Nuclear

Looking back at the Windscale nuclear disaster, 50 years on

Posted by bex — 10 October 2007 at 12:18pm - Comments

Today is the official end of the government's nuclear "consultation" (more on that coming soon). It's also the 50th anniversary of the world's second biggest nuclear disaster - at Windscale, now known as Sellafield, in West Cumbria.

Jean McSorley, a nuclear consultant, has written about the disaster in today's Guardian. It's powerful stuff, so I'm posting an extract here:

 

"I opened the gag-port and there it was - a fire at the face of the reactor. I thought: 'Oh dear, now we are in a pickle.'" Those were the words of the late Arthur Wilson, the instrument technician who discovered the Windscale fire on October 10 1957, in No 1 of the twin plutonium piles. It signalled the beginning of the world's second biggest nuclear reactor accident.

Article tagged as: nuclear disasters, nuclear power, reactor safety, sellafield, windscale

Mafia accused of trafficking nuclear waste

Posted by bex — 9 October 2007 at 3:02pm - Comments

There's a truly frightening story – and a sharp reminder that its failure to tackle climate change isn’t the only problem with nuclear power - in The Guardian today.

A mafia clan in Italy is accused of trafficking nuclear waste and trying to make plutonium (ie nuclear weapons). It's alleged, says The Guardian, "to have made illegal shipments of radioactive waste to Somalia, as well as seeking the 'clandestine production' of other nuclear material".

Eight former employees of the state energy research agency Enea, suspected of paying the mafia to take the nuclear waste off their hands, are also being investigated.

"An Enea manager is said to have paid the clan to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the US… with Somalia as the destination lined up by the traffickers… But with only room for 500 drums on a ship waiting at the northern port of Livorno, 100 drums were secretly buried somewhere in the southern Italian region of Basilicata."

The full story's here.

Article tagged as: nuclear power, nuclear weapons, proliferation

Haven't we got enough already - why is more nuclear waste heading our way?

Posted by jossc — 1 October 2007 at 12:56pm - Comments

Despite the close attentions of coastguard ships and helicopters, not to mention an anti-terrorist task force, 30 Greenpeace activists in inflatable boats intercepted a British Nuclear Group ship this morning as it headed towards Sweden to pick up a cargo of nuclear waste. The intense level of protection around the Atlantic Osprey meant that its arrival was only delayed by an hour or so before docking at the nuclear facility at Studsvik, where it will pick up 4.8 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel, due for reprocessing at Sellafield's MAGNOX plant.

Article tagged as: BNG, magnox, nuclear waste, sellafield, sweden

A personal account of the government's nuclear consultation

Posted by jamie — 12 September 2007 at 10:40am - Comments

The government's public consultation on the future of nuclear power in this country - part of its shambolic energy review - was held on Saturday, but no one from Greenpeace was there. Along with several other organisations, we withdrew from the process as its become clear it's just another stitch-up in the government's attempts to force nuclear power on us.

Article tagged as: climate change, energy review, nuclear, nuclear power
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