Posted on 30-10-2002

Nuclear Powered Yacht In America's Cup

Auckland, October 29, 2002 - Greenpeace activists inflated a 15 metre high
balloon bomb outside the French base in the Viaduct Basin this morning. The
inflatable bomb was tethered to large yellow barrels marked Areva –the
French nuclear company sponsoring the French entry in the Louis Vuitton
yacht race – and radiation symbols. “The part that Areva does not want the
New Zealand public to know about or see is their connection to the French
nuclear weapons programme and their contribution to global insecurity
through the production and trade of plutonium,” said Bunny McDiarmid,
Greenpeace spokesperson.

Areva’s company COGEMA, is one of two commercial reprocessing plants
producing plutonium today. The other facility is in the UK. Reprocessing
was developed by the military to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons from
spent nuclear fuel. The French reprocessing plant is in Normandy and is
the biggest importer of foreign spent nuclear fuel in the world. During
reprocessing millions of litres of radioactive waste are discharged into
the English Channel annually.

The French site hosts the largest stockpile of separated plutonium in the
world. French government and civilian estimates put the stockpile at 70
tonnes, half of which belongs to its foreign clients (1). Less than 8 kgs
of plutonium is required to make a Nagasaki-type bomb. ‘Areva’s involvement
in large scale trade in separated plutonium presents a major security
threat for the global community and is a safeguards nightmare. These
stockpiles are the most likely source for anyone wanting to get their hands
on some bomb material,” she said. “It’s a joke to talk about security in
the Viaduct Basin, to look after a sponsor whose very business is a global
security threat, and if New Zealand knew they were being used to promote
this business they wouldn’t like it.”

France and the UK’s 15 European neighbours have voted for a reduction in
the radioactive waste discharges from their facilities (2) and called for
an end to reprocessing, but both France and the UK have ignored this.

Contact: Bunny McDiarmid, Nuclear Campaigner; mobile 021 838 183, Glyn
Walters, Campaign Manager; mobile: 021 772 661