nuclear-news

Official estimates point to a possibility of 240 additional cancer cases as a result of the Windscale fire. Studies reveal that the impacts of nuclear accident and routine emissions may be far wider reaching than the public is led to believe. One such study in 1995 by Dr John Bound, a former paediatrician at the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool; Brian Francis, of the Centre for Applied Statistics, Lancaster; and Dr Peter Harvey, pathologist at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary found that the Windscale fire
was followed by a surge in cases of Down’s syndrome. Their studies were poo poohed to protect the vested interests of the nuclear establishment.
This pattern has been repeated time and time again. History is now repeating itself with the plan for untried and untested new build near Sellafield.

The ruthless push towards new nuclear build on the beautiful coastline of West Cumbria mirrors the rush to build Windscale in order to produce plutonium for the atomic bomb. While “safety features” like the last minute addition of filters on the Windscale chimney helped mitigate the impact of the inevitable fire, the dangers from nuclear are inherent and accumulative. Nothing it seems is being learnt from history. The same old uranium burning technology is being proposed now for new build. The reactors being proposed are AP1000, a scaled up version of the commercially unattractive AP600. The AP1000 boasts higher efficiency, in other words it burns the uranium harder and longer producing much hotter wastes, reactors under construction now in America and China have cooling towers 600 – 800 ft. high. The other “alternative” is direct cooling with huge sea installations.

Sellafield is dangerous enough and a big enough terrorist target without putting untried, untested nuclear reactors next to it with the possibility of enormous cooling towers the size of New York sky scapers or huge sea installations.

Please remember the Windscale fire on the 10th. Remember the voluntary bravery of the Windscale workers and the involuntary bravery of all those unacknowledged babies, children, men and women who have died, or suffered health consequences as a result of the Windscale accident.  The still highly radioactive chimney which stands 350ft tall has also claimed the life of steeplejack Neil Cannon who died after falling from the ongoing ‘decommissioning’. The death toll will continue without end if new build goes ahead. Surely the time has come for Cumbrians to say enough is enough and to join the resistance to new and more dangerous nuclear build.There is a petition here:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-moorside-biggest-nuclear-development-in-europe