ENVIRONMENTAL organisation Greenpeace has warned that the Cape of Good Hope could be turned into a ?nuclear highway?, with more than 80 nuclear shipments from Europe to Japan planned in the next 10 years.
The warning came as a ship bearing a cargo of deadly plutonium fuel sailed around the Cape coast at the weekend en route from France to Japan – the second such plutonium fuel transport around South Africa’s coast. The first was in September 1999.
South Africa declared in 1997 that it would prefer that ships with nuclear cargoes not enter its territorial waters.
?The South African government has requested the ship to stay out of their waters but we call on them to take stronger measures,” said Greenpeace spokesman Mike Townsley. “Without concerted opposition from the South African government, the nuclear industry will turn the Cape of Good Hope into a nuclear highway.?
Townsley said the organisation was monitoring the 30_ 000km journey of the ship, which has “enough plutonium for making over 20 nuclear weapons”.
The ship came within 315 nautical miles of Cape Town while making its way around Cape Point, Townsley said. The ship is expected to arrive in Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in western Japan in about a month.
“We also challenge France, England and Japan to take measures [against nuclear shipment]. The plutonium fuel was made in France, is being carried by an English ship and is headed to Japan.”
Greenpeace is opposed to the shipment of plutonium on health and environmental grounds.
“Inhalation of an amount of plutonium smaller than a speck of dust can cause fatal lung cancer,” Greenpeace said in a statement, adding that plutonium has a radioactive half life of 24_000 years.
South African environmental officials could not be reached for comment. – AFP