N-BASE BRIEFING 112  - - - - - - 20th December 1997

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112.1 Plutonium shipment planned
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A shipment of plutonium from Germany to Dounreay is expected 
next week.  The 59kgs of plutonium which originated at the 
former reprocessing plant at Karlsruhe, which was closed 
in 1991, and which has been stored at Hanau will be 
shipped from Bremerhaven to Scrabster on the 
roll-on/roll-off vessel, Arneb, which has been used for 
other transports from both Dounreay and Sellafield.


There is already 800kg of German plutonium in storage at 
Dounreay.   There the unirradiated material will be 
processed into liquid plutonium nitrate and shipped to 
Sellafield where it will be fabricated into Mixed Oxide 
(MOX) fuel for German nuclear reactors.


112.2 News in Brief
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Dounreay contamination admitted

Dounreay operators, the UK Atomic Energy Authority have 
admitted breaking health and safety laws after four 
workers inhaled plutonium at the plant.  The private 
sub-contracting company, Probabilistic Risk Assessment, 
had not guilty please accepted by the prosecution.  
Sentence on UKAEA will be given in January.  The offences 
were committed in 1995 in a building where rusting drums 
of low-level waste were being recovered and the waste 
re-packaged.  UKAEA admitted in Inverness Sheriff Court 
that the four workers were given inadequate safety 
instructions, such as wearing breathing protection, and 
failing to properly monitor the men's exposure to 
radiation.

Jabiluka protest

The Green members of the European Parliament have tabled a 
resolution, for debate in January, condemning the 
Australian Government's plans to develop the Jabiluka 
uranium mine in the Kakadu national park, which is a World 
Heritage site.  The resolution calls on the Australians 
Government to abandon the project and calls on all member 
states of the EU to ban imports of uranium from mines 
where the landrights of Indigenous Peoples have been 
compromised.

Phase-out

The Swedish Parliament has voted to start the phase-out of 
nuclear power in the country with the scheduled closure of 
the Barseback 1 reactor by July 1998 and compensation 
being paid to the owners, Sydkraft.