shut sellafield

[guardian / PA] The firm that runs Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant will be fined in court on Monday after admitting safety breaches following a radioactive leak.

Around 83,000 litres of acid containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium escaped from a ruptured pipe into a sealed concrete holding cell at the site in Cumbria.

The spillage of spent nuclear fuel was discovered in April 2005 – but may have gone unnoticed for eight months.

No one was injured and no radioactive material escaped into the atmosphere after the leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) part of the site.

But British Nuclear Group Sellafield Ltd, which runs the facility, later pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site licence, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

The Health and Safety Executive brought the prosecution, arguing the firm failed to ensure safety systems were in good working order and that radioactive material was effectively contained.

Representatives of the company will appear at Carlisle Crown Court on Monday.

They face unlimited fines under the powers of the court.

also [irish indo 16/10]

by Maria Daly athloneadvertiser.ie

People living in Athlone could face compulsary resettlement if a Chernobyl-like nuclear explosion was to happen in the Welsh nuclear power plant of Wylfa. The new fallout maps were created for a conference by the Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum (NFLA). The conference will take place in the D Hotel, Drogheda, on Saturday September 30. The conference will be hosted by Cllr Michael O’Dowd and will cover such issues as the health consequences for Ireland of a major nuclear accident. Speakers on the day will include Pete Roche who is a nuclear policy consultant, Dylan Morgan of People Against Wylfa B, and Rite Holmes who is a member of the Hunterston Site Stakeholder Group. The British government are currently looking at the possiblility of building a nuclear power plant at either Wylfa in Wales, Hunterston in Scotland, or Sellafield in England. If there was a nuclear fallout in any of the proposed sites and south easterly winds were prevailing, Athlone and the Midlands would be under serious threat of contamination. The NFLA has released a map which shows the fallout area that would follow an accident at the nuclear reactor in Wylfa if easterly winds carried fallout across to Ireland. Large areas of central and southern Ireland would become so contaminated that there would be cause for evacuation. The NFLA has based its maps on the fallout from the Chernobyl reactor accident which happened some 20 years ago. more

OSLO, Norway (CNN/AP) — A nuclear leak forced the shutdown of a small Norwegian research reactor on Saturday, but the radiation was contained, officials said. more

[By Alan Irving from Whitehaven News 24/08] “IT is a recipe for disaster — it will put safety at risk on the site.” That was the angry reaction of Prospect, the major nuclear staff union, over British Nuclear Fuels plans to sell off only a small part off its operating arm, BNG, which has 8,500 on the Sellafield payroll. It has come has a shock about-turn to the nuclear workforce who were told BNG would be sold as one and they would all be transferred to one new employer under contract from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Peter Clements, Prospect branch secretary, said yesterday: “Selling off Sellafield piecemeal is a recipe for disaster, we think it will compromise safety. It will be about cutting costs if you sell off different parts of the business to different companies. The danger here is that we’re going to have another Railtrack, with one lot doing one bit of maintenance and another doing something else – nobody will know who’s doing what. Safety and communications will suffer. “It is disgusting and deplorable that this has been done without any consultation with the unions. [full article]

contest suggested to choose site of underground dump.

[the guardian reports]The burial site for Britain’s stockpile of nuclear waste should be decided by a country-wide contest in which regions bid to become home to the hole, a government advisory panel said yesterday.

In return for housing the underground repository, which would remain radioactive for centuries, the winning region would receive compensation in the form of improved roads, schools and other facilities. Better emergency services and expertise to monitor the long-term environment and health of the population would also be on offer. more

unlike X factor winners who expire after a few months, nuclear waste would remain radioactive for centuries.

out of sight out of mind. if you win a nuclear dump for your area, you will need better roads, hospitals & emergency services. yes the waste exists, yes something must be done about it, no it is not safe, yes there is more waste planned, no there is nowhere safe to put it.

“If you think about the last 100 years of British history, and we are in one of the most stable countries in the world, we have been through two world wars, we’ve had the Easter uprising, we’ve had a near German invasion, we’ve had aerial bombardment and we’ve had several decades of serious terrorism. This is not a political environment in which we should be taking the sorts of risks involved in making yet more of this extremely dangerous nuclear waste.” Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne quoted in the Guardian.

links:  [david healy] [green party]

The operator of the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria has been rapped over a leak of radioactive water.

The incident happened in February 2006, during routine tests, which required levels of contaminated water in storage pools to be raised temporarily. But levels remained high for too long and radioactive water leaked from a gap in a pool wall. Although water was contained within the plant the Environment Agency criticised failings by British Nuclear Group. more
also in the news
The re-opening of the THORP nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield is causing concern. The Nordic environment ministers have demanded that any resumption of reprocessing at THORP be preceded by an evaluation of all the risks as well as an action plan for the treatment and ultimate disposal of radioactive waste. more

[I have been searching for the cover story from summer 06 issue of socialist view, journal of the socialist party in Ireland. I have found part of it.]

FOR THE first time in a generation the British government is proposing a major expansion in the use of nuclear power. A debate has opened on the benefits and risks of nuclear power. This debate occurs against the background of general acceptance of two ideas: that global warming is a real phenomenon and is man-made, and, that the world is rapidly running out of fossil fuels such as oil and gas.

THE DEBATE in Ireland is different from that in Britain. There are no proposals at the present time to build nuclear power stations, North or South. In the 1970s it was proposed to build a nuclear power plant at Carnsore Point in Wexford but this plan was shelved in 1980 after widespread opposition.

The increasing links between the electricity grids of Ireland and Britain however mean that we will use nuclear power indirectly in the future. A major concern is the proximity of the Sellafield nuclear power plant in Cumbria and reprocessing facilities to both Northern Ireland and the South.

Working people care little for Blair’s opinions but are genuinely worried about the future. Is nuclear power inherently dangerous? How quickly will oil run out? Will renewable energy sources ever meet demand?

[full text not available online. for copies contact the Socialist Party ]

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche T.D., stated today (11 July 2006) that the outcome of the energy review in the UK was disappointing but not surprising. The Minister was commenting on the today’s publication of the review which concluded that the nuclear option could make a significant contribution to meeting future UK energy needs.

Political statements made at the highest level have indicated for some time a definite and predisposed view for the nuclear option in the UK. Coincidently recent changes to the UK Ministerial line-up have seen prominent nuclear skeptics moved out of directly relevant Departments.”
…

“The decisions taken by the UK in relation to nuclear issues are of significant concern to Ireland. We made our views known to the UK during the public consultation on the Energy Review Policy. These reiterated our concerns on radioactive discharges to the Irish Sea, the danger of accidents, the continued reprocessing of spent fuel, the threat of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities, proliferation issues, marine transports of nuclear fuel as well as waste and the risks arising from the proximity of nuclear power stations located in the UK to Ireland itself. Ireland’s views were informed by the experience of past events but it is obvious that minds were already made up on the outcome of this review.

full text