BNFL’s much vaunted Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) has again let down its first customer Nordostschweizerische Kraftwerke (NOK) of Switzerland by failing to deliver a MOX fuel order for the Beznau nuclear power station in time for the station reactors’ annual refuelling outages this summer. Delays to the plutonium commissioning of the plant have ruled out … [Continue Reading]
THORP – 10 spluttering years of failure for BNFL
Ten years ago to the day, BNFL’s pride and joy, the £multi–billion THORP plant (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) started processing the first of 7000 tonnes of irradiated nuclear fuel. With orders secured largely from overseas customers in advance of the plant’s opening, THORP was to make the company a profit of £500M Then described by … [Continue Reading]
Crown Court Conviction for CORE Protestor
After a three day trial at Preston Crown Court, CORE’s Campaign Coordinator Martin Forwood was found guilty by the jury of obstructing a railway engine at Barrow Docks earlier in the year. The police had brought two charges under the Malicious Damage Act 1861, one of which was dropped by the prosecution at the outset … [Continue Reading]
BNFL to pull plug on THORP reprocessing
The multi-billion pound plant, with a design life ‘of at least 25 years’ and once described as the jewel in Sellafield’s crown, will be downgraded to a waste treatment facility around 2010 to enable the company to concentrate on cleaning up the Sellafield site. Pulling the reprocessing plug on THORP indicates a spectacular failure by … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield plutonium shipments in the offing
The prospect of plutonium transports between UK and Europe has recently been fuelled by a BNFL statement to the industry’s journal Nuclear Fuel (NF). In an article on 4th August, a BNFL spokeswoman confirmed that whilst no plutonium had yet been transported, the company was seeking ways on reaching agreement as to how plutonium transfers … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield MOX Plant order book in turmoil
Claims made by local group CORE in March – hotly denied at the time by BNFL – that delays in commissioning the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) may have lost the company some contracts, have been vindicated by a recent BNFL admission to the industry’s journal Nuclear Fuel. Having failed to meet the delivery date for … [Continue Reading]
No UK Ministers or NGO’s at Norwegian Conference
UK Ministers will be conspicuous by their absence at this week’s BNFL/Bellona and Lofoten mot Sellafield conference at BNFL’s Summergrove. The lone green NGO voice will be that of Mr Rick Nickerson of the KIMO Secretariat in the Shetlands. Despite the attendance of Norway’s Environment Minister and other Ministry staff, representatives from the Norwegian Embassy … [Continue Reading]
CORE ‘Holds Up’ Nuclear Transport at Barrow
A rail transport of irradiated nuclear fuel was held-up today by a member of CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) as it left Barrow Docks en route for Sellafield. The train consisted of nuclear fuel transport containers drawn by BNFL’s rail subsidiary Direct Rail Services (DRS). The transport included nuclear fuel from Italy’s Garigliano … [Continue Reading]
Calder Hall – Too Cheap to Meter but Too Expensive to Repair and Run
Environmentalists and others will heave a sigh of relief after the plug is finally pulled on the last ageing Calder Hall military reactor – Reactor 1 – at Sellafield this month. The first to operate at Sellafield, Reactor 1 was opened in 1956 with a design life of 20 years. Projected only two years ago … [Continue Reading]
Sellafield’s Slap-Happy Security
Despite the prospect of its ‘Black Special’ security status being raised to ‘Amber’ because of the war in Iraq, protection of the Sellafield site was shown to be as lax as ever last weekend. In broad daylight, two members of the public were twice (within 30 minutes) able to place ladders against the perimeter security … [Continue Reading]