TAKE ACTION
Latest videos
Nuclear Reaction
It's official: nuclear recycling plant is a staggering waste of taxpayers' money
Posted by jossc on 7 April 2009.
Backers of the controversial MOX plant at Sellafield, which promised to turn toxic waste into a useable fuel that could be sold worldwide, had claimed the plant would make a profit of more than £200m in its lifetime, producing 120 tonnes of recycled fuel a year.
But an investigation published in today's Independent newspaper reveals what the government has been trying to keep secret - that technical problems and a dearth in orders has meant it has produced just 6.3 tonnes of fuel since opening in 2001.
Since building work began in the 1990s the plant has absorbed over £1 billion in public subsidies - money which could have been far better invested in developing renewable energy projects.
Below, Greenpeace's nuclear adviser Jean McSorely (in an article also first published in today's Independent) says that the government always knew the MOX plant was likely to be an expensive white elephant.
Greenpeace's long-held opposition to the Sellafield Mox Plant (SMP) is rooted in its opposition to the global trade of weapons-usable plutonium for fuel in nuclear reactors. The increased risks to global security from proliferation and use of nuclear materials were vividly underscored at the weekend by Barack Obama – risks that are inherent with the proposed expansion of nuclear power.
The Sellafield plant is designed to produce mixed oxide plutonium and uranium (Mox) as a fuel for reactors, the use of which results in highly radioactive spent fuel. Underpinning the whole manufacture and trade in plutonium is the reprocessing of the spent fuel – one of the most hazardous parts of the nuclear chain.
The Mox plant has been plagued by financial and safety concerns since it was completed in 1996. Although the industry claimed the benefits of building the plant would be many, we were unconvinced.
So much so, that in 2001, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth took the government to the High Court claiming that the decision to allow British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) to begin operation of the plant at Sellafield was unlawful as it would incur a financial loss and the predicted £200m income relied on customers that did not exist. BNFL only had contracts for less than 10 per cent of the business it hoped to attract.
However, the judge rejected the challenge and later that year it began operation. Since then the plant has been a technical, financial and political failure and comes at a time when the industry is asking the government to make a decision on the "justification" of new reactors.
The SMP has been a staggering waste of taxpayers' money, and we doubt that these will be the full costs of this sorry saga. Just imagine what the renewable sector could have done with a subsidy like that. The failure of the Mox plant is another reminder of why the nuclear industry has become notorious for making wildly exaggerated claims about its benefits and precisely why it should treated with scepticism and mistrust.
nuclear power
i love nuclear power stations and the smell and damage they create to the environment
Other things to consider
I think that this effort needs rewarding far beyond the attempt to produce energy windy miller style. I know how much you all would love there to be some alternate source of energy for us to use to power our homes, our shops, cars and computers, but let me remind you that the only viable sources of energy in this country that we can use to produce huge amounts of energy to be fed onto the national grid are coal, fossil fuels and gas, which is a hydrocarbon and is produced mainly from fossil fuels piped from underground, above oil. We also have nuclear and this is a way to produce energy without producing large quantities of waste gasses, which naturally find there way into the upper atmosphere and can cause environmental concerns such as acid rain and global warming. You are not just criticising fossil fuels, which indeed are not good for the environment based on scientific evidence that they are causing global warming, and damage to the climate. If you are going to pinpoint nuclear as well, what do we have left. Wind power is clearly not the answer, and for all of you who didn't already know due to your ignorant characters, the wind farm that is being built will cost billions, but will require huge amounts of energy to be used in the production of these windmills, and the actual farm will only last twenty years before decommissioned. When the farm is decommissioned there will be countless tones of waste mettle and materials, concrete, steal to be dumped on landfill, much of which will not be recyclable. Also, if you didn't already know, the wind farm will indeed employ means of storing energy which will be used when there is a lack of wind, but there will be periods when there will be no wind for days and in this time there will have to be power stations filling in for the lack of energy output from the farm. This will mean that as many nuclear power plants will still have to be built as would have to be even if there was no wind farm, and this will just cost the tax payer more money. The job of the government is to listen to the public and support what they want, but many people just have no idea what is best for Britain, and I for one don't think that a bunch of telly tubby wind mills will answer our energy problems. I respect Gordon brown in trying to make a difference, but it is actually the public who have a large influence on the government, and I don't think that the government are necessarily receiving the right message from environmental groups, who have a poor scientific knowledge, and often do things irrationally without any real thought, in a non scientific way. We can not fight 'global warming' by copying the telly tubby, and we need nuclear to replace fossil fuels. I would preferably say that wind farm is a staggering waste of taxpayer's money.
shut up harry!
Aquariumnerd/ harry my brother, you need to learn that wind turbines are not tellytubby windmills asyou like to call them. They are used to get a supply of energy. The nuclear is a waste of taxpayers qmoney as the waste is only going to be dumped in the sea. We really do not want to be paying taxes to kill off the fish now, do we? [Harry, how would you like you blenny and that eel thing if they got released, to die due tothe radiation? -You wouldn't so how comne you're so happy for other fish to die?]
Nuclear is ridiculous and the government have already mentione dumping the waste in space which is ludicrous as space is a force greater than man and we have no right to be there, let alone use it as an eternal landfill [or spacefill] site.
Go Greenpeace!! keep up with the good work!!
you are so stupid...
Posted by elliot4lexy on 9 April 2009.
"i love nuclear power stations and the smell and damage they create to the environment"
You are a really stupid person. You will find that having the attitude that messing up the world doesn't matter will getyou nowhere in life. It's thanks to you ignorant people out there that we are already in the mess we are in and we don't need to dig the hole deeper. By thesound of things, you need tolearn to be more responsible for your actions and start to love the environment. Why do you come on these sites if you do not agree withanything they stand for?
Go Greenpeace!! keep up with the good work!!
i must say that I am rather
i must say that I am rather fond of the nuclear industry, and I would rather have a micro miniature reactor on my roof than a wind turbine, ha-ha, joking, but I do like nuclear very much.
Fish would like neuclear if they could
especially the ones on James bond who live in a nuclear reactor heated tank, ha-ha.
My pet fish love nuclear as it provides 15 percent of the energy to run their tanks. They are also contributing to environmental damage, and they love to do so very much.
Good on the government dumping in space. I hear that there is a design that has long been withheld for a nuclear rocket booster, take the chance government and let NASA give it a try.
Diamond Buyers
Hi,
Tax inspectors are told not to question claims for minor uses which cost less than £2 per week. A minor use would cover the use of a kitchen table to do accounts for a couple of hours a week. Therefore a landlord should include a minimum claim of up to £104 a year minor business use expense because the HMRC won't question the deduction and will not need to see bills or receipts.
Diamond Buyers
How on Earth is the
How on Earth is the plutonium 'weapons usable?' Maybe some mad terrorist cell would try it, but they wouldn't get very far. Aside from the expensive enrichment required, which is beyond the scope of anyone who would need to aquire their plutonium from this source, the isotope of plutonium that Sellafield produces is Pu-240. This, unlike true weapons grade Pu-239, will not produce a successful nuke. You are, here, merely using the scaremongering connotations of plutonium to try and get headlines and viewers, not to make a serious point. I would have no objection to a nuclear power plant near where I live, but I would object to an unsightly, noisy, dangerous wind farm taking up valuable agricultural land.