Update on Oldbury

Just got some notes from Angela Paine who attended the Oldbury SSG on Wednesday 27 April regarding the nuclear plant. Here are her comments:

Small mercy number one  - Oldbury have finally finished trucking radwaste to the railhead at Berkley and thence through Cheltenham and numerous other cities to Sellafield.
 
Small mercy number two  - The last Magnox nuke has shut down.

When asked whether Wylfa was still going ahead we were told that Horizon is still committed but Horizon and EDF are running in parallel, though Hinkley is running to a different time frame from Horizon - whether faster or slower was not specified (they mean Horizon is intended to  be after Hinkley).

Oldbury are still talking about building a new nuke beside the old one, but it’s no longer imminent. They are now talking about building work maybe, possibly starting in ten years time. My guess is that EDF is holding up Hinkley, which is holding up Wylfa, which is holding up Oldbury.

Points to be concerned about: The NDA are about to start a ‘mentoring scheme’, pairing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises with larger organisations to share skills, experience and contacts with the aim of helping small and medium enterprises to navigate through the maze of nuclear decommissioning opportunities. All UK-based small and medium enterprises are eligible to apply, regardless of industrial background. So there is a very real prospect of radwaste being spread out all over the country in ways that cannot be monitored. The government is trying to make nuclear more popular by sharing out the proceeds from dealing with the low and intermediate level waste. In view of the fact that they classify the graphite cores of the old reactors as low level waste I think there is serious cause for concern.

The NDA has published an updated overview of Higher Activity Waste containing details about where waste arises and how it is being dealt with....weblink: Waste overview

Meanwhile see Molly Scott Cato MEP and her comments in Friday's Independent about Belguim planning to give everyone in their country iodine tablets due to increased likelihood of a nuclear disaster - perhaps creating a completely false sense of security for some? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belgium-to-give-iodine-pills-to-entire-country-in-case-of-nuclear-fallout-radiation-terrorist-attack-a7006651.html 

And here's 30th Anniversary video of Chernobyl here.

Campaign continues - Hinkley Point C

The Stop Hinkley Campaign today declared the campaign against the proposals to build a new nuclear station at Hinkley Point C as far from over. See Stroud's Molly Scott Cato talking about new nuclear and why she didn't join celebrations of the Chinese President during his visit: http://stroudcommunity.tv/molly-chinese-president/

See Stop Hinkley's press release below.

All national newspapers have expressed disquiet about these proposals, and today one described the deal with China as “sheer folly”.  Stop Hinkley spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said “there is still every possibility that this reckless plan will be defeated. This will be the eighth time that EDF Energy has announced that a final investment decision is just around the corner. ”.

It is clear, as the Financial Times says that this week's statements on Hinkley Point do not amount to the final deal.

From Stop Hinkley campaign

“Jean-Bernard Levy, chairman of EDF, claims that hundreds of workers could be starting work on the construction of two new reactors at the site by the end of the year. But given the number of issues still to be resolved one has to wonder which year he is talking about,” said Pumfrey. “Levy’s claims were not repeated in the EDF press release, which instead listed a number of conditions we know will take one or more years to fulfil, so if work does resume this year it will only be on a very slow cosmetic basis.”

Much remains to be negotiated, and many significant hurdles still remain. These include:-

• Flawed steel has been identified on the reactor pressure vessel and lid of an identical nuclear reactor being built in Flamanville in Normandy. This could take 12 – 24 months to resolve and no work could start at Hinkley Point until these safety issues are resolved in France.
• Due to severe financial difficulties and huge levels of debt, the French Government has commenced a restructuring of EDF and Areva NP into a merged company. This will also take some considerable time to achieve, and is a major reason why the UK was so desperate to secure Chinese investment.
• A legal challenge to the European Commission by the Austrian and Luxembourg Governments, and a group of Austrian and German renewable energy companies, over its approval of the UK – EDF state aid deal for Hinkley Point will take at least a year or more to resolve. If the courts find against the Commission the whole financing deal will be placed in jeopardy. Construction cannot seriously begin until the complete financing agreement is in place, and that cannot be signed before all legal challenges have been resolved
• A reliability clause is likely within the contract. This will be linked in to the prior successful EPR operation being constructed at Flamanville-3 in France. This nuclear reactor project is now years behind schedule and billions over budget in being realised. EDF has asked for a formal three year delay in this project, being it will not be completed until at least 2020, 13 years after construction began.
  
  Meanwhile, the former director of strategy for David Cameron, Steve Hilton, has called the deal with China "one of the worst national humiliations". He said we should impose sanctions on China, rather than "rolling out the red carpet". To read more click more.

South West Green MEP welcomes legal challenge to Hinkley C

 Molly Scott Cato MEP has welcomed news that the Austrian government is to mount a legal challenge against the decision by the EU to allow billions of pounds of subsidies for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. See here.

The previous European Commission has approved scandalous nuclear subsidies for the construction and operation of the largest nuclear power plants in the world at Hinkley Point. This opens the floodgates for the construction of new nuclear power plants in Europe. The German green energy supplier, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau, have appealed directly to the European Commission to complain against it. But only when the pressure of citizens is higher than the influence of the nuclear lobby will the new EC take back the wrong decision.

·         Sign their petition here: https://www.ews-schoenau.de/campaign.html

The plan is to present the petition to the EC mid-Feb. 

Hinkley C and the BBC

Powerful letter from Dr Ian Fairlie, independent nuclear consultant (http://www.ianfairlie.org/about-ian-fairlie/) to the BBC - shared by Angela Paine, a leading campaigner to stop a new nuclear power station being built on the Somerset coast (http://stophinkley.org/) and local green activist:

Sirs

Your programme on Hinkley C (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n67xn) was perhaps one of the worst-informed, biased and misleading I've heard in a long time.

Have you no independent researchers who could dig a little deeper on this contentious matter?

Why no discussion of the truly extraordinary construction costs - £24.5 billion - and rising? This is more than double the cost of the 2012 UK Olympic Games...for one power station. And the mindboggling price support subsidies, estimated at another £35 billion over the life of the station assuming it is ever built? These have been severely criticised - even by Conservative politicians and bankers.

And the fact that the EPRs [nuclear reactors] under construction in Finland and France are in serious legal, technical, and financial difficulties? Both projects being years behind schedule and £billions over budget?

And the fact that the EPR is an experimental design and may not even work in practice, given its over-reliance on myriads of untested computer programs?

You and your colleagues may say that nuclear is low carbon, but this is naive: of all the methods of generating  low carbon electricity, nuclear is the least economic, by some margin.

For heaven's sake, where was the balance in your programme?

Yours in anger

Sadly, another thing to be cross with the BBC about! If you heard this R4 'You & Yours' programme last week, please consider joining Ian in contacting them with your thoughts / complaints...

Still fighting Hinkley

Last month, the country’s first new nuclear power station in a generation – at Hinkley Point – cleared a major hurdle after an agreement was reached between the European Commission and Whitehall. However, Green MEP Molly Scott Cato has pledged to keep fighting the power station.

But the news angered and dismayed opponents, including the Green Party, the Stop Hinkley Group and Greenpeace UK, who vowed that the fight against the EDF plant would go on. More Here: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Campaigners-bid-block-EU-deal-Hinkley/story-23039980-detail/story.html

Stop Hinkley have now written to competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who is in charge of state aid, urging him to reconsider and claiming that the subsidy deal had been “stitched up without any sort of competitive process”. [http://www.stophinkley.org/Temporary/Dear%20Commissioner.pdf]

Dale Vincent, of Stroud's Ecotricity, was reported in the Guardian as considering making a legal challenge over Hinkley, and it seems there could be German protest as well.

So, rumours of Hinkley's success may be premature, and the fight is a long way from over. we can only hope that sanity, and law will prevail, and the massive government subsidy of this unsustainable industry will not be allowed to go ahead.

Greens resist Hinkley

Molly presents a list of questions about Hinkley to Commissioner Almunia: he denies that a decision has been reached.

Green MEP for the South West, Molly Scott Cato, has reacted with fury to the news that the EU is set to approve billions of pounds of public funding for Hinkley C, the UK’s first new nuclear power plant in a generation.

For several months, the EU has been investigating whether the Hinkley C deal is in breach of EU competition and state aid rules. Greens have always maintained that the contract with EDF, offering a strike price for its electricity of £92.50 per MWh – roughly twice the current wholesale price of power – as well as state credit guarantee of £10bn, are illegal state aids which breach European market rules.
 
Responding to the news, Molly Scott Cato said:
 
“A decision like this demonstrates why so many British people are sceptical about the EU. The rules on fair competition are perfectly clear but can apparently be ignored when there is a political deal to be made. Agreeing such a huge implicit subsidy for Hinkley will make it impossible for those who generate electricity in a clean and sustainable way to compete. It will destroy thousands of potential jobs in the renewables sector and set back South West innovation in the energies of the future.”
 
In the letter handed to Mr Almunia today, Dr Scott Cato demands a full justification for the decision to approve the deal and calls for the Commission to make public the full evidence on which the judgment was based . She urges constituents in the South West to write to Mr Almunia to express their shock and disappointment, asking him to think again. You ca write to him at Joaquin.ALMUNIA@ec.europa.eu
 
The deal will still require approval from the outgoing EU commissioners, which includes several nuclear sceptics. Greens and a cross-party group of MEPs are now campaigning hard for the contract between the UK government and EDF to be dropped. As well as contravening EU rules, Greens in the Parliament argue the deal threatens the EUs sustainability objectives.

We've also been sent this press release from Stop Hinkley:

Campaigners call Hinkley Deal “Economically Bonkers”
Commenting on reports that the deal between the UK Government and EDF Energy to subsidise the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is on the verge of winning approval from competition authorities in Brussels, campaigners in Somerset stressed that no decision has yet been made.

According to media reports competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia supports the approval of public funding for the construction of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station.  However the final decision, which may happen soon, has to be taken by a college of all the European Commissioners.

The Stop Hinkley Campaign welcomed a letter sent by a group of over 20 academics, politicians and renewable energy companies to the European Competition Commissioner as well as Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and his successor Jean-Claude Juncker to urge them not to rush through any decision and warning that doing so could mean the decision would face legal action. (1)

The two proposed nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point will infringe single market rules on the internal energy market, if the £16 billion mega-project proceeds on its present basis. The project has not been subject to any kind of competition with alternative ways of providing the same service.

“Irrespective of what we think about the possibility of an accident or routine emissions of radioactivity into the environment, or the fact that there is no solution to dealing with the dangerous waste, this deal is economically bonkers”, said Stop Hinkley Campaign spokesperson Allan Jeffrey. “Britain has 7 million homes with lofts that need to be insulated; 5 million with cavity walls that need to be filled and 7 million with uninsulated solid walls, (2) yet this deal will lock consumers into paying about twice the going rate for electricity until almost 2060 while the cost of renewable energy is falling rapidly. It would be hard devise a worse deal for consumers or tackling climate change if you tried.”

Protesters demand an end to nuclear trains in Gloucester

Press release from STAND:

On Friday the 26th September members of Stand Against Nuclear Development (STAND) are going to demonstrate and leaflet at Gloucester station.

This is in protest at the transport of water-filled flasks carrying highly-radioactive fuel rods from Hinkley nuclear power station to Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria for reprocessing, which pass through Gloucester weekly. As well as these highly radioactive flasks there are also flasks of intermediate level waste from 5 different nuclear power stations in the UK which go through Gloucester on their way to Berkeley for storage.

James Greenwood, prospective Forest of Dean parliamentary candidate for the Green party, said: “We are calling for this transport to stop, 1) because these flasks emit low-level radiation – and exposure to any increase in radiation levels means increased risk of cancers, particularly thyroid cancer in children; 2) In a serious accident the flasks would break open, releasing highly-radioactive material into the surrounding environment, causing deaths and requiring mass evacuation.  Can you imagine trying to evacuate Gloucester before the wind covered the city in radio-active poison?”

Barbara French, secretary of STAND added, “We are also calling for plans for building new nuclear power stations in the UK to be scrapped, since operating such stations would mean high-level nuclear waste continuing to be produced for many more decades into the future. This will either have to be stored in the area of the power station, threatening more cancers locally, or be transported by rail to Sellafield, with the dangers this would represent. This is just one of many reasons why STAND opposes the proposed huge new nuclear development at Oldbury.”

This protest in Gloucester is part of a coordinated protest against nuclear trains and nuclear power that is taking place up and down the country this weekend at stations used by trains carrying nuclear waste.

Philip Booth, a Stroud District Green Party member said: "We hugely welcome fellow Glos Greens raising this issue. Highly-radioactive fuel rods from Hinkley nuclear power station travel to Sellafield in Cumbria for reprocessing via Gloucester every week. There are also flasks of intermediate level waste from five different nuclear power stations in the UK which go through Gloucester on their way to Berkeley for storage. It is time to ditch dinosaur risky, uneconomic nuclear technology and embrace renewables...."

Further information about the plans for the new nuclear power station at Oldbury can be found on STAND’s website, www.standagainstoldbury.org



STAND is an independent campaigning group not affiliated to the Green Party. We support them because we share their view that nuclear power is too dangerous and unsustainable. We are glad to host news, press releases, events and announcements from any group, organisation, charity, or business that share our aims and beliefs.

 

Nuclear waste is a huge issue for us on Severnside

Taken from STAND's newsletter. www.standagainstoldbury.org     

Angela Paine and Nimue Brown of Stroud Greens discovered at the Oldbury Community stakeholder meeting that, although Oldbury has not yet started sending waste to Berkeley, there are already 5 Nuclear Power Stations sending their Intermediate Level Waste to Berkeley by rail for storage.

This waste comes via Gloucester and then on to the Sharpness line, going off on a siding to Berkeley.

As well as this, High Level Radioactive waste is transported weekly by rail from Hinkley to Sellafield via Gloucester.

The new station at Oldbury will add to this.

So we will hold an action at Gloucester railway station to make the  population of Gloucestershire aware that this is one of prices they have to pay in order to have Nuclear Power.

We will meet outside Gloucester railway station at 12.00 noon on Friday 26th. September.

There we will disperse onto different platforms to peacefully give out  leaflets.

We will have our “Nuclear Waste Bin” (that we had at Lydney docks) to help draw attention to our action.

It would be helpful if you could let me know if you are likely to be there, as the press always ask “How many people will there be?”

Some information on Nuclear Trains: 

“Nuclear trains" are trains carrying used, but extremely radioactive, nuclear fuel rods from nuclear power stations to Sellafield in Cumbria for reprocessing.

There are over 1,000 nuclear transports through the UK every year. The trains carry spent nuclear fuel on the UK’s rail network – often at peak times and within three meters of ordinary passenger trains.

The trains from each operating Nuclear Power Station typically travel once or twice a week, but this depends on several factors: the number of fuel rods in the cooling ponds, the length of time they have been there, and the current state of the relevant reprocessing plant at Sellafield. For example, at the time of this writing there is a problem with the reprocessing at Sellafield, and some stations (eg. Sizewell have been told they may have to hold their fuel rods 2 or 3 years).

An unnecessary risk.

The fuel rods are taken to Sellafield for reprocessing to separate out the plutonium. The main use of plutonium is in nuclear weapons and there is apparently a world glut of this extremely dangerous substance.

The reprocessing does not reduce the total radioactivity but produces a much greater volume of somewhat lower level radioactivity, which still has to be dealt with as a highly toxic waste - as well as releasing some radioactive waste into the environment. The highly toxic waste will be radioactive for thousands of years.

Highly dangerous cargo

There are two main types of reactors in UK power stations, which use somewhat different fuel. The types are known as Magnox (Magnesium alloy is used to clad the fuel rods) and AGR (Advanced Gas cooled Reactor). There is also one PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor), at Sizewell. After nuclear fuel has been used it is far more radioactive and requires heavy shielding. So although new fuel rods are usually transported by road, used rods are transported by rail. "Nuclear trains" is a short way to refer to the trains which carry used fuel rods from nuclear power stations.

The used rods contain uranium and plutonium and are extremely radioactive. When taken from the reactor they are stored in cooling ponds at the power station for up to 18 months (thus contaminating the water). The rods are then loaded into water-filled lead-lined steel containers called 'flasks', onto which a lid is bolted. Each 50-ton flask is then washed down to remove radioactive surface contamination, loaded onto a lorry which carries it to the nearest railhead, then transferred onto a flat-bed railway wagon (which weighs about 100 tons). A metal cover or 'cabin' is placed over each flask.

Each flask contains about 2 tons of rods, and about 1 million Curies of radioactivity, or 37 thousand million million Bequerels (one Bequerel is equivalent to one click on a geiger counter; the Hiroshima bomb released about 3 million Curies). The outside surface of these flasks emit radiation well above background levels: even the 14-inch thick walls are inadequate shielding against the highly radioactive rods. If the water coolant was lost, the fuel rods would overheat then combust, dispersing a massive dose of radioactivity into the atmosphere. They are a highly dangerous cargo, which the industry insist on calling "spent fuel", thus implying that it is neither waste nor especially hazardous.

Risk of terrorism

The transport of nuclear material is recognised by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be the nuclear operation most vulnerable to terrorist attack or sabotage and tests have shown the flasks to be highly vulnerable to attack from armour piercing rounds. Nuclear transports are unescorted other than by a driver and a guardsman. Their movements tend to be regular and along a single route.

Accidents DO happen

In October 2005, due to simple human error, a cargo of radioactive nuclear waste sat unprotected at Bridgewater station for hours, less than 100  metres from a school.

Nuclear waste trains on the Dungeness to Wilesdan  route have twice been  involved in collisions with vehicles on an unmanned level crossing.

In January of this year a car on a level crossing collided with a Spent fuel rod train going to Sellafield at Silverdale Lancashire. Most fortunately the accident happened on the trains return journey so it was empty. But ………….

“Movement of nuclear materials is inherently risky both in terms of severe accident and terrorist attack. Not all accident scenarios and accident severities can be foreseen; it is only possible to maintain a limited security cordon around the flask and its consignment; the transportation route will invariably pass through or nearby centres of population; terrorists are able to seek out and exploit vulnerabilities in the transport arrangements and localities on the route; and emergency planning is difficult to maintain over the entire route.”

Independent nuclear expert John Large, 2006

So please join us if you are able,

on Friday, 26th September,

at 12.00noon, Gloucester railway station.

And please let me know if you can come.

Nuclear obsolete?

From Stop Hinkley

www.stophinkley.org

Anti-nuclear campaigners have called on EDF Energy to give up its nuclear ambitions for Somerset and elsewhere following a report from a multinational investment bank which says it is time to: “join the solar revolution”. The bank, UBS, says large centralised power stations, like the proposed £16 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power station on the West Somerset coast, could be obsolete within ten to 20 years. It says large power stations will soon become extinct because they are too big and inflexible, and are “not relevant” for future electricity generation.

Western Daily Press 1st Sept 2014

http://www.southwestbusiness.co.uk/news/01092014100638-campaigners-tell-edf-energy-business-to-give-up-nuclear-ambitions-for-somerset/

The Green Party notices on the BBC website that nuclear reactors shut down for safety reasons won't be operational until the end of the year. So much for nuclear reliability.

Stop Hinkley is an independent campaigning group not affiliated to the Green Party. We support them because we share their view that nuclear power is too dangerous and unsustainable. We are glad to share news, press releases, events and announcements from any group, organisation, charity, or business that share our aims and beliefs. 

photograph C. Philip Booth.

Better ways to power our future

Taken with permission from the July 2014 STAND against Oldbury newsletter.

www.standagainstoldbury.org  

Wrong technology, wrong place, better ways to power our future

STAND is at present trying to find ways to get the people of Bristol aware of the plans for new Oldbury - and all the problems connected with it.  In October we will be taking part in Nationally organised events to highlight the issue of Nuclear waste. In the meantime, here is some national and International news.

This week the Government has said that communities could be paid millions of pounds just to consider having a facility to bury nuclear waste in their area.

Community projects could receive payments of up to £1 million a year if local people engage with officials about developing a geological disposal facility to permanently store underground the radioactive waste from nuclear power, industry and defence.

The figure would rise to £2.5 million a year if drilling of bore-holes to assess the suitability of a site went ahead - money that would be "no strings attached" as the community would still not be tied in to hosting a site.

However, alongside the bribes, the Government has removed a local council’s right to stop the process, as it is no longer possible for any one, single, layer of government to refuse to host the waste, as happened at Cumbria, making a mockery of any attempt at consultation.

With the process of talking to communities and investigating sites taking up to two decades, communities could be paid more than £40 million without committing to accepting a £12 billion nuclear waste facility - with increased payments if it gets the go-ahead.

The Government said going ahead with a facility, would be paid for by the taxpayer and take 100 years to plan, construct, fill and seal off.

 Greenpeace UK energy campaigner Louise Hutchins said: "This is a bullying and bribing approach by a government that is getting desperate about solving this problem.

"First David Cameron reneged on his promises not to allow new nuclear reactors until the problem of waste disposal was solved. Now he's resorting to bribing reluctant communities just to talk about nuclear waste whilst stripping them of the right to veto it.

"A better use of this money and political will would be to spend it on the proven clean energy technologies that don't require thousands of years and billions of pounds to clean up."

Wool Against Weapons

Green County Councillor Sarah Lunnon, and wool.

Wool Against Weapons: A huge, knitted protest against Trident.

Community crafting for peace.

An expression of hope, for a better future.


Get your coach tickets from Stroud for 9th August from Trading Post or Black Book cafe: http://stroudcommunity.tv/tickets-for-9th/

See Stroud folk saying why they will join the party on 9th August: http://stroudcommunity.tv/why-scrap/

Molly Scott Cato on why she supports the 7 mile long pink scarf: http://stroudcommunity.tv/molly-wool/

Sarah Lunnon on the big pink scarf: http://stroudcommunity.tv/councillor-sarah-lunnon-on-having-a-voice/

Join the Wool Against Weapons facebook community - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wool-Against-Weapons/570747079617581?fref=ts

STAND steering group hold meeting with Chris Gifford

Taken with permission from the July 2014 STAND against Oldbury newsletter.

www.standagainstoldbury.org  

Last week a group of STAND members had a very useful meeting with the author of books on Nuclear Power and a retired Health and Safety Executive  chief for engineering. The key points he talked about were:

·      Most people are not aware of a lack of evacuation plans and the fact you can not insure your home against radiation.

·      The safety review following Fukushima has done nothing to protect us against a similar accident. The only difference is that emergency plans have been extended from 2 to 2.5 km where the limit goes through an area of population.

·      The Government is still planning for 10 new nuclear stations.

·      The nuclear lobby is powerful and self perpetuating through bodies such as Royal Society of Engineers.

·      The Health and Safety Executive for NP has now become the Office for Nuclear Regulation.  ONR is paid for by the nuclear industry while being the only safety overseer. There is concern that ONR is bringing in a new culture, which includes "supporting economic growth", while still "holding industry to account".

Not so carbon neutral nuclear

c. Russ

One of the arguments used to support the nuclear industry is that it is clean. Leaving aside what happens when nuclear goes wrong (and everyone always promises that it is perfectly safe, except for those few times, that could never possibly happen here, which we are to believe...) and leaving aside the issue of having radioactive waste that will have to be stored securely for thousands of years, is there any merit to the ‘carbon neutral’ claim?

Those of us who lived near Berkley and Oldbury stations when they were running, know that they did not belch smoke into the air in the manner of a traditionally ‘dirty’ fossil fuels station. However, there is more to the life, and carbon impact of a nuclear power station than what it does in the moment of producing energy.

If this is something you’d like to know more about, do please have a read of Dr Iain Fairle’s recent piece in The Ecologist – nuclear power is no answer to global warming

 Dr Iain Fairlie is an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment who has spoken in Stroud on several occasions. You can find out more about his visits to Stroud here  and more about Dr Fairlie here.

Greens and Pinks, Wool against Weapons

Green Gloucestershire County councillor Sarah Lunnon was out supporting Wool Against Weapons at Stroud Farmers’ Market recently.

Here’s WAW organiser Jaine Rose taking photo. Jaine is a Stroudie, and has put together a wool based protest, knitting a 7 mile long scarf which will be released into the wild briefly on the 9^th August as a protest against nuclear weapons and the renewal of Trident. You can find out more on the website http://www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk/ Support and knitting has come in from not just all over the country, but from around the world.

And here’s Sarah in the midst of some of the amazing woollen pieces that are going into this incredible protest. This isn’t just about knitting seven miles of resistance to nuclear weapons. After the protest, these creations will be reconfigured into blankets and sent to places where they can make a difference, so a great deal of love is going into making these protest knits lovely, durable and able to serve a second purpose.

There’s a Wool Against Weapons facebook page, too. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wool-Against-Weapons/570747079617581?fref=ts

 All photos used in this blog post are copyright Steve Hurrell.

Get your tickets for 9th August - 7 miles of scarf unveiled!

Wool against Weapons is a 7 mile long pink protest against the renewal of Trident....



See further films on Stroud Community TV here.

Get your coach tickets from Stroud for 9th August from Trading Post or Black Book cafe.
For more information about Wool against weapons, visit http://www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk/
or the Facebook page.

A viable future

On March 11th, people all over the world remembered the victims of the Fukushima Nuclear disaster 3 years ago. In the Forest of Dean, STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development), organised a special commemorative meeting on the harbour wall of Lydney Docks to remember the people of Fukushima.

With nuclear development on the agenda for Oldbury, people in Gloucestershire are increasingly aware of our vulnerability.  Fukushima showed us all too plainly that flooding at the Oldbury site would put us all in danger – a real risk given rising sea levels and climate change bringing more torrential rain. We do not want to be the world’s next nuclear disaster. We do not want to be the tragic dead whose memory future protestors will gather to commemorate.  

Stroud’s Molly Scott-Cato, the Green Party MEP candidate for the South West, was one of the speakers and features in this film by Philip Booth.

We need a sane, sustainable future based on safe technology, not highly dangerous and destructive nuclear energy, which is far from clean once you take into account the process of sourcing and refining uranium.

http://www.nuclearsevernside.co.uk/

.

Wool against Weapons

c. Jaine Rose.

Green County Councillor Sarah Lunnon joined others for the sew-up session at Hawkwood, near Stroud, on the 23rd Feburary. See minute film on Stroud Community TV here.

Wool against Weapons is a protest against the renewal of Trident. The Green Party feels that nuclear weapons are political weapons of terror, and are disproportionate to any threat we might face. More on our defence policy here.

For more information about Wool against weapons, visit http://www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk/
or the facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wool-Against-Weapons/570747079617581?fref=ts

Plans For new Nuclear Development at Oldbury

This is a press release from STAND which we are sharing because the Green Party does not believe reliance on nuclear power to be the way forwards.

Artist's impression of proposed nuclear power station at Oldbury (based on plans published by Horizon

Plans For new Nuclear Development at Oldbury will have appalling impact on local area say local groups.

Stroud directly downwind from massive new nuclear plant.

DJs Stroud Calling and the Blue Moon Collective to hold benefit roadshow in support of campaign group on Saturday 1st February.

A roadshow organised by STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development) will be held at The Market Tavern, Union Street, Stroud, on Saturday, 1st February at 7.30. STAND say they will produce evidence that a proposed nuclear power plant to be built at Oldbury on Severn is unnecessary, unsafe, dangerous to health and a hugely expensive method of producing electricity; and that a leading international statistician and epidemiologist has calculated that there is a one in 300 chance of a serious Fukushima type accident at the nuclear power station.

There will also be a talk from Dennis Hayden, a nuclear test veteran, about the dangers to health from routine low-level radiation releases from nuclear power stations

The audience can ask questions and voice their opinions on a proposal which, STAND claim, could have enormous implications for the whole area.

After the talk there will be music from DJs Stroud Calling and the Blue Moon Collective. There is no charge for admission.

Hitachi, probably best known in this country for its televisions, has joined forces with Horizon to produce a huge new nuclear power plant at Oldbury on Severn. They plan to build 3 or 4 huge new reactors next to the old power station which will produce 8 times the electricity of the old station.

The new nuclear plants will be just a few miles as the crow flies from Stroud, which is well within the evacuation zone imposed after the Fukushima disaster and directly downwind from the prevailing south westerlies. They will be using the new Advanced Boiling Water Reactors which have been approved in the USA but not yet in any other country. The advantage of this type of reactor is that they can be built quickly.

Given the ongoing environmental disaster at Fukushima, Japan, some local environmentalists are concerned about the safety of any Nuclear development here in the UK. But with this particular proposal there are extra concerns.

Barbara French of Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development (STAND) claims that it is utter folly to consider building a new nuclear station on the site.

"With rising sea levels, and the history of a tsunami and a sea surge of 3 meters above normal high tide up the Severn, it is madness to be building on that site" she said. "It can only be a matter of time before it suffers a catastrophic flood, one way or another. Should there be a serious accident, the experience of Chernobyl in the Ukraine, and more recently Fukishima in Japan, shows that not only Stroud but Gloucester, Bristol and surrounding areas would be uninhabitable, perhaps for ever. And, unlike in Japan, there appear to be no plans at all to protect the local population should there be an accident. "

Another concern is the size of the development. "They say that plans produced by Horizon show the intended reactor size will be 4 times the size of the present reactor building", said Barbara French, "and on top of that, the three or four cooling towers will be absolutely enormous and an eyesore. According to Horizon’s own report it will even be visible from Stroud and surrounding areas". [See artist's impression based on Horizons own plans]

For a local Green Party report on nuclear power, have a look here.

Stroud events

Here’s the current list of things we know about that are happening in the near future.  Where relevant, we’re also listing events a bit further afield that you might be interested in, too.

If you are aware of other talks, events, workshops or other community activities in the coming week or so, please do mention them in the comments. If there’s an event you would like our support in promoting, please email the details to brynnethnimue (at) gmail (dot) com.

January Hopeless Maine: Made in Stroud. For the first time, original art from Hopeless Maine vol 2 is now on display! All of the pages of illustration from Hopeless Maine: Inheritance are now at Made in Stroud, many adorning the walls and other available for browsing. It’s a rare opportunity to see how these graphic novels develop from paper to final, print edition. As the originals are for sale, this is the only time the whole book will be available for viewing in original form.

Sunday 26th January Public meeting at Lansdown Hall at 7.30pm entitled: Frack Free Five Valleys?

There will be films, speakers, Q&A plus discussion concerning the new threat of fracking to Stroud and the Five Valleys.  Admission FREE.  See the enclosed poster for further details.  The meeting is organised by FRACK FREE FIVE VALLEYS and supported by NO FIBS and National Campaign Group FRACK OFF.

Thursday 30th January, New Toad Patroller Training, Richmond Painswick, 7-9pm
If you are interested in being a life saver this spring become a Toad Patroller at one of many local Toads on Roads crossings. Patrollers work at dusk on mild nights when toads will be migrating to their breeding ponds. Patrollers look along pavements and verges at known sites to collect toads, frogs and newts and bucket them safely across the road.  This training session is to introduce new patrollers to existing patrols and teach them how to patrol and survey.

STAND (Severnside Development Against Nuclear Development) – www.nuclearsevernside.co.uk – is specifically campaigning against the proposed nuke at Oldbury.  Wrong place, wrong technology etc., there is every chance that it can be seen off, but, of course, we have to keep the door firmly shut. The STAND roadshow on 1^st February is the follow-on to a similar event that brought Stroud Calling Forest-side. There will be 5 speakers each speaking for 10-15 mins – health, flooding, latest developments regarding Horizon, alternatives etc.

Saturday 1st February, 10.00 – 4.00, Merrywalks Centre, Stroud
Once again Transition Stroud and Down to Earth will be organising their annual Stroud Potato Day.

Amanda Godber from Down to Earth said, “this is such an exciting time of year with the promise of many a happy hour getting your seed packets sorted and ready to sow. Now you can buy your selection of seed potatoes to plant and have a delicious variety on your table throughout the summer.”

Come and join us at the Merrywalks shopping centre between 10.00 and 4.00 and you might even be able to taste a delicious lemon drizzle cake made with mashed potato.

You don't need a big garden or allotment to grow potatoes, you can grow them in containers even on a patio or by your back door!
Varieties available will include:

1st Earlies:  SWIFT, INTERNATIONAL KIDNEY, CASABLANCA,  ROCKET, ARAN PILOT, COLLEEN

2nd Earlies: CHARLOTTE, KESTREL, NADINA, MARFONA, VIVALDI, NOVELLA, ORLA

Main:  KING EDWARD, DESIREE, PINK FIR APPLE, SARPO MIRA, ROBINTA

You can read some interesting stories about potatoes as well as pick up some lovely recipe ideas on the Stroud Potato Day blog.

Your Green Future is being held on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 February at Stratford Park Leisure Centre in Stroud. This event will see industry thinkers and experts offer advice and inspiration to over 400 secondary school students from across Gloucestershire on developing a low carbon, sustainable future.

Any businesses wishing to find out more or schools who may also wish to attend should call  01452 835076 or email cecilye@severnwye.org.uk Further information is available at www.yourgreenfuture.org.uk

Nuclear waste is in your back yard

If we build more nuclear power stations, what happens to the waste? Where is it going for the thousands of years it will need to become safe? Once upon a time we used to drop it in the sea, in canisters. We have no idea what’s happening to it now, but the odds are that some of it will leak and cause havoc.

The popular theory is that we bury our nuclear waste underground, instead. That is less insane than throwing it into the sea. However, unless we come up with some method for keeping an eye on it, buried waste is just as capable of leaking. Given time, it can leach radioactive material into the groundwater, and from there, it can enter the world. The one thing nuclear waste has a lot of, is time in which to cause problems.

There are theories about which kinds of geology will be the safest places to store nuclear waste. The thing about theories, is that you don’t know if they were any good until you’ve tested them. The test here, will be burying nuclear waste and leaving it to future generations to discover if we made a good guess or not. That’s not a choice I’d feel easy about making.

So, let’s assume the theory about burying is good, and let’s assume we have figured out what geology to use. The next logical step would be to survey the UK, and work out where would be the safest long term site, based on what we know. We aren’t doing that. The decision of where to bury will be political. It may well involve bribing or coercing a community to take the waste, for reasons that have nothing to do with the best and safest choice.

No one wants nuclear waste dumped in their back yard. If you have a look at the fallout from any nuclear disaster, you’ll notice a thing. When something goes wrong with nuclear power, the area of impact is vast. It doesn’t matter which bit of the UK you pick for waste, if something goes wrong, it’s in our back yard. A few hundred miles won’t make any odds at all. We will all be living with it, and so will our children, and our children’s children. There is no ‘away’ when it comes to nuclear waste, and there is no solution, based on current technology, that guarantees us long term safety. We still have to deal with the waste as best we can, which would suggest creating more for the future really isn’t a clever idea.

The decisions we make about how to handle nuclear waste for the long term must not be about short term politics. We must make these choices based on the best scientific evidence we can get, and the best reasoning we are capable of. There is no point getting protective of our own precious bit of landscape, because if we get this wrong, it will affect us all.

 

For more information about nuclear issues, check out… http://stroudcommunity.tv/the-future-of-radioactive-waste-and-nuclear-safety-in-gloucestershire/