Balisage

Ukraine – Press release n°6
11 a. m.

Some ports such as Zeebrugge and Dunkirk no longer systematically report expected ship arrivals on their websites. The port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire continues to display reliable schedules.

Only in French.

Ukraine – press release n°5. March 7, 2022 – 4:00 pm

Nuclear power: Slovakian power plants fill their tanks
On March 1, an Ilyushin-76TD of Volga-Dnepr Airlines specialized in the transport of heavy load flew over Poland with NATO authorization to transport new nuclear fuel to Slovakia. It left Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, flew around Ukraine, over Belarus and through Polish airspace to land in Bratislava. According to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) rules, only small urgent packages, such as short-lived radiopharmaceuticals, can be transported by air. The potential crash of an airplane carrying nuclear fuel exposes the population and the environment to considerable risks.

Ukraine – press release n°4. March 4, 2022 – 4:30 p.m. (Updated on March 4 at 5 p.m.)

Following Robin des Bois’ press release “Sanctions against Russia: will they dare?” of February 24, 2022 (1), the day when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the NGO has mapped the current position of the 15 ice-breaking LNG tankers exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to European ports from the Yamal gas terminal in Siberia.

Only in French.

The Chem P departed from Algeciras (Spain) on February 18, 2022. She was expected in Malta on February 27. Since February 23, she has been suffering engine failures off the Algerian coast and is alternating drifts and reduced speeds.

Ukraine – press release n°3. February 28, 2022 – 2 pm.

It is the first time in the world that a nuclearized country is subjected to aerial bombardments of such intensity and to the other complexities of a modern war.

Fifteen nuclear reactors are in operation in Ukraine, all of Russian technology. They require Russian spare parts for their maintenance. Ukraine and Russia are obliged to cooperate in order to ensure their proper functioning as much as possible.

Nuclear reactors and waste repositories are not immune to misfiring or sudden loss of power supply, which could endanger the people and environment of continental Europe and the countries bordering the Black Sea.

Russia is taking over Chernobyl. For ROSATOM, Russia’s national atomic energy company, this is a way of preventing the European Union and the United States from taking control of the nuclear industry in Ukraine (see box below). The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has spent over 700 million euros to build a protective sarcophagus over the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor, which caused the devastating events of 26 April 1986. According to an EBRD press release, this project is meant to act as a “giant cage to contain the monster”, and also as a long-term infrastructure investment to improve nuclear waste management. The sarcophagus was completed in October 2019.

Cancellation of the Franco-Russian contract for the conversion and enrichment of reprocessed uranium (TRU)
Each year, the reprocessing plant of spent fuel at La Hague peninsula in Normandy near Cherbourg produces about 1,000 metric tons of RU (reprocessed uranium) from spent fuel coming from French nuclear power plants. The RU stock is currently about 27,000 tons. The reprocessing of RU to make “new” fuel cannot be done in France. The only plant for converting RU into Enriched Reprocessed Uranium (ERU) is located in Russia. The circular economy of French nuclear power goes through Tomsk in Siberia.

Bulletin of information and analysis on ship demolition
October-November-December 2021
76 pages, 106 sources, 223 photos (+ 8 maps), 13 Mo
https://robindesbois.org/wp-content/uploads/shipbreaking65.pdf

Spotlight on shipbreaking and on the maritime economy in post Covid-crisis