Alert for a possible new nuclear power plant | The …

Before taking part in the G-20 meeting in Japan, the chief of staff, Marcos Peña, stopped in Beijing, China, to revive an agreement that has faced the popular will since 2015 and Antinaruclear movement of the Argentine Republic (MARA).

At a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, Peña revealed "his intention to go forward" in the installation of a fourth nuclear power plant in the country, with Chinese technology. The attempt, which failed Rio Negro in 2017, would now concern the complex of Atucha, Zárate, one hundred kilometers from the most populous region of the country, in order to exchange a loan of 2,500 millions of dollars freely available.

"We warned the population that we would become China's nuclear guinea pigs," said the MARA statement, which brings together environmental organizations from across the country. The warning is due to the fact that the nuclear power plant project that was bailed out is that of the Hwalong-1 model. "An experimental technology without reactors in operation", explains the text signed, among others, by the Antinuclear Movement of Chubut, which warns for more than 25 years of the dangers of this type of energy.

"We are ratifying the links of cooperation and we agree to continue advancing mechanisms to increase trade and cultural exchanges," Peña summarized after the visit to China, adding that discussions were underway on the issue. food export agreement and the opening of the Chinese market to China. soy flour. Regarding the nuclear power plant, he said "there is an intention to go forward," without specifying that the government will maintain it related to the approval of a loan $ 2.5 billion in free availability.

"In 2018, when Argentina contracted a debt with the IMF, Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne said that nuclear energy was expensive, but the government is now reviving the issue. There is no technical badessment of sources of energy, security, but the search for a financial agreement that saves the government, "he warned PageI12, Agustín Saiz, member of the Zárate-Campana Anti-Nuclear Movement and member of the MARA.

The nuclear power plants that China intends to promote on the Argentine soil, from Kirchner's management, are two. A year before the agreement with the IMF, Macri had ratified this deal during his China tour in May 2017, when the Chinese capital's entry into the Veladero and Pascua-Lama mines had also been sealed.

The same year, in 2017, attempts were made to lay the foundations of another nuclear power plant in the city of Sierra Grande, Rio Negro, which was rejected due to the mobilization of the inhabitants and the very low participation in Referendum.

Macri shared this enthusiasm for the project with the then Speaker of the PJ Bloc in the Senate and the current Vice-President of the Government, Miguel Angel Pichetto, who had started his career as a politician. # 39; lawyer of the former mining company of this city of Rio Negro. Unlike the Hwalong-1 model, based on enriched uranium and light water, the plant rejected by the Río Negro bademblies was a CANDU reactor, based on natural uranium and heavy water, a model for which Argentina could provide knowledge, manpower and materials.

"We denounce the fact that the nuclear power plant is an energy absurdity and that the very high costs of construction will be subsidized by the Argentine people, thus supporting the loan of the Chinese government, which could easily be replaced by renewable and cost-effective sources. of a third, central nucleoeléctrica project, "said MARA before the government maneuver that raised the renewable energy flag as part of its campaign.

Saizi, representative of the movement of the neighbors who live with Atucha I and II, warned that these agreements "ignore the democratic consultative bodies and impose nuclear technologies, when there are alternatives to avoid the risk of a risk." new plant ". "When a nuclear project is transported to a virgin zone, as it happened in Rio Negro, it reacts, but in Buenos Aires, the risk of living with the nuclear power station has been naturalized," he said. he declared.

Member of the Zárate-Campana Anti-Nuclear Movement said that even if no accident occurs, endangering the water resources and livability of the country's most populous region, "at the expiration of life reactors, we will be left with the problem of dismantling the reactors and making nuclear waste ". "No one can guarantee, in the long term, what the political, social or climatic conditions will be," he insisted.

"The risk exists, according to people who may be high or low, but as a community, we do not want to discuss the risks badociated with expensive projects that will put us at risk economically. the use of renewable energies is very high and this government, faced with the energetic crisis, had an opportunity and raised it in a deficient or advanced way in favor of friendly groups, "he said. said, finally, Saiz, referring to renewable energy project offers involving the presidential family and being investigated in the judicial field