2 anti-nuke protests against new build plans

Anti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

This morn­ing in West­min­ster, dur­ing the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee on the pro­posed nuclear and oth­er ener­gy Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments, two anti-nuclear activists stood and unfurled a ban­ner in the cen­tre of the com­mit­tee room read­ing “Local Democ­ra­cy Dumped.” The ban­ner also fea­tured radi­a­tion sym­bols and drums of radioac­tive waste. A third activist hand­ed out brief­in­gs on why they believe nuclear pow­er is unac­cept­able and an inap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy for tack­ing cli­mate change. The three activists were tak­en away and detained inside the House of Com­mons, along with a forth man who was tak­ing pho­tographs. The four were held for over two hours for alleged breach­es of the House reg­u­la­tions, before being released and banned from the Par­lia­men­tary estate for the rest of the day.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ener­gy giants EDF, E.ON and RWE npow­er and of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Elec­tric­i­ty Pro­duc­ers were giv­ing evi­dence before the com­mit­tee of MPs. The pro­test­ers were high­light­ing the lack of local democ­ra­cy asso­ci­at­ed with the new fast-track plan­ning process, which will be used to silence dis­sent­ing local voic­es on major infra­struc­ture projects such as new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and nuclear waste dumps.

Yes­ter­day the four protest­ed with oth­ers out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence at Char­ing Cross Hotel (see below)

Nuclear Peo­ple Pow­er / No New Nuclear
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

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Lon­don Con­fer­ence Protest Expos­es Nuclear Green­wash
26.1.2010

A group of nine anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers staged a two-hour protest out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence in cen­tral Lon­don this morn­ing in protest at indus­try attempts to paint nuclear pow­er as a “green” tech­nol­o­gy and win pub­lic sup­port for new nuclear reac­tors.

Stand­ing out­side the Guo­man Hotel adja­cent to Char­ing Cross rail­way sta­tion in the morn­ing rush hour dressed in white over­alls and masks, the pro­test­ers dis­played a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos”, hand­ed out leaflets and detailed brief­in­gs explain­ing why they believe nuclear pow­er to be a false solu­tion to cli­mate change and detail­ing oth­er prob­lems with this form of ener­gy. Dur­ing the demon­stra­tion, the con­fer­ence’s keynote speak­er, for­mer ener­gy min­is­ter Mal­colm Wicks MP, exchanged views on nuclear pow­er and ener­gy pol­i­cy with one of the cam­paign­ers.

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on its draft nuclear Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment (NPS). Once this is approved, deci­sions on new nuclear reac­tors will be left to an unelect­ed quan­go called the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, with no fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ty for local objec­tions to be heard.
The Gov­ern­ment is keen to push through a new gen­er­a­tion of cost­ly and high­ly con­tro­ver­sial nuclear reac­tors, despite wide­spread oppo­si­tion and the lack of any long-term solu­tion for over 50 years’ worth of high lev­el radioac­tive waste from exist­ing reac­tors. Cam­paign­ers are con­cerned that the high cost of build­ing new reac­tors would divert essen­tial invest­ment from renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. They say that new reac­tors take too long to build and would not in any case make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion towards meet­ing the UK’s car­bon emis­sion reduc­tion tar­gets. They also remain con­cerned about the health effects of radioac­tive emis­sions, such as the can­cer and leukaemia clus­ters found near nuclear pow­er sta­tions, as indi­cat­ed by the 2007 Ger­man-gov­ern­ment spon­sored KiKK study, and the risk of a ter­ror­ist attack or cat­a­stroph­ic Cher­nobyl-type reac­tor melt­down. A for­mer direc­tor of the Fors­mark nuclear plant in Swe­den said of an inci­dent at the site in 2006: “It was pure luck that there was not a melt­down.”

Daniel Vies­nik, 35, a Lon­don-based activist, said “The nuclear industry’s long his­to­ry of secre­cy, cov­er-ups and shod­dy and dan­ger­ous prac­tices stretch­es back over fifty years. It wants us to believe that a leop­ard can change its spots, but the only thing that real­ly seems to change is the indus­try’s PR tac­tics.”

Ian Mills, 44, a long-term anti-nuclear activist from Chip­pen­ham, Wilt­shire said, “Nuclear pow­er is a dirty, dan­ger­ous and expen­sive dis­trac­tion from the major invest­ment need­ed for a rad­i­cal tran­si­tion to a safe and sus­tain­able low-car­bon future and green indus­try, based on more mod­est con­sump­tion, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion, and renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy.”

Mell Har­ri­son, 38, East­ern Region CND’s cam­paigns offi­cer, who lives near Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, said: “It is frus­trat­ing that we are not includ­ed in the talks hap­pen­ing at the con­fer­ence, espe­cial­ly as the ener­gy needs of the UK con­cerns us all. A seat at the con­fer­ence costs over £1300 and the future costs if new nuclear goes ahead are far greater. Sure­ly now it is time for the nuclear indus­try to be open and account­able? But yet again as we have seen time and time again, all the ‘real’ talk goes on behind closed doors.’ Mell added ’ This protest is just the start- we need real solu­tions to cli­mate change — not nuclear green wash.’

Con­tact: vd2012-npp [at] yahoo.co.uk or mell­c­n­deast [at] cnduk.org
Tel: 07760 161 755 or 07506 234 091
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com
Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/nukepeoplepower