Activists Organizing Coalition Against Fracking In the UK

Activists Organizing Coalition Against Fracking In the UK

by | Mar 17, 2012 | ACTION, Indirect Action, Mining & Drilling

By Fiona Harvey / The Guardian

The biggest meeting on the issue of fracking for shale gas to be held in the UK will take place in Manchester on Saturday in an attempt to set up a broad nationwide coalition to stop the controversial practice.

Protest groups have been set up in areas currently affected by shale gas exploration activities or likely to be the sites of fracking in future.

But anti-fracking campaigners want to step up the pace of their protests as support for shale gas grows rapidly in some political circles.

The concerns over fracking follow its widespread use in the US over the last few years. Environmentalists say it has caused contamination of water supplies, gas leaks and the despoliation of the countryside over wide areas.

They want to ensure that similarly destructive practices do not take hold in the UK. Green groups also fear that an over-emphasis on gas will put carbon-cutting targets far out of reach – some research even suggests that shale gas from fracking produces more greenhouse gas emissions than coal when burned – and will crowd out investment in renewable forms of energy.

But Cuadrilla, the only UK company currently engaged in fracking, argues that the bad examples of the US would not apply in the UK, where the industry is more tightly regulated.

The company has invited people to its site and says its equipment and methods are of a higher standard than those that have caused problems in the US.

All fracking operations for shale gas in the UK are currently suspended, pending scientific evaluation of two small earthquakes in the Blackpool area last year that, according to a report from European seismic experts, were directly linked to fracking operations in the area.

Read more from The Guardian

Photo by Paul-Alain Hunt on Unsplash

UK Nuclear Sites In Danger of Flooding Due to Climate Change

UK Nuclear Sites In Danger of Flooding Due to Climate Change

by | Mar 7, 2012 | Climate Change, Toxification

By Rob Edwards / The Guardian

As many as 12 of Britain’s 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by the Guardian.

Nine of the sites have been assessed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as being vulnerable now, with others in danger from rising sea levels and storms in future decades. They include all of the eight sites proposed for new nuclear power stations around the coast, as well as numerous radioactive waste stores, operating reactors and defunct nuclear facilities.

Two of the sites for new nuclear stations are said to have a “high risk” of flooding now: Sizewell in Suffolk and Hartlepool in County Durham, where there are also operating reactors. Shutdown and running reactors at Dungeness in Kent are also classed as currently at high risk.

Another of the sites most at risk is Hinkley Point in Somerset, where the first of the new nuclear stations is planned and there are reactors in operation and being decommissioned. According to Defra, it already has a “low” risk of flooding, and by the 2080s will face a high risk of both flooding and erosion.

Other new reactor sites that face some risk now and high risks by the 2080s are Oldbury in South Gloucestershire and Bradwell in Essex. The huge old nuclear complex at Sellafield in Cumbria is said to face a “medium risk” of flooding now and in the future.

The analysis was conducted by officials from Defra’s floods and coastal erosion team as part of a major investigation into the impacts of climate change on the UK. But when the results were published in January, only summary numbers for the 2080s were mentioned and no individual sites were named.

Defra has now, however, released its full analysis in response to a request under freedom of information legislation. As a result, the department’s assessments of the risks faced by individual sites can be disclosed for the first time.

Many of the nuclear sites date back to the 1950s and 1960s, and are unlikely to be fully decommissioned for many decades. Seven of those containing radioactive waste stores are judged to be at some risk of flooding now, with a further three at risk of erosion by the 2080s.

Experts suggested that the main worry was that inundation would cause nuclear waste to leak. “Sea level rise, especially in the south east of England, will mean that some of these sites will be under water within 100 years,” said David Crichton, a flood specialist and an honorary professor at the hazard research centre in University College London.

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-risk-flooding

Photo by Lukáš Lehotský on Unsplash

France asks EU to halt authorization for genetically-modified Monsanto corn

by | Feb 21, 2012 | Agriculture

By Reuters

France asked the European Commission on Monday to suspend  authorization to plant Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) MON810 corn, the environment ministry said, as the country seeks to keep a ban on GM crops despite losing court rulings.

France banned in 2008 the growing of MON810 corn, the only GM crop approved for planting in the European Union, citing environmental risks.

Its highest court ruled against the ban in November, following a similar decision by the European Court of Justice last September, leading the government to say it would look at all ways to maintain the freeze on GM planting.

The French government’s request to the EU executive was based on “significant risks for the environment” shown in recent scientific studies, the ministry said in a statement.

EU governments are divided over authorising GM crop cultivation, with some countries like France reluctant to allow them in view of public hostility.

Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, is seeking to revive stalled talks on allowing individual countries to decide on whether to allow GM crops.

The stalemate over GM crops has frustrated crop farmers and biotech companies, most of which have scaled back research on such varieties in Europe.

From dawn.com: http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/21/france-asks-eu-to-suspend-monsanto-gm-corn-approval.html

German police remove railway protestors locked down in defense of trees

by | Feb 18, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Obstruction & Occupation

By The Local

Police cleared 1,000 protesters from a park at the Stuttgart 21 construction site overnight, making way for further work on the controversial rail project. Protesters set up barricades and some even encased their arms in concrete.

City officials said on Wednesday morning they were pleased with how the operation in the Schlossgarten park went. They said 2,500 officers had encountered little violence.

But protesters, who were trying to protect 176 trees that authorities say need to be cut down or moved as part of the project, charged that police had been overly aggressive during the eviction and had even attacked people with batons.

A spokesman for the protesters, Matthias Herrmann, called the operation “hectic and escalating.”

But a Stuttgart police spokesman said that there had been only “occasional baton use” when protesters attempted to set up a barricade. A 38-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly set off fireworks near officials, according to police.

Others protesters had to be forcibly cut away after they chained themselves to trees. Some used pallets to erect barriers on access roads, police said. Two even encased their arms in concrete and police were still figuring out how to deal with them as of mid-morning.

Stuttgart 21 is a multi-billion-euro project that aims to transform the Baden-Württemberg state capital into a major European transport hub by laying 57 kilometres of new track and rebuilding the city’s main train station underground while turning it around 90 degrees.

But many have baulked at the cost of the plan and what they say will be damage to the local environment. Violent protests flared in 2010, but the government has insisted that construction must continue. On Sunday, protesters tried to mount heavy equipment to prevent the cutting down of trees but were removed by police in a prelude to Wednesday’s eviction.

At the park, protesters had set up dozens of tents and tree houses before the police operation began at about 3 am. Officers first asked protesters to leave on their own – which some did – before they began the eviction.

Stuttgart 21 project spokesman Wolfgang Dietrich said the police operation had gone “very well” because protesters had, for the most part, abstained from violence. Authorities could begin felling trees as early as Wednesday afternoon.

From The Local: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120215-40749.html

Activists occupying planned nuclear site in the UK

by | Feb 17, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Obstruction & Occupation

By John Vidal, The Guardian

Environmental activists have occupied the site of what is planned to be Britain’s first new nuclear power station since 1995, and on Friday accused EDF of “ignoring democracy” and starting work on the £10bn project without permission to build the station.

Eight people have occupied the semi-derelict Langborough farmhouse on land due to be cleared within weeks to make way for the twin-reactor Hinkley Point C power station. The £100m preparatory earth works, which were formalised today in Paris with David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy signing an agreement, will remove a volume of soil and rock four times the volume of Wembley stadium from the 500ha site, destroy a site of special scientific interest and several historic buildings.

EDF today admitted they did not have permission to start building the power station but said the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) had accepted their application for a Development consent order (DCO). The IPC will take around a year to decide on the DCO and, if EDF’s bid is successful, would allow the company to build on the site. In addition, a spokesman said the company had received permission from West somerset district council to begin “preparatory works”.

“We have consent for site preparatory works, which is essentially doing the levelling and putting in infrastructure like roads. We have a separate application with the IPC. If we do not get the DCO then we would reinstate the earthworks,” said a spokesman. “We hope to start work soon, in the spring.”

But the protesters said the preparatory works were so large they constituted the effective start of the power plant construction and rendered the consultation period, when arguments for and against the power station could be heard, meaningless. “The government has steam-rollered this through. Either EDF is behaving in a grossly insensitive way by clearing 500 hectares of land, or they know that they will get permission to build the nuclear station. If it is a done deal then the consultation is bogus. The democratic process has been dispensed with completely”, said Theo Simon, one of the eight protesters now in the farmhouse.

The group, who call themselves the Barnstormers, have been issued iodine pills in the case of a nuclear accident by the local council. “We are here for the long haul. We have a lot of support from local people who have brought us food and wood. We are hoping other people will come to the site,” said one.

The IPC’s examination and decision making is likely to take nearly a year, by which time the site will have been cleared of all vegetation.

“This is like someone who has not got planning permission digging the foundations of a new house. The extent of the activity, the clearance of most vegetation, hedges and trees, the excavation of more than 4 million cubic metres of soil and rocks, the re-routing of underground streams, the creation of roads and roundabouts, major changes to the landscape … mean it is effectively the beginning of construction of the proposed Hinkley C nuclear power station,” said the Stop Hinkley C spokesman Crispin Aubery.

In a separate development, the local authority warned EDF that the planning process for the reactor had stalled because the company had not given them the money to allow them to scrutinise the planned work.

“There are still key issues to be resolved at a local level before this development [of the building of the reactor, not the preparatory work] can take place. The legitimate rights and concerns of the local community are far from settled – in fact, the planning process is currently stalled while we wait for the developer, French company EDF, to agree vital funding for the necessary scrutiny of the development process,” said the Sedgmoor district council leader, Duncan McGintty.

“This scrutiny is fundamental to make sure that the interests of the residents who will bear the impacts of the development are fairly and properly represented. It is also a part of a legal requirement under the formal consent procedure set out by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC).”

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/activists-occupy-nuclear-site-edf