Largest anti-nuclear power action for decades

The rally was reported to be the largest in the UK against nuclear power for at least three decades and the 24-hour blockade that followed the 'surround' action was said to be the first ever of a nuclear power station in the UK. Stop New Nuclear issued a statement on 14 March thanking everyone who took part, with a round-up of media coverage and a call-out for support.

Other events in England and Wales

Fukushima remembrance events were also held in Heysham, Lancashire organised by Heysham Anti-Nuclear Alliance; in the Lake District in Cumbria, organised by href="https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/">Radiation Free Lakeland and on the island of Anglesey in north Wales by People Against Wylfa-B, where Horizon - a consortium of German energy giants E.ON and RWE Npower- plans to build a second nuclear power station and a local farmer is steadfastly holding out from selling his land to them. Mainstream media reports: [ 1 | 2 ]

Events worldwide

Many thousands of people attended demonstrations and formed human chains in Japan, France, Germany and many other countries around the world to coincide with the anniversary. UK protests continue next month with the fourth annual Sizewell Camp against Nuclear New Build, and in remembrance of the victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, due to take place in Suffolk, 20th-22nd April 2012.

Recent action at Hinkley: tree and barn occupations

French energy giant EDF is currently preparing to clear the 400-acre greenfield site at Hinkley - which is supposedly protected under national and international conservation designations - even before planning permission has been granted for its proposed Hinkley C nuclear power station. In February, activists first occupied trees on the site in response to initial ground clearance, and later squatted a disused barn at Langborough Farm in the middle of the proposed development site and home to protected bats threatened with eviction. The tree occupation was evicted after three days by a climbing team hired by EDF, and after security had kept the occupiers awake all night with "taunts and intimidation from barking dogs." In response to the barn occupation, EDF sought a wide-ranging injunction to allow them to evict the squatters and to limit further protests at the site. At the High Court hearing in London on 27 February, a possession order was granted for the occupied site but the application for an injunction against various anti-nuclear groups was rejected. After an attempt at illegal eviction on 28 February, the site was evicted the following day at the crack of dawn, with two men arrested for obstructing an officer of the High Court. One of these was Theo Simon, who had D-locked himself by the neck to the window ledge of the barn. A woman who climbed on to the dilapidated roof was brought down by bailiffs who had to erect a scaffold tower: she was not arrested. The two arrestees were held for over 24 hours before pleading guilty, each receiving a six-month conditional discharge. Around twenty people came to support the pair at Taunton Magistrates' Court.. Mainstream news reports: [1 | 2 ].

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

The first new nuke for years

- Hinkley C would be the first new nuclear power station in the UK since Sizewell B, completed in 1995.

- Sale of nuclear-operator British Energy to EDF in 2009. 20% share subsequently sold to Centrica (parent company of British Gas)

- Recent Cameron-Sarkozy nuclear energy deal. Mainstream news reports: [ 1 | 2 ].

- A Corruption of Governance? report, launched in January 2012, jointly produced by Unlock Democracy and the Association for the Conservation of Energy - parliament misled in relation to energy National Policy Statements concerning nuclear power (EN-1 and EN-6).

- Hinkley would use Areva's EPR design. Existing EPR projects in Finland, France and China have suffered years of construction delays and are massively over-budget, and major safety issues with the EPR design have been raised by nuclear regulators in the UK, France and Finland.

- EDF fined 1.5 million euros and its former security chief sentenced to three years in prison in France last year for employing a firm to hack into Greenpeace's computers. Guardian report.

- Energy companies, including EDF, have lent more than 50 staff to government departments - Oil and nuclear industries' presence throughout Whitehall exposed by Green MP, who warns of undue influence on policy. Guardian report.

- Just last week, EDF Energy was forced to pay 4.5 million pounds to help vulnerable consumers after energy regulator Ofgem found the company guilty of breaching marketing licence conditions. Reuters report.

- Nuclear power: The dream that failed. Economist report.

Fukushima

Back in 2007 David Fleming published a free book on nuclear power, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, in which he pointed out some key facts, the first, and most important being, "the nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste". This has already proven to be the case in Japan where the cost of the Fukushima clean up combined with the cost of their whole nuclear programe will exceed the value of the power generated — it would have been cheaper for them to have burnt fossil fuels (listen to RedEye: The Fukushima nuclear disaster - one year later for the source of the estimates of the cost of the cleanup).

The history of the nuclear energy programme in Japan and the links with the horrific atmospheric testing in the Marshall Islands and the nukes dropped by the US at the end of WW2 to start the cold war are discussed in a talk titled From Nuclear Weapons to Nuclear Energy: The U.S., The Marshall Islands, and Japan.