Rob Edwards

The 75 ways in which UK nuclear plants failed to respond to Fukushima

17 May 2012

The operators of Britain’s ageing nuclear plants at Sellafield and Aldermaston have failed to properly assess the risks of floods, fires, extreme weather, earthquakes and power failures in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan last year, according to the government’s nuclear safety watchdog.

A 324-page report by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) also criticises BAE Systems and Rolls Royce for shortfalls in emergency arrangements at their nuclear submarine plants in Barrow and Derby.

The report, released this week, assesses the plans for dealing with Fukushima-like events at over 20 nuclear sites across the UK, including military bases, defunct reactors and processing plants. Known as “stress tests”, the assessments are meant to ensure that plants could withstand extreme events without triggering disaster.

But although the ONR report concluded that there were “no serious safety weaknesses”, it highlighted 75 areas where arrangements were inadequate and more work had to be done. These include better protection against floods, fires, storms, snow and earthquakes, as well as improved back-up power supplies in emergencies.

ONR made 25 recommendations to improve safety at the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria and ten at the nuclear bomb factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire. Submarine plants run by Rolls Royce near Derby were required to make 12 improvements, while ten have to be made at BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow.

Torness nuclear reactor shut down by electrical "fault"

One of the reactors at the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian has been shut down because of a "fault" in an electrical system, according to the operators, EDF Energy.

The reactor was unexpectedly closed on Sunday but until now no explanation has been offered as to why. But in a letter today to the local liaison committee, the station's director, Paul Winkle, has admitted that something went wrong.

"Reactor 2 was automatically shut down due to a fault on a component within the protection equipment on one of our electrical systems," he said.

"This equipment is designed to ‘fail safe’; in other words a fault with protection will result in a safe reactor shut down. The reactor shut down safely and cooling to the reactor was maintained at all times."

Winkle insisted that there were no health or environmental impacts. The reactor was scheduled to be shut down for maintenance later this week. "We will now take the opportunity to start some of this work early," he added.

Fire safety lapses at nuclear plant ‘could cause accident’

from Sunday Herald, 13 May 2012

Allegations that scores of fire safety lapses could trigger a serious accident at the Hunterston B nuclear power station in North Ayrshire are under investigation by the UK government’s nuclear safety watchdog, the Sunday Herald can reveal. 

The station’s former fire safety officer, Maxwell Lyall, has warned that numerous flaws in fire doors, seals and other critical safety measures could lead to loss of life and leaking radioactivity in the event of a fire. He has accused contractors of cutting corners, covering up mistakes and putting public safety at risk.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation said that Lyall had identified some areas where safety could be improved and that its inspectors were examining “specific elements” of his allegations. His concerns will also be raised at the next meeting of Hunterston’s official site stakeholder group in Ardrossan on 7 June. 

Lyall has been backed by his local SNP MSP and Scottish education minister, Michael Russell, who is demanding urgent action. “I take his accusations very seriously indeed,” Russell said.

“If they are correct and are confirmed, Hunterston would have to be closed immediately. We need to know as quickly as possible whether they are true.”

Plan to carry on using old cargo ships prompts nuclear safety fears

from The Guardian, 19 April 2012 

An ageing nuclear cargo ship has been rescued from the scrapyard to save money transporting plutonium and other radioactive materials around the world, prompting accusations that maritime safety is being jeopardised.

The 25-year-old vessel, Pacific Pintail, has been brought back into service to make dozens of international shipments between nuclear plants over the next three years. Last month it moved three kilograms of plutonium under armed guard from Sweden to the US. 

The Pintail was laid up at Barrow in Cumbria two years ago for decommissioning, but was resurrected after a £44 million plan to build a new nuclear cargo ship was abandoned as too expensive. An internal report seen by The Guardian admitted that the continued use of the old ship “will present some PR difficulties”.

But the problems could be “managed”, the report said, by preparing a “stakeholder communications plan” and by giving the boat a new name. It has subsequently been renamed the Oceanic Pintail.

The report was drawn up in November 2010 by International Nuclear Services (INS), a company owned by the British government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. British nuclear cargo vessels “have traditionally been retired from service before their 25th birthdays,” it said.

What is the problem with Britain’s nuclear power programme?

comment for The Guardian, 30 March 2012

The German energy companies, RWE and E.ON, have abandoned plans to build two new nuclear power stations at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey in north Wales and at Oldbury on the Severn estuary. Depending on the interpretation, this is either a “total train wreck” or just a “disappointing” setback for the government’s nuclear ambitions. The truth, of course, is somewhere in between.

A combination of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, the German government’s subsequent decision to phase out nuclear power and the general economic downturn has long made investments in new reactors look shaky. The sums of money are so large, the potential liabilities so daunting and the financial paybacks so uncertain, that investors have always been wary about nuclear power. Expect more setbacks.

So is nuclear power doomed?

Unlikely. The industry is politically very powerful, and has successfully raised itself from the dead several times in the past. It has prevailed upon successive UK governments to take a series of “facilitative actions” to remove barriers to nuclear development.

Waiving the rules to keep the nuclear power programme on course

21 March 2012

The energy minister, Charles Hendry, is preparing to waive the rules on admitting skilled foreign workers in order to keep the government’s nuclear power programme on track, according to a report today in Private Eye magazine.

Hendry made his suggestion, the latest in a series of sops to the nuclear industry, at the first meeting of a hitherto secret group called the Programme Management Board. It was set up by the nuclear industry and the government to try and prevent their plans for eight new nuclear stations from going off the rails.

The minutes of the meeting last November, and related correspondence, have been released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to the monitoring group Spinwatch in response to a request under freedom of information law.

The board was the brainchild of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), which represents nuclear companies in the UK. It brings the French firms, EDF Energy and Areva, the US giant, Westinghouse, and other companies together with DECC and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). It also includes the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the government’s safety watchdog.

Hendry opened the meeting by stating that the government’s main objective was to get the first new nuclear station planned for Hinkley in Somerset “off the ground”. According to Private Eye, this “set the tone for his general willingness to bend over backwards.”

Most nuclear sites at risk of flooding and coastal erosion, says government study

from The Guardian, 07 March 2012

As many as 12 of Britain’s 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by The Guardian.

Nine of the sites have been assessed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as being vulnerable now, with others in danger from rising sea levels and storms in future decades. They include all of the eight sites proposed for new nuclear power stations around the coast, as well as numerous radioactive waste stores, operating reactors and defunct nuclear facilities.

Two of the sites for new nuclear stations are said to have a “high risk” of flooding now: Sizewell in Suffolk and Hartlepool in County Durham, where there are also operating reactors. Shutdown and running reactors at Dungeness in Kent are also classed as currently at high risk.

Another of the sites most at risk is Hinkley Point in Somerset, where the first of the new nuclear stations is planned and there are reactors in operation and being decommissioned. According to Defra, it already has a “low” risk of flooding, and by the 2080s will face a high risk of both flooding and erosion.

Other new reactor sites that face some risk now and high risks by the 2080s are Oldbury in South Gloucestershire and Bradwell in Essex. The huge old nuclear complex at Sellafield in Cumbria is said to face a “medium risk” of flooding now and in the future. 

Delay to safety approvals for new nuclear stations in UK

Exclusive, 27 February 2012

Vital safety approvals for new nuclear power stations in England and Wales have been delayed because of the Fukushima nuclear accident a year ago, according to the government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

The design of the new reactor proposed by the French power companies, EDF and Areva, has 15 unresolved safety issues, including cracking risks in key components, fault studies of cooling and electrical failures and the dangers of flooding.

These have to be resolved before ONR will licence the construction of the new reactor but the programme for achieving this has slipped by two months. This is because more work than expected has been needed to address the issues raised by the Fukushima accident.

ONR has posted online its latest report on progress with the “generic design assessment” of proposed new reactors in the last quarter of 2012. It reveals that it has had to rejig its resources to cope with the delays.

“Some of the deliverables…have been late or do not provide the quality of information or depth of evidence that we expected,” ONR says. It has coded two issues as red, meaning that “delays cannot be recovered and will impact on the target closure date”.

Clyde bases plagued by nuclear safety flaws, says the MoD

from Sunday Herald, 19 February 2012

The Clyde bases that host Britain’s nuclear bombs and submarines are plagued by widespread safety flaws, according to an internal Ministry of Defence (MoD) report obtained by the Sunday Herald.

Critics fear that the problems could trigger a major nuclear accident at Faslane or Coulport that would contaminate Glasgow with radioactivity. They say this would be “unspeakable” and are demanding an urgent investigation.

The MoD’s latest annual review of safety reveals that 11 of the bases’ 13 activities have been officially declared unsatisfactory after assessments by site managers and regulators. The review was released last week in response to a request under freedom of information legislation.

Nine safety activities were colour-coded yellow because they were “below standard” and suffered “some specific weaknesses”. These included categories headed “weapons safety”, “safety culture”, “maintenance”, “safety performance indicators”, “site safety case”, “nuclear safety event reporting” and “conventional health and safety including fire safety”.

Two activities were coded orange because they were “significantly below standard” with “flawed” practices or procedures. They were headed “organisational change” and “operator experience feedback”.

New nuclear submarine held up by safety problems

from Sunday Herald, 19 February 2012

Britain’s newest nuclear submarine is facing a delay coming to the Clyde because of a major safety hitch at the shipyard where it is under construction, according to a report by the government’s nuclear watchdog.

HMS Ambush, the second of the Royal Navy’s new fleet of reactor-driven Astute-class submarines, is nearing completion at Barrow shipyard in Cumbria. But crucial safety tests on its reactor have been banned by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) until flaws in the yard’s emergency procedures have been fixed.

The submarine cannot go to sea until its reactor has been taken critical and fully tested in Barrow. According to the Ministry of Defence, the boat was originally due to begin sea trials from the Faslane naval base on Gareloch “by early 2012”.

But progress has been hampered because the Barrow yard’s operator, the arms giant BAE Systems, has twice failed to account for its staff after practice evacuations. In an emergency exercise on 19 October last year, it missed people “due to a number of anomalies with the personnel electronic accounting system and incorrect personnel actions,” said ONR.

The regulatory agency then instructed BAE Systems to rerun the exercise on 15 November, but the problem persisted. “Unfortunately, despite the fact that BAE Systems has upgraded the software, the exercise highlighted that a number of anomalies still remain,” ONR reported.

Nuclear police merger could create ‘conflict of interest’

from The Guardian, 13 February 2012

A government proposal to merge the UK's two nuclear police forces would be costly, messy and could create a conflict of interest between protecting British weapons and foreign-owned power stations, the Defence Police Federation has warned.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) have launched a "scoping study" into whether to amalgamate the MoD police, which looks after nuclear bomb bases and other military sites, and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which has responsibility for nuclear power plants.

But the idea has already run into fierce criticism from the staff association that represents the MoD police rank and file. And other critics have raised fears about the abuse of a merged force for political purposes.

A merger would be "an extremely expensive exercise that would be unlikely to generate any savings in the short or medium term, and would distract from more realistic ways of reducing the MoD's budget deficit," said Eamon Keating, national chairman of the Defence Police Federation.

He pointed out that the MoD police had a much wider role than the CNC, including the ability to carry out investigations, the maintenance of public order and marine activities. "This divergence in roles, training and responsibilities would make any kind of amalgamation rather messy," he told the Guardian.

Scottish nuclear dump plan dropped

from Sunday Herald, 05 February 2012

A £3.2 million project that could have led to Hunterston in North Ayrshire becoming a nuclear waste dump for the rest of Scotland has been abandoned in the wake of protests by local residents and environmentalists.

Investigations into a plan to bury large amounts of radioactive graphite underground on the site have been suspended by the UK government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Instead, the graphite waste will be stored in a huge engineered shed recently built at Hunterston.

Critics had feared that burying the graphite would have freed up space in the shed for waste from other nuclear sites across the country. They have welcomed the decision to drop the graphite burial project.

Plutonium reactor plan rejected

from The Guardian, 24 January 2012

A plan to build a plutonium-burning reactor at Sellafield in Cumbria, proposed by a US multinational and championed by some environmentalists, has been rejected by the UK government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

Internal emails seen by The Guardian reveal that the NDA regards the reactor technology as immature and commercially unproven. It would also create large amounts of plutonium-contaminated waste and increase the risk of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons, the NDA says.

The reactor plan was announced by General Electric (GE) Hitachi in November as a way of converting the UK’s 82-tonne stockpile of plutonium at Sellafield into power. It was backed by The Guardian’s environmental commentator, George Monbiot.

But it now looks like the prospects of the company getting to build it in the UK are slight. Known as "Prism" (Power Reactor Innovative Small Modular) it is a new design of sodium-cooled fast reactor that is fuelled by plutonium.

In an email to GE on 29th November 2011, the NDA’s strategy and technology director, Dr Adrian Simper, said that the two organisations “have struggled to reach a clear agreement on the work necessary to demonstrate credibility, without which neither NDA nor government can consider Prism further in the development of our strategy.”

New coal plant could threaten nuclear safety, says power company

from Sunday Herald, 22 January 2012

The company that runs the nuclear reactors at Hunterston in North Ayrshire is warning that their safety could be jeopardised by plans to build a huge, new coal-fired power station next door.

EDF Energy says that the construction and operation of the controversial new plant could block the evacuation of staff and deprive its site of electricity and vital cooling water in an emergency. The French nuclear company is also worried that discharges from the coal plant could compromise reactor cooling systems.

EDF Energy has lodged and maintained a formal objection to an application by Ayrshire Power to build a £3 billion coal station at Hunterston. Ayrshire Power was set up by Peel Holdings, a property company that owns Clydeport, the operator of west coast ports including one at Hunterston.

Following rejection of the application by North Ayrshire Council in November, the Scottish Government has now confirmed that it will go to a public inquiry later this year. It is one of the most disputed planning applications in Scotland, sparking over 20,000 objections.

Colin Weir, EDF’s station director at Hunterston, told the government that a series of discussions with Ayrshire Power “have not yet been able to adequately demonstrate that there will be no unacceptable impact on the safety and operational efficiency of Hunterston”.

Why does a nuclear plant make the sea glow green?

from Sunday Herald, 22 January 2012

Don’t be afraid. The sea near the Hunterston nuclear power station does glow spookily green - but it’s not because of radioactive leaks.

A local resident raised the alarm after spotting a patch of luminous green on the satellite photographs of the North Ayrshire site published online by Google Earth. There’s an equally vivid area visible just inside the site boundary.

Given the nature of the site, first thoughts were of plutonium or some other nuclear nasties contaminating the water, and endangering the health of local children.

But not so, says EDF Energy, the French company that generates electricity from the Hunterston B reactors. The green glow has a more mundane explanation: bubbling water.

The nuclear plant takes in large amounts of seawater to cool its reactors, and then discharges it back into the sea. The greenish area at sea is where the warmed water bubbles up from a pipeline, and the greenish area on the site is a shaft through which the water surges.

Reprimand for safety lapses at Torness nuclear plant

from Caledonian Mercury, 12 January 2012

EDF Energy has been reprimanded by the government’s nuclear watchdog for a series of safety lapses at the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, the Caledonian Mercury can reveal.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has criticised the French power company for a “shortfall” in its arrangements for checking safety valves and for inadequacies in addressing concerns about the state of radioactive waste discharge pipes following a leak.

ONR has also expressed concern over slow progress in introducing self-closing “hazard barrier doors” to prevent large releases of hot gas. And it has urged EDF to improve its early warning systems after a “jellyfish blockage” caused Torness to be shut down last June.

The revelations have prompted critics to question the safety of prolonging the working life of Torness, alleging it is becoming increasingly unreliable. EDF, however, says the plant has a good safety record.

ONR has posted its latest report on Torness online, covering 1 July to 30 September 2011. It disclosed that staff at the plant failed to inspect a safety relief valve on a nitrogen test rig when they should have done.

Nuclear reactor shut by storm

19 December 2011

The picture that dominated media coverage of the fierce storms earlier this month was a wind turbine bursting into flames. But at the same time one of Scotland’s nuclear reactors had to be closed down.

A 460-megawatt reactor at Hunterston in North Ayrshire was shut for two days because of a problem with local power lines caused by high winds. Critics point out that the burning wind turbine was designed to generate just one megawatt.

Hunterston’s operator, EDF Energy, said the reactor came offline on 8 December and was returned to power on 10 December. “It went off because of a fault on the national grid and not as a result of any problem with plant equipment,” said an EDF spokeswoman.

According to the National Grid company, storm force winds caused the 400,000-volt electricity transmission line owned by Scottish Power between substations at Hunterston and Inverkip to trip.

“This resulted in the disconnection of one of the generating units at Hunterston power station that feeds into the high-voltage transmission network at Hunterston substation,” said a company spokesman.

UK government shared intelligence with nuclear industry, documents show

from The Guardian, 05 December 2011

The British government has been quietly exchanging intelligence on key policies with multinational companies in an effort to protect and promote their plans for new nuclear power stations, according to internal documents seen by the Guardian.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has also passed the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), which represents 260 companies, and the French nuclear company, EDF Energy, details of its court battle against Greenpeace, which is trying to block the nuclear plans.

The leakage of information has been condemned by Greenpeace as an "abuse of power" which prevents democratic scrutiny. The environmental group's lawyers have written to the government and high court in London complaining that the proper legal procedures have been breached.

The government is planning to build eight new nuclear power stations in England and Wales and there is a perception that the government has been working closely with the nuclear industry to manage public opinion and prevent a backlash against the technology as has happened in Germany and Italy.

Internal emails revealed by the Guardian in June showed that British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March.

In the latest revelations, a minute of a meeting on 15 September between officials from Decc's Office for Nuclear Development (OND) and EDF reveals that they shared information about the handling of the company's application to build the first of the new nuclear stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and much else.

Revealed: the dangerous radioactivity that the MoD missed

from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing a ferocious barrage of criticism for botching its monitoring of Dalgety Bay so badly that it missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots, including some of the most lethal ever found on public beaches.

Former government experts, current government advisors and senior politicians have condemned the MoD’s monitoring of the contaminated Fife foreshore as inadequate, ineffectual and incompetent. According to one of the MoD’s own former radiation scientists, the ministry can no longer be trusted to do the job – though it must pay for it.

“Because of MoD’s failure to properly assess the extent and risks from the contamination, any further surveys or assessments should not be carried out by MoD, or MoD contractors,” said Fred Dawson, who worked for the MoD for 31 years before he left as head of the radiation protection policy team in 2009.

“Nor should MoD, or MoD contractors, be allowed to participate or undertake remediation work. MoD’s role should be limited to providing the necessary finance to remediate the beach.”

Dawson accused the MoD of being persistently blind to the seriousness of the pollution. “It has consistently done all that it can to avoid admitting liability for the contamination, which in all probability it caused,” he told the Sunday Herald.

Time for the Ministry of Defence to pay up

Comment from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is turning prevarication into an art form. There are, it seems, few tricks, evasions and deceits that it won’t deploy to try and wriggle out of responsibility for cleaning up the radioactive mess it has made at Dalgety Bay in Fife.

As we report today, its monitoring of the contaminated foreshore in September missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots. Like Admiral Nelson back in 1801, the ministry’s modern-day commanders turned a blind eye in the hope that the problem would disappear.

MoD officials have also suggested that a decision to end monitoring could be kept quiet by the simple device of not telling the media. They have disputed clear evidence from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) that young children use the beach, with one MoD official telling a meeting in October that “a toddler would not be crawling about the bay”.

At the same meeting officials repeatedly refused to accept responsibility for paying for the clean-up. “MoD need to consider any cost-benefit of any remediation,” said one. “The cost-benefit analysis may suggest it is better to leave the beach closed.”