Transporter wins injunction against Greenpeace

Monday, 19 November 2012

Nuclear material transporter International Nuclear Services (INS) has secured an injunction against further "irresponsible and unsafe actions" by Greenpeace towards its operations.

Protesters in boats accompanied the Atlantic Osprey as it approached Nordenham in September (Image: Fred Dott, Greenpeace)

INS - a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) - said that it was forced to take the action after Greenpeace "interfered" with its nuclear transport operations in Germany.

On 23 September, the Atlantic Osprey arrived at the port of Nordenham on Germany's North Sea coast carrying eight mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies produced at the Sellafield plant in northern England for use in the Grohnde nuclear power plant in Lower Saxony. As the ship approached Nordenham, Greenpeace protesters circled it in boats and one protester tried to climb on board. Once offloaded at the port, the fuel was then moved by road to the power plant.

INS claims that Greenpeace activists "jeopardised the safe operations of the Atlantic Osprey, put their own lives at risk and, we believe, acted in defiance of international maritime law and German law."

"While we support the right to legal and democratic protest, it is also our right to carry out our legal, authorized and safe transport operations without interference," INS said.

A second shipment of MOX fuel from Sellafield to Germany arrived without incident yesterday.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News