Sellafield under the spotlight again
The last few days have been full of activity and news for anti-nuclear activists and, particularly, for those who have been fighting for years against Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria. On Sunday, 21 October, thousands of people, mostly French, marched through Strasbourg to express their opposition to nuclear energy. On the same day, British National Fuels Ltd (BNFL) announced the retirement of one of the special cargo vessels used in the transport of nuclear fuel from Europe to Japan. Also, thanks to the increased pressure and lobbying of activists, mostly along the East coast of Ireland, the Irish government was forced to take the British government to the European Court to try to gain access to documents related to the production of nuclear fuel MOX at Sellafield.
On Sunday, thousands of people from more than a dozen countries took part in an anti-nuclear protest march in eastern Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament. Demonstrators taking part in the protest formed a human chain, donned gas masks, staged a symbolic "die-in" and blared an alarm signal to evoke the response to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident up to date - an explosion that sent a radioactive cloud across much of Europe, including Ireland.
The march was organised by a French anti-nuclear organisation that claims 650 local associations as members. Activists and politicians from environmentally focused parties across Europe also took part. They want a full accounting of the effects of nuclear energy on the environment and studies into ways of ending reliance on nuclear power and to stop new nuclear power plant programmes.
Most demonstrators were from France, which has 20 nuclear power plants and gets three-quarters of its energy from nuclear power.
A delegation of anti-nuclear activists was to meet on Tuesday 22 October with European Union Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, according to the march's organising body, Reseau Sortir du Nucleaire (Out of Nuclear Network).
On the same day, British Nuclear Fuels announced the retirement from service of the nuclear cargo vessel Pacific Crane, with the loss of 30 jobs. The company said the ship "had come to the end of its working life". Built in 1980 by Swan Hunter at Hebburn, the Pacific Crane is the second oldest (Pacific Swan 1979) of the five-strong nuclear fleet owned by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL) and has just returned to her registered port of Barrow-in-Furness having delivered a cargo of Japanese research reactor fuel to the United States.
The ship gained international notoriety on a number of occasions over the last decade, the best recorded being her re-flagging and re-naming as the Akatsuki Maru in 1992 for a shipment of more than a ton of plutonium powder from the French reprocessing plant at La Hague to Japan. Labelled at the time by the Daily Mirror newspaper as The Doomsday Ship, the converted Akatsuki Maru with Japanese security guards on board was escorted from France to Japan by the armed Japanese coastguard cutter Shikishima as protection against possible attack.
Most recently, the Pacific Crane again became the centre of an international row when details of hull corrosion, found during a Lloyds survey inspection at Greenock, were leaked to Greenpeace. With implications for the state of corrosion in the rest of the fleet, and coinciding with the imminent departure from Japan of PNTL's two armed MOX ships, Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, BNFL confirmed the corrosion to the Pacific Crane but strenuously denied a similar finding in other ships.
It was just after the announcement that, on Monday 21 October, the 26-County government was finally forced to take the British administration to a tribunal in The Hague to try and gain access to classified documents relating to Sellafield's MOX plant. The Irish move is down to years of protesting, campaigning and lobbying of Irish people against government complacency towards the health hazard that is Sellafield nuclear station. The Dublin government is seeking disclosure of two key reports commissioned by the British government on the economic and environmental aspects of the Cumbrian plant. These documents were prepared before the British authorities approved the plant for reprocessing mixed oxide fuel (MOX) from nuclear reactors. The Irish case argues for access to additional information that was withheld because the British claimed it contained commercially sensitive information.
Hearings at The Hague are expected to last around a week, but there may not be a final decision for a number of months.
The decision of The Hague tribunal is of special importance after it was revealed that BNFL is planning to carry on with its plan to supply MOX fuel to European customers without bothering to take into account any safety/security measures that the special cargo would require. Whilst majority shareholders in PNTL, BNFL are full owners of two further ships, the European Shearwater and the Atlantic Osprey. The former is used mainly for transporting spent fuel from European reactors for reprocessing at Sellafield. The Atlantic Osprey, bought second-hand in 2001 from a German company, is a roll-on roll-off cargo vessel and BNFL confirmed that she will be used to transport MOX fuel from the new Sellafield MOX plant to European customers.
In a departure from procedures for MOX shipments to Japan (two escorted armed ships), the unarmed Atlantic Osprey will travel alone and will leave from the port of Workington in West Cumbria rather than from BNFL's dedicated marine terminal at Barrow. A number of other safety/security features afforded to the Japanese MOX ships are absent in the Atlantic Osprey, which suffered a disabling engine room fire earlier this year when exiting the Manchester ship canal for sea trials.
Sellafield, formally known as Windscale, home of the 1957 reactor fire, lies on the Irish Sea coast. In an area of just one mile by one mile and a half, the site hosts the lethal legacies of nuclear weapons material production, decades of commercial reprocessing residues - and the reputation to go with them. With faltering nuclear prospects at home, BNFL is turning to other countries for expansion with claims of expertise. However, the company's record does not make this "expertise" very recommendable.
In the area of reprocessing, Sellafield hosts B205 Magnox and Thorp plants, responsible for nuclear discharges and gross contamination of the Irish Sea, which have failed to meet their ten-year target of producing 7,000 tonnes of reprocessed material. Sellafield also hosts two plants dedicated to MOX production: the demonstration facility (MDF) produces 8 tonnes MOX fuel per year since 1993 for Europe and Japan; and the new 120t plant (SMP), not yet licensed to operate due to concerns on justification and viability.
It is worth noting that no British nuclear plant uses MOX fuel and after the Japanese "scandal", when it was discovered that Sellafield safety certificates had been falsified after safety measures were ignored, there are no overseas contracts in prospect.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)