Sir, – The UK government announced on December 1st its wish to develop a new plutonium reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Despite recently closing a reprocessing plant at Sellafield following the Fukushima disaster and the lack of orders, the UK government bizarrely sees the benefits of a new facility to deal with the world’s largest stockpile of weapons-usable plutonium.
So, the people of Ireland will face another nuclear risk being built just 60 miles from its coastline, which is likely to increase radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea. Added to this, there are major plans for building new nuclear reactors at Sellafield and one of the largest deep-underground nuclear waste facilities in the world could well be built somewhere in West Cumbria.
Why is the Irish Government saying so little about these worrying developments so close to us?
I urge Phil Hogan to speak out and challenge the UK government over this massive nuclear expansion. When we could produce copious amounts of clean, sustainable renewable energy by Britain and Ireland working together to take advantage of our geography and the windiest parts of Europe, I am staggered to see these unnecessary developments being proposed.
In Ireland, we have got to be more pro-active on this or shortly we will be seeing across the Irish Sea a nuclear renaissance over which we have no say. – Yours, etc,