british energy

Reacting to the news that the UK government is to sell more of its stake in British Energy, Greenpeace Senior Climate and Energy campaigner Ben Ayliffe said:

Cracked reactor cores have "increased likelihood of increased risk"

NUCLEAR POWER stations in the UK are structurally defective and their continued operation is increasing the risk of a radioactive accident, according to documents written by the government's own nuclear inspectors.

An enormous 'KAPOW!' was projected onto Oldbury nuclear site earlier this morning by Greenpeace volunteers - to highlight the risk of a terrorist attack on Britain's nuclear power stations.

The Greenpeace projection comes at a time when the Government is conducting an Energy Review to decide whether or not a new generation of nuclear reactors should be built in the UK. Yet just last month Greenpeace released a dossier of expert evidence which outlined the vulnerability of the UK's current nuclear sites to terrorist attack. It details:

Greenpeace today condemned the European Competition Commission for allowing billions of pounds of taxpayers money in state aid for the restructuring of the private nuclear company, British Energy (BE). The company applied for state aid in 2002, when it almost went bankrupt following a fall in electricity prices.

On April 10th, Ecotricity and Greenpeace will file a legal challenge to the European Commission's decision to approve UK state aid (1) to stricken nuclear energy company British Energy.

They will make a joint application to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to "annul" the Commission's decision that the rescue aid to British Energy is compatible with European Community law.

Greenpeace announced today that they would seek an annulment of the European Commission's decision to approve the £50m rescue aid given to British Energy by the UK government late last year. If successful, this legal challenge could deal a fatal blow to efforts to rescue British Energy from falling into administration. The closure of British Energy's power plants may be the only legal solution to the crisis.