The Green Party has welcomed the announcement by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in the UK that the reprocessing of oxide fuel is to cease and that the THORP plant is to be decommissioned in 2018.

Cllr Mark Dearey, who in 1994 as one of 4 plaintiffs sought to injunct the opening of the facility on environmental and public health grounds, observed: "Last year only two new nuclear power plants started construction across the world, while some fifty times greater generating power was commissioned from renewable energy. This announced closure of the THORP Reprocessing Plant is one more sign that we are at the dusk of the nuclear age and the dawn of a cleaner energy future.

-- Advertisement --

"This announcement has been on the cards for some time, but nonetheless it is a day to celebrate the ending of a misguided nuclear reprocessing project. The facility, which was designed to treat spent fuel, has been dogged by technical problems for most of its 18 years and its throughput is thousands of tonnes behind projections, leaving a backlog of spent fuel on site.

"The NDA, which the UK government set up in 2004 to preside over the £72 billion clean-up of all British atomic sites, was meant to be partly funded by income from reprocessing spent fuel and it is critical that any financial shortfall be addressed now."

"The Green Party has a proud record of critical opposition to the fundamental danger and unsustainability of the nuclear option and this is most evident in regard to reprocessing with its dual military and civil functions. We will continue to work for and support nuclear-free global energy solutions and for full scale nuclear disarmament."

(CD/GK)