Photos: Stop Hinkley protest in pictures

“It seems like the prospect of storing the waste on site for at least 160 years is something the EDF and the Bridgwater Mercury would rather you didnt know about and talk about, judging from the press coverage of the demo. It was a good job that visually the theme was undeniable given that they've omitted it from their press coverage.

People in this country talk a lot about freedom of speech and it being a cornerstone of democracy but all people are free to talk about in this country is the latest soap opera or what is happening with the latest celebrity.

Through our not-very-free-anymore press the editorials ensure that important messages and topics are either kept out of the press or are heavily biased in favour of corporate interests such as EDF.

I would think that implicit in the notion of freedom of speech is freedom of thought, yet right now at the beginning of the 21st Century the press is on a tight leash and impartial objective coverage is nowhere to be found. May of the reporters come out and ask the right questions, but by the time their work has been edited what you are trying to get across is edited out...


This site has had the best coverage by far of what is going on, but still a subject of national interest to the public has been kept out of the national press and has been dumbed down in the local press, yet a cow floating down the river parret can make the national news. People here in the UK tut tut at countries where peoples right to freedom of speech is surpressed, but these people in these countries at least know exactly what is going on in their country as well as where and when they can talk about it (mainly in private). At least they know... here in Britain many people are blissfully unaware of what is being done to their communities right under their noses.

Many people I talk to in Bridgwater and the surrounding areas are not aware that EDF and the government intend to saddle my great children with a wet pool full of high level spent fuel so toxic no-one even knows how to handle it let alone what to do with it. These people assume that fossil fuels to manage the waste will be available to my grandchildren but will it?

Right now the global population is set to double in the next ten years, this is called exponential growth and it makes meaningless all projections about energy use and energy resources. to keep energy demand where it is and have no growth in per capita energy consumption would still mean that in the next fifteen years we would have to consume again the same amount of resources that we have already consumed since the stoneage...Hands up if you think that the planet can't even sustain this level of extraction? let alone combustion...

Hands up if you think that the idea of making yet more of this obscene posion is a suicidal idea?”

“The main message of these demonstrations was that not only will Bridgwater be getting two untried and untested new breed of nuclear reactors but also a high level radioactive waste storage facility.

The spent fuel from these reactors is hotter and more toxic than any radioactive waste previouly dealt with. It will have to be stored for at least 100 years on site until it is cool enough to move. This time period could extend as there is currently nowhere to move it to.
No local authority in the UK has accepted the governments invitation to store it for the thousands of years it will continue to be highly toxic.

For more information go to http://tinyurl.com/8zeqwyz and http://tinyurl.com/9ejqr5h”