As ever there is a lot of campaigning work which needs to be done.
Yet much of this work is very dependent upon putting a lot of time, and effort, in to constantly monitoring what goes on at the various radioactive fuel plants.
It is not the most glamorous type of campaigning work, but it is an essential activity.
This issue of Countering Capenhurst contains some of the various documents which we have been looking at of late.
At some stage in the future we will combine a lot of this information.
After which we might be better able to estimate just how much Depleted Uranium Hexafloride is still to be found at Capenhurst.
That’s in contrast to all of the guestimations which we have been able to do so far.
After that we will try to put together an estimation of just how long it will take URENCO to process it all in their new tailings plants. Though it will not be possible to do until we have more figures to work with.
Another URENCO Contract Comes To Light.
Finding out just which contracts URENCO has is not an easy thing to achieve.
So we found the following news story of interest.
OPPD [ Omaha Public Power District ]board of directors unanimously approves new vice presidential position.
The key text in this news story being: –
‘ Recently, Hansen’s production fuels team unwound the last of four outstanding nuclear fuel agreements with URENCO, a global player in the nuclear industry that was asking OPPD for a sizable payday.
Hansen said earlier this week that URENCO argued OPPD owed “on the order of $66 million” as outlined in a contract between the two parties.
OPPD refuted the assertion, disassembled nuclear fuel that was not used or needed at Fort Calhoun and sold it back to URENCO, netting about $15 million in the process.’
Not seeing the flasks because of the trees.
This is a quote from the current issue of the Railway Magazine – November 2017.
It is to be found under Operations Track Record – DRS.
‘ The RM carries regular reports regarding the numerous flask trains which run around the country.
One correspondent reported a visit made to Dungeness branch on September 19 when class 68 Nos 68003 + 68018 arrived with a train, with the class 68s having bodyside damage caused by trees, buckthorn, and brambles growing along the branch.’
We make no comment upon this report.
Recent Activities
On October 10th it was the 60th anniversary of the Windscale fire.
We joined with Radiation Free Lakeland to mark this event at both the Spriingfields and Sellafield sites.
While we continue to keep leafleting outside of Warrington station on a regular basis.
Warrington is just one of the many railway stations through which highly radioactive used fuel rods are taken to Sellafield.
If you want to take part in any of these leafleting sessions, or hold one at your local station where these waste trains go through, then please get in contact with us.
Further Research & Further Reading
Survey into the Radiological Impact of the Normal Transport of Radioactive Material in the UK by Road and Rail
Published by
Public Health England
March 2017
This is one of the most interesting documents which has been published this year.
Amongst other things this document give a total of the amount of radioactive materials which originate at the various nukiller plants.
What’s of particular interest is amount of waste which being transported by road.
‘Taking into account that the Magnox data provided was for a six month period, the total number of packages currently transported over a year is estimated to be about 9,200 by road and 700 by rail.’
This is broken down in to tables such of the following: –
‘ Table : Summary of the consignments (C) and packages (P) containing radioactive waste transported by road and rail to and from LLWRbetween April 2014 and March 2015.’
Yet there are still major information gaps in these figures.
Such as within the following:
‘Information on movements of radioactive material was also obtained from a metal recycling facility which treats radioactively contaminated metal. Surface contaminated metal is treated at this UK site but activated metal is sent to an overseas facility for treatment. In 2014, 131 consignments containing 950 packages were made from the metal recycling company. About 20% of the total consignments were to UK air and sea ports and were subsequently shipped overseas.
There is no indication of which companies or ports these might be.
While much of the information in this document uses the word Estimated.
For example while referring to just how radioactive expossure the transport workers receive per year.
Thus it lists the following: –
– Estimated doses due to transport during the nuclear fuel cycle.
– Estimated doses due to transport during the uranium enrichment process.
– Estimated doses due to transport of radioactive material from the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility.
– Estimated doses due to transport of low level radioactive waste for recycling, storage and disposal.
While this quote says it all: –
‘During a visit to the fuel fabrication facility at Springfields it was not possible to take dose rate measurements around a loaded vehicle as none were available. It has therefore not been possible to estimate doses to workers loading or unloading vehicles or doses to drivers transporting the different fuel types.‘
In summary.
This document does contain a lot of very useful information, but it can not be defined as one of the most comprenensive publications on the subject.
Some Forthcoming Events.
Saturday December 2nd.
We will be running a stall at the
Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair
March 2018
On March 11th it will be 7 years since the start of the ongoing disaster at Fukushima.
Kick nuclear will be marking this date with a series of events.
In the meanwhile the regular weekly picket of the Japanese embassey & the London TEPCO offices continues to be held every friday.
July 2018
We will also be back at the DRS [ Direct Rail Service ] open day at their Gresty Bridge depot in Crewe next July.
More details on this when we have the exact date this will take place.