– I’m tired of seeing that nothing is being done with these huge sulfur emissions, said Mayor Rune Rafaelsen (Ap) in Sør-Varanger to Bellona.
In the decade after decades nickel plant in the Russian towns of Nikel, Zapolyarny and Mochegorsk spewed sulfur fumes added vegetation deserted on the Kola Peninsula – but polluted rough on the Norwegian side of the border. There is no distance great.
Behind the nickel plant, which also produces palladium for the benefit of electric cars and mobile phones, stands oligarch who, according to Bloomberg is Russia’s richest, Vladimir Potanin.
There are Potanin Rafaelsen will frame so he finally does something about emissions.
– Norway must publicly declare that Vladimir Potanin is the main threat to the Arctic environment: Norilsk Nickel is the largest source of emissions of sulfur dioxide and heavy metals in the Arctic environment, says Rafaelsen.
– why should not Potanin allowed to travel to Europe until smelters in Nikel is environmentally safe, he adds.
See also: Bellona: Russian emissions in north straight up
– the only thing that isnt
Rafaelsen was in his time to pull off the action “Stop dødsskyan”, including Others with Thomas Nilsen, who is now editor of BarentsObserver.
Nilsen joins requirement from Rafaelsen.
He has followed the controversy over nickel works as an activist for 25 years ago and as a reporter now.
SULPHUR billionaire Vladimir Potanin, here in a photo from 2007, earning big money polluting the Arctic by producing nickel and palladium, which is used to EVs. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP / NTB scanpix
– I think that economic sanctions against Potanin and company Norilsk Nickel is the only thing that can help to do something about environmental problems. Everything else has been tried. Travel ban and the freezing of funds of the EU, both capital and properties, should go hand in hand, says Thomas Nilsen told ABC News.
He says that the company OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel accounts for a third of the world’s total production of nickel and a significant proportion of copper and palladium. Nickel and palladium are used among others for electric cars and mobiles. Operations are conducted on the Kola Peninsula near the border with Norway, and in Norilsk in Siberia.
Nickel Group served over 10 billion the first half of this year, reports the Barents Observer.
also read: Cleaner air in Europe makes the Arctic warmer
Russia: – the emissions greatly reduced
Norwegian authorities granted many years ago 300 million to purification measures at the nickel plant in Nikel, despite that the owner thus wallowing in money. – The company has never made use of the money, Nilsen however tell.
– It is not screwed in a screw in Nikel compared to how it looked 25 years ago, he adds.
embassy of Russia in Oslo writes more uplifting questions from ABC News, the measures taken have reduced emissions significantly during the last 10-15 years. A program for technological restructuring to be implemented, will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 28 percent by 2018 compared with 2014.
– It is true that sulfur emissions are reduced, confirms Thomas Nilsen.
– the reason is that until 1994, imported nickel ore from Norilsk in Siberia. The ore contained three times as much sulfur as the local ore on the Kola Peninsula. Therefore, emissions were three times higher until 1994 than they are today, he adds.
That emissions should be reduced by 28 per cent to 2018, has Nilsen no faith in.
– it takes no technical modernizations suggesting that it’s going to happen, he says.
According to Nilsen happens company albeit over a new technology at a pellet plant in Zapolyarni two mil east of Nikel.
– there one has made pellets with a method where you have used sulfur in the ore. Now they use electricity. Thus, emissions of sulfur thence be greatly reduced. But sulfur does not disappear. It moves you to the smelter in Nickel, where the pellets are melted, he explains.
Pollution see no limit:
Here is the map showing how close Nikel is South- Varanger and Kirkenes.
No comments:
Post a Comment