Blu-Tack, can openers and other household items have been used by thrifty scientists in the decommissioning of a nuclear power station. The Dounreay power plant, in Caithness, Scotland, is in the process of a £1bn shutdown operation that has seen scientists tasked with finding cheaper ways to deal with the hazardous material that is left at the site. Lang Banks, director of environmental group WWF Scotland, said: “The ingenuity of those involved in cleaning up Dounreay’s radioactive legacy certainly has to be praised.” However he added: “Not all the challenges faced in dealing with the thousands of tonnes of waste the nuclear industry has left in its wake right across the country will be so easy to solve. “It’s just another reason why Scotland is right to be choosing an energy future based on clean renewables instead of hazardous and expensive new nuclear power.”
Independent 21st May 2016 read more »
STV 21st May 2016 read more »
Last year, the Sunday Herald broke the story about a plan to ship nuclear material from Dounreay to America. The report said the plan was for nearly five kilograms of enriched uranium to be transported by sea from Caithness to the US Government’s nuclear complex at Savannah River in South Carolina. The material was said to have come from a research institute in Mtskheta, some six miles from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in a secretive US operation codenamed Auburn Endeavour in April 1998. Washington was said to have been worried at the time that it could have fallen into the hands of Chechen gangs or Iran. However, it later emerged that the proposed UK Government plan is to ship not five kilograms but 700kg of nuclear material.
Sunday Herald 22nd May 2016 read more »