JAPANESE PLUTONIUM CONVOYS LA HAGUE - VALOGNES - CHERBOURG
Cogema's determination to ship plutonium to Japan, involves a complicated and secretive logistical operation for every cask of direct-use weapons material, even before the material is loaded on to the Pacific Teal transport ship. To deliver its cargo of plutonium to the Port of Cherbourg, Cogema and the nuclear transport company, Transnucleaire, conduct secretive military-style convoys along Normandy country roads, past and through villages. The 40km journey from the reprocessing site at Cap la Hague to the railway terminal at Valognes involves:
- TN17 spent fuel cask(s) containing an estimated 50kg of plutonium, in 8 plutonium MOX fuel assemblies in each cask; the casks are carried on large trucks each with 18 sets of wheels, with nuclear radiation signs, including the warning "Convoi Exceptionnel". Transports made this past week, have travelled at between 25-30km pr hour on average;
- an estimated 200 armed police, including French Ministry of Interior police squads (anti-terrorist R.A.I.D.), as well as advanced specialised communications vehicles - see photos;
Upon arrival at the Cogema railyard, near the town of Valognes, the casks are stored and eventually unloaded onto the rail carriages that will take them on the public rail track to the Port of Cherbourg, a journey of approximately 30km. On nuclear waste shipments to Japan, this stage of the transport has involved large police and security forces along the entire route, including through the town centre of Cherbourg itself. The plutonium train convoy passes within tens of metres of houses and shops, finally passing parallel to the busy P&O Ferry Terminal (for destinations to the English towns of Poole in Dorset, and Portsmouth, Hampshire.)
The port area where the TN17 casks are to be loaded on to the Pacific Teal later this week, is owned by Cogema, where they operate a large dedicated crane, capable of lifting the 100 tonne casks.
In conclusion, Cogema with their Japanese customer Tokyo Electric have, it appears, opted to transport the plutonium MOX fuel by the least direct route to the Port of Cherbourg. This is in contrast to the last controversial plutonium transport to Japan in 1992, when the cargo of 1.7 tonnes of plutonium was made by truck directly to the "Arsenal", prior to loading in the military port, on to the Akatsuki-maru.
It is almost certainly due to the scale of controversy of the last plutonium transport, that the Japanese nuclear industry have instructed Cogema that they wish the transport to be made from the commercial port NOT the military port. In reality it would be more appropriate for this plutonium transport to be made from a military harbour. For the simple reason that the 221kg of plutonium in this imminent transport is direct-use, nuclear weapons material, as classified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It would take only 1-3 weeks for this material to be converted into over 60 nuclear weapons, if a political decision was taken to do so.
Given the level of security already involved in the past week, the attempt by Cogema and TEPCO to pretend that this plutonium is not a direct security and proliferation threat is not credible. Plutonium is plutonium.
