Here is a news story about one of the key plants in the nukiller fuel cycle.
The Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) are about to be withdraw from the Springfields site at Salwick near Preston.
The plant is one in which nukiller fuel rods and other key reactor items are assembled.
What is not so clear at present is just who will provide ‘security’ at the plant once the CNC have been withdrawn.
Will it be the local constabulary ?
or
A private company like G4S ?
Only time will tell.
Some years ago I was in a shop on Green Lane, Harringay.
While I was in the process of waiting to pay for my goods a woman came to the counter and asked if she could change a £20 note for some small change.
The shop keeper did this, and the woman went back next door to her place of Employment.
Nothing so remarkable you might think, except for just one fact.
She worked in a branch of the Bank of Cyprus.
I’ll make no further comment.
BIMCO is an International shipping association which exists to facilitate the commercial operations of its membership organisations.
BIMCO is now about to offer an associate membership to private
maritime security companies which achieve the International
Standards Organisation’s PAS 28007.
The good news is that the UK Chamber of Shipping has rejected the
idea of having private security firms as a part of the organisation.
There are a lot of changes going on around Cumbrian,
and the Windscale / Sellafield nukiller plant.
Cumbria Constabulary, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary have just launched the Sellafield Policing Unit.
This new police unit has been created
‘to specifically deal with conventional policing issues that occur
in and around the Sellafield’.
The new unit will consist of 17 police officers:
Eight of which will be based at the plant and the rest at
Whitehaven Police Station.
Exactly who this new unit will report to,
and just how it will operate in practice,
is something which will need to be monitored from now on.
The creation of this new unit raises some interesting questions about police accountability, and other civil liberty issues.
This morning I had one of those most enlightening conversations
which I tend to have with members of the Met Police Diplomatic
Protection Group.
The conversation took place while I was picketing outside of the Japanese Embassy.
We talked about the long term effects of nukiller power.
All very much of a scary set of issues.
I also got to chat with him about the Plebgate issue,
and both agreed that the whole thing is very much blown up out of all proportion.
One point I did make to him on this issue: –
As an anarchist my sympathies are very much with the police.
I’ve always found members of the Met Police Diplomatic
Protection group to be very polite to me,
and why should they be any different while on duty at Downing Street?
Yet here is the bottom line: –
Plebgate revolves around the conduct of a tory politician,
&
who’s ever going to believe the word of any former Conservative chief whip?
I of course think that there is nothing wrong with being called a pleb, or one of the people, but elitist politicians do have a tendency to forget the people whom they are supposed to be
representing.
Enough said for now – – – – .
Problems Solved.
I keep hearing people being very pessimistic about our future
prospects due to climate change,
and yet there are still many things which we can all do in order to
stop this ecological disaster from completely destroying us all.
Yet it’s not so long ago that we all faced other ecological
problems which are no longer with us.
– We no longer have cadmium used in plastic toys.
– Tin soldiers are a thing of the past.
– A ‘Pea Souper’ is now just an historical expression.
– Drums of low lever nukiller waste are no longer dumped in to the Atlantic.
– We no longer build our homes with cancer causing asbestos.
– There is now an international ban on the use of PCBs
[ polychlorinated biphenyl ].
&
– We no longer discharge untreated sewage in to many rivers throughout the world.
Problems Still To Be Solved.
That’s a good record so far, but we still have a lot more to do.
Though the task list might be a short one it could we a while
before we complete these tasks: –
– Reafforestation.
– Stopping over population.
– No longer using climate changing fuels.
&
– Closing down the Nukiller power industry.
Yet it is the longer term which we really do need to be thinking about.
Starting with the decades and still working on the same issues for centuries to come.
One of the major problems with Nukiller power is that it takes
many decades to decommission these plants.
The current and future problem being that it will take between
100 & 120 years before all the existing fuel rods are cool enough
to move. That’s not my line, but what we have been told by those
who run these plants.
Then all the highly radioactive & chemically complex waste will
need to be stored: –
– Not just centuries, but many thousands of years to come.
So far there have been many ideas put forward about how to deal with this waste,
but no realistic solutions are in sight.
27013
If dealing with this waste was ever to be added to the electricity
fuel bill which we all pay for,
then it would equate to a life after life mortgage for many many
generations to come.
It would be like asking the average taxpayer to contribute to the
building of the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, Stone Henge,
Wells Cathedral, and for that debt to continue until the year 27013.
The year 27013 being based upon the half life of plutonium,
but of course it will still be very dangerous for a lot longer than that.
Now this is were the really scary issue kicks in.
Most current anti-nukiller campaigning centres around stopping new plants being built,
and the current ones closed down.
Yet that is just the start of our long term problems.
We need to be thinking and campaigning upon just what will happen to these plants in the long term.
That is why we will need to all think about a 120 year anti-nukiller campaigning strategy,
and we need to do it now.
Though there are still a lot more nukiller ‘accidents’ waiting to happen.
While we still have the continuing disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima to resolve.
There are very few people who are capable of doing any long term thinking,
never mind thinking in to centuries to come,
yet that is just what we all need to start doing right now.
Anyone who has ever held a smiling sun flag or anti-nukiller-power banner will know just what the wind can do.
Here is proof of just what we can do with such a power.
UK windfarms now generate enough power to light and heat more than 3 million homes.
Now if only that power could be used to power vertical windturbines on our city street, and combined it with solar panels , then we would never need to pay for street lighting ever again.
Just think of the savings which would be made on public expenditure this way, and how that money might be better used for social care or libraries.
Such projects could also kick start local economies,
& be an ideal form of co-operative employment.
This week I was on a Kick Nuclear picket outside of the Central Hall Westminster.
This is where the World Nuclear Association was holding its 37th Annual Symposium.
Delegate to this years gathering came from such companies as: –
Westinghouse, EDF, AREVA, Rosatom, Urenco, BHP Billiton and TEPCO.
At the start of start of yesterdays morning session a few remarks were made about the PR problems which the industry now faces.
Just to illustrate this point: –
The Complete text of the Kick Nuclear leaflet was read out to the gathering.
Here is that text: –
Planning For More Disasters.
Today the World Nuclear Association is holding its 37th Annual Symposium at the Central Hall,
Westminster.
This year the conference is entitled Back To Business.
They will be discussing a radioactive future for us all.
– Yet children in the Ukraine are still being born with chronic illnesses, which results from the Chernobyl disaster.
– Yet the Fukushima nuclear disaster is still unfolding.
– Yet rising sea levels threaten to engulf many existing atom plants, such as at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast.
– Yet we still don’t have any long-term solutions about just how to safely store all the existing radioactive waste.
– Yet the nuclear industry still wants to construct more atomic plants, such as at Hinkley in Somerset, Sizewell in Suffolk, and many other places around the world.
Back to Business Poses a Danger to Us All.
There is an alternative to such a radioactive future.
– We can get our power from non-polluting small-scale local wind, tidal, solar and wave power sources.
We can cut our power consumption by insulating our homes
We can create a better future for us all.
Kick Nuclear. c/o 5 Caledonian Road,
LONDON NI.
http://kicknuclear. org
The Security Association for the Maritime Industry international
certification programme is an scheme run by SAMI
( The Security Association for the Maritime Industry ).
Referring to these Standards & Certification,
SAMI states that they have introduced:
‘a level of compliance and scrutiny to ensure that the maritime
industry can easily identify reputable private maritime security
companies.’
One of the companies which has gained this certification is the Trident Group.
It is also one of the 30 membership companies which makes up SAMI.
During may Lloyd’s List identified some Trident armed guards in a video shooting at a pirate skiff .
Here are two quotes from the newspaper story: –
‘ The International Association of Maritime Security Professionals
issued a statement on its website stating that the PMSC in the
video had employed a questionable use of force … ’
While SAMI stated that it: –
“clearly demonstrates that clarification on the rules for the use of
force is needed”
Clearly the activities of Trident,
and worth of the SAMI certificate,
do need to be very closely examined.
There is yet more evidence about how the Civil Nuclear Police
Authority [ C.N.P.A. ] views itself as running an ‘Armed force’,
rather than a more traditional constabulary.
This evidence comes from a news piece about Brigadier Mike Griffiths,
[ soon to be Chief Executive of the C.N.P.A. ] ,
in the Carlisle based News & Star.
Within the article their is a reference to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary as being a ‘specialised armed force’ which is currently responsible to DECC ( the Department of Energy and Climate Change ).
Though it has just too many links to the MOD ( War Office ) for my liking.
Griffiths is currently the British Army’s director of personnel,
and holds the title of Colonel of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.