shut sellafield

interesting results from google trends
ireland is twice the UK count with Norway third.
Try a wind versus nuclear energy search.

[This article was originally published in New Scientist on 17 October 1957]

NO ONE will know precisely what happened at the Windscale works of the Atomic Energy Authority last Thursday afternoon until the AEA’s own inquiry is completed, but it is certain to be considerably more complicated than first reports and the AEA’s own spokesmen have been inclined to suggest.

One of the two seven-year-old reactors had been shut down, and whatever work was being carried out on it - apparently it was being used for experiments of some kind - started a fire in at least two fuel channels in the centre of the reactor which was fierce enough to carry vaporised fission products the whole distance up the 400-foot chimney and through the filters at its top. The fire started at 4.30 in the afternoon; it proved so difficult to control that the following day hoses began to play water down the fuel channels in a desperate attempt to bring the temperature under control. (more…)

[BBC reports] Sunderland train station was evacuated after a train carrying two nuclear flasks to Sellafield broke down. Smoke was seen coming from the train after an axle overheated, according to British Transport Police (BTP). The station was closed on Wednesday afternoon but has now re-opened to passengers. Mainline and Metro services were hit but are now running again. BTP said the nuclear load did not pose a danger and the station was evacuated because of fumes from the axle. The train is operated by Direct Rail Services, a freight operating company created by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL).

The operator of Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been fined £500,000 following a radioactive leak.

[guardian]

[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.