News
Publish date: December 7, 2001
Written by: Runar Forseth
News
Fully equipped with climbers’ security gear, two activists climbed the tall Christmas tree at Trafalgar Square this morning, hanging out banners with the message "Stop Sellafield". The two intend to remain in the tree for as long as possible.
A member of the ground team, Bellona President Frederic Hauge stated, "every year at Christmas time Norway gives a tall tree to the English people. In return Norway receives huge amounts of radioactivity from the Sellafield nuclear plant in England, contaminating our Arctic seas."
Scientist have measured an alarming increase in levels of radioactive techetium-99 in sea weed and shell-fish since 1994, when Sellafield dramatically increased its discharges of the compound to the Irish Sea. Technetium-99 has a half-life of 211,000 years, and hence accumulates in the nutritional chain. Now, the British are planing to increase the discharges even further.
"To save some lousy pounds, the British have chosen to keep up a pollution discharge that nobody knows the consequences of. What we do know for certain, is that we’ll have to live with those consequences for posterity", Hauge said.
Coincidentally, Camvista.com has put up several webcams at Trafalgar Square. If you’re lucky, you’ll see some of the activists.
More pictures
Photo: Nils Bøhmer/Bellona
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.