N-BASE BRIEFING 130 - - - - - - 18th May 1998
130.1 Regulators close plant and MPs to investigate
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The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has taken the unprecedented step
of ordering the closure of the complete fuel cycle area (FCA) at Dounreay
until a complete safety review has been carried out and improvements made
to the plant - including its electrical system. While some workers are to be
allowed into the FCA - where all spent fuel is reprocessed, unirradiated fuel
processed and new fuel fabricated - for care and maintenance tasks, the NII
has stopped all work in 'active' areas of the FCA. This has stopped planned
work processing the un-irradiated fuel from Georgia which is stored at the site.
SEPA's north region director, Professor David Mackay, commented that
"safety systems must work better than being able to be crippled by a simple
swipe of a digger". Just how long the FCA will remain shut-down is unclear at
present. Dounreay management is predicting only a couple of months, while
environmental groups suggest it could take much long. However, a completely
new ring mains wiring system and overhaul and improvements to the back-up
and fail-safe emergency systems is surely likely to take more than a couple of
months given the initial planning and approvals necessary before work can
even begin. And even when this safety review is completed, there remains
the concerns about the plant already expressed by the NII and Scottish
Environment Protection Agency and the need for major expenditure to repair a
dissolver in the main reprocessing plant before an serious resumption of work
can be considered.
Faults not reported for 12 hours
Dounreay operators UKAEA has admitted that it waited 12 hours before telling the
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate about the total loss of power to the fuel cycle
area for about 16 hours on Thursday 7th and Friday 8th May. A workman cut cables
to both the mains electricity supply and the emergency backup generators - which
were laid together - and the plant had to rely on emergency batteries.
MPs to visit site
The Trade and Industry Select Committee of the House of Commons has announced
an investigation into the government's decision to import nuclear waste from Georgia to
Dounreay. The MPs are to visit the site and hold a public session in Thurso on 15th
June and there will be a further session in London to question Ministers. While the
overall safety of the plant is likely to be covered by the investigation demands from the
Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats that the MPs' investigation should be
a more wide-ranging detailed look at the plant's safety and accident record, including
the loss of power to the FCA earlier this month, are initially being resisted by the
committee members.
130.2 Other Dounreay News
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New assistant director
Mr Peter Welsh has been appointed by the UKAEA as the new assistant director at
Dounreay. Mr Welsh has been station manager at the Hinkley Point and Dungeness
power plants and is a director of Magnox Electric.
No prosecution after leak
There is to be no legal action following the leak from the D1206 mixed-oxide
reprocessing plant which closed the plant in 1996. A leak in a dissolver led to
radioactive waste escaping from the plant and being discharged into the sea. A
report from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has criticised management
but does not propose reporting the site to the procurator fiscal. An alarm failed to
warn of the leak and the waste was discharged from a holding tank almost immediately.
The report details a number of problems with managing the liquid waste tanks.
SEPA states that "management decisions were made that compounded upon one
another to contribute to the likelihood of an uncontrolled release of radioactivity
occurring. These mainly relate to the unprecedented length of time the site persisted
with single sea discharge tank operation, thereby leaving the site vulnerable to an
uncontrolled release of radioactivity".
Dounreay aids proliferation
During a debate in the House of Commons on 13th May into the dangers of proliferation
and plutonium stockpiles, Scottish National Party MPs highlighted the work of
Dounreay in reprocessing and manufacturing weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium.
Although Dounreay has supplied HEU to India and reprocessed the spent fuel, the
industry has insisted the recovered uranium was stored in the UK and there is no
direct link between the work and India's recent nuclear tests.
130.3 News in Brief
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Insufficient controls on rail transports
An official report into the contamination of railway wagons carrying spent fuel flasks
to the La Hague reprocessing plant in France has blamed the lack of proper
controls by the electricity generating company and insufficient control by the state
regulators. The report was prepared by DSIN state safety regulatory authority and it
also reveals that the contamination of the railway wagon was known about as long
ago as 1988 when La Hague operators Cogema told the EDF generating company
there was contamination.
Army waste for Drigg
Radioactive ash residue from luminous paint is to be removed from former Army
barracks in Ashford, Kent, and taken to the low-level waste dump at Drigg near
Sellafield.
Navy college waste
The Ministry of Defence has asked the Environment Agency for permission to take
radioactive waste from a small reactor in the basement of the royal Naval College
in Greenwich, in south east London, to either the Drigg low-level waste dump or
to Sellafield. Solid intermediate-level wastes will be taken to UKAEA Harwell if
the EA approved the plans.
British Energy to buy Three Mile Island ?
It seems that UK nuclear generators British Energy and its US partner Peco Energy
are again considering buying the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania through
their joint company Amergen. Discussions about a possible purchase began last year
but British Energy said they had abandoned any interest in the reactor - the site of
America' worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979 - at the end of 1997. Talks
have apparently re-opened with the owners GPU, General Public Utilities, and
might also include the Oyster Creek reactor which is also owned by GPU.
Sellafield sampling
Greenpeace is to undertake radiation sampling off the coast of Sellafield in a major
programme of monitoring, the results of which will be presented to the OSPAR
Convention's Ministerial Meeting in Lisbon in July.
Swedish closure plan stopped
The planned decommissioning of the Barseb”ck 1 nuclear reactor in Sweden has been
stopped by a legal challenge from the operators, Sydkraft. The company argues that it
is being offered too little compensation and insufficient time to decommission the
reactors, ordered by the government in terms of the 1980 anti-nuclear referendum
result. The Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden has now ordered a full judicial
review of the proposal.
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