ANTI-nuclear campaigners were joined by the town mayor as they held a protest in Aberystwyth over the weekend.
The groups CADNO, PAWB, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Cymru congregated in Aberystwyth on Saturday, 11 March, to protest against Government plans to build nuclear power stations equipped with Small Modular Reactors in Wales.
The protest began with a demonstration at the bandstand, protestors came dressed in overalls and carried what looked like buckets of radioactive waste.
Many wore paper bags on their heads with words such as ‘home’, ‘peace’ and ‘community’ written on them, symbolising the things the groups see being lost in a world reliant on nuclear energy.
Protestors marched through Aberystwyth handing out leaflets and engaging with local people, before returning to the bandstand for another demonstration.
Aberystwyth’s mayor, Dr Talat Chaudhri, came to support the protest wearing the chains of office,and held up a banner saying ‘No SMRS’. The groups organised a similar protest on the same day which took place on Menai Bridge.
The protest took place on the 12th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station disaster. The disaster serves as a reminder to these groups of the dangers of nuclear energy, and has become a rallying reason for the protest.
CND Cymru spoke about the continued damage caused by the disaster, and the issues of decommissioning the site as a result of it. CND Cymru said: “The Chief Executive at the Fukushima Daiichi site has admitted that the damage inside the reactors there is only starting to be identified, which makes it very difficult to predict when and how decommissioning will be completed. Only after removing spent fuel from the cooling ponds after 2031 can workers start to retrieve the fuel that melted during the explosions in 2011. If fulfilling that work will be impossible, a huge shell like the one at Chernobyl could be built there to isolate the radioactivity from the environment.
There are 1.37 million tonnes of radioactive water stored in large tanks at the site, the Japanese government’s plan to pump that into the Pacific Ocean has been postponed after what CND Cymru said was “strong opposition to this from the direction of South Korea, China and a big group of Pacific Islands.
“Tepco, the operating company at Fukushima Daiichi has not been able to filter ruthenium, cobalt-60, strontium-90 or even plutonium from this water. All of these are radioactive substances.”
CND Cymru’s National Secretary, Dr Bethan Siân, said: “Politicians at all levels of government who support building new nuclear reactors should pay close attention to the far reaching and extremely expensive effects of nuclear disasters.
"No country should have to face the dangers of a catastrophic accident in a nuclear power station.
"The simple answer is to stop any plans to build new nuclear reactors.
"Both Westminster and Welsh governments should turn their whole attention to developing all the renewable technologies that are so much cheaper than nuclear power and much quicker to build.”