UK shipping dirty bomb material without guards

Independent on Sunday:

Weapons-ready plutonium that terrorists could easily make into a nuclear bomb is to be carried hundreds of miles down the west coast of Britain in an unarmed ship, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Experts say that the plutonium dioxide powder, shortly to be taken to France from the Sellafield nuclear complex for the first time, would be an ideal material for creating a nuclear explosion and for use in a dirty bomb. One calls it "the worst possible material" to ship.

Yet the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns Sellafield, is to take it on an old roll-on roll-off ferry with few security and safety features – even though it has used armed and better-equipped vessels to transport less dangerous nuclear materials in the past.

The environment spokesmen for both main opposition parties voiced concern at the risk to national security and the environment.

Ministers have repeatedly warned that groups such as al-Qa'ida are seeking fissile material so that they can make nuclear bombs. Only last week the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, drew attention to "the potential threat of nuclear terrorism".

The shipment – expected to be the first of a series – arises from the highly embarrassing failure of a £473m plant at the complex, which was designed to make new nuclear fuel out of mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides recovered from used fuel. Sellafield humiliatingly had to turn to its chief competitor, the French firm Cogema, to fulfil its orders for the fuel – and says it must replace the plutonium it used on its behalf.

It will not give details of the shipments for "security reasons", or even disclose how much weapons-ready material it is having to return owing to "commercial confidentiality". But Core, a Cumbrian campaign group which monitors transport of nuclear material from the complex, said that shipments will start in "the next few days" and will involve hundreds of kilograms of plutonium, enough to make "a large number" of bombs.

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I am sure al Qaeda appreciates the heads up. It would be nice if the government was also interested.