Greenpeace Activists Block Nuclear Waste Transport Heading To France

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Greenpeace activists say they are blocking a train carrying nuclear waste from a Dutch power station to a reprocessing plant in France.

Activist Ike Teuling says the environmental group has driven a truck across rail lines being used by a train transporting the waste from the Borselle nuclear power station in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland through Belgium to La Hague in northern France.

Teuling said four Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the truck being used in Tuesday morning's blockade.

EPZ, the company that operates the Borselle nuclear power plant, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Comments

[Michael Mann]

05:21 AM on 06/08/2011

They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent and made to pay damages. Maybe they can use some of the profits from "Whale Wars" to pay, why would someone who professes to be an environmentalist protest recycling? Greenpeace international should pay huge fines for this.

[Rick Fallin]

10:55 AM on 06/08/2011

maybe Greenpeace believes that the train company is not in compliance with the Transport of Dangerous Goods regulations. We don't have a complete picture.

As a nuclear educator.. you should not make a blanket judgment without having all the facts.. transport of all materials is highly regulated and we know companies break the rules.. enforcement should be transparent to both sides and be applied to both sides.

[Michael Mann]

11:29 AM on 06/08/2011

So, what you're saying, if I believe a theatre is not meeting fire codes, I am justified in starting a fire in that crowded theatre to make the point? It doesn't make sense.

[alvdh1]

01:51 AM on 06/09/2011

Your company and its employees, Mr Mann, in the event of a major radiation release to the environment at your nuclear power plant should be prosecuted for premeditated murder.

Mr. Mann does not have the credentials to be a nuclear educator, but he is fully qualified to be a nuclear propagandist.

[alvdh1]

02:18 AM on 06/09/2011

"The train hauling the nuclear waste to the La Hague reprocessing facility on the Normandy coast was blocked by Greenpeace and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law". Yet, the La Hague facility discharges 110,000,000 gallon of radioactive waste into the English Channel every year and routinely vents radioactive Krypton 85 into the atmosphere. Beaches have been closed, fishing has been halted around the facility and the radiation has been tracked to the Arctic Ocean. It is unbelievable that you are not recommending punishment of AREVA and the French government for the contamination. You have the moral compass of the devil considering the fact that this is a violent act against the environment, marine life and humans who consume marine life in the area and wherever the currents take the crap. The right to protest and civil disobedience is the cornerstone of our democracy. There isn't a day that passes where your comments here do nothing short of stagger one's imagination on the shallowness of your world view.

http://www.alternet.org/world/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let's_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./

[beckjr2000]

03:00 PM on 06/07/2011

They are nothing more than low grade Terrorists!

[blackwind]

03:35 PM on 06/07/2011

Terrorism is defined as using terror to achieve political ends. Nobody is terrified of a protest, so this doesn't fit the definition.

[vmf211]

09:23 PM on 06/07/2011

Have you ever seen a left wing protest ?
They are never peaceful and most time there is violence in some form.

[vmf211]

09:23 PM on 06/07/2011

I'd go with terrorists without a clue.

[John Mainstream]

01:30 PM on 06/07/2011

Imagine the security risks.

[alvdh1]

02:34 AM on 06/09/2011

Imagine the security, environmental and health risks of the operations at La Hague.

http://www.alternet.org/world/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let's_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./

[POPE INNOCENT]

01:10 PM on 06/07/2011

Greenpeace Hitler Youth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy-a0Axf0tI

[alvdh1]

02:36 AM on 06/09/2011

And what would you call the people in the link below. AREVA/French Government Hitler Facist, planet poisoners. Your moral compass hat is pointing straight down.

http://www.alternet.org/world/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let's_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./

[fireofenergy]

11:44 AM on 06/07/2011

How utterly silly!
Chances are, the "wastes" came from a reactor that pressurizes water needed to keep the unnatural reaction safe and producing (some what) clean electricity.
Without reprocessing, they would be like the silly USA that contemplates burying it.
Reprocessing is like recycling! They can't get the left over 99% of the power out of the solid fuel because the heat, gamma's and and thus subsequent release on zenon gas (or is it kryton?) cause structural damage to the zirconium structure that holds it.
That is why conventional nuclear sucks!
Now, there is a whole DIFFERENT approach to the process of fission.
It is called the liquid fluoride THORium reactor, the molten salt reactor, and possibly others that "burn" ALL of the nuclear fuel and thus would be 100 times more efficient (and would not need off site reprocessing). In fact "take a little here, give a little there" is the continuous approach that PROVED this concept as a 6 month test (among others) at ORNL in the 60's!
Of course, there are material challenges to making thorium reactors last decades, but then again, we now live in a world 50 years more advanced!

Search LFTR

So, the next time somebody wants to block nuclear, please explain to them that they are only blocking the wrong kind!

[PhoenixRising11]

05:59 PM on 06/07/2011

Im all for LFTRs

ORNLs Alvin Weinberg was right

[wsmith3023]

07:56 PM on 06/07/2011

The USA has been burying radioactive wastes for 30 years. I collected data for the EIS in the 70s when I was a new environmentalist. It wasn't exactly what I expected an environmentalist to do. We killed as many animals as we could each month, skinned them and put their organs in labeled vials and the rest in an old refrigerator where demestids ate all of the meat and left the skeleton. Needless to say I looked for other employment possibilities.

[PhoenixRising11]

11:35 AM on 06/07/2011

Greenpeace activities such as this event in fact, increases risk and degrades both safety and security.

[maslin]

05:56 PM on 06/07/2011

Though in general I might agree with some of Greenpeace's goals, it's this kind of thing that precludes my supporting them.

[alvdh1]

02:35 AM on 06/09/2011

Yet you fully support the radioactive contamination of the English Channel from the La Hague reprocessing facility.

http://www.alternet.org/world/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let's_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./

[alvdh1]

02:34 AM on 06/09/2011

And what are your feelings about the link below. This ought to be good since you raised the safety and security issues.

http://www.alternet.org/world/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let's_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./