Lobbying for independent radiation monitoring in the North West.

Radiation Free Lakeland are lobbying for independent radiation monitoring in the North West. This used to be carried out by Radiation Monitoring in Lancashire – RADMIL – which was disbanded a few years ago due to council cuts.

A draft letter which you can send to the Chief Scientist at Lancashire County Scientific Services can be found upon the Radiation Free Lakeland website.

http://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/independent-radiation-monitoring-in-nw-what/

Why Close Capenhurst? – Factsheet

– Where exactly is Capenhurst?
It is 5½ miles north of Chester, 2½ miles from Ellesmere Port, and 10 miles south of Liverpool.

– Who owns the Plant?
It is part of URENCO which operates similar plants in both Germany and the Netherlands.

– What exactly goes on in the plant?
It is a Uranium Enrichment plants and thus a key element of the Nukiller Fuel Cycle.

– So can you explain exactly what you mean by the nukiller fuel cycle?

cycle

 

– Where is the Uranium mined?
The Uranium is mined in counties such as Australia, Canada and Namibia.

   – How exactly does it get to Capenhurst?
It is shipped by sea to Ellesmere Port, and then taken by Road to Capenhurst.

  – What Happens next?
It is enriched and converted in to uranium Hexafluoride.

  – Where exactly is the enriched Uranium transported to?
Once enriched it goes by road to the Springfields plant at Preston where it is converted into fuels rods.

  – By Road?
Yes by road. The company which transports this uranium Hexafluoride by road is
Advanced Uranium Asset Management Ltd. These loads are so dangerous that there is a prohibition on them being transported through the Mersey Road Tunnels.

  – So what happens to the depleted Uranium?

There is very little which can be done with it and so it is currently stored in drums at the plant. It is this depleted Uranium which has been used in ammunition shells, and is the cause of Gulf War Syndrome.

  – So isn’t anyone doing anything about that?
The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium is working on the issue. There are many health dangers which come from an exposure to Depleted Uranium, especially if it is stored as a uranium Hexafluoride.

  – That sounds very dangerous.
Yes, very much so! Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure because, in addition to being weakly radioactive, uranium is a toxic metal.

  – How does that effect children’s health? 
Children have a greater vulnerability to radioactivity than adults.
At Capenhurst there is a primary school within 150 metres of the URENCO plant.

  – Are these children being regularly monitored for exposure to radiation?
Not as far as we can tell.

  – So what exactly are the greater dangers which are caused by use of enriched Uranium in nukiller reactors?
If something goes wrong with these plants they can cause a major nukiller disaster.

  – Do you mean something similar to the continuing nukiller disasters Chernobyl and Fukushima?
Yes – Just so.

  – But that’s so far away from here!
That’s not so.
The nearest atomic reactors to Capenhurst are at Wylfa in North Wales and at Heysham on the outskirts of Lancaster.While high level radioactive waste from Wylfa is transported in special flasks through the Chester railway station on a regular basis.

  – So what exactly are these high level waste flasks?
These trains carry used, but extremely radioactive, fuel rods to Sellafield in
Cumbria for reprocessing.

  – How long will it take to clean up this waste?
There is a backlog of radioactive waste at Sellafield which goes back to the 1950s. The present proposal is to build a high level waste depositary. This will contain plutonium which has a half-life of 24,000 years. We will have to safeguard this waste for thousands of years.

– That’s a long time. It’s much longer than most people can imagine!!

  – So how much will this waste cost me as a tax payer?
We just don’t know. Within a very few years some 75% of the Department of Energy and Climate Change [DECC] budget will be used to look after this waste.
Given the huge scale of the waste our great great great great grandchildren will still be paying to safeguard this waste.

  – Ok. I can see all the potential dangers, but doesn’t the Capenhurst plant produce urgently needed local job?
Not so! About 450 full-time employees work at URENCO. That’s a quarter of what it used to be. There’s a much higher number of jobs which can be created by a major programme of
energy conservation, and the use of safe power sources like solar or wind power

  – So how many new jobs will be created by the use of these clean energy technologies and the use of good thermal insulation?
In the period 2012-2013 the global number of people employed by the solar industry increased by 14%. 103,000 people were working in the UK renewable energy sector in 2012/2013.

The UK wind, wave and tidal industries employ 18,465 people. At the present rate more than 70,000 jobs could be created in these industries over the next decade.
There would be many more such jobs if money was not being used to subsidise the nukiller industry.

  – But wouldn’t that mean building big ugly wind turbines in the middle of
the countryside?

Not necessarily so. Ideally energy should be generated near to where it is being used. The ugly power lines which cross the countryside lose power in transmission over long distances, and so there should be less of them in use. Vertical Wind Turbines and solar panels are ideal for use in our city centres.
While home insulation and other energy conservation measures will cut the amount of power we need to produce.

  – Ok, so you have now convinced me.
Great!

  – So what can I do to close the Capenhurst plant?

Support the Close Capenhurst Campaign

Untitled-1

Picket at Urenco Almelo Plant.

Press release on the actions against the visit of NIS-participants to Urenco Almelo.

Almelo, Netherlands.  March 25th  2014.

Ten protesters, five OSCE-observers, fifteen press people and  five police officers. That was the crowd present at the protest against the delegation of the Nuclear Industry Summit  that visited Urenco in the context of the contribution the industrial sector was able to deliver to nuclear security. A big joke, according to the organisers belonging to “Enschede voor Vrede”, since especially Urenco contributed heavily to nuclear insecurity.
Not only was the fuel used in the nuclear plant of Fukushima delivered by Urenco, through the espionage activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan Urenco is also at the very base of the nuclear arms programs of Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

Currently the Dutch government is considering to sell its share in Urenco, but facing the very limited number of nuclear entrepreneurs visiting Urenco today, the interest in Urenco is low. According to “Enschede voor Vrede” it is also better to close the whole company.

A delegation of “Enschede voor Vrede” also took part in the picketline that was organized Monday morning March 24 against the Nuclear Industry Summit that in turn was organizes in the former Amsterdam stock exchange building by Urenco and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs that should monitor the security of Urencos nuclear activities. This Amsterdam picketline was formed by about 60 antinuclear activists. After this picketline, some of the participants, including the delegation from Enschede, went to a demonstration against the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague where they were arrested already after a 200 meters march and held in custody for about six hours.

In Almelo the mass protest even got the honour of being the first demonstration to which a very recently developed security system has been applied. Whether this system functioned well or not is unknown to the organizers. They have informed the OSCE observers about this.

An open letter to the staff and management of the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Fukushima Day – March 11th 2014

An open letter to the staff and management of the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

We are here to mark Fukushima day, and to register our concerns about the nukiller industry.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation’s mission statement of aims include:-
‘in securing nuclear safety and security in the UK and influencing global safety and security standards.’

– Yet there in no such thing as a safe atomic reactor.

The continuing disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima clearly illustrate just how dangerous these plants can be.

– It is no use working to make the reactors safe, while there is no safe way to deal with the long lasting radioactive which they produce.

– Rising see levels which will endanger & engulf the plants within the next 35 – 50 years.

That is many years before plants like Bradwell, Sizewell, Heysham, & Dungeness have been decommissioned. The resent storms around the coasts of Britain cleanly illustrate just what will happen in the very near future.

We urge you all to consider these long term issues and work to change their aims of the Office for Nuclear Regulation to become that of safely closing down all nukiller plants.

PRESS RELEASE 17th February 2014

Radioactive Waste from nuclear-powered submarines may be stored at Capenhurst.
On 13th February 2014 B.B.C News reported that the Ministry of Defence is considering the URENCO-owned Capenhurst as a storage facility for radioactive waste from disused nuclear submarines.

This announcement raises numerous questions and concerns. For example, what precautions are going to be implemented to ensure that this waste does not contaminate the surrounding environment and, furthermore, what methods will be used to store it.

The prospect of radioactive material being kept at Capenhurst will no doubt worry those in the local community, not least because there is a primary school just yards from the plant. Continue reading PRESS RELEASE 17th February 2014

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!

Why Capenhurst?

The URENCO owned Capenhurst Uranium Enrichment plant
plays a key roll in the production of Nuclear power.

Nuclear power is both very dangerous, and will leave us with a
radioactive legacy which will last many thousands of years.

What goes on at the Capenhurst plant is a danger to us all.

The Close Capenhurst Campaign aims to close down the plant,
and promote alternatives to such establishments.

As a part of the campaign we will be holding a serious of public
meetings in the next few months, which will be followed by a
number of other events.

Come join us in this campaign !