A heavily-guarded convoy of vehicles transporting US weapons-grade plutonium has left a plant in northern France to be driven nearly 1,000 km to a southeastern factory for recycling.
Environmental activists are worried about the safety of the shipment which arrived in the port of Cherbourg yesterday after a more than two-week journey from Charleston in the United States. They fear it is vulnerable to terrorist attack.
A convoy of trucks, cars and buses left the La Hague plant at around 4.30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. Irish time).
Police were guarding all bridges on the convoy's route to the Cadarache plant in southeastern France, where the plutonium will be recycled into nuclear fuel. This will then be shipped back to the United States for use in an electricity-generating reactor.
The delivery is part of a post-Cold War agreement between the United States and Russia to get rid of plutonium from excess nuclear warheads.
"The transport will now wind its way through France threatening everyone in its path. Road transports are incredibly vulnerable to accident or deliberate attack," Greenpeace said in a statement on its website.
Activists watched yesterday as the boat docked but did not interfere when the plutonium was loaded into a truck to be transported to the La Hague peninsula. A French court ruling has barred protesters from going within 100 metres of the shipment.
French state-owned nuclear energy firm Areva, whose Cogema unit will recycle the plutonium into nuclear fuel, says it is safe.
"The plutonium ... is shipped in casks that comply with the regulation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its transport is the object of the strongest safety and security measures," Areva said in a statement.
The agreement is part of the U.S. Department of Energy's programme to turn plutonium from the "excess" nuclear warheads into mixed-oxide (MOX) plutonium-uranium enriched fuel.
Protesters bolted a heavy truck to the road leading to La Hague on Teusday and chained themselves to the vehicle to try to stop the delivery. Police used chain cutters to cut free the protesters and later removed the truck.
Under Tuesday's court ruling, any protester who goes within 100 metres of the shipment faces a €75,000 fine.