N-BASE BRIEFING 146 - - - - - - 30th August 1998
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146.1 News in Brief
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Three safety notices issued at Dounreay
Nuclear safety regulators have issued three improvement
notices on the management at Dounreay demanding specific
improvements within a specified time scale. One notice
from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) instructs
Dounreay to ensure nuclear material in the D1203 uranium
recovery plant is "adequately controlled or contained" so
that it cannot leak by a deadline of June 1999. Problems
within this plant have previously been highlighted by
earlier NII reports. One of the plant's activities is
the production of nuclear fuel pins and 'targets' for
medical isotopes and will be used to process part of the
HEU fuel imported from Georgia. Another notice relates to
the need for a new revised safety case for the D1208
high-level liquor store to be submitted to regulators and
the third notice calls for emergency exercises at the plant
to be carried out more frequently. The NII and Scottish
Environment Protection Agency are due to hold a press
conference on Tuesday 1st September in connection with the
safety audit of the site.
Another Sellafield alert
Radioactivity has been found on the roof of a building in the
separation area of the Sellafield nuclear complex. An
investigation is underway to try and trace the source of
the contamination.
Plant power
Two recent studies have revealed the interesting effects plant
life can have on radioactive waste. In America scientists
studying the movement of radioactivity from waste found
that radiation could reach the surface via water absorbed
by plants even though buried in cement and at the bottom of
3ft steel cylinders. British Nuclear Fuels said it had
found similar results in tests in the UK. BNFL are conducting
an experiment at the Bradwell nuclear reactor in south-east
England to see if plants can clean up contaminated ground
cheaper than removal and disposal by absorbing the radioactivity
through their root.
Shipment arrives
The last shipment of spent fuel from Japan to Sellafield
under existing reprocessing contracts arrived at Barrow-in-Furness
on Thursday (27th Aug.). The six casks of spent fuel arrived
on board the Pacific Sandpiper and was then moved to Sellafield
where it is scheduled to be reprocessed in the controversial
THORP plant.
Contaminated flask rail contract
Contamination was found on a spent fuel flask being transported
from the Hinckley Point B power station to Sellafield resulting
in further rail shipments being suspended until the source of
the contamination is identified. Meanwhile Sellafield's own
railway company, Direct Rail Services (DRS), has won the
contract to transport all nuclear fuel within the UK.
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