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.
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have overturned an important part of last month's controversial High Court ruling that the Government had lawfully given the Sellafield Mixed Oxide (MOX) plant the green light. (1) But the MOX plant can still open, despite the fact that it will never recover its costs and that it represents a serious threat to public safety.
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace go to Court of Appeal
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth will now take their battle to stop the MOX plant at Sellafield to the Court of Appeal. The move follows last week's ruling by Mr Justice Collins that the Government hadn't acted unlawfully in giving the highly controversial plutonium fuel plant the green light. The Appeal will be heard on 27 and 28 November.
BNFL and it's subsidiary Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd, owns 7 ships which transport nuclear waste fuel and other nuclear materials, including plutonium, around the globe. The ships carry nuclear waste fuel from BNFL's overseas customers in Japan, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands to its notorious Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria. The ships also carry nuclear waste fuel from the same overseas customers to the French version of Sellafield, La Hague.
Greenpeace today published aerial photographs of British Nuclear Fuel's Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria to show people the sheer scale and range of nuclear activities that go on there. The pictures pin-point many of the dangerous processes that take place at the plant, which pollute the environment and result in highly radioactive material being transported across the UK. These include the Calder Hall reactor, the THORP plutonium reprocessing facility (one of the biggest buildings in Europe) and the controversial new MOX fuel plant which the Government hopes to open in December.
Greenpeace will risk imprisonment to keep public informed of secret nuclear ships
Greenpeace published today images and details from the surveillance of a BNFL ship in North Scotland loading a consignment of weapons-usable plutonium.
