Campaigners from South-west Against Nuclear, Nuclear Free Bristol & Bristol CND yesterday shut down the EDF nuclear power station at Hinkley Point B in Somerset, in a protest against expensive work being carried out to extend the lifetime of one of Hinkley’s reactors. £40 million is expected to be spent on the work.
Campaigners at the protest chained themselves together to block the road into the nuclear power station, preventing workers from entering the plant.
Rowland Dye of Bristol CND said: “In the U.S utilities are shutting down plants despite them having received permission to extend their lives. Nuclear accidents are irreversible and uninsurable, causing devastation for generations and, to land air and sea. On average there is a major nuclear accident every 10 or 20 years – not the rare event the industry likes to claim, but that’s ok because the industry are hard at work trying to persuade us that Nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl & Fukushima have no lasting consequences.”
Nuclear Free Bristol campaigner Jane Baker said “This is throwing good money after bad on a worn out and dangerous reactor well past its retirement date. Plant Lifetime Extensions are a fool’s game. We say the safest thing is to shut it down.”
CND maintains that nuclear power is a dangerous and expensive energy source, and is not a sustainable solution to our energy needs.