TEMELIN BLOCKADE

And how Westinghouse and U.S. taxpayers caused the rebirth of a Soviet nuclear reactor

November 1989. Armies of students, workers, intellectuals and farmers take to the streets of Prague. The Berlin Wall has crumbled. The Soviet Union’s Eastern Bloc is falling apart with dizzying speed. In Prague, hundreds of thousands of protestors demand the resignation of perhaps the hardest-line Soviet-style government in the region. It takes only a few short weeks for a poet, playwright, and human rights activist named Vaclav Havel to become President of Czechoslovakia.

Not a shot is fired in what has become known as the Velvet Revolution. The only casualties, other than the ousted government, are much of the world-renowned Czech arms business and a half-finished Soviet-designed nuclear power plant 90 miles south of Prague called Temelin.

No one wants a new nuclear project in Czechoslovakia, especially not one designed by the hated Soviet Union. Memories of Chernobyl, just three years ago, remain strong. Local residents already have protested the plant, even before the Revolution, though their protests were rebuffed and repressed. But now, without Soviet backing, the nuclear complex has no funding. The Czech government wants to rebuild, and drastically alter, the nation’s economy. Finishing Temelin would divert too much money. Temelin’s future appears assured: it will join the scores of half-built nuclear reactors around the world that serve mostly as semi-official sources for recycled construction materials.

July 1997. A new army of protestors, gathered from across Europe, march down a winding two-lane road through the countryside of South Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. Slovakia has long become an independent country. Only the weather—cold, gray and damp—reminds one of that earlier November. Over the hill, past a turn in the road, and Temelin’s four cooling towers cast a shadow over the pastoral view of rolling hills, forest, and farmland.

Another turn, up another hill, and the hundreds of protestors reach a church directly across the street from Temelin’s main gate. It is one of the few buildings in the area that have not been destroyed by the plant’s construction. Three entire towns, Brezi, Krtinov, and Temelinec were leveled and their residents "resettled."

After a few speeches, and, of all things, a wedding, the protestors move en masse toward the plant. A few jump the fence and climb quickly on top of a nearby building. In seconds, a large banner drops down from the building. "Temelin, it isn’t over yet," the banner states. No police are in sight and only a few guard the main gate, which is blocked off by temporary fencing.

It’s the kind of fence that can be kicked over easily, and it is. 600 people swarm over the fence and onto the grounds of the now-90% complete two-unit Temelin complex. They rush to the steps of the administration building and raise opposition flags on the vacant flagpoles. Then they congregate and sit down in front of another, much more secure, razor fence protecting the two containment buildings which rise above the earth like enormous misplaced mausoleums. A few police drive up in a van, scan the crowd, and drive away again. A few more police drive in smaller cars around the site, it is clear they don’t exactly know what to do.

The protestors then form an enormous human circle around the plant’s main square, holding hands and preparing themselves, joyfully, for what lies ahead. Then they leave the plant voluntarily—the police still haven’t made a move. But occupying, really, liberating, the grounds isn’t the point. The real action begins tomorrow, Monday, when these people will attempt to stop the Temelin workforce from reaching the complex, when they will attempt to stop the construction of this nightmare-in-the-making, this reactor that seemingly won’t go away no matter how much reason and how many economic and safety studies, and how many countries and politicians say it should be stopped.

Now begins the Temelin blockade.

The Birth and Death of Temelin

Construction began on Temelin in 1986. It was to be a four-unit plant, each about 900 MW, using a Soviet VVER-1000 Pressurized Water Reactor design. The design was the flagship of the Soviet nuclear fleet, its closest copy of a Western reactor. But it still suffers from major flaws; for example, like Chernobyl, it has a positive reactivity void coefficient, which under certain conditions can make the reactor’s power levels spiral out of control in seconds. Its containment buildings look, from the outside, much like their counterparts in the West. But they’re not nearly as strong, and inside them are undersized reactor pressure vessels that may not be able to hold enough water under accident conditions, and are particularly susceptible to embrittlement. None of this means that Western reactors are safe, just that the VVER-1000, despite its aspirations, is fundamentally flawed and can’t even meet Western standards.

Protests against the plant, spurred by Chernobyl, started almost immediately after construction was announced. 60 of the 64 villages in the area went on record against the plant. But the government paid scant attention, and construction proceeded.

After the Velvet Revolution, however, things began to change. Construction slowed to a near-stop. The new country’s first Prime Minister, Petr Pithart, opposed completion of the plant and the government had more pressing priorities. Austria, whose border lies within 20 miles of Temelin, actively argued against the complex. And ordinary citizens, flush with the realization that protest can make a difference, turned out in huge numbers in demonstrations against Temelin. By 1990, the regional government had revoked the construction permits for units 3 and 4. In 1991, some 10,000 people came to the main gate of the plant for a festival of opposition. It appeared that Temelin would indeed be stopped.

Enter Westinghouse and the rest of the Western nuclear industry.

 July 7, 1997, early morning.

There are 11 gates to the sprawling Temelin complex, whose perimeter runs some seven miles in circumference. Six of the gates, however, are too small to be important. They can accommodate only foot traffic or a few cars. But at Temelin, most workers arrive by bus, from nearby villages, cities like Ceske Budejovice, about 20 miles away, and even from Prague, which is 90 miles due North. The buses begin arriving at 5 am, and continue arriving for two hours. Working to build Temelin is generally considered a good job in the Czech Republic: the work is stable, wages aren’t bad, and, if it all has to end someday when the plant is finally completed, well, it won’t be finished today. Given its record of cost overruns and delays, it won’t be finished tomorrow either.

This is the fifth Temelin blockade. The first was held in 1993, when the government finally acknowledged that it was planning to finish the plant. 50 people showed up, and were promptly arrested. In 1994, 150 came; 250 in 1996, and 350 in 1996. This year, at least 600 are present. Slightly more than ½ are from the Czech Republic, the rest are from nearby Slovakia, Austria, and across Europe. Forty, mostly with an eco-anarchist group called Rainbow Keepers, come from Russia and Ukraine. In all, 23 countries are represented. There is a smattering of Americans. Most have lived in Europe for extended periods, many of them have been involved in the planning and organizing for the actions.

The idea of the blockade is simple: use people-power to block the five main gates to the plant, and the workers can’t get in. The reality isn’t so easy. Over the years, the blockaders have developed a number of tactics to help them hold a gate when the police try to clear it. For example, people handcuff themselves to each other inside of tubes made of concrete with a steel outer liner. The tubes are quite heavy, but difficult for the police to break. Last year, people chained themselves to ½ ton concrete barrels placed at the gates, which proved incredibly difficult for the police to move; this year, the police have caught on to that tactic and move quickly to stop delivery of the barrels.

Despite the props, the blockaders are irrevocably non-violent: participants are even asked to sign a written pledge of non-violence. For the most part, the police respond in-kind.

After the circle inside the plant grounds, people break up into affinity groups, and go to their respective gates. Two of the gates are held by Czechs; one by the Rainbow Keepers and other Russians, and two are composed of international activists. Police lines at each of the gates make it impossible to do anything but sit, so most people just sit on the road. It’s still very early, only 7 pm, and the first buses won’t begin arriving for 10 hours, so there is plenty of time to think and plan. The mood is joyous at Gate 5, one of the international gates. People dance, stand on their heads, do guerilla theater. The weather has broken, temporarily, and the sun is nearly shining. Food arrives, courtesy of the Dutch group Rampenplan, which has the logistical nightmare of providing three meals a day, coffee, and water to people at five different gates—often behind police lines—a main campsite, and a building and office four miles away. They do an admirable job.

Suddenly, coming down the hill, from inside the plant grounds, is a group of 100 people. They’re called the grasshoppers, and they have scaled fences and are coming at the police lines from the wrong side—wrong from the police viewpoint anyway. As the people at the gate see them, and the confusion on the faces of the police, they begin running through the police lines to greet the newcomers, and to move the blockade 100 yards up the road, where it is much narrower and easier to hold. Only one person is caught; he is beaten, but not severely, by police, who finally let him go when they realize their line has not held. A barricade begins to go up on the road. We get reports, by walkie talkie, that similar scenes are occurring at other gates. The Rainbow Keepers already have one large barricade up at their gate, and a second is being built.

It’s still early though, and the police have time to regroup. They seem to have decided that Gate 5 will be where they bring the buses the next morning, and in the early morning hours they strike, surrounding and arresting 51 people who had decided to stay the night. The police also retake three of the other four gates, and the workers arrive at their jobs without significant problem.

The workers arrive in the rain, and the rain continues most of the day. It’s a cold rain, made colder by constant 20-30 mph winds. The blockaders see little point in trying to take back the gates during the day solely to be wet and tired when the police arrive again in the early morning hours. Except for the Rainbow Keepers, who have erected a third barricade 50 yards down their road—nobody is going through that gate--most people settle in for some rest.

The Rebirth of Temelin

In the days after the Velvet Revolution, and similar upheavals across Eastern Europe, even at the height of optimism that nuclear projects would be abandoned across the continent, the Western nuclear industry began talking to their newly-privatized Eastern counterparts. In a word, the Western industry smelled profits.

By 1992, just as it appeared Temelin’s fate was sealed forever, two things occurred. Vaclav Klaus, an apostle of free-market figurehead Margaret Thatcher, was elected Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. And Westinghouse, and Siemens, and other Western companies appeared on the scene. They convinced the new government that Temelin should be completed.

Truth be told, the Czech Republic has serious pollution problems from old, dirty coal-burning power plants scattered throughout Northern Bohemia. But independent studies told the government that energy efficiency, conservation, hydropower and cogeneration were the cheapest and most effective way to address those problems. But studies were no match for the lobbyists and freewheeling money dispensers of the Western nuclear industry, and Temelin was reborn. The only issue was who would build it, and how on earth could a Russian-designed reactor be completed by a Western company.

In 1993, the Czech government made its formal decision: complete Temelin. Westinghouse was awarded the primary contract.

Westinghouse’s idea was to take the basic, though unfinished plant, and graft new Western technology onto it. The basic VVER technology would remain, such as the undersized pressure vessel, and the Czech-built steam generators, but Westinghouse would lay over that newer instrumentation and control features, new computers and software, perhaps a few other enhancements. They told the Czech government that unit 1 would be finished by 1995 (it was so close to done already) and unit 2 by 1997 at a total cost of $2.5 Billion.

To top things off, and to ensure it would be paid, Westinghouse arranged for the Czech government to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. To the Bank, it was just a move to ensure that a U.S. company would receive the contract, and the Czech government was considered a fairly good risk to repay the loans. But if anything went wrong, Westinghouse would be covered. The guarantees received support from the highest levels of the Clinton administration. Said Vice-President Al Gore, "If we don’t build it, the Germans [i.e. Siemens] will."

Hnuti Duha, or Friends of the Earth, Czech Republic, sent a full-time campaigner to the U.S. in 1994 to try to stop the Ex-Im Bank loans. Paxus Calta, now a NIRS board member, worked to mostly deaf ears among the U.S. environmental community, but still succeeded in getting some 50 Congressmembers to question the loans. Questioning wasn’t enough, however, and the Bank, which still believes nuclear power is a good investment, approved the loans.

Since then, Temelin has been repeatedly delayed, just as reactors Westinghouse built in the 1970s and 1980s in the U.S. were consistently late. Completion date, for these reactors that allegedly are almost finished, is officially April 1999 for Unit 1 and sometime later for Unit 2. But many observers believe the reactors won't meet those deadlines. Meanwhile, the cost for the reactors has risen dramatically. It is not clear by exactly how much the costs have grown, however, since neither the Czech government nor CEZ, the Czech utility, have released precise figures. But it is believed the full price tag for both units now exceeds $3.6 Billion, and may be substantially above that.

Meanwhile, to hold onto its contracts, Westinghouse has become embroiled in several bribery and bidding scandals. In mid-1996, for example, Czech newspapers began reporting on an incident in which CEZ re-opened for bidding a contract in which Westinghouse was not the low bidder. When the bidding was re-opened for this particular part of the plant, Westinghouse’s price suddenly dropped by nearly 50% (see Eye on Westinghouse).

With Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus’ wife, Livia Klaus, a key person on CEZ’s Board of Directors, it remains likely that the only real investigation of the charges will be in the media. The government and CEZ are not likely to be perturbed by a few little scandals. The U.S. media, of course, led by Westinghouse and CBS, have ignored the issue. And so the momentum to complete Temelin continues….

 Tuesday, July 8, 1997, early morning. By about 2 am, all of the gates have been reclaimed by protestors, most of whom are ensconced behind police lines, and behind barricades. At Gate 5, we learn from the police that they plan on breaking the barricade and line of protestors, who are now chained together, at 4 am. Promptly at 3:30 am, TV crews, alerted by the police, begin to show up. They fiddle with their cameras and wait, as do those of us as the base of Gate 5, who have promised to call up additional people if the police actually act.

Four am, passes, then 4:30. The camera crews and newspeople become agitated—why did you wake us up if you are not providing pictures for the media, they ask? The police look tired and outnumbered. And the barricade blocking Gate 5 looks even larger in the early morning dawn. The buses are scheduled to arrive any minute, but the police retire to a bus for food and a quick nap.

Five am, and the first buses arrive. The police obviously are not going to try to clear the gate; they just can’t do it. The buses roll up, and the few police left on duty throw up their hands, it is clear they are telling the bus drivers, "we don’t know how you can get into the plant, you can’t get in through this gate."

Wandering around the perimeter, it becomes evident that many buses are simply driving in circles, they can’t get into the plant. The blockade is succeeding! Finally, the police clear a small portion of Gate 4, the main gate. Workers coming by car can park, and walk through two layers of police lines, and then a group of protestors caught in the middle, and then another row of police, and go to work. But there is still no help for the buses.

The walkie-talkies are buzzing; the gates are holding! And the Temelin blockade is doing what it promised, it is literally stopping the nuclear industry in its tracks.

Finally, with a massive show of police force, and at least 20 arrests, Gate 10 is taken back by the police, and the buses begin to enter the complex. The workers don’t get an extra holiday, but they are quite late to the job.

Temelin Today

From the outside, Temelin looks almost like an operating nuclear plant. The cooling towers have been completed for years. Unit-1’s containment building, despite sporting some decidedly un-Western-like pipes running from the containment directly outside, also appears finished. A huge crane is putting the finishing touches on the Unit-2 building. Inside though, with this many workers coming through—thousands—the plant is obviously nowhere near completion. It reminds me of Zimmer, an Ohio reactor (another Westinghouse reactor) which, when allegedly 97% complete, suddenly ended construction when the utilities involved realized it would cost as much to finish the last 3% as it cost to do the initial 97%.

But Zimmer didn’t have loan guarantees from the Ex-Im Bank, and Temelin does. So it moves inexorably onward, despite numerous studies which conclusively show that the plant can never meet Western safety standards, that the plant is, in fact the "most cost" energy option for the inefficient energy economy of the Czech Republic, that, with any objective viewpoint, the plant simply is too expensive and makes no sense. But tell that to a Thatcherite prime minister whose wife runs the electric utility…

Still, the fact is that Temelin can be stopped. It isn’t finished, and despite a gaffe in which Westinghouse sent actual fuel rods to Temelin when only fake training rods were intended, there has been no fissioning at Temelin yet. The complex, built on a hill, may tower above its neighbors, providing an unwanted silhouette for miles around, but it isn’t too late. If Zimmer can be stopped, then certainly Temelin can.

If it will be stopped, however, it will be stopped because of international pressure; the Czechs can’t do it alone. The time has long passed since the Czechs believed in the power of protest, years of governments ignoring their wishes has seen to that. And many Czechs support Temelin, believing, naively, that nuclear power is well-regarded elsewhere. In the cafes of Prague, I have several conversations with young people from the Czech Republic. They are uniformly astonished to learn that I have come from the U.S, to protest Temelin, and want to know why I have done that. I explain that nuclear power isn’t safe, that I am embarrassed that Westinghouse seems to be forcing this complex onto their country, that our movement has to become international to combat multi-national companies. They listen, and voice some typical skepticisms heard by anti-nuclear activists everywhere: but it will be cheap, it is safe, we have no other source of power. In the end, though, they are persuaded. If only it were so easy everywhere.

In fact, in the Czech Republic, opposition to Temelin is a minority. Five years ago, only 20% opposed completion of the plant, which, after all, was sold as a symbol of national pride. Today, some 40% are against the plant, and the numbers continue to rise. A major effort of the blockade is simply to grow enough and garner enough publicity so that ordinary Czech citizens will talk about the plant, and learn about it; because once they do, they will oppose Temelin.

Wednesday, July 8, 1997. I spend the night with the Rainbow Keepers, at their gate that no one has even attempted to break through. This night, they are considering blocking a railroad track where they have seen trains arriving the previous two mornings, carrying construction supplies. There are long discussions; blocking a train is qualitatively different from blocking a road. In the end, we develop a good plan for stopping the train, one that does not involve risk to the people. But Hnuti Duha already has called off the blockade, for the news from the rest of the Czech Republic is news of disaster: flooding, and more flooding. Most of Moravia, a large section of the Czech Republic, is underwater. People have died, and hundreds of thousands are losing their homes and jobs. It is a terrible time for this to happen for the Czech economy, and for the country itself.

In the Czech Republic, history is real. People talk about what happened 100 years ago as if it happened yesterday. And there is still a national cohesion, a will to take care of each other. So when the Czech activists realized the flooding was perhaps the major natural disaster of their lifetime, their first inclination was to go and help. And so they did. They helped by calling off the blockade (later today, we had plans to go over the fences on ladders), by telling the police they would leave, so more police could go to Moravia, and by jumping on buses, so they could help directly. It likely wouldn’t happen in the U.S., the police and protestors suddenly working together, it certainly wouldn’t happen in Germany, but in the Czech Republic, it seems right.

The rail blockade is called off, and there are only some ineffective efforts to block Gate 10, which remains open all morning. There is a last demonstration Wednesday afternoon, and nobody goes over the fence. The blockade, partially successful, partially not, is over.

Except for the Rainbow Keepers, who didn’t come all the way from Russia to end a blockade early. The next morning, they block a gate, and some 30 are arrested and told to leave the country. It seems a fitting end. The Russians brought Temelin to the Czech Republic, and now they are the most adamant that it must never open.

Still, the burden of Temelin lies squarely on the U.S. Westinghouse is a U.S. company, the Ex-Im Bank is a U.S. institution that uses U.S. taxpayer dollars. If Temelin is to be stopped at this point, it will not be solely because Czech opinion has changed, public opinion is still largely ignored there. Rather, it will be because we in the U.S. have had enough misuse of our tax dollars, enough subsidies for rogue corporations, enough of the exportation of lethal technologies. Al Gore was wrong, if we don’t build it, odds are no one else will be able to, and in any case wouldn’t we be a damn sight better off if we didn’t have to take responsibility for the disaster that will be Temelin.

So, the choice becomes ours: we can acquiesce while Temelin is completed, or we can help stop it. We can start now to rid ourselves of complicity. We can turn off CBS. We can attack the Ex-Im Bank. We can tell our Congressmembers that we neither understand nor appreciate this use of our money. Because if we don’t do it, Temelin will be completed, and the catastrophe that inevitably awaits will not rise solely from Southern Bohemia, it will arise from Washington, and New York, and Los Angeles, and Chicago and across our country.

Friday, July 9, 1997. In a square in Prague, I run across some Rainbow Keepers. They are on their way out of the country, to another action camp, this one at Rostov, in Russia—another unfinished Soviet reactor. They have asked me several times to come with them and speak at Rostov, but my travel plans don’t work, I just can’t do it. They want to hear about the beginnings of our movement: the Clamshell Alliance, the Abalone Alliance, the mass arrests and demonstrations, and how we are now actually beginning to close nuclear reactors, and we’re certainly not opening any new ones. For them, my message is one of tremendous hope.

They have also warned that the Russian police are not nearly as polite as those in the Czech Republic, who actually were quite restrained. They are going to the Rostov camp knowing they are likely to be arrested, and perhaps far worse. But they are determined. I admire this band of young people, whose mentor seems to be the American professor, Murray Bookchin. The language barrier is too great to get into specifics, and I probably don’t agree with everything they argue, but there is no mistaking their commitment and courage.

They, and the people from 22 other countries who showed up at Temelin, give me hope, and just a bit of concern. Concern, because they still look to the U.S. movement for leadership, and I’m concerned that the U.S. movement can’t provide that right now. But hope because it is clear that they believe they can do anything, and with that attitude, perhaps they can. And perhaps, if we import a bit of that attitude, that defiance, here, and if we all understand that our movement is international, that we are fighting the same companies everywhere, that sometimes it is not enough to just send letters to Congress, but that we must act and educate and organize beyond our small group of friends, and finally, that we must put our bodies and hearts and souls on the line, then, just maybe, we can finally begin to end the nuclear age.

Michael Mariotte, July 17, 1997

Sidebars:

Eye on Westinghouse: The Temelin bidding scandals

What you can do to help stop Temelin