Keith,
“Proponents of nuclear reactors” shouldn’t take
account of this mess.
This is not a nuclear reactor. It’s a reprocessing plant. We don’t
have a non-military processing plant �in the US (more’s the pity).
However, the criticism is not of nuclear, but of governmental incompetence.
Modern governments along with their depressing offshoot – quangos
- are not very good at handling things. When their job was building roads and
sewers they did a reasonable job, but the deeper they get into more complicated
things, the less reliable they are. Thus with Sellafield:
“Its critics also claim it is uneconomic because it has never
operated to design capacity since it opened 12 years ago, and is years behind
schedule in fulfilling orders.”
Not that BNFL is responsible (they say). Here’s why.
“Those activities stemmed from a Cold War military programme.
When the plants were built, the priority was to make them operational and effective
as quickly as possible. Limited thought was given at the design stage to the
treatment and disposal of the waste produced. Likewise, their ultimate
decommissioning and demolition was hardly considered. As a result, the costs of
doing so today are considerable.”
For thirty years, they also got rid of their waste the easy way –
through a pipe into the Irish sea.
In the Cold War rush, 26 units were built –all but 4 have gone.
But, here’s the rub. They are first generation Magnox graphite reactors –
remember Chernobal? They are ancient, outmoded, and possibly a little bit
unsafe. Also, bloody difficult to decommission.
The only other ancient graphites in Europe
(as far as I know) are in the east. The EU are trying to close them –
offering to built modern plants in their place.
The rest of the nuclear plants in a Britain with fast dwindling gas and
oil are run by British Energy – 100% owned by the British government.
(Just made a gigantic bottom line loss.)
Keith, I keep running
into variations of “disasters such as Chernobyl,
Three Mile Island and the fire at Windscale
(Sellerfield).” The release at Windscale was as much as 20,000 curies –
probably not that high. The Chernobyl
release was about 7 million curies. There go the graphite reactors.
The release at Three-Mile
Island was 15 curies.
This non-graphite reactor used for power (and not for weapons) reacted
according to design – yet it’s included with these other dinosaurian
reactors.
Thus the legend of nuclear danger continues to be told to credulous
listeners.
Harry
*******************************
Henry
George School
of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA
91042
818 352-4141
*******************************
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 9:15 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] FW -- Thorp
nuclear plant closed -- again!
The following describes the sort of risk (and
financial consequences) that proponents of nuclear reactors never take into
account.
As I have said many times on FW, the quality of scientist and engineer who
works at such plants is very low. There are far more interesting careers
available to competent people. Thorp mainly recruits graduates with only
nodding acquaintance with general science mainly from the crummiest university
in the country.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
HUGE RADIOACTIVE LEAK CLOSES THORP NUCLEAR PLANT
Paul Brown
A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated
nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the
closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant.
The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and
plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel
chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter.
Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may
require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques
devised to repair the �2.1bn plant.
Article continues
The leak is not a danger to the public but is likely to be a financial disaster
for the taxpayer since income from the Thorp plant, calculated to be more than
�1m a day, is supposed to pay for the cleanup of redundant nuclear facilities.
The closure could hardly have come at a worse time for the nuclear
industry. Britain is
struggling to meet its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% of
1990 levels by 2010, despite a substantial programme of wind farm construction,
while generating capacity will also be hit by the rundown of some of Britain's
coal-fired power stations.
The decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power
stations is among the most sensitive Tony Blair faces at the start of his third
term.
A leak of a briefing paper to ministers on the nuclear option yesterday
revealed that the contribution new nuclear capacity could make to cutting
greenhouse gases had not yet been considered because of opposition from
Margaret Beckett, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a quango which took over ownership
of the plant from British Nuclear Fuels on April 1, has a �2.2bn cleanup budget
for this year, its first year of operation, of which �560m was to come from the
Thorp plant.
Richard Flynn, spokesman for the NDA, said "If the income from the
plant is not forthcoming then obviously it will put back plans for cleaning
up."
On Friday the British Nuclear Group, a management company formed to run
the Sellafield site on behalf of the NDA, held a meeting with the government
safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), to discuss how
to mop up the leak and repair the pipe. The company has to get the inspectors'
approval before proceeding.
A problem at the plant was first noticed on April 19 when operators could
not account for all the spent fuel that had been dissolved in nitric acid. It
was supposed to be travelling through the plant to be measured and separated
into uranium, plutonium and waste products in a series of centrifuges. Remote
cameras scanning the interior of the plant found the leak.
Although most of the material is uranium, the fuel contains about 200kg
(440lb) of plutonium, enough to make 20 nuclear weapons, and must be recovered
and accounted for to conform to international safeguards aimed at preventing
nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. The liquid will have to be
siphoned off and stored until the works can be repaired, but a method of doing
this has yet to be devised.
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 Thorp plant produces uranium and plutonium from spent fuel in such
large quantities that only a tiny proportion of it can ever be reused for
reactor fuel. Its critics also claim it is uneconomic because it has never
operated to design capacity since it opened 12 years ago, and is years behind
schedule in fulfilling orders.
This has angered some customers and the British Nuclear Group is
embroiled in a court case with one of its customers, the German owners of the
Brokdorf power station, which is withholding fees of �2,772 a day for storage
of spent fuel, claiming it should have been reprocessed years ago.
In 12 years Thorp has reprocessed 5,644 tonnes of fuel from its first
10-year target of 7,000 tonnes. Last year it failed to reach its target of 725
tonnes, achieving 590.
Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, said the
NDA had been "naive" in placing trust on income from Thorp, given its
track record. "Reprocessing is blatantly incompatible with the official
cleanup remit of the NDA, which will now find itself out of pocket as a result
of the latest Thorp accident. The new owners would do the taxpayer the greatest
service by putting Thorp out of its misery and closing it once and for
all."
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."
The Guardian -- 9 May 2005
>>>>
