Nuclear free Pacific flotilla
The Ships and Escort
BNFL is using two ships owned by its subsidiary Pacific Nuclear Transport
- 5721gt Pacific Pintail carrying the nuclear waste.
- 4863gt Pacific Teal is providing an armed escort.
HMS Nottingham was reportedly meant to act as an escort but it ran aground on Wolf Rock near Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea 300 miles north east of Sydney. The communications mast of a submarine has been spotted following the ships.
What they are carrying
255kg of plutonium and uranium oxide (and 7 tonnes of ammunition and 2200 tonnes of fuel). There is enough plutonium to make 50 nuclear weapons. Only 5kg is needed for a single nuclear bomb. The 8 MOX fuel assemblies are being transported in two casks that weigh up to 100 tons.
The Route
The 18,000 mile route the ships will take is from Takahama in Japan south through the Pacific and Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, west across the Southern Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa.) eventually ending up in Barrow-in-Furness.
Criticisms of Security Arrangements
Security arrangements are vetted by the UK Office of Civil Nuclear Security, part of the Department of Trade and Industry. The transport plan also complies with the international Maritime Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency. There are 13 veterans of the British special services employed by the UKAEA constabulary on the ships.
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Small boat attack: critics say that the ships should have special radar to shield them from attack by light aircraft or fast boats. Reports warn of sabotage plans near the Straight of Gibraltar. A similar attack using a small boat damaged the American destroyer Cole in the port city of Aden, Yemen in October 2000.
In 1999 Benjamin Gilman, the Chairman of the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to express concern about plans to deliver MOX fuel to Japan by ship.
