Nuclear companies across Europe warned to expect similar disruption
Thirty anti-nuclear campaigners, including five from the UK, have halted the building of a new nuclear reactor in France – and warned that any new nuclear reactors built in the UK can expect similar treatment.
On the twenty-first anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the activists from Greenpeace used trucks to block the entrance to the construction site at Flamanville in northern France and occupied cranes and other building equipment.
In the UK, existing nuclear sites are considered the most likely to be earmarked as locations for new nuclear reactors. These include:
- Dungeness in Kent;
- Hinkley Point in Somerset;
- Bradwell in Essex;
- Sizewell in Suffolk;
- Heysham in Lancashire;
- Oldbury in Gloucestershire;
- Sellafield in Cumbria.
The reactor under construction, known as a European Pressurized Water Reactor, is the most likely type to be proposed for the UK. There are grave concerns over the safety of these untried and untested new reactors.
The French energy company Electricité de France – known in the UK as EDF – is behind the new reactor construction and are known to favour building similar reactors in the UK.
Nathan Argent, Greenpeace nuclear campaigner, said: “No-one should expect that the action taken today to halt construction of this completely unnecessary nuclear reactor will be a one-off.
“If new nuclear power stations are given the go-ahead in the UK then their construction will be disrupted.
“Nuclear power is a dangerous distraction from implementing real solutions to climate change. There are much safer, more reliable and significantly cheaper approaches such as increased energy efficiency, renewable power technologies and the decentralising of our electricity and energy systems.”
A recent report by the Flood Hazard Research Centre showed that many nuclear sites are at risk from significant sea level rises and storm surges in the future and are not suitable locations for new nuclear reactors.
ENDS
Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255
