BNFL confirms nuclear fuel moved by air

BRITISH Nuclear Fuels has confirmed that it is transporting nuclear products containing uranium and plutonium by air, a practice which has been banned in the US since 1976.

Flights carrying a nuclear fuel product known as MOX leave Carlisle Airport, about 30 miles from the BNFL plant at Sellafield, for customers in Switzerland and Germany, according to a company spokesman, Mr Alan Hughes.

Another spokesman, Mr Bill Anderton, said flight details were not made public because of "national security arrangements" required because of the plutonium content. The company, he said, had never hidden the fact that MOX fuel was transported in this way. "We have been doing this for a number of years" under International Atomic Energy Agency approval, he added.

The Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Emmet Stagg, yesterday instructed officials to contact their UK counter parts to establish the "exact position" in relation to the flights.

Mr Stagg said he had been in touch with the British authorities about plans to begin full scale production of MOX fuel in Cumbria, a development which has been consistently opposed by the Government. MOX fuel was not an energy issue but a security issue, he said, because it included plutonium, which was used in nuclear weapons.

The Fianna Fail chief whip and TD for Louth, Mr Dermot Ahern who yesterday made public the fact that the flights are taking place, said BNFL was risking "an air crash of Chernobyl dimensions".

"If they are prepared to take this type of risk, then obviously their claims of maximum security are put to naught." The Government, he said, should work at EU level and insist that the flights "be reviewed in light of public safety".

Dr Tom O'Flaherty, chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, said yesterday: "We would be concerned about the transport of nuclear fuel by air."

The air transport of plutonium and uranium was "quite extraordinary", according to Mr Neil McCann, the Green Party candidate from Co Louth. "The idea of putting nuclear materials into the air is even more loopy than the idea of putting them in the ground."

BNFL has operated a pilot MOX plant at Sellafield since 1992 and flights have taken place from that time, Mr Hughes said. The flights follow routes approved by the British Department of Transport and the fuel is carried in containers that meet all international standards for safety.

They are tested for impact, piercing and water and fire resistance, and he described as "non sense" claims by Mr Ahern that the containers were unable to withstand a crash of 30 miles per hour.

MOX is a nuclear fuel mixture that combines uranium and plutonium and has provided a way to recycle plutonium for non military uses. Its only other established use is in nuclear warheads.