasteful, and costly facility such as a nuclear power plant. In this context, I should add that what we need to focus our attention on is to protect our rights against these nuclear power plants that we do (can) not prevent. In other words, we, as pressure groups, should strive to ensure that the principle of participation is not overlooked and that we are involved in the process at the stage of creating domestic law based on international conventions. Otherwise, as citizens in the event of a leak or an accident, we may not be able to tell our problems to anyone.

For this reason, another prominent issue regarding nuclear waste is the necessity of establishing certain laws and standards on how Turkey will classify its waste and spent fuel while on the way to owning a nuclear power plant. We, as democratic mass organizations and citizens, should be able to be involved in the preparation processes of these contracts and laws. At this point, I think that a study should be carried out on the relevant laws of other countries and the best examples should be taken as a basis. However, the example of Gaziemir showed us that even though there are laws and regulations, they do not make a difference in terms of the dangerous outcome unless they are implemented. As a matter of fact, when the nuclear waste case in Gaziemir was opened in 2014, although the court ruled that the responsible Aslan Avcı company should carry out radioactive cleaning by taking an EIA, the defendant did not comply with the court decisions and the implementation of the decision was only possible with our non-governmental organizations launching a campaign. However, this time, the company chose to break up and grind the radioactive slag and rocks in the factory site at midnight with heavy machinery, disregarding the health of the public, since the radioactive cleaning processes are costly according to the EIA requirements. Meanwhile, the news that this fine became final in 2020, despite the fact that Aslan Avcı company was fined 5 million TL, the highest environmental penalty ever, shows that the company resisted paying the fine.

In addition to all these, in order to turn the costly EIA process into an opportunity, defendant Aslan Avcı’s company attempted to establish a waste disposal facility on the factory site. Fortunately, once again, the public reaction with the intervention of democratic mass organizations and pressure groups prevented such a process from starting.

What are the main points you would like to underline regarding the Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy?

If we look carefully, we see that this convention is similarly composed of international protocols that go back to the 1960s and have been updated over the years. Essentially, this contract is independent of whether they own a nuclear power plant or not, because countries have realized that they need to establish the necessary legal and financial infrastructure in order to compensate their citizens affected by a nuclear incident. For example, among the signatories of this convention is Greece, which does not have a nuclear power plant. In fact, this protocol of Turkey did not have to start the construction of a nuclear power plant, while a disaster like Chernobyl was taking place in this world (I include the present, because the effects of nuclear accidents last for hundreds of years, and they still continue today), it should have been approved earlier so that its citizens would be able to receive compensation for a spill that might occur in Europe.

In other words, it is clear that, as one of the 18 OECD member countries that are party to the convention, Turkey’s being the last country to have this convention ratified in their parliament seems to be related to their approach to owning a nuclear power plant. In other words, it shows that this approval was requested from them because they were about to realize an investment that entitles other countries to compensation.

Now that this contract has been approved in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, a domestic law will have to be created, which should be of interest to us, but when you look at the Official Gazette regarding the approval of this law in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, you cannot see any other sentence than ‘The President executes the provisions of this law’.

I would like to emphasize again that the point we should focus on at this point is, whether it will comply with the indispensable criteria of democracies such as participation, transparency and accountability in the domestic legal regulations of the Convention on Legal Liability Against Third Parties and just like in our demands for democratic rights, democratic mass organizations, trade unions, environmental and even human rights associations and pressure groups have great responsibilities in this regard.

What are the risks for the environment and human health in the implementation of these two laws? How should radioactive waste be managed?

Regulations on spent fuel and radioactive waste must be made especially in countries with nuclear power plants, because if nuclear power plants are operated, the formation of spent fuel is inevitable. The spent fuels are kept in the pools at the facility site to be cooled for 10-20 years, and at the end of the waiting period, they are sent to the reprocessing center and processed. Meanwhile, the Reprocessing Center is Russia’s own facility for Akkuyu, meaning the waste will be sent to Russia. This shipping route may also be the Bosporus and/or Canal Istanbul, which I can’t even imagine being built. Although the recycling of waste is an expensive and difficult process, this method is applied in many countries such as England, France, Belgium, Russia, India, and Japan. After the used fuel is processed, the remaining parts are high-grade radioactive waste as well as materials that need to be stored, so it is necessary to establish a permanent/final waste warehouse for them.

As Russia’s laws contain the phrase ‘Does not receive nuclear waste from developing countries’, which Turkey falls into this category against Russia, the final nuclear waste will be sent to Turkey. This will bring us the necessity and risks of establishing a new facility, which means very high costs. Special facilities and equipment are needed for the storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuels.

This storage facility may also be deep geological disposal where the fuel will be disposed of permanently (it is established at depths of 250 to 1000 m for underground storage, 2000 to 5000 m for wells), but earthquake risk areas are not preferred for these. At this point, do I need to remind you that Turkey is an earthquake country with 99% of its fault lines active?

However, when we look at the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NDK), the Strategic Plan for 2021-2025 states: ‘The Project Company is responsible for the management of the radioactive waste and spent fuels until their transport to the final disposal facilities under the responsibility of the Government, and for the dismantling of the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP)’. NPP here is a general statement, that is, it is not limited to Akkuyu NPP, it means that this approach will be essential if the project progresses in Sinop. It should not be thought that it can be limited to the only radioactive waste facility established in 1989. There is a necessity to establish a new facility that will require serious costs.

‘Cost of Nuclear Power Plant is not Properly Explained to the Public Opinion’

In short, it has been stated that the final waste disposal facility is clearly the responsibility of the government. In other words, the point that we insistently expressed in the EIA lawsuits, which we questioned, that there is a necessity to establish a final waste disposal facility with its heavy costs and risks, and that this business mortgages the future of Turkey, is admitted with this phrase.

The political power has not yet properly explained to the public the burden of the costs of establishing a nuclear power plant in Turkey. Unfortunately, there is a perception that the installation process of the nuclear power plant will be as it was built with the build-operate-transfer model logic used in mega projects such as roads, bridges, and dams but the situation is very different for nuclear power plants because the process is based on the Build-Operate-Transfer principle. In other words, let alone the construction of the nuclear power plant with an intergovernmental agreement, our main concern should be the establishment of a nuclear power plant with a build-operate-transfer kind of agreement.

‘Each Nuclear Power Plant Has Atomic Bomb Potential’

As each nuclear power plant means an atomic bomb, if you have handed over the key to this weapon to Russia, for example, for Akkuyu, you have dropped an atomic bomb on yourself. On the other hand, this is a matter of know-how. Turkey should send students to Russia as much as it wants, it does not have the knowledge and experience of nuclear technology, and it has many other economic needs, but it is a great loss to spend its energy to establish a nuclear power plant. While nuclear power plants are not the energy of this age, they have shown solar and wind power from renewable energies, nuclear has no chance. Because while the production costs from wind and solar energy have decreased by up to 70 percent, capital groups will of course prefer renewable energy over nuclear energy, whose production costs have increased by 30 percent, and this gap will widen day by day.

You can find the second part of the interview here.