nuclear transports

The collision between a heavy goods lorry and a train carrying nuclear flasks on its way to collect used nuclear fuel from Dungeness nuclear plant could have been a catastrophe causing many thousands of cancer cases and leaving parts of Kent uninhabitable, warned Greenpeace today

Despite international opposition two armed British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) ships set sail from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria this morning, on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster (1). The two vessels are bound for Japan to collect nuclear material containing enough plutonium to build 50 nuclear bombs. The dangerous cargo is to be delivered to the controversial Sellafield nuclear plant, which is currently the focus of a major campaign by Irish celebrities calling for its shutdown.

Greenpeace has condemned the Government and British Nuclear Fuels for the introduction of plutonium into the controversial Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) earlier today. The decision to proceed with loading of the lethal nuclear material will increase environmental pollution from the Sellafield site and increase international security risks, including nuclear terrorism and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have mounted a range of legal challenges in an effort to prevent the plant from opening. The Irish Government currently has two international legal cases on-going against the UK government.

The United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued a significant ruling on the case brought by the Irish government against the UK Government over the controversial Sellafield nuclear complex. The Tribunal, made up of 21 judges, issued a unanimous ruling that puts pressure on the UK to stop the operation a new plutonium fuel manufacturing facility, the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP).