Greenpeace International - According to leaked documents published today in the UK 'Independent on Sunday' newspaper, customers of troubled nuclear company, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), are deeply dissatisfied over massive cost overruns and failures in key facilities at Sellafield. According to the documents, customers are considering legal action if the situation continues.
Five Greenpeace France activists were arrested by French Interior Ministry police, CRS, this morning, while protesting at the gates and railway line of the Cogema nuclear transport depot at Valognes. The action, which began on Saturday, was in protest against the imminent transport of plutonium/MOX fuel from Europe to Japan. At around 1.00 am, the activists were bundled into a waiting police van after having their chains and neck locks cut from the gates of Cogema's depot.
Greenpeace today warned coastal nations around the world to be on high alert for a deadly weapons-usable plutonium/MOX fuel shipment from Europe to Japan. The armed nuclear transport freighters the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal began to leave the British port of Barrow-in-Furness this morning bound for the French port of Cherbourg where they will load the plutonium cargo before an eight week 30,000km journey to Japan.
Greenpeace today condemned the announcement in Tokyo that the British Government has agreed to take back plutonium MOX fuel from Japan, saying it was unnecessary and threatened the environment and security of countries along the transport route.
Greenpeace welcomed today's announcement by German Environment minister Juergen Trittin, that Germany will ban imports of plutonium fuel (MOX) from Britain until it was satisfied with Sellafield's safety standards, as "a good first step to ending Britain's plutonium trade for good".
"BNFL's dreams of a plutonium empire have collapsed," said Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Helen Wallace, "It's time for Tony Blair to bite the bullet and recognise that reprocessing and Mox production are dead-end technologies being promoted by dead-beat company."
Greenpeace described today's news that the German nuclear company PruessenElektra has decided to switch off its reactor and remove its BNFL plutonium fuel (MOX) as "the only responsible thing they could have done".
Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Helen Wallace said, "It is time the British Government faced facts and found the off-switch for Sellafield's reprocessing plants. Britain's plutonium business is over, and the widespread pollution and threat to human health Sellafield still produces is unjustifiable."
Eight key issues the NII report on Japanese MOX fuel should have addressed
BNFL only admitted it had falsified safety data on MOX fuel after the Independent newspaper found out. Then it repeatedly denied that any data on the fuel sent to Japan was falsified, until data released in Japan, and a memo from the NII, showed otherwise. The NII report can only be reliable if all the documents and data related to the scandal are released.
