Nuke costs rise and still 369 UK restricted farms

As nuke waste costs rise by another £10 billion the local Green party ask if David Drew will abandon his support for this dangerous and uneconomic industry - see Martin Whiteside's letter today here - and see here for the call last week to end plans to build more nukes.

Photo: Another from 'local scribbler Russ' - like this one!

It was only three weeks ago we had three reports on the monitoring of sheep at farms remaining under post-Chernobyl restrictions. As a result of the surveys:

* two farms in Scotland have been de-restricted - leaving five under restriction
* no farms were recommended for de-restriction in Cumbria - with nine farms remaining under restriction

It was impossible to conduct any surveys in North Wales last year, due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. For thsoe who don't rememember what this is about - in 1986, an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former USSR (now Ukraine) released large quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Some of this was deposited on certain upland areas of the UK where sheep are farmed. In order to protect the health of consumers, restrictions were placed on the movement and sale of sheep from areas of the UK where contamination levels in sheep meat were over 1,000 Becquerels (a measure of radioactivity) per kilogramme - the safety limit set in 1986. Then in 1986, almost 9000 farms were under these restrictions in the UK. Since then, the levels of radioactivity have fallen in some of the affected areas. The number of farms still under restriction in Cumbria, Scotland and Wales is now 369.

Mention of Chernobyl is important as there are some indepnedent scientists who think Oldbury and other nukes still going carry serious risks - last October we had John Large at a public meeting saying: "Potentially an accident at Oldbury would have the same outcome as Chernobyl." See more here. Let us hope the Government wakes up to the economic realities of nuclear - although the signs are not good - indeed they already look set to be going back on their promise not to subsidise it....