via RTÉ News

A damning report by safety experts has revealed that staff at Britain’s most important nuclear site did “not have the level of capability required to respond to nuclear emergencies effectively”.

In response to a freedom of information request, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), an arm of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said errors by senior fire officers in a preparedness exercise at Sellafield “could have led to delays in responding to the nuclear emergency and a prolonged release of radioactive material off-site”.

The criticism is revealed at a critical time for the nuclear industry, which is trying to build public confidence after the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant while drawing up plans to construct a new generation of atomic power stations in Britain.

It is also an embarrassment to Nuclear Management Partners, the private sector consortium which runs Sellafield and is part-owned by Areva, the French engineering company that has prepared the design for a proposed reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

The initial report from the ONR led to an improvement notice being issued to the Cumbrian site, ordering it to improve its training and wider preparedness to deal with emergencies.

Two HSE fire specialists had watched a safety exercise in December 2011 which tested the Sellafield fire and rescue service’s ability to search for two people after a fictional accident that led to the spillage of radioactive liquid and an aerial release of radioactivity. Although the exercise presented “simple scenarios under ideal conditions”, the service’s “resources were stretched” and “there were insufficient numbers of firefighters to achieve the objectives”, according to the HSE report.

Sellafield Ltd., the operator of a nuclear reprocessing site in northern England, faces prosecution over claims it sent four bags of radioactive waste to landfill, according to the U.K.’s nuclear and environmental regulators.

The company must answer charges it sent the bags from its Sellafield site to the Lillyhall landfill facility in nearby Workington in 2010, according to an e-mailed statement from the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency today.

The prosecution of the company, which is responsible for nuclear waste management on behalf of the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, follows a 2 1/2-year investigation by regulators. It faces nine charges to be heard at Workington Magistrates Court on Dec. 12, according to the statement.

As well as waste disposal at Lillyhall, the charges relate to transporting dangerous goods, lacking adequate management and resources to meet environmental obligations, and failing to use the best tests and measurements to comply with its environmental permit, the statement shows.

Sellafield will “take the time to consider the information provided to us” by the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive, Karl Connor, a spokesman for the company, said today in an e-mailed statement, declining to comment further since the matter is subject to court proceedings.

The Sellafield site is home to the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall, which generated electricity from 1956 to 2003.

An “intolerable risk” is being posed by hazardous waste stored in run-down buildings at Sellafield nuclear plant, a watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) also said that for 50 years, the operators of the Cumbria installation failed to develop a long-term plan for waste.

Costs of plant-decommissioning has also spiralled out of control, it said.

Operator Sellafield Ltd, said it welcomed the report’s findings and was “making improvements”.

The plant is the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site, storing enough high and intermediate level radioactive waste to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The NAO report states however, that owners of the station do not know how long it will take to build storage and treatment centres for the hazardous material or how much the final bill for decommissioning the plant is likely to be.

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The Sellafield Mox plant will be closed as a consequence of the Fukushima incident in Japan. Photograph: PA

The Mox nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield was closed on Wednesday , with the loss of around 600 jobs.

The closure is a consequence of the Fukushima incident in Japan in March, which has closed down much of the nuclear industry there and led to a rethink of nuclear power around the world. But the government said the move had “no implications” for the UK’s plans for new nuclear reactors.

How much did that cost the taxpayers? What was the business model again? ship spent nuclear fuel around the world in rusty ships, sail it up the Irish sea, reprocess it, sell it, oops who wants to buy it? Nobody.

UK urges Ireland to build wind farms on west coast

Plans to link electricity grids offer the UK a chance to meet its clean energy targets – but threaten to blight Irish beauty spots

Interesting, Ireland ask UK to list Sellafield on stress test list. They do. Irish Govt. are so happy they put out a press release. UK Govt. take Sellafield off the list and Irish Govt. say nothing… This game on polly put the kettle on continues. UK ask Ireland for a blow of its wind. We are being urged by a UK plan. I’m sure if we could we would sell the wind power, but respect first. SHUT SELLAFIELD. respect us, and we respect you.

THE BRITISH authorities have decided to exclude the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria from an imminent round of stress tests on European nuclear installations.

The move comes despite indications to Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan from British energy secretary Chris Huhne that the stress tests would include Sellafield.

Voluntary tests on Europe’s 143 nuclear reactors follow the Fukushima nuclear emergency in Japan, which raised questions as to whether previous safety audits were thorough enough.

The tests, which begin next month, will examine the resilience of nuclear installations to earthquakes, tsunamis, air crashes and human error. A group will also be set up to deal with the risk of any terrorist attack on a nuclear plant.

“The answer is no,” said a British government spokeswoman in Brussels when asked whether Sellafield would be examined.

She explained the decision by saying the plant is now engaged in nuclear fuel reprocessing and no longer generates power. “It’s just for existing generation sites,” she said of the tests.

previously the British told the Irish they would include it. See http://url.ie/bjdx

The future of a nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield in Cumbria hangs in the balance after the Japanese Prime Minister called for the closure of a nuclear power station near Tokyo, which was to be the UK plant’s most important customer.

The setback is the latest blow to Britain’s faltering strategy for dealing with its growing mountain of reprocessed nuclear waste, and further evidence of the extent to which the devastating Japanese earthquake of 11 March has changed the nuclear picture – in particular the international trade in reprocessed nuclear fuel.

If the power plant at Hamaoka, 200km from Tokyo, closes, shipments of nuclear fuel to Japan from the Sellafield Mox Plant would stop before they had even started. It is the latest in a long series of problems for the nuclear fuel plant at the Sellafield complex which had already cost taxpayers £1.34bn even before the impact of the earthquake and tsunami was felt.

LONDON — The police in Britain said that they had arrested five men under anti-terrorism laws near the Sellafield nuclear site in the north of England.

The men were stopped in a vehicle “close to the site�? on the Irish Sea coast on Monday afternoon according to a statement from West Cumbria police. All are aged in their 20s, the statement said, and all are from London.

They were arrested under a provision of Britain’s terrorism laws that allows suspects to be questioned without charge, police said, and have now been handed over to the specialist North West Counter Terrorism Unit in Manchester.

A BBC report suggested the men were of Bangladeshi origin and that they were thought to have been filming near the site.

A spokeswoman for the unit, which works closely with Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, declined to confirm the report or provide further details because “the investigation is at an early stage,�? and questioning is under way.

But she did say that there is “no link at this stage�? to the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, an event which prompted Islamic extremists to warn that Britain will be a target for retaliatory attacks. British authorities have told the public to be alert on public transportation and in other venues.