'Stop Nuclear Trains through the Olympic Site and Stratford' - Public meeting organised by the Nuclear Trains Action Group, Stratford Advice Arcade, Saturday 18 June 2011

Presentation by Daniel Viesnik, Kick Nuclear

Why are we worried about nuclear waste trains passing through the Olympic site and the local area? This is due to the risk of a terrorist attack or accident.

Terrorist attack

According to Paul Dorfman, all four of the UK government's top tier terrorism threats mention nuclear. An attack might, in theory, come from an enemy state as well as from non-state terrorists. A physical attack on a nuclear waste train might involve an armour-piercing rocket, a bomb, a derailment, or a hijacking. Other forms of nuclear materials transport are also potential targets, including fuel shipments and nuclear warhead convoys. But whilst these tend to be heavily guarded, this appears not to be the case with trains carrying highly radioactive spent fuel rods through London and across the country. Security is so lax, it seems, that in 2006, a Daily Mirror reporter was able to plant a fake bomb on a nuclear train in broad daylight in a built-up area of London.

As well as nuclear transports, the power plants themselves are potential targets. The spent fuel stores are especially vulnerable, to the impact of an aircraft, for instance, which could cause a major release of highly radioactive material into the environment.

Cyber-terrorism

Last year, an Iranian nuclear facility came under attack from a sophisticated computer virus called Stuxnet, reportedly resulting in major damage. With cyber-warfare being recognised as an ever-growing threat, something similar, or worse, might well happen in the UK at some stage. It is also possible that the electronic control and safety systems of a nuclear plant might be hacked into and controlled remotely.

Theft of nuclear materials

Nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorists, who may use them to make a 'dirty' radioactive bomb, or possibly even a nuclear device. This links in with broader, and very real, nuclear weapons proliferation concerns, an issue with the global spread of civil nuclear power since its inception.

Civil liberties

All of the above has implications for our civil liberties. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary is an armed police force that patrols the vicinity of civil nuclear plants, which has implications for local communities, as well as adding to the cost of nuclear power. The police's National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, present at the last two rallies at Sizewell nuclear power station, likes to label anti-nuclear and other protestors as 'domestic extremists', and the political establishment uses the fear of a terrorist attack as an excuse to further curtail our civil liberties. In recent years, there have also been examples of the computer systems of Greenpeace, in various countries, being hacked into by the French-owned energy giant EDF.

Accident

As well as nuclear trains, other nuclear transports are also vulnerable to accidents. The Ministry of Defence has been forced to admit that accidents have taken place involving nuclear warhead convoys travelling by road. Incidents have also taken place involving nuclear fuel shipments, such as the recent spillage of uranium fuel aboard a vessel sailing from Canada that encountered rough seas.

As for the nuclear plants themselves, in April the world marked the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, the world's worst ever civil nuclear disaster. Just a month earlier, in the world's most technologically-advanced nation, Japan, three reactors at the Fukushima 1 plant suffered a multiple cooling system failure following the earthquake and tsunami, with four reactors seriously affected in total. The result was three partial core meltdowns, two hydrogen explosions, fires and massive releases of radioactive materials into the environment. But such a catastrophic failure of a reactor's main and back up cooling systems could occur for various reasons besides a massive earthquake and tsunami. Heavy flooding, human error, poor maintenance, terrorist attack or a combination of factors could lead to a similar result. As well as major accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, various lower-level incidents and leaks occur frequently, in the UK and elsewhere. There are also routine deliberate releases of radioactive emissions into the environment, which research suggests may be responsible for elevated levels of childhood leukaemias and cancers close to nuclear power plants, as found in the robust German KiKK study, commissioned by the German government. What is more, emergency responses and evacuation procedures are found wanting, with the public being given minimal guidance as to what to do in the event of an emergency.

So why are we transporting spent fuel in the first place?

Justification 1: Reprocessing

Reprocessing, to extract plutonium and uranium, was originally carried out to obtain materials for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, but now there is a massive plutonium stockpile sitting at Sellafield, with all its attendant security risks. Now it's supposedly done for the manufacture of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, or MOX.

Sellafield's THORP reprocessing facility has been a complete disaster. Its problems have included a leak of highly radioactive materials that continued unchecked for nine months, from 2004-5, resulting in successful prosecutions and heavy fines. Meanwhile, the site's MOX fuel fabrication facility has only produced a tiny fraction of the output it was designed for. No UK reactors currently use MOX, so reprocessing is done purely for overseas customers. It involves the transport of hazardous nuclear materials around the world, with countries like Japan shipping their spent fuel to the UK before it is returned to them as MOX fuel. At Fukushima 1 plant's third reactor, the second to undergo a hydrogen explosion, several of its fuel assemblies contained MOX. Will there still be demand for MOX fuel in the post-Fukushima world?

Reprocessing is a dirty procedure. It generates high volumes of intermediate level radioactive waste, without reducing overall radioactivity. According to Paul Dorfman, the UK already has enough intermediate level waste to fill the Royal Albert Hall five times over. Reprocessing has led to heavy radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea, from Sellafield, and the English Channel, from the French reprocessing facility at La Hague, possibly reaching as far as the east coast of Ireland and the south coast of England, with accumulation of radioactive pollutants within the food chain also being of concern.

Justification 2: Interim waste storage

No long-term storage facility for high level waste exists anywhere in the world, and no such site will be ready in the UK for several decades at least. Serious technological (and political) problems exist with the proposed plans for a deep geological disposal facility. As mentioned earlier, interim waste storage pools at Sellafield, and at other nuclear sites, are highly vulnerable to a terrorist attack, aircraft crash or fire. The alternative to storage at Sellafield, indefinite on-site storage at the nuclear power plants, is unfair on the local communities, who have no real say in the matter. High burn-up fuel from proposed new reactors would emerge much hotter and more radioactive, and would have to remain in situ for 100 years beyond the lifetime of the power station, long after it has ceased to generate electricity. Is it fair on communities living at the sites to have to host de facto high level nuclear waste dumps for well over a century?

Economic implications

This all has economic implications. Just as public spending cuts are beginning to bite, investment which should be going into creating green jobs and decarbonising our economy in a sustainable way is instead being diverted once again into the costly, dirty and dangerous technology that is nuclear power.

The total bill for decommissioning old reactors is now estimated at £100 billion, double the figure of five years ago. Half of the Department for Energy and Climate Change's annual budget is spent on decommissioning nuclear reactors that aren't even generating electricity any more.

Despite the coalition government's pledge that there would be no subsidies for new nuclear, it is planning major distortions of the energy market to favour nuclear power, in order to make this otherwise unattractive technology more lucrative to investors. This includes rigging the carbon price and windfall payments to operators.

Nuclear accident liabilities represent a massive subsidy to the nuclear industry at public expense, which no other industry enjoys. The government proposes to raise the cap on operator liability to around £1 billion, yet Tom Burke estimates that the overall cost from the Fukushima disaster will be $100-200 billion. There is no insurance cover for what happened at Fukushima. The vast majority of the bill would fall to the taxpayer, and uncompensated victims.

All these financial inducements have the effect of crowding out investment in energy efficiency, renewables and combined heat and power.

In both Finland and France, we are seeing massive cost over-runs and delays in the construction of the prototype EPRs, the reactor design EDF hopes to build at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk. Pressure for essential safety improvements following the Fukushima disaster are likely to bump up the costs further. All of these escalating costs will be passed on to the public in one way or another, if not through taxes then via higher energy bills, which are already soaring.

Our energy future

It is surely time to rethink our energy options for the future. The risks associated with nuclear trains and nuclear power generally are ones that we shouldn't have to face in the first place. The very last thing we should be doing is building more nuclear reactors and generating yet more radioactive waste for future generations to have to deal with. Nuclear power is, and always has been, dirty, dangerous, expensive... and unnecessary. A growing list of countries around the world, from China to Germany, and from Japan to Switzerland are rethinking or abandoning their nuclear plans in the light of the Fukushima disaster. Just a week ago, in a national referendum, the Italian public voted overwhelmingly, by well over 90%, for a permanent ban on building any new nuclear reactors in the country. It is time for the UK to follow suit: business as usual is not an option. A new fleet of nuclear reactors in the UK would make only a minimal contribution to cutting our carbon emissions, and would come online too late. We can cut our emissions much quicker and more cheaply through energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable and decentralised energy, including combined heat and power systems, and development of smart grids. Reports by Greenpeace, the Centre for Alternative Technology, No Need for Nuclear and the Sustainable Development Commission have shown that we can decarbonise our economy without building any new nuclear reactors. All we need is the political will and public pressure to make it happen.

Anti-nuclear activity (besides nuclear trains)

If the Government and EDF Energy, the main cheerleaders for new nuclear in the UK, get their way, the first new nuclear reactor will be built at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The Stop New Nuclear coalition, of which Kick Nuclear is a member, plans to halt the UK's planned 'nuclear renaissance' in its tracks (if you'll excuse the pun). It has called a mass blockade of the existing nuclear power station at Hinkley Point on 3rd October, and everybody is invited to take part. Flyers are now available, and more information can be found at:
http://StopNewNuclear.org.uk

Kick Nuclear is also running a campaign calling for customers of EDF Energy to switch energy provider, preferably to a non-nuclear alternative. We have just printed new campaign postcards, and you can find more information, including advice about switching, on the Boycott EDF website:
http://BoycottEDF.org.uk