In press statements issued yesterday (17th September) by the two principal users/occupants of the Ramsden Dock nuclear shipping terminal – INS (International Nuclear Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and managers of nuclear transport contracts) and PNTL (Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited who operate the ships on behalf of INS – claim … [Continue Reading]
A decision on the fate of UK’s Plutonium stockpile remains years away.
The much delayed update from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on its plans for dealing with Sellafield’s burgeoning plutonium stockpile was quietly published at the end March 2019 under the title ‘Progress on plutonium consolidation, storage and disposition’. The lack of fanfare for its publication may be attributable to the absence of any major breakthrough … [Continue Reading]
Steaming into Sellafield’s sunset years.
Some 25 years ago Sellafield’s then operator British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) took many by surprise by publishing plans to supplement Calder Hall’s electricity output (for Sellafield site use) not with a new nuclear plant but with a Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) that would run on natural gas pumped from the Irish Sea … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield’s THORP reprocessing plant – an Epitaph: “Never did what it said on the tin”
A Sellafield Stakeholder committee was told last week that, by the 11th November, THORP would have chopped up (sheared) its last batch of spent fuel, bringing to an end almost a quarter century of operation – a performance described to stakeholders as ‘ mission completed successfully’. As has now become customary for such milestone events, … [Continue Reading]
NuGen to NoGen. Consortium liquidated by Toshiba as it abandons Moorside New-Build.
In a not unexpected announcement by Toshiba today (8.11.18), the Japanese conglomerate has pulled the plug on its subsidiary NuGen, the consortium tasked with developing the £15Bn Moorside new-build project in West Cumbria. In its press statement, Toshiba’s Board said “After considering the additional costs entailed in continuing to operate NuGen, Toshiba recognises that the … [Continue Reading]
Spendthrift Sellafield, Wayward Governance and the latest Plutonium view
The findings of the spending watchdog’s latest report on the status of Sellafield’s clean-up projects and costs makes yet more dreary reading for the UK taxpayer – the costs described as ‘a misuse of public funds’ by a spokesman for the report’s authors the Government’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
NuGen’s Moorside – all at sea
With Toshiba having stripped South Korea’s KEPCO of its ‘preferred-bidder’ status to take over the Moorside new-build project, NuGen’s intrepid Search for Hopeful Investor Team – shoulders hunched and heads down – are back once again on lookout duty scanning the seas for any sign of a new investor heading for West Cumbrian shores. Already … [Continue Reading]
Chemical Chaos and Confusion at Sellafield – yet another intolerable risk ?
‘As a site, the full appreciation of chemical legislation, including The Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations DSEAR, has been inadequate’. [Sellafield Ltd Board of Investigation report on 2017 ‘chemical event’ and made available to CORE in April 2018]
Down Memory Lane –25th Anniversary of 1992 Leukaemia High Court Case. Days 12-18
Days 12-18. Epidemiology; the principles and the various types of studies, prior to Gardner, the Gardner case control study, A Bomb data and studies since Gardner. Start of the epidemiological section where the Plaintiff’s experts were heard before the Defendants. with Professor Stephen James Evans, a medical statistician from the London Hospital Medical College giving … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield’s delayed Evaporator D now operating – specially gift wrapped for Christmas.
There can’t be many nuclear bodies that choose to bury – just three days before Christmas – what is touted as a good news story by the industry. But this is exactly what Sellafield Ltd has contrived to do in its 22nd December announcement that the long overdue and eye-wateringly expensive Evaporator D has come on line at Sellafield.