TURKEY CANCELS AKKUYU NUCLEAR PLANT

Toronto - Following a cabinet meeting in Ankara today, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced the cancellation of the controversial nuclear power plant that was proposed to be built at Akkuyu Bay on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast north of Cyprus.

In a stunning front page interview yesterday (July 24th) in the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet, Ecevit observed that “The world is abandoning nuclear power.” In a public statement following a cabinet meeting today, Ecevit stated “It is unnecessary for us, for the time being, to invest in nuclear energy.” Ecevit emphasized that Turkey would focus on energy conservation and invest in natural gas, hydro-electricity, as well as solar and wind generation.

Ecevit’s statement reflected the fact that most of the world has stopped building new nuclear plants, and has opted for cheaper, cleaner, and safer means of generating electricity. Nuclear power has been plagued by high cost, erratic performance, endemic technical problems, the risk of catastrophic accidents, and environmental problems such as routine radiation releases and radioactive waste management. World nuclear power use is expected to peak in 2002, and then begin a period of sustained and permanent decline. Reliable independent cost studies show that nuclear power plants are about twice as expensive to build and operate as high-efficiency natural gas generating plants. Canada has been forced to temporarily shut down one-third of its own nuclear power reactors because of poor performance, bad management and safety problems.

The decision is a serious blow to the three nuclear vendors bidding to build the nuclear plant, and a major setback for the international nuclear industry. Canada’s state-owned nuclear company, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) was competing against Nuclear Power International (NPI — a consortium of the German company Siemens and the French company Framatome), and a third bidder, a partnership of Westinghouse (USA/UK) and Mitsubishi (Japan).

The Akkuyu nuclear plant had sparked an unprecedented groundswell of opposition within Turkey, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean region and around the world. Turkey’s latest attempt to build a nuclear plant at Akkuyu began with a request for preliminary proposals in 1992, although revised bid specifications were not released until December 1996. Following the final bid deadline of October 15, 1997, Turkey delayed the selection of a vendor no less than eight times between June 1998 and April 2000.

The extraordinarily high cost of nuclear power has been the indirect cause of Turkey’s decision. This spring, the Turkish Treasury department refused to provide a sovereign (state) financial guarantee (at least initially) for the loans being made by vendor country governments for the nuclear plant, which was costing about $3.6 billlion (CDN) (about $2.5 billion US). In a surprise development, Westinghouse reportedly offered to proceed without a sovereign guarantee. AECL also confirmed last week that it was willing to proceed without a sovereign guarantee, and was searching for private sector “bridge” financing of $100 million.

The loss of the Akkuyu contract is a blow to AECL, a publicly funded federal Canadian crown corporation. AECL has seen its reactor export plans collapse over the last 5 years. As part of a federal government program review in 1995, AECL identified a plan to sell “ten reactors in ten years”. On the basis of this plan, the Chretien government committed to provide a $100 million-per-year subsidy indefinitely to AECL. However, the only sale since that time has been two reactors to China in 1996. Since its founding in 1952, AECL has received subsidies of over $15 billion from the federal government.

In 1997 a leaked cabinet document revealed that the Chrétien government had agreed to provide $1.5 billion of government funds in financing for the Akkuyu plant. AECL’s bid was for $2.572 billion (US) (about $3.6 billion Canadian) for two 700 MW CANDU reactors. AECL’s bid was targeted by an effective international campaign. Nuclear Awareness Project worked closely with activists opposing Akkuyu in Canada, Europe, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean for the last four years. The campaign included speaking tours throughout Canada, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. The international campaign flooded the office of Prime Minister Chretien and other cabinet ministers with over 100,000 cards, letters and e-mails.

Dave Martin, Research Director for Nuclear Awareness Project, stated,

“The cancellation of Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear plant is a death knell for the international nuclear industry. Renewable energy is the way of the future.”

“It’s time to pull the plug on 48 years of senseless Canadian government subsidies to AECL. More nuclear subsidies are just throwing good money after bad.”

“Turkey has made a wise decision to forego nuclear power and focus its electricity program on conservation, renewable energy, and high efficiency natural gas. There will be huge environmental, economic and security benefits from this decision.”

“A nuclear program would only have interfered with Turkey’s hard road ahead in building a sustainable energy future, healing its economy, democratizing its political system, and improving its human rights record.”

The Akkuyu nuclear plant was opposed for a variety of reasons, including earthquake risk at the site, the possibility that it would contribute to nuclear weapons development, and ongoing human rights abuses in Turkey.

Some of Turkey’s most prominent earthquake experts have demanded a halt to the nuclear plant until further research is conducted on the Akkuyu area. The death of over 18,000 people in the Izmit earthquake is a tragic testimony to the human cost of poor planning and inadequate regulation. The Turkish government and the nuclear vendors conspired to cover up the real earthquake risk at the Akkuyu site. An earthquake would have been the most likely cause of a catastrophic nuclear accident at Akkuyu. Such an accident could have had devastating consequences for the 165 million people in the eastern Mediterranean region.

The dark underside of nuclear power has always been its potential for nuclear weapons proliferation, either through the production of plutonium — an inevitable byproduct of reactor operation — or through the transfer of sensitive nuclear information, technology and materials. Turkey’s nuclear program would have fanned the flames of the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Turkey has already been implicated in nuclear arms aid to Pakistan. An earlier attempt to build an Argentinean-designed reactor was likely aimed at plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Evidence of nuclear smuggling based in Turkey, and Turkey’s push for its own nuclear fuel capability and indigenous reactor design, all pointed to possible nuclear weapons development. The support of prominent Turkish citizens for nuclear weapons development has leant credence to this evidence.

Turkey has a long history of gross human rights abuses, which include systematic widespread torture and murder of prisoners in custody; death squad murders; disappearances; restrictions on freedom of speech; and incommunicado detention without legal representation. Despite the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, and his ceasefire call, human rights improvements have been minimal. Incidence of torture actually worsened in 1999 as compared to the previous two years. Restrictions on free speech and overt political repression have continued despite pressure on Turkey to meet western standards in order to join the European Union.

Turkish political history over the last 40 years has been characterized by a series of unstable governments, interrupted at intervals by four military coups — in 1960, 1971, 1980, and most recently in June 1997, when the government of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, was forced out of office. Allegations of corruption at the highest levels have added to this political instability, which has been accompanied by economic instability. Inflation has averaged more than 80% per year over the last ten years, and the national debt is over $100 billion (US). It remains to be seen if the current $4 billion (US), three- year anti-inflation program sponsored by the International Monetary Fund will succeed. Five similar programs in the 1990s failed, and many Turks believe that the cure may be worse than the disease.