G E R M A N P L U T O N I U M T R A N S P O R T T O D O U N R E A Y
December 1997
Plutonium from the Hanau storage facility is being transported by armoured truck to the port of Bremerhaven. There it was loaded on the roll-on roll-off cargo vessel MV Arneb. The vessel will take two days to sail to the Scottish fishing port of Scrabster, near the Dounreay reprocessing complex.
The 59 kg of plutonium on-board is enough to make fifteen nuclear weapons, according to nuclear weapons physicist Professor Frank Barnaby. If only one gramme of the plutonium was inhaled by the general population of a large town or city, then as many as 14,000 additional cancer deaths could result, according to Professor Barnaby.
The Arneb is a type of vessel described by the International Maritime Organisation as "exceptionally vulnerable to human error" (see Observer article, Sunday November 23rd,). According to Professor Carl Ross, a structural dynamics specialist, at the University of Portsmouth, "if any water gets into its car deck it will capsize within a minute and a half," (see Observer).
The consequences of the shipment of 59 kilograms of German plutonium oxide (PuO2)
A shipment of weapons-usable plutonium sailed last night from the German port of Bremerhaven despite a day of Greenpeace protests. The transport, conducted on a dangerous and unstable roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel, is heading into intensely stormy weather during its voyage to the Scottish port of Scrabster near the controversial Dounreay reprocessing factory.
Press Release
23 December 1997: GERMAN PLUTONIUM SHIPMENT LEAVES FOR
SCOTLAND. GREENPEACE WARNS THAT RADIOACTIVE
POLLUTION WILL FOLLOW
While talks took place this morning between the harbour authorities, the police and Greenpeace, seven Greenpeace activists are still chained to the stern flap of the ro-ro vessel Arneb and 3 inflatables, positioned between the ship and the pier, are preventing it from docking and loading the plutonium.
Press Release
22 December 1997: GREENPEACE BLOCKS PLUTONIUM TRANSPORT ON BOARD ROLL ON -ROLL OFF VESSEL