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Magazine Issue 7 - Spring 1998
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| Westinghouse Giant American transnational Westinghouse is abusing its monopoly position in the nuclear industry by forcing the construction of a dangerously outdated nuclear power plant in Bulgaria. Za Zemiata reports for Corporate Watch Westinghouse is a name synonymous with the nuclear industry. By 1991 Westinghouse exclusively supplied reactor coolant pumps, nuclear fuel and other products and services to 51 of the Ill operating nuclear reactors in the United States; five of the seven reactors in Belgium; six of the nine reactors in South Korea and six of the nine reactors in Spain. Westinghouse also manages and operates six U.S. government-owned nuclear facilities involved in uranium production, fuel reprocessing and/or nuclear waste disposal. In 1990 the U.S. government awarded US$3.49 billion in non-military contracts to Westinghouse, making the company the largest civilian government contractor. In the same year, Westinghouse received US$2.2 billion in military contracts, making it the twelfth largest 4efence contractor. However as the U.S. and Western European nuclear industry has ground to a halt Westinghouse has had to look to new markets. Unfortunately, the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe in the early nineties have provided the corporation with many opportunities. The Temelin nuclear power plant in the southern Czech Republic is one of a number of controversial nuclear developments in Eastern Europe. Environmentalists and politicians from both the Czech Republic and Austria have fiercely opposed further construction work on the partiaUy completed plant. Temelin consists of two Soviet-designed l,000-megawatt VVER reactors - for which Westinghouse is supplying the control system. Much of the controversy surrounds the issue of whether it is safe at all to integrate Western technology into a Soviet- designed system. The project not only includes the completion of a generating plant, but the construction of an interim processing complex for low-level radioactive waste. The processing complex, originally to be sited at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant north of Sofia in Bulgaria, is the first in Eastern Europe. Westinghouse and Temelin In January this year the Western media exploded with stories about the dire current state of the Temelin nuclear plant's construction. Senior executive V. Kotiza of the Czech power company CEZ announced that "rising costs and delays threatened completion" of the Temelin project and that "the course of the construction is getting out of control". The plant was originally supposed to open in 1995 and cost 68 billion crowns after being upgraded with Western technology. Now Temelin is not expected to be operational until the year 2000. Its overall budget is likely to exceed 96 billion crowns - or US$180 million. Westinghouse's involvement is now considered to be one of the main bottlenecks hindering completion of the project. Delays, cost overrun and the use of old or unsuitable technologies are just a small part of the Westinghouse business-as-usual approach. Westinghouse is also involved in murky financial practices. On November 29th 1997 the Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus was forced to resign because of a campaign funding scandal. This was reponted to be because since 1994 donations of US$70,000 from a non-existent U.S. based organisation had been given to the prime minister's ODS party. Strangely, 1994 was the year that Westinghouse won the Temelin contract. An investigation has conclusively shown Westinghouse's involvement in the scandal. The whole story occupied the front pages of Czech newspapers for over a week but strangely it never reached the U.S. press. Westinghouse's operations in Bulgaria In 1992 Westinghouse 'won' the contract to build a US$20 million radioactive waste processing plant at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, north of Sofia. Although three companies bid for the contract, it was awarded to Westinghouse in very dubious circumstances. After a two-year delay, the plant and equipment (which is for low and intermediate level nuclear waste treatment), has been delivered at a value of US$ II million. Nobody knows what has happened to the remaining USS 9 million of the contract. Furthermore, Critics say that the delivered equipment is both old and highly unsuitable for Kozloduy's waste. Unfortunately it's too late for the Bulgarian taxpayer; the contract has been paid in full. Even more shocking is the current situation at the Kozloduy site. There are more than 15,000 cubic meters of unprocessed liquid radioactive waste, some of which is reportedly leaking from its containers and being released into the environment. There are six reactors at Kozlodoy. Kozloduy 1-4 are currently operational but are due for closure, while the two other reactors, Kozloduy 5 and 6, remain inoperative. The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has offered ECU 24 million for the recommissioning of Kozloduy 5 and 6. Furthermore the EBRD Nuclear Safety Audit maintains that for Kozloduy 1-4 to continue operating then Kozloduy 5 and 6 must be recommissioned. In other words there is a huge incentive to recommission Kozloduy 5 and 6 without necessarily closing down reactors 1-4 at the same time. According to the Committee on the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes (CUAEPP), the recomissioning of Kozloduy 5 and 6 fails to reach the most important and urgent standards for a technology upgrade. The recommissioning project is co ordinated by Westinghouse in consortium with Siemens and Edf, a Russian company. After three years delay in the project, Westinghouse has suddenly became very active. Within two weeks of the project's re instatement Westinghouse announced it's new plan for delivering a digital management control system. A loan from Eximbank has been arranged. The new project has been criticized by the Chair of CUAEPP, Mr. Kaschiev, for its low safety standards. Yet despite these concerns, Westinghouse is pushing the project ahead quickly, in order - it says - to stop Eximbank backing out of its commitment to finance the project. But many questions remain unanswered about the project: why again Westinghouse, why now, why exactly this equipment, how is it linked to the rest of the rehabilitation at Kozloduy? As this nuclear-obsessed cotporation pushes ahead with its dangerous projects, the Bulgarian people are demanding answers. For more information contact: ZA ZEMIATA, P.O. Box 975, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria, tel: 00 3592 65 82 16, email:ftearth@bulnet.bg For more information about the campaign against Siemens see Peacenews August! September 1997. In Britain, EarthFirst! in Oldham, Greater Manchester have been undertaking a campaign which includes direct action targeted at Siemens. Contact: 0161 62851128 Intemationally a boycott of Siemens products is underway. Perhaps best known of these is Osram light fittings. For further information contact: Koordinationskreis Siemens-Boykott, Friedriebstrasse 165, D-10117 Berlin. Tel: +49 30 2044748; Fax: 2044785; Email:Siemens~Boycott@t~0nline.~~ http:I/ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/criticam _shareholders/siemens.htm |
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| Westinghouse, Its record, guilty or not guilty?
1974 Philippines: bribe (sales commission) of US$17.1 admitted by Rertrninio Disini for persuading President Marcos to build the Bataan Nuclear Plant. 1977 Canada: fined CAN$ 150K, illegal monopolistic behaviour - preventing competition in light build business. |