Category: Forthcoming Protests and Events

Countering Capenhurst – Summer 2018

Statement by Dr Paul Dorfman

There is no question but there are very real concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding Capenhurst’s activities  the adequacy of nuclear safeguards at Capenhurst Environmental and public health risks associated with Capenhurst’s routine operations as well as incidents and accidents Capenhursts management of uranium hexafluoride.

Fukushima Contrasts

If anyone wants to know just what the ONR [ Office for Nuclear Regulation ] has to say about the ongoing disaster at Fukushima, then they should read the following: –

Fukushima and the UK nuclear industry

That report was penned in 2011, and they have added nothing to it since then.

In contrast Kick Nuclear has been producing the regular Fukushima Updates.

The latest of which is to be found here.

More on Uranium exports to Russia.

Radiation Free Lakeland published this very useful article on the sale of Uranium products to Russia.
The Beautiful Game?  

EXPORT OF URANIUM PRODUCTS TO RUSSIA FROM PRESTON “IS IMPORTANT” to the UK.

As we keep saying: –

These sales raise many very worrying concerns, while the details of these exports are surrounded in secrecy.

DRS Open Day – July 2018- A summary report

July 21st was the 5th time that we have gone to a DRS Open Day event.

This year, despite our not being able to get more activists to turn up on the day, we did never the less managed to hand out some 2,500 leaflets in just under four hours.

While inside the depot there was a nukiller waste train wagon on display.

You can view them upon just some of the youtube videos of the event here, here, & here.

What strikes us about this is that DRS are now aiming to normalise seeing these waste flasks.

Next year we will be at the DRS Open Day at Carlisle, where we will be organising a protest in the company of our fellow activists from Radiation Free Lakelands.

Anniversaries & Forthcoming Events

August 4th – St Bees, Cumbria.

Radiation Free Lakeland [ RFL ] has sent an urgent to Sellafield, asking them to monitor and retrieve radioactive particles from St bees beach ahead of the Cumbria Wildlife Trust ‘Beached Art’ day on Sunday August 4th.

Sellafield have treated this straightforward request under Freedom of Information rules which means that there will not be a reply for at least a month, and even then they might have to pay for the request to be answered.

The request has been sparked by a citizen science project carried out by Radiation Free Lakeland volunteers in collaboration with nuclear science undergraduates at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the US.‘

In the absence of any warnings from the authorities, RFL will once again be at the beach at St Bees to leaflet and warn people about the very real possibility of their children (or pregnant mothers) ingesting radioactive cesium, americium and plutonium.

August 6th – Hiroshima Day.

August 9th – Nagasaki Day.

October 10th – Springfields

We will be back at the Springfields plant to mark 61 years since the Windscale Fire.

July 2019

The next DRS Open Day will take place at their depot at Carlisle.

We will be back to leaflet the event in the company of our fellow activists from Radiation Free Lakeland.

Thomas the Stank Engine

Thomas the Stank Engine got his name because he hauls DRS [Direct Rail Services] train wagons, which contain very stinky, very dirty, and very nasty nukiller waste.

Come Join us as we tell the tale of Thomas and his mates!

Distribute this information outside any of the railway stations which Thomas passes through.

 

DRS Nukiller Waste Flasks Leafleting on July 21st

The current { July } Issue of the Railway Magazine lists the following DRS nukiller waste train sightings.

On May 9th a waste flask was taken through Berwick-upon-Tweed.

While on May 22nd a flask train was seen going from Crewe to Sellafield.

So that’s another two reasons to join us on July 21st between 10.30. and 15.30. while we leaflet outside of the DRS [ Direct Rail Service ] open day event at their Gresty Bridge depot in Crewe.

Countering Capenhurst – Winter 2018

Countering Capenhurst – Winter 2018

As ever we are doing a lot of campaigning work about all aspects of nukiller power, but much of it centrers around doing a lot of research, while working in co-operation with other campaigners.

Capenhurst in the news.

Japanese sale speculationOn January 19, 2018 the following news story appeared in the Nikkei Asian Review.

‘ Japan in talks over bid for UK uranium powerhouse

The Japanese government has entered into negotiations to acquire U.K.-based Urenco, a major European producer of enriched uranium, in a deal that is expected to be worth several billions of dollars.

The state-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation is expected to make an offer together with U.S. nuclear energy company Centrus Energy.’

But URENCO says No.

On the same day we read in Nasdaq the that ‘Urenco, the world’s second largest nuclear fuel vendor after Russia’s Tenex, said on Friday it was not in discussion with the Japanese government about the sale of its business.’

So it’s a case of protest as normal.

Brookfield and Springfields.

At the start of January it was announced that Toshiba is selling its westinghouse subsiduary, and thus Springfields to Brookfield.

This is a $4.6 billion deal.

Brookfield is a Canadian investment company, which desribes their investment philosophy as such –

‘ Our investment strategy is simple: utilize our global team of investment professionals, our vast network of employees across our operating businesses, and our industry partners to identify and acquire high quality assets at favorable valuations and finance them on a long-term, low-risk basis.

We then create value by increasing cash flows and asset values, and realizing the investment at the right time. Because the businesses we invest in form the backbone of the global economy, we are able to make operational improvements, generate steady cash flows and generally provide insulation from the extremes of market cycles. Nevertheless, we always seek downside protection, and we’re proud of our ability to generate strong risk-adjusted returns across all market conditions.‘

 

So what this might mean is that Westinghouse is restructured, parts of it merged in to other companies, and some major changes make to its nukiller power building programme. Although it is just too early to tell just what these changes might be.

Forthcoming Events.

Fukushima Day Events

 – Friday March 9  – 

Vigil to mark Fukushima day in Lancaster. This will be to point out the dangers of new build, and those which are inherent with the Heysham reactors continuing to be in use.

London – Kick Nuclear & JAN events.

Friday March 9th – 17.30.

Vigil opposite the Japanese Embassy, Piccadilly. WI.

Sunday March 11th

March from the Japanese embassy to Whitehall. Assemble Noon.

Wednesday March 14th

Parliamentary Public Meeting. 

Portcullis House, Westminster, London SW1 – 19.00. – 21.00.

April 26th – Chernobyl Day

June 24th – Capenhurst

We will be going back to Capenhurst to read out the 1978 URENCO Declaration, together with an updated version, which will reflect the damage which currently being done by URENCO.

The reading will start at 13.00.

Travel directions – Overground from Chester or Liverpool.

July – Crewe

We will also be back at the DRS [ Direct Rail Service ] open day at their Gresty Bridge depot in Crewe.

This will be our 5th anniversary demonstration / leafleting session.

October 10th – Springfields

We will be back at the Springfields plant on to mark 61 years since the Windscale Fire.

Countering Capenhurst – November 2017

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.

No Nukiller Submarine Waste at Sellafield Demonstration

Radiation Free Lakeland will be holding a demonstration at Whitehaven, in Cumbria, on Tuesday January 27th. This is in opposing to the proposed dumping of radioactive debris from 27 nuclear submarines at Sellafield.

The demonstration is supported by the Close Capenhurst Campaign as a part of its own opposition to these submarine parts being dumped at any of the various MOD proposed sites for this waste.

You can find out more about it on the Radiation Free Lakeland Website.

Close Capenhurst Fukushima Day Petition

Please take a moment sign the Close Capenhurst petition calling for the shut down of the uranium enrichment and storage facility. We will hand the petition in to Capenhurst at the demonstration on April 11th and the Office for Nuclear Regulation on March 11th to coincide with the third anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

For more information about Capenhurst please explore this site!
Thank you!