The 10th report by the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) published today identifies Sellafield once again as a site with more cases of childhood cancer than any other nuclear installation. In the Report, COMARE’s chairman Bryn Bridges points to the increased leukaemias and non-Hodgkin lymphomas around Sellafield as having … [Continue Reading]
Security concerns about Sellafield’s Bank Holiday plutonium shipment through Workington
Taking advantage of the recent Bank Holiday weekend, Sellafield’s British Nuclear Group (BNG) shipped 4 MOX fuel assemblies (containing around 80kg of plutonium) on 28th May from Sellafield by road to Workington docks for onward shipment on the BNFL ship Atlantic Osprey to Switzerland via the French port of Cherbourg. Because of its plutonium content, … [Continue Reading]
THORP Value – ‘Honesty not Hysteria’ Call by CORE
Local group CORE [Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment] has called on British Nuclear Group (BNG) to come clean about THORP’s revenues over the next few years. This follows the claim* that “THORP has a £12 billion order book” made by BNG and the Sellafield unions to the local media following the recent accident which … [Continue Reading]
THORP Close it Down call to NDA
In a letter to the NDA’s Chief Executive Dr Ian Roxburgh, campaign group CORE has urged the new owners of THORP to cut their losses on THORP and permanently close the plant. Justifying its call, CORE has highlighted two central reasons why the re-start of operations when and if the fractured pipe in THORP’s Head-End … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield unions in reprocessing time-warp
On the day that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) relinquished ownership of the Sellafield site and its operations to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the site’s unions threw a spanner in the NDA clean-up plans by calling for more reprocessing and associated commercial work. Interviewed by BBC Radio Cumbria on the 1st April, Sellafield’s GMB convenor … [Continue Reading]
Italy plans to use the UK as a dumping ground for troublesome fuel
Campaigners from local group CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) have hit out at Italian plans to off-load 235 tonnes of irradiated (spent) nuclear fuel onto the UK or France either as a waste product or through reprocessing at Sellafield’s THORP plant. Never originally contracted for reprocessing, the spent fuel and other Italian wastes … [Continue Reading]
Government U-Turn on foreign nuclear wastes leaves Cumbria in the ‘worst of all worlds’
Campaigners from local anti-nuclear group CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) have roundly condemned the Government decision to allow a majority of overseas nuclear wastes to be dumped permanently in the UK under a new policy of ‘waste substitution’. Over 10,000 cubic metres of foreign Low Level Wastes are already dumped at the Drigg … [Continue Reading]
BNFL likely to appear before European Court
Sources at the EU Headquarters in Brussels have told CORE that UK officials are now resigned to BNFL being hauled in front of the European Courts of Justice over the issue of Sellafield’s 44 year-old ‘Dirty Thirty’ B30 plant. An announcement is expected to made tomorrow Friday 3rd September. This follows a Directive from the … [Continue Reading]
CORE welcomes findings of major radiation dose uncertainties in leaked Government Report
Uncertainties in Seascale internal dose estimates are sufficiently large that it would be unwise to rule out radiation as a contributory factor for the effects seen at Seascale, as concluded by several CERRIE members. (Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters) CERRIE was established by the Government in 2001 because of concern that public perception … [Continue Reading]
Chapelcross Nuclear Power Station Closure
Following in the footsteps of Sellafield’s Calder Hall last year, the Chapelcross nuclear power station in Scotland is to be shut down immediately. The station’s four Magnox 50MW reactors, which were taken off-line in February this year, will not be re-started as originally planned by British Nuclear Fuels plc. A CORE spokesperson said today ” … [Continue Reading]