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Nuclear Waste

Sellafield

Representatives from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant have appeared in court after a worker was allegedly exposed to plutonium. Sellafield Ltd was charged with a health and safety offence after an incident at the West Cumbria site in February last year. The company entered no plea at Carlisle Crown Court. The prosecution relates to “risks arising from hand working within glove boxes”. The glove boxes are sealed containers, with integral gloves, which allow someone to work on objects or materials that need to be kept in a separate atmosphere. The company faces one charge brought by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) under the Health and Safety at Work Act. A trial has been provisionally earmarked for April next year with another hearing listed for February. This is the first prosecution brought by the ONR since it was established in 2014.

BBC 11th Dec 2018 read more »

Nuclear Waste

In writing this ‘nothing happening here’ update, there’s always a hope “sod’s law” will come into play, and the Government will sneak out a GDF announcement right before Christmas. My Santa list and wishful thinking aside, that’s now very unlikely. The question therefore becomes — when? When will the GDF policy move forward? It’s not unreasonable to assume that nothing will now happen until the Brexit boil is lanced. Whenever and however that happens.

GDF Watch 7th Dec 2018 read more »

It has been over 10 years, 4 Prime Ministers, and 5 Administrations since the original Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) recommended geological disposal. In that period successive Governments of all Parties have recommitted to geological disposal. With the recent publication of position papers updating their advice on a range of key issues, the latest CoRWM have also reaffirmed their expert opinion that geological disposal remains the best available way to dispose of higher-activity radioactive waste. Four new papers have been issued in response to specific concerns raised in stakeholder submissions to the public consultations earlier this year on the GDF draft National Policy Statement (NPS) and the Working With Communities siting policy:

GDF Watch 7th Dec 2018 read more »

A leading campaigner fighting against a new nuclear power station has been presented a prestigious medal. Professor Andy Blowers, of Mersea, travelled to New York to receive the Alexander and Ilse Melamid Medal by the American Geographical Society. The award recognised his “outstanding work” in the nuclear research field. He is chairman of Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group – Banng – which opposes plans for a new Chinese-built power plant on the River Blackwater in Bradwell.

Essex County Standard 9th Dec 2018 read more »

US – Radwaste

The U.S. government has worked for decades and spent tens of billions of dollars in search of a permanent resting place for the nation’s nuclear waste. Some 80,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste from defense programs are stored in pools, dry casks and large tanks at more than 75 sites throughout the country. A Stanford University-led study recommends that the United States reset its nuclear waste program by moving responsibility for commercially generated, used nuclear fuel away from the federal government and into the hands of an independent, nonprofit, utility-owned and -funded nuclear waste management organization. “No single group, institution or governmental organization is incentivized to find a solution,” said Rod Ewing, co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a professor of geological sciences. The three-year study, led by Ewing, makes a series of recommendations focused on the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The report, Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy, was released today.

Stanford News 10th Dec 2018 read more »

Radioactive Waste

The National Waste Programme (NWP) has undertaken a number of significant pieces of work during the 2018 to 2019 financial year regarding the packaging of radioactive in the UK. As a result the Packaging to 2050 of Low Level Waste Identified in the UKRWI report has been produced. The report reviews the industries packaging needs to 2050 for waste identified in the UKRWI as LLW and includes demand profiles for key containers. The report also identifies gaps in container provision, barriers to the use of existing containers and additional work required to ensure that appropriate container provision will be available to support future LLW management up to 2050.

LLWR Ltd 7th Dec 2018 read more »

Sellafield

Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Storage Pond has passed an important point in its clean-up journey with the removal of 300 tonnes of solid waste from the legacy pond. When retrieval operations in the Pile Fuel Storage Pond began in 2012 there was an estimated 750 tonnes of bulky waste items to remove, including redundant equipment and discarded skips. The 300 tonne mark was achieved in November with the removal of the 89th skip. There are now 97 skips remaining, which along with the other bulky waste should be fully removed and in safe interim storage by 2024.

NDA 5th Dec 2018 read more »

The following are a few of the excellent questions and thoughts posed by Neil from RaFL arising from the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Meeting last week at Cleator Moor on 29th Nov. It takes a strong stomach to look at this stuff without the blinkers on.

Radiation Free Lakeland 6th Dec 2018 read more »

Sellafield

Extinction Rebellion seems to be very much in the news just at present. Here in Cumbria we have our own terrifyingly real threat of extinction. Not only is there Sellafield with its deadly collection of nuclear waste – we also have an ongoing planning application for a new coal mine reaching under the sea to within 5 miles of the nightmare nuclear site. West Cumbria Mining have an active planning application with Cumbria County Council to open the first deep coal mine in 30 years. Given the urgent need to cut carbon emissions this is total madness. Given the proximity to Sellafield of mining operations, known to cause earth tremors, the proposal does threaten very real extinction here and now.

Radiation Free Lakeland 5th Dec 2018 read more »

NDA

Draft business plan for the 3 years beginning April 2019. In this consultation, the NDA wants to hear from members of the public, nuclear regulators, employees within our businesses, trade unions, local authorities, Site Stakeholder Groups, Non-Governmental Organisations and any other organisation or public body. In your response please state whether you are responding as an individual or representing the views of an organisation. If you are responding on behalf of an organisation, please make it clear who the organisation represents and, where applicable, how you assembled the views of the members. This consultation begins on 3 December 2018 and will close on 4 February 2019.

NDA 3rd Dec 2018 read more »

Magnox

Lawrie Haynes has been appointed chair designate of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority subsidiary Magnox Ltd. The new subsidiary will come into being on 1st September 2019 when the current parent body organisation, the Cavendish Fluor Partnership, hands over to the NDA. Lawrie Haynes joined the Highways Agency in 1994 from British Aerospace and was chief executive until 1999. Over the years since then he has been a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, managing director of Lattice Group, chief executive of British Nuclear Group, chief executive of consulting engineer White Young Green and president of Rolls Royce Nuclear.

Construction Index 4th Dec 2018 read more »

People

Professor Andy Blowers, OBE has been awarded the Alexander and Ilse Melamid Medal by the American Geographical Society in recognition of his ‘outstanding work on the dynamic relationship between human culture and natural resources’. The medal was created to honour ‘those who examine the influence of humans on the natural world’. Prof. Deborah Popper, of Princeton University, said that Professor Blowers has been addressing some of the most significant and difficult environmental issues with great thoughtfulness, stamina, and grace. Mike Pasqualetti, Professor of Geographical Sciences, Arizona State University and former winner of the award, commented: ‘I know of no-one more deserving of this recognition.’ Professor Blowers has had a long career as an academic at The Open University, as a County Councillor, as a Government adviser, as an author and as a campaigner, as Chair of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG). He has been published widely and his most recent book, The Legacy of Nuclear Power, addresses communities living with radioactive waste. The medal will be presented at Columbia University, New York, in November.

Open Space Research Centre 3rd Dec 2018 read more »

Sellafield

Is it OK to have Radiocaesium and Transuranics in a Childrens Play Area on the Beach? Last thursday Radiation Free Lakeland were invited to Cleator Moor Civic Hall for the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder meeting (Environment and Health). We have deliberately shunned these meetings thinking that they are PR exercises for the industry. The meetings are billed as a way of holding the industry and regulators to account but our experience on thursday confirmed our suspicions. We were invited to the meeting to make a presentation on our citizen science project with nuclear science students in the US. We had been sending samples to the US from the whole of the Cumbrian coast for over a year. The US undergraduate student’s findings shocked us. A full third of the samples taken were contaminated with material that can only have come from decades of Sellafield’s reprocessing. At the meeting we listened from 1pm to 4pm to the industry and the regulators congratulate themselves endlessly for “reducing emissions” (continuing piling on the crapola in word and deed) and then we got a chance to make the 15 minute presentation at 4pm. There was no press in the room. We had told them we would be there but apparently they never bother going, instead they prefer to wait for Sellafield’s press release. The chair of the meeting was clearly biased in favour of the industry and even went so far at the end of the meeting to say that “if only you came and listened and understood more the gap between us (!) would be bridged”. I took that to mean that if we were only browbeaten enough we would learn to love Nukiller Big Brother and not hold them to account with our pesky questions. There are not enough people holding the nuclear industry to account. That much is clear. The plan revealed from Sellafield is that they intend to reduce the beach monitoring and retrieval of radioactive particles even further to a nominal “reassurance” monitoring.

Radiation Free Lakeland 2nd Dec 2018 read more »

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