With thanks to:
Richard Bramhall, Low Level Radiation Campaign
Ruth Somerville, Green Party press office
Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, North West Green Party
Cllr Gina Dowding, Deputy Leader, North West Green Party
For more information contact:
Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, North West Green Party press office 0161 225 4863
Green Party national press office 020 7561 0282
Published on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, 26 April 2004
Foreword by Cllr Gina Dowding, Deputy Leader of North West Green
Party
And Green Party cabinet member on Lancaster city council p2
1.
Overview p2
2.
Concerns
with the nuclear industry p2
3.
The
Green Party’s demands p3
Foreword
Cllr Gina Dowding, Deputy Leader of North West Green Party and
Green Party cabinet member on Lancaster city council
The nuclear industry produces
the world’s most expensive electricity. It’s associated with higher cancer
levels and risk to the environment. It
produces waste so dangerous that it must be stored in special circumstances for
thousands of years. It even sustains fewer jobs per unit of power than either
solar, wind or wave energy.
Nuclear power is not progress.
Green Party policies will
reduce demand for energy, and will ensure that all the energy we generate will
come from clean, safe, renewable resources. That’s real progress.
Our energy conservation and
production policies are dealt with elsewhere. This deals with minimising the
nuclear risk to North West England from nuclear power production at Heysham,
nuclear waste reprocessing at Sellafield, and transportation of nuclear waste
through Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
Greens elected at all levels
have proven their commitment to dealing with the nuclear industry once and for
all. More Greens elected in this year’s elections will make more progress.
Real Progress.
1. Overview
1.1 North west England is the
location of one of the world’s most notorious nuclear complexes – the source of
75% of the human-made radiation doses to the whole of Europe’s population.
Since the late 1940s the area has developed into a home for nuclear power
generation, nuclear waste management (including dumping), also nuclear fuel
processing and manufacture. These activities pose considerable threats to the
human and animal populations of the area. There is the ever-present risk of an
accident releasing radioactivity into the surrounding environment, and the
long-demonstrated inability of Sellafield in particular to prevent radioactive
leakages as part of its industrial processes.
2. Concerns with the nuclear industry
2.1 Waste. At Sellafield alone there are over 10,000 tonnes of medium-
and high-level radioactive waste about which no one is certain of a safe method
of long-term disposal. The building of just one more nuclear power station
during the 21st century would mean that by the end of the century
the total holdings of medium and high level nuclear waste would have passed the
half million tonnes mark.
2.2 Liability. With the restructuring of British Nuclear Fuels Limited
(BNFL), the liabilities to be taken over by the new Liabilities Management
Authority are already in excess of £42 billion. When the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority comes into being in two years’ time it will be given
this money to take over the decommissioning costs.
2.3 Security. The September 11th atrocities highlighted the
potential power of terrorist attacks. Such attacks carried out against nuclear
facilities would be disastrous.
2.4 Cost. The cost of nuclear electricity generation is simply not
competitive.
2.5 Quality of life. This includes
the closure of some beaches due to low level radiation and the threat of
another nuclear accident, for example at Sellafield or one of Heysham's generating
stations, and the loss of confidence of many people in using beaches further
along the Irish Sea coast, for example at Blackpool.
2.6 Unaccountability. Official estimates, statistics and information
following nuclear accidents and scandals has been unreliable and shrouded in
secrecy.
a. 1957, the Windscale fire. After
this infamous fire, the extent of radiation release and its consequences were
censored and the wind direction at the time of the fire was later falsified,
once the health consequences in eastern Ireland and the Isle of Man became
known.
b. 1999, Falsification of documents. Documents regarding the export of MOX
to Japan were deliberately falsified.
c. 1973 and 1986, accidents.
Accidents at Sellafield including worker contamination in both 1973 and 1986
have been shrouded in secrecy, as was the first “trial” release of
radioactivity into the Irish Sea in the early fifties.
3. The Green Party’s demands
The immediate end of reprocessing at Sellafield
3.1
This is necessary to halt the growth of Sellafield’s radioactive waste
stockpile. Most waste is created by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, and this
procedure has been undertaken at the Sellafield site for the last fifty years.
Reprocessing is not an essential activity; it is a throwback to the cold war
years when plutonium was required for nuclear weapons. Not only is it not
necessary, it is hugely uneconomic, and yields 160 times the quantity of waste
of conventional waste handling. Reprocessing is a “wet” procedure, which
results in a self-heating, liquid final waste product, which must be
continuously cooled in tanks vulnerable to damage. The fact that Sellafield offers a reprocessing service to other
countries provides a golden opportunity to those countries to get rid of their
nuclear waste to England. It is likely that much of this waste will never be
returned to the countries of origin.
The immediate closure of the Heysham plant
3.2
High-speed fans at Heysham’s identical twin plant at Torness in Scotland have
shown worrying tendencies to crack, threatening the possibility of a
catastrophic failure. The Torness plant has been shut down for safety reasons.
The same action should be taken at Heysham.
The immediate closure of the Sellafield MOX plant
3.3
MOX stands for Mixed Oxide Fuel and its manufacture is made possible by
reprocessing. The procedure began on a pilot basis at Sellafield in 1996, and
has since been expanded. Plutonium and uranium oxides are blended to produce
MOX. The sale of MOX is an international business involving the carriage of
extremely dangerous substances by sea, air and rail. The potential for
catastrophe, whilst highly radioactive substances are in transit, is
unacceptable and MOX manufacture should cease.
A ban on the import of foreign radioactive waste
and spent fuel
3.4
Britain must stop being a nuclear dustbin for other countries.
A ban on further taxpayer subsidisation of
nuclear activity
3.5 Nuclear power generation, reprocessing and
MOX manufacture are synonymous with contamination of the environment, threats
to human health, and the risk of catastrophic accidents. There is no case for
the continued subsidy of such dangerous activities.
British Energy Plc should be placed in
administration
3.5
This company presides over most of the UK’s nuclear power stations. It teeters
on the brink of bankruptcy and plans to continue to be the recipient of huge
handouts from the government to keep it financially afloat. In September 2002
the company received a government loan of £650 million. Later the same year the
government announced a long-term subsidy rescue plan which involves the payment
of £150-£200 million of taxpayers’ money every year for ten years. In September
last year the company had £1.3 billion of debts written off by its creditors.
In November 2003 another £75 million was secured from the government. To put
any more public money the way of British Energy would be to throw good money
after bad.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) must
act in the public interest
3.7 The
new decommissioning authority will begin work in 2005. Its
activities must be completely transparent, and the consideration of public
interest must be the primary duty of the new authority because:
a. It
will examine huge problems.
b. There
is a lack of public trust in government pronouncements.
c. Land
and soil will remain contaminated for thousands of years, and stakeholders have
a right to know exactly how their land is contaminated.
Published and promoted by Spencer Fitz-Gibbon for the Green Party, both at 1a Waterlow Road, London N19 5NJ.