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.
DURING the week beginning July 12th, two ships carrying a secret cargo of dangerous, nuclear weapons-usable plutonium fuel will leave ports in Britain and France and sail around the globe to Japan. On board will be fuel containing more plutonium than in the entire Indian nuclear weapons program.
On the 21st of July, two ships carrying a cargo of dangerous, weapons-usable plutonium fuel left Europe to sail around the globe, via Cape of Good Hope and the South West Pacific Ocean, to Japan. On board is nuclear fuel containing more nuclear weapons usable material than in the entire Indian and Pakistan nuclear weapons programmes.
The reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel was always at the heart of the civilian nuclear enterprise. Separating plutonium and unburned uranium from the fuel matrix was regarded as indispensable. This was because uranium would become scarce, fast breeder reactors (dependent on large amounts of plutonium as a fuel) would come to dominate, and radioactive waste management (RWM) would become easier with the smaller volume of high level waste (HLW) that reprocessing would isolate...
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.
