nuclear-news

24 November UK demonstration against transport of nuclear fuel

Demo at Carlisle Railway: From Darkest Peru to Darkest Cumbria – Stop Nuclear Madness! http://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/demo-at-carlisle-railway-from-darkest-peru-to-darkest-cumbria-stop-nuclear-madness/Radiation Free Lakeland will be holding a demonstration and leafletting at Carlisle Railway Station on Monday 24th November from 11am to 1pm – Please come and join us 

This demonstration in Carlisle coincides with a week of actions at train stations throughout the UK  by groups and concerned citizens including in Wigan, Preston and Lancaster to oppose the continued transport of radioactive materials by train.. (look back here for times etc tbc)

What Continued Nuclear Madness Means to the North West:

1. Drives the push for uranium mining worldwide eg. Peru (being aggressively eyed up) , The Grand Canyon USA, Niger, Australia, Russia

2.Uranium arrives at Ellesmere Port Dock by ship where it is transported by road to Capenhurst. It is enriched at Capenhurst and then taken again by road to the Springfields fuel rod conversion plant near Preston. During all these processes it in the form of a Uranium Hexaflouride

3. The Fuel Making Process produces radioactive wastes which are released to the River Ribble and dumped in Clifton Marsh landfill. Depleted Uranium is stored at Capenhurst.

4. The fuel is taken to nuclear reactors including Heysham which is being restarted despite “a crack in the boiler spine, a metal rod supporting the weight of the reactor” (Institution of Engineering and Technology). 5. Once the fuel is burnt (spent fuel) it travels by rail through towns and villages to Sellafield where it is reprocessed increasing the volume of waste x180. Sellafield uses over £30M of gas every year.

6. Spent fuel has travelled by plane from Carlisle airport which is still authorised to carry radioactive materials.  In a three year period, 1995-8 at least “8 shipments of nuclear fuel assemblies included passage by air from Carlisle Airport from West Cumbria to Switzerland” (Freedom of Information Response from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to RaFL 17th Sept 2014)

6. Next to Sellafield is 500 acres of beautiful farmland, hedgerows and ancient tracks. This land should be a buffer zone around the worlds most dangerous stockpile of nuclear waste. Instead the government plan to sell it to the same companies responsible for Fukushima in order to build 3 new nuclear reactors.

7. There is no “solution” to the problem of nuclear waste apart from distributing it to the environment. Not only to the air and sea but also to landfill. And then there is melting down radioactive scrap metal and selling it onto the open market. Finally, the proposal for deep burial of heat generating nuclear wastes.

November 19, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ACTION