Yesterday Jamie Reed was named as the Government's brand new deputy minister for the North West.

The Nuclear Fuel cycle produces greenhouse gases thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. Following a Freedom of Information request from Radiation Free Lakeland it has come to light that Sellafield (nolonger producing electricity) quadrupled its emissions of
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from the period 2007 to 2008. HFC’s are hundreds and can be thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The reporting threshold is 100kg but Sellafield produced over 4 times this
amount in 2008 alone.

The Government's 'Energy Security' report urging new nuclear build published by former energy
minister Malcolm Wicks proclaims new nuclear build would “boost energy security” and “tackle
climate change.” Regarding “energy security,” the known UK resource of uranium is on Orkney where the Orcadians successfully won a battle in the 1970’s to keep their uranium safely in the ground. Regarding climate change, Malcolm Wicks' report misleads the public into believing that nuclear power does not produce Green House Gases. This assertion is clearly
untrue.

Far from being the saviour of planet Earth it was nuclear power that first blew a hole in the ozone layer. Apart from hydrofluorocarbons and other potent greenhouse gas emissions, the nuclear cycle absolutely relies on the production of chemicals such as nitric acid in large quantities. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is produced by nitric acid production and is not only 310 times more powerful than CO2 but it lasts over 100 years in the troposphere.

According to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield is home to the most dangerous concoction of tens of millions of gallons of nitric acid (1086.7 m3) in High Level Liquid Waste tanks holding “nitric acid solution containing fission products, some actinides and some solids”.

Fossil fuel and the internal combustion engine has done much to trash the environment but fossil fuel is well and truly trumped by nuclear power at the top of the polluting industrial food chain and reliant on all other polluters for its existence. For instance, Sellafield spent £30 million last year on gas at the nearby “Fellside” gas plant built at the nuclear industry’s behest to insure “security of supply” for a nuclear plant that no longer produces electricity.

A spokesperson for Radiation Free Lakeland said “Malcolm Wicks' dodgy dossier is in the same spirit as the dodgy dossier presented as an excuse for the Iraq ‘war’. Never mind the known link between nuclear power plants and cancers, it is obvious that nuclear power is neither “home grown” or “climate friendly, ” to pretend otherwise is not only smoke and mirrors but the most vicious confidence trick imaginable.


Notes:

HFC’s are hundreds and can be thousands of times more powerful than carbon
dioxide.
 http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/montreal-protocol/



Some estimates suggest that increases in HFC use could overwhelm all the
planned cuts in CO2 emissions by 2040, releasing the equivalent of
hundreds of gigatonnes of CO2.
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/04/obama-hfc-carbon-climate

Following a Freedom of Information request from Radiation Free Lakeland it
has come to light that Sellafield (no longer producing electricity)
quadrupled its emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from the period 2007
to 2008
10689349 - initial NDA response
extract: Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs):
2007: 176kg (Figure from Magnox, Thorp and FCHP).
2008: 431kg (Figure from Magnox, Thorp and FCHP).
the reporting threshold for HFCs is 100kg.

Energy Security Paper backs Dash for Homegrown Energy
 http://www.malcolmwicks.org.uk/energy


In Feb '77, the Orkney Islands Council had unanimously rejected an
application from the SSEB for permission to begin uranium prospecting.
 http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/b5/uranium.html


Nuclear Power first blew a hole in the ozone layer
“In July 1962 NASA announced that high altitude nuclear tests had created
a new radiation belt 750 miles deep, girdling the earth. …………military
tests have massively contributed to ozone depletion and global warming”
Dr Rosalie Bertell - Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War- The
Women's Press, London, 2000.


Nuclear cycle absolutely relies on the production of chemicals
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle – Royal Society of Chemistry
 http://www.rsc.org/images/essay7_tcm18-17769.pdf
 http://www.2oc.co.uk/faqs.htm


Sellafield is home to the most dangerous concoction of tens of millions of
gallons of nitric acid (1086.7 m3) in High Level Liquid Waste tanks
holding “nitric acid solution containing fission products, some actinides
and some solids”.
 http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Vj4Kh22FKlYJ:www.nda.gov.uk/ukinventory/documents/Waste_Stream_Data_Sheets/Individual_WSDS/Sellafield_NDA/loader.cfm%3FcsModule%3Dsecurity/getfile%26PageID%3D3091+nitric+acid+magnox&hl=en


Known link between nuclear power plants and cancers
 http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/radiation_link_to_death_of_campaigner_1_591153?referrerPath=home/vote_2_3708
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/marianne-birkby/2009/07/30/dodging-the-evidence-leukemias-and-nuclear-power-plants