Nuclear cargo docks in UK

Two ships carrying radioactive material back to Britain from Japan were today expected to dock in the UK at a port off the Irish Sea.

Freighters The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, which are transporting rejected plutonium fuel, were completing the final leg of an 18,000-mile journey across the globe which began when they left Japan in July.

The British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) armed ships were due to arrive at a port in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, this morning.

Once the boats dock, the five-tonne cargo of plutonium mixed oxide fuel (MOX), which is contained in 100-tonne armoured casks, will be lifted from the boat by crane before being loaded onto trains and taken to the BNFL-owned nuclear plant at Sellafield, Cumbria.

The fuel will then be stored at the plant until BNFL chiefs give the green light for it to be recycled into new fuel.

BNFL have faced a storm of criticism over the transportation of the fuel, which environmental campaigners Greenpeace claim contains enough plutonium to make 50 nuclear weapons.

A fleet of about 20 boats led by Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior laid in wait for the BNFL ships as they entered the Irish Sea yesterday, in order to protest against what they called the “dangers of nuclear material”.

Part of the flotilla of protesting boats left the port of Holyhead to station itself in the south of the Irish Sea while other boats were waiting of the coast near Barrow to meet the nuclear ships when they arrive today.

The BNFL convoy has also received the cold shoulder from numerous other countries according to Greenpeace who claim that 80 governments have condemned the ship since they set sail from Japan, denying them access to waters around their countries.

Navy vessels and spotter aircraft were also deployed by the Irish Government to monitor the nuclear shipment as it sailed near the coast.

A BNFL spokesman said the countries are entitled to their opinion although much of it stems from a misunderstanding over how dangerous the nuclear shipments are, as fuel onboard has not been used in a reactor which means its levels of radiation are “very low”.

The plutonium fuel was originally shipped out to Japan in 1999 by BNFL for Japan’s largest nuclear company Tokyo Electric which wanted to load it into a nuclear reactor to generate electricity.

But the shipments are now having to be returned after BNFL admitted five staff at the old Sellafield testing facility falsified quality checks on the consignments.