nuclear power and disarmament

Nuclear reactors produce vast amounts of radioactive waste known as "spent fuel" - a highly dangerous contaminant which remains radioactive for thousands of years. Its disposal is a serious problem.

One 'solution' currently being touted is for European and Japanese nuclear waste to be dumped in Russia despite that country's legacy of nuclear contamination. Apparently willing for their nation to become the world's nuclear dustbin, the Russian Duma recently over-turned a ban on the import of spent fuel.

Notwithstanding its inability to solve the waste problem, the nuclear industry is gung-ho for expansion. It is encouraged in this by a pro-nuclear US administration which may blithely extend the original operating life of creaky old reactors for another 20-30 years. Greenpeace is campaigning to halt the nuclear industry and all that comes with it: the risk of nuclear accidents, hazardous waste, and environmental contamination.

It is not only nuclear power but nuclear weapons as well which are enjoying new-found friends in Washington. The United States missile defence programme - Star Wars - is part of a re-structuring of American nuclear warfare which is highly destabilising and risks reviving the nuclear arms race. Stopping Star Wars is therefore a key objective for Greenpeace's disarmament campaign.

Highlights
July 2000: Turkey announces the cancellation of the Akkuyu nuclear reactor project following intensive pressure from Greenpeace, local residents and other non-governmental organisations.

Japan: Greenpeace's campaign to stop the shipment of bomb-usable plutonium fuel to Japan has succeeded - for the moment. For countries lining the shipping routes, a serious nuclear spillage on their shoreline is just a ship wreck away.

July 2000, The Rainbow Warrior sails into the zone around the Vandenberg missile range in California, from where a Star Ward missile flight test is about to occur.

Challenges for the future
Star Wars: President Bush's reckless programme must be stopped. Star Wars involves the expansion on the US's nuclear armoury and the militarisation of space.

Greenpeace will oppose the nuclear industry's plans to continue reprocessing at La Hague and Sellafield indefinitely and to open new large-scale reprocessing plants in Japan, China and Russia.

Russia must not be allowed to become the world's nuclear dumping ground; Greenpeace will continue to draw attention to the horrific human toll of Russia's nuclear legacy.