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Ireland Gets Assurance On British Nuclear Shipment To France
Dublin (AFP) Nov 14, 2006 Ireland has received an assurance from Britain that a shipment of nuclear fuel to France will not enter Irish territorial waters, Environment Minister Dick Roche said Tuesday. Green Party leader Trevor Sargent has called on the government to prevent what he described as a "lethal shipment of plutonium" from entering the Irish Sea, the waters between Ireland and Britain. Sargent said the Atlantic Osprey ship, owned by the British Nuclear Group and transporting 1.25 tonnes of MOX (mixed plutonium and uranium oxide) fuel, containing about 90 kilogrammes of plutonium, is due to pass along the east coast of Ireland in the next couple of days. He said the Atlantic Osprey would sail from the Sellafield re-processing centre on England's northwest coast round to Cherbourg in northwest France, before the shipment is then delivered to the Beznau plant in Switzerland. "I am informed by a reliable source that the Atlantic Osprey lacks many of the security aspects considered pre-requisites for the shipment of such materials," Sargent said. "It has a single hull, a single engine and it lacks naval armament or an escort ship. "Moreover, the MOX fuel assemblies in question are not being transported in a specially-engineered heavy container such as that used in the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) MOX shipment to Japan in 1999. "While plutonium shipments through the Irish Sea are unacceptable, this one appears to be especially dangerous," Sargent said. Roche said the continuing concerns of his government about the transportation of nuclear waste and fuels through the Irish Sea have been made known to the British authorities. "These concerns relate to safety, security and environmental risk from an accident or incident." Roche said the government had been assured by the British that the MOX fuel shipment would not enter Irish territorial waters and that the shipment is governed by stringent internationally agreed standards. "Nevertheless, the Irish Coast Guard are monitoring the situation," he said. Roche added that his government would continue to use every "diplomatic, political and legal route available" to bring about the safe and orderly closure of Sellafield, a long-running bugbear.
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Swedish Nuclear Power Plant Shut Down For Weeks After Fire
Stockholm (AFP) Nov 14, 2006A Swedish nuclear reactor was shut down, possibly for weeks, after a transformer at a power plant caught fire, but no one was injured, Sweden's nuclear energy authority and news reports said Tuesday. "A fire in the Ringhals 3 reactor took place near midnight (2300 GMT Monday)," the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate said in a statement on its website. "The reactor was shut down on an emergency basis, and all security systems worked as they should have." |
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