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Sellafield mox decision "a farce"
23 October 1998
The MOX plant will create new nuclear fuel from foreign plutonium reprocessed at the Sellafield THORP plant. The Environment Agency claims that it has been forced to give plant the green light.But it has admitted that the decision is beyond its competence by refusing to give BNFL the final go ahead until Environment and Agriculture Ministers have considered the issue further. It has also admitted that it was unable to consider the business case for building the MOX plant in the first place.
Key facts which undermine the case for reprocessing at Sellafield are:
.The secret Touche Ross Report, BNFL claimed justified THORP never existed;
.Major problems exist with THORP discharges, making it difficult for BNFL to stay within its discharge limit and make a profit;
.THORP has failed to achieve its planned throughput and may be losing 100 m per year;
.Even before its merger with Magnox Electric, BNFL has unfunded undiscounted liabilities of 2.4 bn, likely to rise to 4.3 bn, the tax payer will have to pay for.
.There is nowhere to put the waste created by reprocessing
.Following the German election, it is almost certain BNFL has lost its second largest foreign client for reprocessing at THORP.
Ministers must now carry out the full re-justification of the THORP plant ordered by the Government in 1993. Friends of the Earth is convinced that there is no market for the fuel THORP and MOX would produce.
Dr Patrick Green of Friends of the Earth said:
"In giving the final say on MOX to the Environment and Agriculture Ministers, the Environment Agency may allow the cavalry to come to its rescue at the eleventh hour. When it finally gets around to the long awaited full review of reprocessing, the Government will find that BNFL must get out of reprocessing and become solely an nuclear cleanup company. The review will show that THORP and MOX are a commercial disaster as well as an environmental nightmare."
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] A background briefing, BRIEFING NOTE: KEY ENVIRONMENT AGENCY DECISION ON SELLAFIELD MOX PLANT, is available by ringing 020 7490 1555.
If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.
Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jul 2008
