NUCLEAR DAZE I
The fight against the operation of the MOX nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, England has only just begun. So said Joe Jacob Ireland’s Minister with responsibility for nuclear safety as British Nuclear Fuels confirmed that it has started commissioning the MOX plant. British Nuclear safety inspectors gave the final go-ahead last week for the controversial facility. When the plant began operations under the cover of darkness, Irish demonstrators were on hand to protest. The Irish government, as well as environmental groups, had taken legal action to try to prevent the start-up. One of the first actions in the plant will be to load highly toxic plutonium dust into its production systems. The MOX (mixed oxide) facility will blend plutonium and uranium into reactor fuel and once exposed to these substances the plant will become a radioactive biohazard. The chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute, Dr Tom O'Flaherty, also condemned the decision. "It is highly objectionable that the environment, particularly the marine environment is being contaminated with radioactive substances," he said. "The RPII greatly regrets that the start up of the MOX plant at Sellafield is to go ahead today."

Ireland is concerned about radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea. And Norway has threatened legal action after finding pollution along its west coast, and in the Arctic.

In a manner all too familiar to those who have battled against the plant, former British government press secretary Bernard Ingham described them as "hysterical and ignorant." Ingham, a close confident of Margaret Thatcher, is now a member of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy organization. The comments were immediately criticized by the Irish Government's Social Community and Family Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern, whose Co Louth parliamentary constituency lies across the Irish Sea from Sellafield. He said: "Mr Ingham is obviously an apologist for the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom and if anyone is hysterical and ignorant - particularly ignorant - it is him. He is disregarding the views and the fears of the vast majority of the people - not just on this side of the border, but of all the people on this island.
"The advice to us from our experts is that the Sellafield facility is particularly dangerous from discharges and also the risk of an explosion."

Bryony Worthington, energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said, "This is terrible news. MOX is unpopular, unsafe and uneconomic. It should never have been given the go-ahead. Instead of making more nuclear fuel that isn’t needed, BNFL should work towards the decommissioning, clean-up and management of the dangerous nuclear legacy they have helped to create, both here and abroad."
Sources: RTE, Irish Abroad, Irish Times, BBC, ENS, Irish Republican News and Information, GreenPeace International, GreenPeace (UK), Department of Public Enterprise (Ireland)

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