Spent nuclear waste fuel shipments from German nuclear power plants to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria are about to resume. This will be the first time waste has been transported from Germany to Sellafield since shipments were stopped in 1998.
Three casks of nuclear waste are rumoured to be due to leave the Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant on 23rd April. They will travel by sea to Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria and then be taken by train to the reprocessing plant at Sellafield.
This will only be the beginning. Almost 1,000 tonnes(1) of German nuclear waste - about 200 flasks (2)- are due to be delivered to Sellafield over the next four years - before July 2005.
The reprocessing plant at Sellafield is one of the largest sources of radioactive emissions into the environment in the whole of Europe. "With every gram of nuclear waste that leaves Germany for Sellafield," says Greenpeace nuclear campaigner, Pete Roche "the Irish Sea becomes a bit more heavily radioactively contaminated."
"The public must feel they've been taken for a ride," says Roche "the German government says it is opposed to reprocessing, and wants to see an end to discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea from Sellafield, yet now here they are giving two fingers to the Irish and Scandinavian countries that suffer from the pollution, as well as the British public."
"Green environment minister Mr Trittin has given his consent for German nuclear companies to dump their radioactive waste at Sellafield, rather than storing it themselves - perfectly feasible alternative" says Roche. "Trittin is helping the German nuclear industry perpetrate one of the greatest environmental crimes of our time."
Notes for editor's:
(1) 1,000 tonnes.
According to the BNFL MOX Market Review, of 970 tonnes contracted for the baseload period, 535 have arrived = 435 still to come. NAC report says post baseload contracts amount to 634 tonnes. MOX market review says 100 tonnes already arrive = 534 still to come. 435+534 = 969 tonnes
(2) 200 casks - see Nucleonics Week 12th April
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Greenpeace on 020 7865 8255
