Umweltverbrechen multinationaler Konzerne - Greenpeace

Range of damage,
amount of loss
PNTL ships are inferior to many other hazardous-material ships –
and they all are relatively old. They are not fully double-hulled and
are just as susceptible to loss of essential equipment through
catastrophic accidents involving collisions or the ship running
aground as other ships.
Moreover, International standards for nuclear transports are
fundamentally flawed. The containers used to transport plutonium
MOX fuel are classified as ‘Type-B’ under International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines. As such they are required to resist
temperatures of up 800 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes. However,
ship fires regularly burn at temperatures in excess of 1100 degrees
centigrade. The average burning time of a fire on vessels at sea is in
excess of 24 hours in spaces with machinery, such as the recent fire
on PNTL’s Atlantic Osprey.
See above for Windscale Fire and discharges. 178
Nuclear shipments
In 1998, a report commissioned by Greenpeace examining the
possible consequences of a severe yet credible shipping accident in
the waters of the Federated States of Micronesia for a vessel
carrying vitrified high-level radioactive waste from France to Japan
concluded there could be serious consequences for the country’s
environment and economy.
In the report, two types of severe accidents were considered: a long
duration shipboard fire and a cask buried in ocean sediment.
In addition to any direct health effects, the authors considered the
impacts on the most significant aspects of the economy of the
Federated States of Micronesia. These include: fishing, and the sale
of fishing rights; agriculture and tourism.
While the analysis was specific to the Federated States of
Micronesia, small island States in general are clearly highly
vulnerable to similar accident scenarios and the potential economic
consequences. This consideration is of particular importance to
small island States in the Caribbean and the South Pacific - routes
that are regularly used for these and other shipments of radioactive
material. In addition, numerous other en route coastal States have
economies which would be similarly vulnerable to such an accident,
in particular owing to the importance of fishing and tourism activities.
A 1991 report commissioned by the International Union of Marine
Insurers concluded that an accident during the transport of nuclear
materials by sea could generate losses in the order of US$ 7
billion. 179
Who is responsible BNFL is wholly owned by the British Government. Indirect
responsibility for BNFL‘s polluting practices also lies with client states
of BNFL that have had spent fuel reprocessed at Sellafield (in
addition to United Knigdom origin fuel, other countries including
Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden have and/or
178 Note, the authors are unaware of any estimate of the economic losses incurred as a result of the Windcale fire and
counter-measures. Similarly producing a meaningful estimate of the losses and costs incurred over the decades as a result
of the discharges and atmospheric releases would be an extremely (and probably infeasible) task. In addition, it remains
unclear whether current international liability Conventions would require compensation for damage caused by regular,
permitted discharges.
179 “Insurers to Refuse Cover on Nuclear Accidents”, The Independent, 3 March 1991.
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