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Irish Vow to Force Nuke Plant Shutdown
Index:
Irish Vow to Force Nuke Plant Shutdown
UK BNFL says starts up Sellafield nuclear plant
Japan's TEPCO finds small radioactive leak in reactor
Radioactive substance leak reported at Niigata nuclear plant
=================================
Irish Vow to Force Nuke Plant Shutdown
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Ireland vowed Thursday to force Britain to shut down its
Sellafield nuclear complex, as Irish lawmakers and environmentalists led protests
outside a new facility at the plant designed to produce recycled fuel for reactors
worldwide.
``We cannot allow this situation to stand. It is an act of supreme arrogance,'' said Joe
Jacob, Ireland's government minister responsible for public safety, who warned of a
possible Sept. 11-style terrorist strike on the Irish Sea plant.
Sellafield, Britain's major nuclear facility, has been a sore in Anglo-Irish relations ever
since Queen Elizabeth II opened the first reactor there in 1956.
British Nuclear Fuels PLC, which operates the complex in northern England, said it
had drastically reduced emissions of radioactive material into the sea since the
1970s. It insisted that the Mixed-Oxide Fuel plant, which opened Thursday after a 5-
year delay over safety concerns, would not produce any harmful emissions at all.
``This is wonderful news and is the best Christmas present we could have had,''
declared Jack Allen, head of operations at Sellafield, where the MOX plant is
expected to underwrite at least 1,200 jobs.
Britain says it will have a strong market for the MOX plant's product, particularly in
Japan.
The plant - completed in 1996 but delayed partly because of a scandal involving
forged security checks at a sister recycling facility - would receive shipments of spent
plutonium and uranium from several countries to be converted into new rods of fuel,
each equivalent in energy to a ton of coal. The sea shipments in and out would
receive armed escort.
Ireland, which has no nuclear energy, has complained for decades of its potential
exposure to any accidents at the plant, which lies some 150 miles across the sea.
Pressure groups in two coastal towns, Drogheda and Dundalk, claim their
communities suffer higher-than-average rates of cancer and birth defects because of
Sellafield.
British politicians and scientists, however, insist that recent studies by independent
nuclear watchdogs had all found no evidence of dangerous emissions from
Sellafield. They suggest Irish ire has more to do with a pending general election in
Ireland, where all parties consider opposition to Sellafield a vote-winner.
``We are not aware of any scientific or epidemiological evidence showing any ill
effects from Sellafield operations in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern
Ireland,'' said Dr. Michael Clark, editor of Britain's Radiological Protection Bulletin.
As Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's ruling Fianna Fail party promised to pursue every
legal and diplomatic channel against Britain, opposition lawmakers traveled to
Sellafield to join protesters who handcuffed themselves to the gates of the MOX
plant.
The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have given local lawmakers a particularly
fearful new angle of protest.
``If Sellafield goes up in an attack, the prevailing wind will take it right to our country,''
warned John Gormley, a former mayor of Dublin and a lawmaker from Ireland's
Green Party, who took part in Thursday's demonstrations.
Dr. Tom O'Flaherty, chief executive of Ireland's nuclear watchdog, the Radiological
Protection Institute, which has not been permitted to visit Sellafield, said radioactive
clouds would be released if an aircraft crashed into key storage tanks or reactors. He
estimated that, depending on winds, the radiation could produce fatal cancers in 30
out of every 50,000 people in Ireland.
--------------------
UK BNFL says starts up Sellafield nuclear plant
LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - State-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) said on
Thursday it was starting up a 472 million pound ($797 million) nuclear fuel
manufacturing plant that has been the focus of several legal challenges to stop it
opening.
"BNFL has today commenced the first stage of active plutonium commissioning of
the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP)," the company said in a statement.
The news that highly toxic plutonium is being introduced into SMP will come as a
blow to opponents of the plant, including environmental groups Grenpeace and
Friends of the Earth and the government of Ireland.
All three have tried and failed to block the plant from opening via the courts.
"This is a major step backwards for the environment and international security. BNFL
and the British government clearly have little regard for either," Mark Johnston of
Greenpeace told Reuters.
The plant, which will mix plutonium with uranium oxides to produce MOX (mixed
oxide) to be used in nuclear reactors, has lain idle since it was completed in 1996
because of legal challenges and concerns it would not make any money.
The lastest legal battle was tied off on Monday when a United Nations court
announced that both Britain and Ireland had submitted reports outlining consultations
they had been ordered to have.
The Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which ordered the
two countries to consult each other about safety and pollution concerns, had earlier
this month rejected a request from Ireland for an injunction to prevent the Sellafield
MOX Plant (SMP) from opening.
Ireland says it is worried about safety and pollution from Sellafield because the
BNFL's MOX plant will discharge low level radioactive emissions into the Irish Sea.
Environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, also say that apart from
the pollution concerns, the MOX fuel will find few customers because it is more
expensive than conventional uranium reactor fuel.
The two groups recently lost a court action in Britain to halt SMP opening.
An international furore erupted in 2000 when it was revealed data on a pilot batch of
MOX fuel sent to Japan had been falsified.
The ensuing row and cancelled orders led to the UK government shelving plans to
part privatise BNFL.
Jack Allen, Head of Operations MOX said, "the focus is now on delivering the first
fuel to customers."
A government commissioned report into SMP published earlier this year said the
plant would deliver net financial benefits of 216 million pounds ($365 million) over its
lifetime once build costs were excluded.
Ireland is currently considering a complaint to the OSPAR tribunal which rules on the
OSPAR convention on maritime issues in the northeastern Atlantic, and a possible
challenge in the European Court of Justice.
--------------------
Japan's TEPCO finds small radioactive leak in reactor
TOKYO, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Japan's largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co,
said on Thursday it had detected a small radiation leak in its 1,100 megawatt nuclear
reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant in northern Japan.
Nobody was exposed to radiation and there were no radioactive leakage outside the
environment, TEPCO said.
The Number 5 reactor has been operating normally despite the radiation leak in the
reactor's turbine room, it added.
It was still investigating of the cause of the incident.
Japan, heavily reliant on nuclear power, has seen a number of incidents over the
past decade that have undermined public support for the country's nuclear
programme, which meets a third of the its electricity needs.
Chubu Electric Power Co Inc, Japan's third largest power utility, last month found a
steam leak from a broken pipe in the nuclear reactor at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in
Shizuoka prefecture.
Chubu said last week that a hydrogen explosion in a pipe at the plant may have
caused the accident.
--------------------
Radioactive substance leak reported at Niigata nuclear plant
NIIGATA, Japan, Dec. 20 (Kyodo) - A nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture in
central Japan on the Sea of Japan coast Thursday experienced a radioactive leak in
a building housing a turbine, Niigata prefectural government officials said.
The incident will not have any impact on the surrounding area as the radioactive
substance was contained within the building, they said.
The leakage occurred at a radioactive gaseous waste disposal facility area of the No.
5 reactor in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO), at around 11:45 p.m. Thursday.
A monitor had showed a slight increase of radioactive gas in the area, the officials
said.
The leakage seems to have stopped and the company continued to operate the 1.1
million-kilowatt reactor, company officials said.
Operators of the reactor had been inspecting the disposal system when the incident
occurred, TEPCO officials said.
Seven radioactive substance monitors of the local government showed no abnormal
figures in the surrounding areas, according to the local government officials.
TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which has seven reactors with a combined total
generating capacity of 8.21 million kilowatts, is the world's largest nuclear power
plant in terms of capacity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100
Director, Technical Extension 2306
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service Fax:(714) 668-3149
ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
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ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
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