Recent approval by Copeland Borough Council to a Sellafield Ltd application will see large sections of nuclear plant being delivered to the site directly by sea. The planning application, approved by the Council on 20th August, details a programme of work for the construction of a ‘steady incline’ ramp across a section of Sellafield beach, a cutting through the sand dune and the construction of a new bridge over the local River Ehen which divides the sand dune from the Sellafield site. Under the plans, specifically dedicated to ‘the Evaporator D’ project, components that are ‘too large to be transported by rail or road’ will be delivered by sea in a number of freight modules.
Once completed (estimated at 3 years), the project will allow large loads to be off-loaded from sea barges onto the beach and driven directly into the Sellafield site. But whilst the approved plans relate specifically to the delivery of the new Evaporator – the badly needed new High Level Waste Evaporator which is vital for the completion of Sellafield’s Magnox and THORP reprocessing schedules – it is clear that the proposed beach works sit conveniently on the boundary of the land earmarked by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for a new nuclear power station.
CORE’s spokesman said today “ We don’t doubt the need for a new Evaporator but find it more than curious that no previous large plant or facilities at Sellafield, including the existing Evaporators, THORP or the MOX plant, have needed this novel sea and beach transport route into Sellafield. Though it is planned to remediate the beach works once the Evaporator is delivered, we suspect there is a hidden agenda behind the plans – the import of reactor parts at some later date”.
For the new Evaporator, the planned beach ramp will be 10m wide and run from above the Mean Low Water mark for 80m up the beach and into the Ehen Spit sand dune from which up to 5000cu.m of spoil will have been excavated. From the Spit, the route will lead over the River Ehen via the new 34m long bridge which will be located close to Sellafield’s sea discharge pipebridge, and directly into the Sellafield site. Subsequent remediation of the project, which will also include some modifications to the local road, will be carried out under advice from the Environment Agency.
Originally awarded to construction company Costain in 2006 for ‘front end engineering design’, the £90M contract for the project is today put at some £297M which covers full engineering, procurement, construction and inactive commissioning of Evaporator D. Delivery of the facility will consist of up to 15 modules, the largest of which will be 27m high. The new Evaporator is scheduled to operate in 2014.
In their independent nomination of the West Cumbrian sites for new build at Kirksanton and Braystones, German company RWE plans to use a beach-based Marine Off-Loading Facility for the import of large reactor components to the sites. A ready-built beach access at Sellafield must prove irresistable to any new build applicant for the NDA’s land.
CORE’s spokesperson added “Given that even the nuclear industry can show some method in its madness, we will watch the beach development with interest, particularly whether any remediation at all actually takes place once the new Evaporator has been delivered”.