Press release - 10 September, 2002
The BNFL Pacific Pintail carrying rejected plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) back from Japan to Sellafield
Greenpeace and the Nuclear Free Irish Sea Flotilla warned that
the arrival of the two nuclear freighters in the Irish Sea is
imminent as the ships have been spotted west of the Portuguese
island of Madeira. Greenpeace spotted the ships operated by British
Nuclear Fuels earlier today. A Portuguese Naval vessel shadowed the
shipment to ensure it was outside the Portuguese Exclusive Economic
Zone.
The Pacific Pintail, carrying the cask of rejected plutonium
mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, and her lightly armed escort, the Pacific
Teal are now global outcasts, having been condemned by eighty
Governments along its route from Japan since they left in July.
With news of the collapse of British Energy and the Japanese
utility, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) suspending its plutonium MOX
programme indefinitely, the future business prospects for BNFL look
bleak. This shipment was justified by BNFL solely on the basis of
regaining business with Japan.
The two plutonium ships will face a barrage of protest from the
Nuclear Free Irish Sea Flotilla as they near their homeport of
Barrow-in-Furness. Up to eighteen yachts will sail out into the
Irish Sea to peacefully protest against the freighters.
"As a participant of the Flotilla partnership, I am determined
to peacefully protest against BNFL and the UK and Japanese
Governments, who have continually supported this morally and
financially bankrupt industry", said Paul Barrett, skipper of the
yacht Tuscair. "This has given myself and other members of the
sailing community an opportunity not only to express our own
concerns but also of those who live by and near the Irish Sea".
"These ships were not welcome in any sea on their disgraced
journey back from Japan, and they are certainly not welcome in the
Irish Sea. Eighty Governments including Ireland have publicly
decried this shipment as lunacy," said Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace
International Nuclear Campaigner on board the Rainbow Warrior in
Dublin. "The UK and Japanese nuclear industries have been exposed
as dishonest, unsafe and uneconomic. Rather than increasing the
trade in bomb material with all the risks that entails, they need
to concentrate on waste clean-up and investments in clean
energy".