France: Nuclear Safety Authority stops construction on ITER fusion reactor site

 Le Monde:

On the pharaonic construction site of the prototype of the ITER nuclear fusion reactor at the Cadarache site (Bouches-du-Rhône), it is not just the workers who are busy. The engineers had to change their priorities to respond quickly to the long list of requests from the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), so that the assembly of this unique machine in the world continues on schedule.

ASN's requests, in the form of a letter addressed by its chairman to the director general of the international organization ITER, were revealed on 21 February by the news site New Energy Times, which is highly critical of the energy of merger. The missive is not good news. It indicates that, as it stands, the assembly of the reactor cannot begin, in particular the key and irreversible stage of welding the first two elements together, out of nine, constituting the vacuum chamber 19.4 meters in diameter and 11.4 meters high, in which the fusion reactions must take place.

Nord Stream 2: constructions works continue

 In the Baltic Sea, the Russian laying vessel "Fortuna" is now continuing to build the controversial German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2. "The" Fortuna "is currently working in German waters according to the existing permits and the announcements made by the authorities," said a spokesman for the Nord Stream 2 AG on Sunday the German Press Agency. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) in Hamburg had previously approved the continuation of the work.

Pipes should now be laid over a length of two kilometers. The background to this is a decision by the BSH, according to which there are currently no resting birds there that need to be protected. Therefore - as originally planned - there is no need to wait until the end of May to start work, it said.

The pipes may be placed on the seabed, the assembly should take place later, it said. The two kilometers are in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). According to information from Nord Stream 2, work with the Russian laying vessel «Akademik Tscherski» is currently also ongoing in Danish waters.

The Naturschutzbund Deutschland (Nabu) and Deutsche Umwelthilfe went to court against the BSH approval from January for further construction in the German EEZ, with reference to birds resting in the protected area. The office has now allowed the pipes to be placed on the seabed until construction continues, since the birds' resting time in this short section is over.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany has largely been completed. According to the information, 13.9 kilometers of one strand and 16.8 kilometers of the second strand are missing in German waters. The USA and several European countries are against the pipeline because they fear that Europe is too dependent on Russian gas.

The US has issued sanctions to prevent prefabricated construction. But Washington recently refrained from harsher punitive measures out of consideration for the federal government in Berlin, which supports the pipeline for energy security in Europe. Russia hopes to end the project in the next few months and to be able to pump the first gas through the 1,230-kilometer pipeline this year.

Source: WELT