An Appleby firm is among 14 businesses awarded contracts to come up with innovative approaches to remotely sort and segregate radioactive waste. Barrnon Limited is among the winners of the Sort and Seg competition, worth £3.9 million in total. Launched in July 2020 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, in partnership with Magnox Ltd, Sellafield Ltd and Innovate UK, it set the challenge of coming up with proposals for using autonomous technology to sort and segregate mixed radioactive wastes at the UK’s oldest

nuclear sites.

Cumberland & Westmorland Herald 24th Feb 2021 read more »

FOURTEEN companies have won contracts in a £3.9m competition aimed at developing a waste toolkit that will contribute to meeting the aims of the nation’s nuclear sector deal. The “Sort and Segregate Nuclear Waste” competition – set up in partnership between Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Magnox, Sellafield Ltd and Innovate UK – involves developing an autonomous and integrated toolkit to sort and segregate mixed radioactive waste generated by nuclear decommissioning activities. This is expected to help reduce the level of waste requiring disposal, increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve safety. The competition is funded by NDA.

Chemical Engineer 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

14 successful companies have been awarded contracts to come up with innovative approaches to remotely sort and segregate radioactive waste. The ‘Sort and Seg’ innovation competition, worth £3.9 million in total, was launched in July 2020. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) – in partnership with Magnox Ltd, Sellafield Ltd and Innovate UK – set the challenge of coming up with proposals for using autonomous technology to sort and segregate mixed radioactive wastes at the UK’s oldest nuclear sites. The first phase of the competition is now complete and contracts, worth up to £60k each, have been awarded to 14 consortia that will now come up with feasibility studies for their proposals, including robotics, advanced sensors and artificial intelligence.

NDA 22nd Feb 2021 read more »

Vast, futuristic-looking building, check. Lots of men in smart overalls stood at computerised control desks, check. Masses of shiny hi-tech equipment performing mind-bending feats of precision. Check. But this isn’t some underground lair on a remote Caribbean island, it’s on an industrial park on the fringes of the Black Country. And this anonymous-looking site is home to one of the biggest players in Britain’s nuclear industry. Thousands of people will drive past Ansaldo Nuclear in Ettingshall, Wolverhampton without giving a second thought to what goes on behind its gates. But inside the huge yellow building, equipment that would once have been the preserve of sci-fi programmes is made with laser-like precision. The company produces equipment used in both the nuclear-power and defence industries. And a high percentage of components are manufactured in-house – raw metals come into one end of the building, hand-built, precision equipment comes out of the other. Managing director Andrea Basso speaks with a real excitement as he talks about the products coming out of the factory. He talks animatedly about the ‘moving caves’, train-like machines which run on rails above waste silos at plants such as Sellafield in Cumbria, remotely handling radioactive material and safely sealing it under concrete in nuclear-proof containers.

Express & Star 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

As flights of political fancy go, Boris Johnson’s desire to build a tunnel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland might seem to be one of the most audacious. However, Whitehall officials have revealed that one version of the plan worked up in Downing Street went even further, envisaging not one but three tunnels under the Irish Sea connecting in an “underground roundabout” beneath the Isle of Man. No 10 officials given the task of examining how Johnson’s blue-sky thinking might be feasible quickly concluded that the original plan of a link between Stranraer in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland was impractical.

Times 21st Feb 2021 read more »

Decommissioning legacy nuclear waste silos on the former UK power generating site at Sellafield requires a large number of bins to be machined to close geometrical tolerances to ensure they can be stacked safely. They are three-metre-cube, double-walled, box fabrications that are highly resonant and, to make their production even more difficult, they are made from 6mm thick Duplex stainless steel plate that tends to induce vibrations when it is milled. One of the firms leading the Sellafield decommissioning work, Stillington-based Darchem Engineering, had been taking delivery of machined bins from contract machinists BEL Engineering in Newcastle-upon-Tyne since 2017. The problem was, in the words of CEO Jonathan Lamb (pictured): “We wanted to increase productivity but realised that further improvements to the machining process were impossible using conventional machinery and fixturing.

Machinery Market 19th Feb 2021 read more »

Letter sent today to MP Tim Farron from Radiation Free Lakeland. We have been looking at West Cumbria Mining’s lobbying over the last several years. While WCM class themselves as a “small company” in order it seems to avoid full filing of company finances, they have been afforded incredible access to key government departments. Access that other Cumbrian small businesses could only dream of. Meetings have taken place between West Cumbria Mining and at least three government departments including BEIS – the dept which is responsible for CoRWM appointments. The public would rightly assume that CoRWM and other government departments in the interests of transparency and ethics would not ever consider public appointments of individuals who have previously and continue to repeatedly lobby government departments to advance their business interests. Especially when those business interests include the most controversial coal mine in UK history which coincidently is in the area where the UK government have repeatedly tried to progress Geological Disposal plans despite cumulative scientific evidence that the plan is dangerous (we wonder how CoRWM expect Mark Kirkbride’s business interests of a coal mine in the same area will make the already complex and faulted geology in the Eastern Irish Sea area safer?)

Radiation Free Lakeland 19th Feb 2021 read more »

RESIDENTS fear nuclear waste is buried beneath land being earmarked for development. Blackburn with Darwen Council has included 94 acres of countryside on the edge of the borough in its draft local plan as suitable for employment uses. But residents and West Pennine Tory councillor Julie Slater fear nuclear waste was dumped on old mineshafts in the 1950s. The green belt land between Belthorn and Guide is included in the draft local plan which runs until 2037 as ideal for business, commercial and job-creating development. Cllr Slater, Darwen MP Jake Berry, his Hyndburn Tory colleague Sara Britcliffe want the 94 acres removed from the blueprint while the nuclear waste concerns are investigated. Blackburn with Darwen Council’s growth boss Cllr Phil Riley said preliminary investigations found no evidence of any atomic material. Cllr Slater said: “The site is located in a Coal Authority ‘High Risk Area’ and there are a number of mine shafts along the Grane Road. “In the early 1950s residents believe a large amount of nuclear waste was dumped into the shafts along the roadside. “There was no formal and very little informal regulation so it is unclear as to the exact location, amount and what it contains, but sources suggest up to 900 tonnes. “It is unclear where the tunnels from these shafts are but there is a high chance they run into the proposed site and our fear is the waste could be disturbed when work begins.

Lancashire Telegraph 18th Feb 2021 read more »

Why Beaufort’s Dyke is not a good location for a transport bridge or tunnel between Northern Ireland and Scotland. The UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) note recent reports that the UK Government is considering the development of a road / rail bridge or an underground rail tunnel that could connect Northern Ireland and Scotland, an idea which has been suggested for a number of years. It has been suggested a tunnel could cost around £10 billion, with a bridge at least double that figure. Following on from the UK leaving the European Union, there has been increased discussion on ways to connect the existing four nations of the union together. A transport connection between Northern Ireland and Scotland has been mooted for over 120 years, but it has been particularly put forward in recent times by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. As a result of ‘Brexit’, Northern Ireland remains a part of the EU single market to ensure there is no ‘hard’ border points between it and the Irish Republic. This has been one of the most politically charged parts of the Brexit debate. At its closest geographical point, there is just 12 miles between Scotland and Northern Ireland. As the NFLA sees it, there would be a real challenge to developing either a bridge or an underground rail tunnel, particularly if developed over the area of the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland called Beaufort’s Dyke, which a recent NFLA report has considered.

NFLA 17th Feb 2021 read more »

David Peattie, Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has today announced the appointment of Lawrie Haynes as Chair Designate of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. (DSRL)

NDA 16th Feb 2021 read more »