Paul Cullen visited the British Nuclear Fuels vessel in Barrow-on-Furness yesterday as Greenpeace protesters were attempting to block two sister vessels off the coast of Australia
With its plain blue-and-yellow livery and streaks of sea rust, the Pacific Crane looks like any other freight transporter in the grey port of Barrow-on-Furness.
Beneath the innocuous deck, however, lurks a deadly nuclear cargo which could spell disaster for Ireland and other countries along the routes it plies - or so claim anti-nuclear campaigners.
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the main owner of the vessel, yesterday invited Irish journalists to view the Pacific Crane and, the company hoped, to refute the allegations made about its cargo of mixed oxide (mox) fuel rods.
Just as the flotilla of Greenpeace protesters was attempting to block the passage of two sister ships off the coast of Australia, BNFL sought to reassure us that its nuclear waste boats were "some of the safest on the high seas".
The Pacific Crane is, in most respects, identical to the two ships that will travel up the Irish Sea in about a month's time. It has a double hull, effectively making it a boat within a boat.
It has two engines, two propellers and two navigation systems so it can continue to function if one set breaks down. It is strengthened by 400 tonnes of extra steel.
"This is the safest ship I've been on. A 25,000-tonne tanker could hit it at 15 knots and still not penetrate the inner skin," says the captain, Mr Kerry Young.
BNFL says security has been reviewed since September 11th and the danger of terrorist attack is "minimal".
The Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, with their naval cannons and an unspecified number of armed officers from the UK Nuclear Energy Authority, are the most heavily armed merchant ships to set sail since the second World War.
These ships travel in pairs for security and their movement is constantly monitored. Their controversial load is carried in 100-tonne forged steel casks which are designed to withstand fire, impact and submersion. "These vessels and their cargo are well poised to withstand a September 11th type incident," said Mr Alastair Brown, BNFL's operation manager in charge of the mox transport.
Mox is made by reprocessing spent uranium fuel rods, separating them into plutonium radioactive waste and the remaining unused uranium. The recycled uranium and plutonium is made into ceramic pellets which can be used again in a nuclear power plant. One small fingernail-size pellet could give as much energy as a tonne of coal.
BNFL denies Greenpeace's claim that its boats are carrying enough waste to make 50 nuclear bombs.
"This claim is only credible if you ignore the form the fuel is in. It's difficult to see any credible scenario whereby anyone could get access to this material and then they would need a reprocessing facility to extract plutonium," said Mr Brown. He also rejected claims that the boats were unseaworthy. However, he conceded that some of the plates on the hull of the Pacific Crane had been replaced after they were found to be corroded.
Even if the mox pellets somehow ended up in the sea, the resulting radiation would be negligible - less than one millionth the amount of naturally occurring background radiation, according to BNFL. "Simply by flying here from Dublin, you have exposed yourself to an extra dose of natural radiation which, though safe, is many times that which would result from mox pellets."
The pity for BNFL is that the current shipment from Japan would never have been necessary if its staff had not falsified quality assurance measurements. As a result, its Japanese customer rejected the mox fuel it had received, leaving the company a headache that has cost €180 million so far. Yet, as Capt Young pointed out, BNFL has been transporting nuclear waste for over 30 years without incident. So is his boat unsinkable? "Oh, I wouldn't say that. They said that about the Titanic."