Uranium truck collision confirms fears

Diet Simon 07.10.2004 00:08 Themen: Atom
German anti-nuclear activists see their fears confirmed by a nuclear trucking accident in France. A truck carrying 4.5 tonnes of enriched uranium was hit from behind by another heavy vehicle early Tuesday near the central city of Orleans.
The local prefecture said the load of radioactive material was not damaged nor was anyone hurt. The motorway the vehicles were travelling on was not closed to traffic.

The unescorted truck carried uranium from Germany for a nuclear power plant in southern France where it was to serve as fuel.

The accident confirms the fears of anti-nuclear activists in the Münsterland region near the Dutch border. They have been warning for weeks about uranium transports to and from the Gronau enrichment plant.

For months they have criticised the intention to truck atomic waste from a shut-down research reactor near Dresden 650 km westwards on highways and minor roads to a repository at Ahaus.

Castor caskets to be used will contain 2 kg of plutonium, enough to kill all 18 million people living in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, the activists claim.

Nuclear transports endanger the population and are part of an atomic spiral that piles up ever more waste and has nothing to do with giving up dangerous nuclear power production.

The activists demand that the state government break its silence on uranium transports, to clearly und unequivocally forbid expansion of the Gronau enrichment facility and to not tolerate the transports from Dresden to Ahaus by rail or road.

An article in German at  http://de.indymedia.org//2004/10/95788.shtml explains the enormous importance to the global nuclear industry of Gronau and a similar plant at Almelo, 30 km across the border into Holland. There are only 16 such enrichment plants worldwide.
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