Reply to 9th report on the activities of the European Nuclear Energy Agency
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly Debate on 2nd February 1968 (20th Sitting) (see Doc. 2321,Doc. 2321, report of the Economic Committee). Text adopted by the Assembly on 2nd February 1968 (20th Sitting).
The Assembly,
1. Thanks the Council of OECD for the transmission of the 9th annual report on the activities of the European Nuclear Energy Agency ;
2. Noting the valuable results already achieved by the Dragon and Halden Joint Nuclear Reactor Projects ; underlining the unique nature of these enterprises which are conceived so as to enable collective practical experiments to be made by European countries as to which of a vast number of theoretical means of reducing the future costs of generation of nuclear electric power on a commercial scale are likely to offer the best results in actual practice ; welcoming the rigorous economic criteria which have been applied to the assessment of the results obtained ; recording its satisfaction at the fact that the Halden Project has been prolonged until the end of 1969 ; observing with concern that so far as the Dragon Project on the assessment of the highly promising economic potentialities of High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Nuclear Reactors is concerned, budgetary uncertainties in Euratom (one of the Contracting Parties to the Project) have hitherto prevented the formal extension of the Project beyond the end of 1967 ; convinced that, having regard to the present advanced stage of the Dragon Project, it would be wholly regrettable and a waste of already committed resources, if it were to become necessary to abandon this field to American enterprise ; learning with relief that, pending further discussion on a formal extension of this Project, the Contracting Parties have arrived at a modus vivendi which will permit Dragon to be continued to at least the end of 1968 ; reiterates the importance which it attaches to the prolongation of the Project until April 1970 - the date foreseen for the conclusion of the present series of experiments, and expresses the hope that if, unfortunately, Euratom's continued participation were in the event to prove impossible, the six member countries of Euratom would make up Euratom's share of the costs of the Project by direct national contributions ;
3. Having regard to its comments in previous years on the problematical economic outlook for the Eurochemic Fuel Reprocessing Company, welcomes the decision of the Governments participating in the Eurochemic Project "to undertake, at once, a study of the conditions under which Eurochemic should operate in future (which will) attempt to assess the value of continued operation of the Plant beyond 1969 and to consider what changes, if any, seem appropriate in the Company's objectives and structure" ;
4. Conscious that, having regard to the steady increase in the level of peaceful nuclear operations in Europe, the volume of radioactive wastes which must be disposed of will inevitably grow rapidly ; aware of the many technical and political problems which arise in the context of finding a safe and economic method of disposing of such wastes ; convinced that in many cases these problems can only be resolved by a common European effort ; warmly welcomes the cooperative studies and experiments initiated by ENEA into the possibilities of disposing of certain of these wastes in the Atlantic Ocean ;
5. Noting with concern the fact that the construction of nuclear power capacity in many European countries is being seriously hindered by the inability of existing power networks in those countries to absorb individual generating units providing 400 - 600 MW each - the minimum size at which nuclear plant generally has any prospect of a clear cost advantage over conventional plant ; aware that these hindrances would be greatly diminished if, among other things, further international co-operation in the planning and development of power supply systems were promoted in Western Europe ; recalling its previous observations in this sense over the last few years notably in
Recommendation 339 ; similarly recalling the Recommendation adopted by the Council of OECD in October 1967 to facilitate the conclusion of mutual assistance contracts ; believes it to be highly desirable that OECD pursue with urgency its work to encourage such international co-operation with particular reference to the problems posed by large nuclear power units ;
6. Congratulates ENEA on the progress it has achieved in the co-operative distribution of scientific and technical information described in paragraphs 109 - 150 of its 9th report, and looks forward to fruitful collaboration in this field between ENEA and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
7. Welcoming the information contained in paragraph 186 of the 9th report according to which "for several years the levels of radioactivity measures ... (have) been only a fraction of those which would give rise to anxiety ... (and) the general level of environmental radioactivity has continued to fall during 1966 following the trend observed previously" ; conscious that this development has been largely due to the absence during the period in question of a significant volume of testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere ; aware that both French and Chinese atmosphere tests of nuclear weapons may be expected in the coming months ; expresses its belief that, were by any chance a marked increase in environmental radioactivity in Europe to occur, the recently introduced "simplified" system for the exchange between ENEA countries of information on environmental radioactivity should be urgently reviewed with a view to examining whether a more comprehensive exchange of information was not called for ;
8. Reiterating the importance which it attaches to the entry into force of the OECD Convention of 1960 on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy (as amended by the Additional Protocol of January 1964); noting that one further ratification of the Convention and the Additional Protocol would bring the Convention into force ; welcomes the fact that the Turkish Parliament has recently passed a law authorising the completion of the ratification process by Turkey, and looks forward to the early completion of the necessary formalities for the consequent deposit of the appropriate instrument of ratification.
