More on this from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima
*Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima
*
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at
the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new
nuclear power stations in the UK. Photograph: AP
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a
co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima
nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/japan> and before the extent of the
radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2011/jun/30/email-nuclear-uk-government-fukushima>
show how the business and energy
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/energy> departments worked
closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy
<http://www.edfenergy.com/>, Areva <http://www.areva.com/> and
Westinghouse <http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/> to try to ensure the
accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear
stations in the UK.
"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally,"
wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
(BIS) <http://www.bis.gov.uk/>, whose name has been redacted. "We need
to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on
this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to
show the safety of nuclear."
Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from
undermining public support for nuclear power
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/nuclearpower>.
The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith <http://www.zacgoldsmith.com/>, who
sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent
of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the
emails appear to reveal.
"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would
be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of
Fukushima," he said.
Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked
like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind
obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry,
can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.
The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on
11 March <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami>,
has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has
dented public support
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/jun/23/nuclearpower-nuclear-waste>
for nuclear power in Britain and around the world
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/nuclear-power-loses-appeal-japan>,
with the governments of Germany
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/germany-pledges-nuclear-shutdown-2022>,
Italy
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/13/berlusconi-nuclear-power>,
Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power
stations in the wake of the accident.
The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their
representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA)
<http://www.niauk.org/>, on 13 March, two days after the disaster
knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima.
The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures
made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still
unfolding
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-emergency-timeline>
and two major explosions at reactors on the site
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/15/japan-nuclear-plant-third-explosion>
were yet to happen.
"Radiation released has been controlled -- the reactor has been
protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It
is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like
this."
The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they
could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government
statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the
message through to the media and the public.
"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all
into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to
quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four
on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local
consequences". But it was raised to level seven
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/japan-nuclear-crisis-chernobyl-severity-level1>
on 11 April, officially making it a major accident"
<http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp> and putting it on
a par with Chernobyl in 1986.
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