shut sellafield

I have solicited comment – reaction and statements here to this blog (Friday 5/1/2007 8pm) from various people in the public eye, artists poets singers politicians etc.

I will post the replies here… if you feel like commenting hit the comments link…. or email info AT shutsellafield.com

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2. hot on John’s heals Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Dick Roche TD.

“Are you not following the news? I have been campaigning for its closure for years. Dick”

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1. first & fast off the mark was John Gormley TD
Congratulations on your web site. The Green Party was the first political
party to call for the closure of Sellafield. This demand will be a key one
in our forthcoming election manifesto. Keep up the good work.Regards
john g
Green Party Chairman

128 miles from my house lies sellafield.

interesting results from google trends
ireland is twice the UK count with Norway third.
Try a wind versus nuclear energy search.

[This article was originally published in New Scientist on 17 October 1957]

NO ONE will know precisely what happened at the Windscale works of the Atomic Energy Authority last Thursday afternoon until the AEA’s own inquiry is completed, but it is certain to be considerably more complicated than first reports and the AEA’s own spokesmen have been inclined to suggest.

One of the two seven-year-old reactors had been shut down, and whatever work was being carried out on it – apparently it was being used for experiments of some kind – started a fire in at least two fuel channels in the centre of the reactor which was fierce enough to carry vaporised fission products the whole distance up the 400-foot chimney and through the filters at its top. The fire started at 4.30 in the afternoon; it proved so difficult to control that the following day hoses began to play water down the fuel channels in a desperate attempt to bring the temperature under control. (more…)

[BBC reports] Sunderland train station was evacuated after a train carrying two nuclear flasks to Sellafield broke down. Smoke was seen coming from the train after an axle overheated, according to British Transport Police (BTP). The station was closed on Wednesday afternoon but has now re-opened to passengers. Mainline and Metro services were hit but are now running again. BTP said the nuclear load did not pose a danger and the station was evacuated because of fumes from the axle. The train is operated by Direct Rail Services, a freight operating company created by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL).

The operator of Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been fined £500,000 following a radioactive leak.

[guardian]

[guardian / PA] The firm that runs Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant will be fined in court on Monday after admitting safety breaches following a radioactive leak.

Around 83,000 litres of acid containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium escaped from a ruptured pipe into a sealed concrete holding cell at the site in Cumbria.

The spillage of spent nuclear fuel was discovered in April 2005 – but may have gone unnoticed for eight months.

No one was injured and no radioactive material escaped into the atmosphere after the leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) part of the site.

But British Nuclear Group Sellafield Ltd, which runs the facility, later pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site licence, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

The Health and Safety Executive brought the prosecution, arguing the firm failed to ensure safety systems were in good working order and that radioactive material was effectively contained.

Representatives of the company will appear at Carlisle Crown Court on Monday.

They face unlimited fines under the powers of the court.

also [irish indo 16/10]

by Maria Daly athloneadvertiser.ie

People living in Athlone could face compulsary resettlement if a Chernobyl-like nuclear explosion was to happen in the Welsh nuclear power plant of Wylfa. The new fallout maps were created for a conference by the Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum (NFLA). The conference will take place in the D Hotel, Drogheda, on Saturday September 30. The conference will be hosted by Cllr Michael O’Dowd and will cover such issues as the health consequences for Ireland of a major nuclear accident. Speakers on the day will include Pete Roche who is a nuclear policy consultant, Dylan Morgan of People Against Wylfa B, and Rite Holmes who is a member of the Hunterston Site Stakeholder Group. The British government are currently looking at the possiblility of building a nuclear power plant at either Wylfa in Wales, Hunterston in Scotland, or Sellafield in England. If there was a nuclear fallout in any of the proposed sites and south easterly winds were prevailing, Athlone and the Midlands would be under serious threat of contamination. The NFLA has released a map which shows the fallout area that would follow an accident at the nuclear reactor in Wylfa if easterly winds carried fallout across to Ireland. Large areas of central and southern Ireland would become so contaminated that there would be cause for evacuation. The NFLA has based its maps on the fallout from the Chernobyl reactor accident which happened some 20 years ago. more