JAPAN: A ship carrying nuclear material bound for Britain has left a Japanese port under tight security, defying protests from anti-nuclear activists who said the cargo could be at risk of theft or attack.
The ship is expected to take six weeks to reach Britain and will sail through the Irish Sea.
The material on board the Pacific Pintail, a potentially weapons-usable mix of plutonium and uranium oxides (MOX), was allowed to leave Japan just days after the US State Department warned of the potential for attacks around US Independence Day.
The MOX fuel is being returned to the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) after Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co Inc discovered that data for a 1999 shipment from Britain had been deliberately falsified. Kansai Electric had intended to use the fuel in commercial reactors.
"Security concerns are a major issue to countries along the tens of thousands of kilometres between Japan and the United Kingdom," Greenpeace said in a statement. "The ships are slow, lightly armed, and vulnerable to armed attack.
"The plutonium contained in this one cargo is sufficient for 50 nuclear weapons if stolen," the statement added.
Meanwhile, the cost of cleaning up Britain's nuclear waste has increased to €75 billion, it was revealed yesterday as the British government unveiled changes in its management of the country's nuclear legacy.
A new national body, the Liabilities Management Authority, is to be created to ensure that the clean-up, which will take decades to complete, is carried out safely and efficiently.- (Reuters, PA)
Eithne Donnellan adds: The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said the Government's concern at the use of the Irish Sea to transport such nuclear materials had been made known to the UK authorities on many occasions.
"The shipment of such materials through the Irish Sea represents an unacceptable risk to the environment of Ireland and the health and economic well-being of its population.
"There is also the enhanced risk of the shipments being the target of a terrorist attack or the materials being diverted into the hands of terrorists," he said.