China warned over 'insane' plans for new nuclear power plants

Proposals to build plants inland, as China ends a moratorium on new generators imposed after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, are particularly risky, the physicist He Zuoxiu said, because if there was an accident it could contaminate rivers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for water and taint groundwater supplies to vast swathes of important farmlands.

China halted the approval of new reactors in 2011 in order to review its safety standards, but gave the go-ahead in March for two units, part of an attempt to surpass Japan’s nuclear-generating capacity by 2020 and become the world’s biggest user of nuclear power a decade later.

Barack Obama recently announced plans to renew a nuclear cooperation deal with Beijing that would allow it to buy more US-designed reactors, and potentially pursue the technology to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel.

The government is keen to expand nuclear generation as part of a wider effort to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and cut dependence on imported oil and gas.

He, who worked on China’s nuclear weapons programme, said the planned rollout was going too fast to ensure it had the safety and monitoring expertise needed to avert an accident.

"There are currently two voices on nuclear energy in China. One prioritises safety while the other prioritises development,” He told the Guardian in an interview at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He spoke of risks including "corruption, poor management abilities and decision-making capabilities”. He said: "They want to build 58 (gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity) by 2020 and eventually 120 to 200. This is insane.”

Germany and France agree closer eurozone ties without treaty change

Germany and France have forged a pact to integrate the eurozone without reopening the EU’s treaties, in a blow to David Cameron’s referendum campaign.

Sidestepping Britain’s demands to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and Britain’s place in the EU, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, have sealed an agreement aimed at fashioning a tighter political union among the single-currency countries while operating within the confines of the existing treaty.

The Franco-German proposals are to be put to an EU summit in Brussels next month, where Cameron is also to unveil his shopping list of changes needed if he is to win support for keeping Britain in the EU.

The Franco-German accord, disclosed by Le Monde newspaper, calls for eurozone reforms in four areas "developed in the framework of the current treaties in the years ahead”.

Cameron has persistently called for a reopening of the treaties to enable the eurozone to integrate more closely while providing the British with a chance to reshape the UK’s relations with the EU and repatriate powers from Brussels.

EU members and senior officials in Brussels have repeatedly voiced their reluctance to reopen the Lisbon treaty – the EU’s fundamental constitutional document. The Franco-German initiative, likely to be endorsed by the 25 June summit, would definitively close the door on treaty renegotiation.

The move from Berlin and Paris came as the UK prime minister prepared to open his negotiations with the French and the Germans on Thursday and Friday.

Cameron faces a busy week on the referendum campaign. On Monday evening, he hosted the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, at Chequers – kicking off a charm offensive in which he will visit five European leaders.

A Downing Street spokesperson said that Cameron gave Juncker a tour of the house and gardens before they dined on a spring salad, followed by pork belly and vegetables and a dessert of lime bavarois.

"The prime minister underlined that the British people are not happy with the status quo and believe that the EU needs to change in order to better address their concerns,” said the spokesperson.

"Mr Juncker reiterated that he wanted to find a fair deal for the UK and would seek to help. They talked through the issue at some length in the spirit of finding solutions to these problems. They agreed that more discussion would be needed, including with other leaders, on the best way forward.”

The former prime minister of Luxembourg will play a subsidiary, if influential, role in the negotiations whose outcome will ultimately be decided by national government leaders.

On Thursday, a day after the state opening of parliament, Cameron will fly around Europe to meet the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, in Copenhagen, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, in the Hague and Hollande in Paris. The following day he will meet the Polish prime minister, Ewa Kopacz, in Warsaw before going to Berlin to see Merkel. He aims to speak to all other leaders of member states before the June summit.

 

(Guardian)