Greenpeace International, the prominent environmental organization, and other activists have condemned a $22-billion deal between Turkey, France and Japan to construct the second Turkish nuclear reactor.
The Anatolia News Agency reported over the weekend that Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Japanese leader Shinzo Abe signed an agreement in the Turkish capital of Ankara for the development of a 5,000-megawatt atomic power plant in Sinop, on Turkey’s northern coast along the Black Sea.
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he Sinop plant will be constructed by a Japanese-French consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (TYO: 7011) of Japan and Areva S.A. (EPA: AREVA) of France.
(Mitsubishi was involved in the building of the Fukushima plant, while France’s participation in a Turkish energy project was long delayed by the French government’s efforts to criminalize anyone who denied the Turkish-conducted genocide of Armenians during World War I. That proposed law ultimately failed to pass in the French National Assembly.)
Other major companies involved in the project are Japan’s Itochu Corp. (TYO: 8001) and the French utility, GDF Suez S.A. (EPA: GSZ)
Russia’s Rosatom has already agreed to build Turkey’s first nuclear power station — at Akkuyu, in Büyükeceli, Mersin Province on the southern coast — starting in mid-2015. It is expected to start producing electricity by 2019.
“This [project with Japan] is a very important deal,” Erdogan told reporters. “With this second nuclear plant, we have also taken the first step toward a third one, which is a lot to us.”
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(Like Japan, Turkey is also prone to earthquakes.)
“What happened at Fukushima upset all of us,” Erdogan added, reported the BBC. “But these things can happen. Life goes on. Successful steps are being taken now with the use of improved technology.”
Read more at No Nukes: Anti-Nuclear Activists Condemn Turkey’s Plans To Build Second Atomic Plant