Following the April 2008 edition of the Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) Nuclear Newsletter which referred to ‘quality assurance issues relating to irradiated fuel transport flasks’, a Freedom of Information request was made by CORE to HSE asking for full details. The written response (21st May) revealed that whilst the full extent of the quality assurance issues became apparent to the Executive only in late January 2008, matters had been under investigation by the Government’s Department for Transport (DfT) since late last year, and related to both Magnox and British Energy’s (BE) AGR transport flasks and the off-site transport of spent fuel which is regulated by DfT.
The Department’s inspection, which focused on the quality assurance of spare parts procured for and fitted to both types of transport flask, revealed that items affected on BE’s AGR flasks were valve components, test point plugs and screws locating lifting features. For Magnox flasks, valve components were identified as was as an additional issue relating to flask lid bolts.
Despite the Department’s focus on inconsistencies in quality plans, ambiguities in component specification and the procurement and management of transport flask spares, the flask problems were clearly considered to be of sufficient concern for both British Energy and Magnox operators (Sellafield Limited) to voluntarily suspend further spent fuel transports of AGR and Magnox fuel – the former from 21st December 2007 (with DfT suspending package approvals for AGR flasks on 9th January 2008), and the latter from early February 2008, following the suspension of Magnox flask filling on 23rd January 2008.
The HSE, which says there were no immediate safety concerns, understands that some ‘on-site’ movement of AGR flasks resumed in mid-January. Off-site transport of spent fuel was subject to a phased resumption from late March/early April 2008 once DfT was satisfied that all flask safety related components fully complied with design requirements.
Magnox has now returned all its operational flasks to service, whilst BE has a reduced number back in service, with a supporting plan for the remainder to be returned to service.
Plutonium shipment.
Two months late, the UK’s first commercial transport of Sellafield plutonium left the port of Workington late on Saturday 17th May bound for Cherbourg. An estimated 300kg of plutonium, contained in a number of SAFKEG transport containers on two road vehicles, was shipped under heavy port security onboard the NDA ship Atlantic Osprey – a second hand converted roll on roll off car ferry that lacks some major security attributes deemed necessary on other plutonium-carrying ships of the nuclear fleet. The original mid-March departure date had to be abandoned when details of the intended voyage were carried in national newspapers following a tip-off from Greenpeace France and CORE.
The Atlantic Osprey arrived in France in the early hours of Wednesday 21st May and was escorted under armed guard to the La Hague reprocessing plant where the plutonium was to be transferred to different transport containers for its onward journey to the Cadarache MOX plant where it will converted to MOX fuel. In advance of the ship’s arrival in Cherbourg, French company Areva secured a legal injunction against Greenpeace France – preventing activists from approaching within 300 metres of the ship at sea and 150 metres on the dockside and on the plutonium’s onward route in France. Any infringement of the injunction would incur a fine of 75,000 euros.
In dioxide powder form – prime terrorist material – the transport of plutonium through the Irish Sea and subsequently through France is widely considered to be highly irresponsible at a time of heightened terrorist activity around the world. It is also significantly embarrassing for Sellafield, as the highly dangerous cargo is likely to be the first of a number of shipments that must be made to repay French and Belgian MOX fuel fabricators for the plutonium used from their own stocks to fulfil MOX fuel orders that had been sub-contracted from Sellafield’s MOX plant (SMP) over recent years because of chronic and ongoing production problems at the UK plant. Further orders may already have been sub-contracted and more could follow in the future.
At least five MOX fuel orders, for Swiss and German nuclear power stations are known to have been subcontracted from SMP to European fabricators so far – orders estimated to involve some 1.3 tonnes of plutonium in total. This is likely to require a further three or four shipments from Workington that has now assumed the mantle of UK’s principal plutonium port.