N-fuel begins Sellafield journey

Anti-nuclear protesters in small boats greet the arrival of the fuel

SELLAFIELD, England -- A shipment of radioactive waste rejected by Japan and transported 18,000 miles by sea has begun the final leg of its marathon journey to a British nuclear plant.

Security was tight on Tuesday as five tonnes of plutonium mixed oxide fuel (MOX) was lifted on to a train at the port of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, north east England.

More than 100 police were on standby as the waste -- which has provoked confrontation at sea and on land with anti-nuclear protesters -- was lifted cask by cask.

One man was arrested for breach of the peace during otherwise peaceful protests.

The train will take the fuel to the Sellafield nuclear plant where the 100-tonne armoured casks will be stored in a specially designed facility and the fuel will eventually be recycled.

The waste had arrived earlier in the day at Barrow's main terminal aboard the Pacific Pintail tanker, which is owned by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL).

The tanker, one of two freighters used to transport the fuel from Takahama in Japan, was escorted into harbour by nine UK police boats, a police helicopter and a protest flotilla of four yachts.

The flotilla, which had shadowed the Pacific Pintail and its sister ship, the Pacific Teal, during the last stage of the journey, through the Irish Sea, was led by the Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior.

Each of the fuel casks had been bolted down in the tankers, which were specially designed to withstand collision and remain buoyant. They were also armed.

The fuel is contained in armourned casks

But despite the precautions, Greenpeace said the fuel was vulnerable to terrorist attack and should not have been transported by sea.

Greenpeace's Shaun Burnie said in a statement: "This plutonium MOX should never have been shipped to Japan in the first place in 1999.

"If they (BNFL) had their way it would now be loaded into a nuclear reactor increasing the risks of a catastrophic nuclear accident."

Greenpeace claimed the fuel contained enough plutonium to make 50 nuclear weapons -- an argument rejected by BNFL.