A NUCLEAR reprocessing plant at Sellafield has closed after a radioactive leak.
The Thorp reprocessing plant - one of two plants on the Cumbrian site - was forced to shut after a split pipe leaked enough contaminated liquid to fill a large swimming pool.
The spill of a highly dangerous mix of nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid into a huge stainless steel chamber is not a danger to the public.
But it may take months to clean up because the chamber is now so radioactive that it is impossible to enter.
Experts may have to build special robots to recover the 20 tonnes of liquid contaminated with uranium and plutonium and fix the pipe at the '2.1bn plant.
The leak is likely to be a financial disaster for the taxpayer as income from the Thorp plant - calculated to be more than '1m a day - is supposed to pay for the clean-up of redundant nuclear facilities.
The problem was first spotted on April 19 when operators could not account for all the spent fuel that had been dissolved in nitric acid.
The liquid was supposed to travel through the plant, be measured, and then separated into uranium, plutonium and waste products.
Remote cameras scanning the interior of the plant found the leak.
Pipe
The plant shut the same day. On Friday the British Nuclear Group - a management company formed to run the Sellafield site on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority - held a meeting with the government safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, to discuss how to mop up the leak and repair the pipe.
The fuel will have to be siphoned off and stored until the pipe is repaired to conform to international safeguards preventing nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. But engineers have yet to come up with a way of doing this.
The company has set up a board of inquiry to find out how the leak occurred. The NII will set up a separate investigation and has the power to prosecute if correct procedures have not been followed.
The closure comes at a crucial time for the nuclear industry.
Britain is struggling to meet its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2010, despite a substantial programme of wind farm construction.
The decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations is among the most sensitive Tony Blair faces after the election.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which took over ownership of the plant from British Nuclear Fuels in April - has a '2.2bn clean-up budget for this year, of which '560m was to come from the Thorp plant.
The managing director of British Nuclear Group Sellafield, Barry Snelson, who ordered the plant to be closed down, said: "Let me reassure people that the plant is in a safe and stable state."
Should we get rid of nuclear power stations? Have your say.
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Jason, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 14:53)
M, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 15:31)
Utter rubbish!
If 1% of all the money wasted on nuclear power had been spent on renewable energy we'd have cheaper electricity, less reliance on fossil fuels, and not be the world's nuclear dumping ground.
J Doyle, Bath (09/05/2005 at 17:08)
Chris Vernon, Bristol (09/05/2005 at 18:05)
If we are expecting economic growth we need to grow the electricity supply, not reduce it by 50%. This is a huge problem and the most important political debate, forget Iraq, we need to work out how to keep the lights on!
Bernard Mathers, Wigan (09/05/2005 at 18:18)
Andy, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 18:23)
Rachel, Hulme, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 19:19)
M, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 19:33)
Try telling that to the people of Chernobyl.
S. Bailey, Derby (09/05/2005 at 21:05)
This latest "error" proves that such a catastrophe is inevitable again, maybe on our own shores.
James Cowley, Manchester (09/05/2005 at 21:28)
DaveC, manchester (10/05/2005 at 01:40)
Despite the hype the nuclear industry would have us believe, nuclear power has never been able to pay its way, has always needed huge subsidies from the UK taxpayer to fund construction and decontamination and even then has struggled to make an operating profit.
The nuclear industry views climate change as its last great hope to salvage something from all the years of waste, but the only long-term answer to reducing our dependance on fossil fuels is to invest in renewable energy and now.
The economics of nuclear have never added up and still don't. When compared with renewables the arguement to begin pouring money into nuclear again is sadly simply an expensive distraction from dealing with security of UK fuel supply and our desperate need to tackle climate change.
James Hopf, San Jose (10/05/2005 at 02:20)
The long-term health risks from its waste stream (i.e., its "toxic legacy") are actually far less than those of other energy sources and industries. It's just that we just don't seem to care about those problems, and only require nuclear to prove a complete absence of health risk over an infinite time period (as though any other industry or waste stream would ever have any prayer of doing that). 10,000-100,000 years from now, the lingering health risk from our landfills, chemical waste dumps, and from coal ash/pollution will be vastly greater than that from nuclear waste, guaranteed. Not to mention a planet with an altered climate, and where all the precious hydrocarbons have been completely eliminated, sqaundered just to make heat and power.
Renewables will play a growing role, but will not be able to supply more than ~25% for the forseeable future. Meanwhile energy use is always growing...
Thus, Britain has three choices. They can to return to coal, which is infinitely worse in terms of public health and environmental risk), and will require totally blowing off global warming. Thay can be totally dependent on gas imported from the Middle East and Russia, which will require sending their kids to fight and die to ensure those sources (i.e., more Iraq wars, etc...). Or, they will have to at least replace their existing nuclear capacity.
Gwil Williams, Austria (10/05/2005 at 09:39)
PaulD, Chorlton, Manchester (10/05/2005 at 11:32)
Add to that the poor safety record of the industry, the incredibly long term nature of the risk and the picture for nuclear looks bleak.
Investment in Nuclear (of our money) now gives us power being generated in 10 years. Investment in renewables (and energy efficiency) now gives us power and reduces emmissions.
Ali, Chorlton, Manchester (10/05/2005 at 23:48)
David Dewhurst, Salford (11/05/2005 at 16:03)
D s, cambridgeshire (11/05/2005 at 19:51)
Irish Citizen, Ireland (27/05/2005 at 19:56)
John van, manchester, CT USA (29/05/2005 at 16:45)
Shim, Durham (30/05/2005 at 19:15)
If you walk around at night, you can see offices where every monitor is still on, though nobody's home. There are places here where there is so much ambient light - at night, in areas where very few people bother to go - that the birds don't stop singing at night. Light pollution from the city causes problems for the astronomers at the University, and you can actually see it reaching well up into the sky.
People just bothering to turn off computers, TVs and lights would be a bonus! Improving efficiency of energy use, especially in things like freezers, could help too. The trouble is, everyone still acts like they should be able to have as much energy as they want, so long as they pay for it.
Josh Guin, Pickering, Ontario, Canada (01/06/2005 at 05:22)
Simon, Oxford (12/06/2005 at 11:28)
Fossil fuel power generation gives rise to the spectre of global warming - the evidence for which is increasingly convincing. With the expansion of the emerging economies this planet-threatening problem must be addressed now. So, whilst energy efficiency and renewables are important planks of the defence against global warming most authoratative studies agree that they can only partially solve problem and the only realistic alternative is nuclear power.
Chris, nottingham (14/06/2005 at 10:58)
Use a mixture of Renewables, Dedicated Biomass, cofired fossil fuel supported by high efficiency gas and clean coal technologies (until such time fossil fuels can be replaced). The government should offer strong support to marine, hydrogen and biomass development. All new housing should be forced to include a renewable technology for planning approval and energy efficiency management far better then the mis-management thus far.
However all this needs public support, something sadly lacking. We needs less NIMBYism and more positve, debate, support and ideas towards the essential changes we MUST take here and now.
Dave Telford, North West Cumbria (29/06/2005 at 20:15)
Fiona McDonald, Dublin,Ireland (20/09/2005 at 20:25)