England pollutes the Northern Sea

[Savage]

Strong protests against reopening of Sellafield plant

Seventy regions and municipalities around the North Sea are protesting against the planned re-opening of the British THORP nuclear re-posession plant at Sellafield.

The plant has been closed since 80,000 litres of radioactive fluid leaked from the plant last year.

On Tuesday it was announced that the British government plans the building of a number of new nuclear powered electricity plants.

- This is bad news for us who are trying to stop the nuclear emissions from Sellafield, says Lars Haukvik, head of the secretariat of the North Sea Commission.

- With an increased number of British nuclear power plants, there will be an even higher pressure on Sellafield, with greater danger of emissions, Haukvik says.

The North Sea Commission was founded in 1989 to facilitate and enhance partnerships between regions which manage the challenges and opportunities presented by the North Sea.

According to its programme, the North Sea Commission also promotes the North Sea Basin as a major economic entity within Europe, by encouraging joint development initiatives and political lobbying at European Union level.

Among the members of the North Sea Commission are found 15 Norwegian counties, as well as a number of Swedish, Danish, German, Dutch and French counties, as well as districts in England and Scotland.

[Menydh]

Don't the Gulf streams move eastwards in that area? If so the consequences of the leakages could be catastrophic, and not fully noticeable until years later, perhaps decades.

A friend of mine who is a professional diver told me that he went diving and fishing in a lake not far from a nuclear plant. There he saw large numbers of a certain fish which all were 5 times their normal expected size. He quit from diving there.

I'm not sure about nuclear energy anymore. There are arguments against and arguments for. All contradict each other.

Aeolic and solar energy might be the future. But, will they be ready for when the future is here? And the problem is that the future is already here..

[Menydh]

Tony Blair tries to save nuclear industry, ignores climate solutions

Greenpeace News
July 12, 2006

London, United Kingdom — UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has so far only managed nice words on global warming while ignoring effective action on real solutions. Now he has chosen the dangerous, expensive false solution of nuclear power. This seals his true legacy - huge amounts of nuclear waste that will last for millions of years.

Back in 2003 the UK government rejected nuclear power in an energy review, correctly stating that the massive investments required to build new nuclear power plants would mean no money to invest in renewables and energy efficiency.

But the powerful, well-connected nuclear industry wasn't going to take that lying down. They threw huge amounts of money into a PR campaign claiming that nuclear energy was going to save the world from climate change and provide energy security. And right on cue, Tony Blair started talking like a nuclear energy lobbyist.

Rubber stamp nuclear review

Blair started to make public speeches in favour of more nuclear power and announced another government energy review only two years after the last one. Not surprisingly the latest energy review was stacked in favour of proving Blair is right about the need for more nuclear power and it did just that.

But Blair's obsession with nuclear power wasn't only a pre-emptive strike on the energy review process; it has also undermined the review's own commitments to renewables and efficiency.

"Tony Blair is fixated with getting new nuclear power stations built," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace UK executive director, "and that means anything substantial in this review that supports clean green energy will be fatally undermined as long as Blair remains Prime Minister. You can't roll out new nuclear power stations and build widespread sustainable energy projects. The reality is that nuclear sucks up all the money. There is an enormous radioactive cloud hanging over this energy review which threatens to drown any positive moves on decentralised energy, renewables and energy efficiency."

Nuclear is a climate red herring

Blair claims that the UK needs nuclear power. He claims it will help to cut UK carbon emissions and ensure energy security. But building 10 new nuclear reactors would only deliver a four percent cut in CO2 emissions by 2024: far too little, too late to combat climate change. And nuclear power's overall contribution to total UK energy demand is so tiny (only 3.6 percent) that it can only marginally affect energy security.

This UK government policy puts it at odds with other European nations who have ditched nuclear power. In May 2006 Spain joined Sweden, Germany, Italy and Belgium as the fifth European country to abandon nuclear power. Maybe Tony Blair should listen more to these countries and less to the nuclear industry lobby?

The only reactor under construction in western Europe, in Finland, is already 12 months behind schedule after just one year of building, with significant cost over-runs and serious quality control problems.

Making a million year nuclear mess

Building new nuclear plants ignores the fact that there is no solution what to do with waste current ones are producing. Every child knows you should clean up your current mess before making a new one. Tony Blair is not the only one conveniently forgetting this lesson. The US is talking to Russia about a deal to allow it to dump nuclear waste from US reactors in Russia.

Generating nuclear waste is bad enough, shipping it half way around the world to Russia that has a terrible record on nuclear safety is clearly a desperate attempt to put the waste 'out of sight, out of mind'. Unless of course you are unlucky enough to live near a transport route or nuclear waste dump.

The challenge of global warming demands real leadership; those who chose the expensive, dangerous distraction represented by nuclear power will not be remembered kindly by future generations dealing with dangerous climate change and our nuclear waste.


[source]

[Menydh]

Spain says "Adios" to nuclear power
Fourth European country to begin phase out

Greenpeace News
May 31, 2006

Madrid, Spain — The nuclear industry recently launched a multi-million dollar campaign to try and revive the most expensive, dangerous, and polluting way to boil water ever invented. Spain is having none of it. The nation's president has confirmed that the country's 8 operating plants will be phased out in favour of clean, renewable energy.

Industry lobby groups have been trying to sell 10 new nuclear plants in Spain, and have fought hard for legislation that would allow existing plants to operate past their planned retirement dates.

But President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has confirmed the government's commitment to the phase-out in his State of the Nation address.

“Zapatero has shown true leadership in preparing the phase out of this dangerous and polluting problem and phasing in safe renewable energy sources,” said Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace International.

“All across the world the nuclear industry is drowning in debt, controversy and its massive waste issues. It is only kept afloat by the likes of Blair and Bush who are pouring billions of dollars of public money into an industry which reached the end of its life over a decade ago.”

Greenpeace was part of a national coalition of environmental and civic groups which on May 20th unanimously petitioned the government to deliver on election promises of "safer, cleaner, cheaper" energy.

Zapatero agreed not only to the phase-out, but to a widely consultative process to find a solution to what to do with existing radioactive waste.

In a bid to resurrect a failing industry, regular claims of a nuclear power revival have been made – the most recent using climate change as an excuse to spend further billions to build more reactors.

But renewable energy is now taking the lead, with a single source such as wind energy adding more than 6,000 megawatts to the European grid every year, the equivalent to two large nuclear reactors. In only a few years, wind power in Spain has grown to 8 percent of the national electricity production. In 2005 alone, some 1680 megawatts of new wind power were installed, generating four times as much electricity as the Zorita nuclear power plant which Spain closed last month.

Spain joins Sweden, Germany, Italy and Belgium as the fifth European country to abandon nuclear power.


[source]

[Savage]

Collective Nordic front against reopening of the Sellafield -pollution plant. Source

The nordic envoroment ministers has in a letter stated several claims to the british government concerning the planned reopening of the controversial Sellafield plant.

The reaction comes after the brits first announced a reopening of the nuclear waste recycling plant THORP in Sellafield, and after that published an energy report that says that nuclear power will be a main source for GB`s energyproblem in the future.
But in spite of years of research and development, the major and basic problem are still not solved, the problem with waste.

And the streams goes eastwards and northwards.