Rob Edwards

Nuclear submarines banned from lochs because of safety fears

from Daily Record, 16 May 2013

The Royal Navy’s fleet of nuclear submarines has been banned from using berths in two of Scotland’s lochs because of official doubts over whether the public and sailors would be safe in the event of an accident.

We can reveal that three exercises to test emergency responses to simulated submarine accidents in March and April failed assessments by government safety regulators because of a series of “inadequate” preparations.

As a result the Ministry of Defence’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), has prohibited nuclear submarines from berthing in Loch Goil, near the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, and in Loch Ewe, off Poolewe in Easter Ross.

DNSR has also ordered an emergency exercise at the nuclear weapons depot at Coulport on Loch Long to be rerun as part of a “get well plan” for the site. Exercise Sheetband on 21 March is said to have “failed in a broad range of areas” and now must be “redemonstrated”.

The Royal Navy currently has 11 nuclear submarines, including four Vanguard-class boats carrying Trident nuclear missiles and two new Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines operating out of Faslane. They have designated berths in eight locations around the UK, concentrated at Faslane and naval bases in the south of England.

Victory claimed as MoD drops uranium weapons tests

from Sunday Herald, 28 April 2013

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been stopped from test-firing shells made of depleted uranium (DU) in Scotland by public opposition, campaigners say.

Defence ministers have told MPs that a planned weapons testing programme will use alternatives to DU. The toxic and radioactive metal, used to harden armour-piercing tank shells, has been blamed for cancers, birth defects and other illnesses suffered by soldiers and civilians after the Iraq war.

The MoD had been expected to begin test-firing DU shells, known as CHARM 3, at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright later this year. Over the last three decades, army tanks have fired more than 6,700 shells into the Solway Firth from the range, containing nearly 30 tonnes of DU. 

Some shells were misfired and ended up contaminating parts of the range in breach of agreed safety limits. High levels of DU, a byproduct of the nuclear industry, were discovered in earthworms on the site.

The armed forces minister, Andrew Robathan MP, has now said that the CHARM 3 charge “can be tested by firing variants that do not contain DU”. Another defence minister, Philip Dunne MP, has told the House of Commons that the planned CHARM3 testing programme “does not involve the firing of depleted uranium.”

Revealed: nuclear submarine mishap on the Clyde

from Sunday Herald, 14 April 2013

Britain’s newest nuclear-powered submarine was forced to abandon sea trials and return to port in the Clyde after a system defect was discovered last week.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that HMS Ambush, which was handed over to the Royal Navy last month, was towed back to the Faslane naval base near Helensburgh after coming to an unexpected halt in the middle of Gareloch on Wednesday.

The £1.6 billion submarine was seen to be in difficulties by anti-nuclear campaigners from the Faslane Peace Camp. Members of the crew were observed standing on top of the boat, which was venting steam and surrounded by three tugs.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that the submarine experienced a problem, but has declined to give any details. Something went wrong that “affected a variety of systems on the boat," an MoD spokesman said.

“Following HMS Ambush’s maintenance period undertaken at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, an issue with a non-nuclear system was identified on Wednesday,” he added. “A decision was taken to return HMS Ambush to the naval base to allow remedial action to take place.”

Safety fears after nuclear bomb store avoids independent inspections

from Sunday Herald, 31 March 2013

The UK’s newly-privatised nuclear bomb store on the Clyde has wriggled out of independent safety regulation, sparking fears about accidents and leaks. 

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport has narrowly avoided being licensed for inspection by the UK government’s nuclear safety watchdog. This is despite its operation being taken over in January by a group of private companies headed by the US arms dealer, Lockheed Martin. 

The revelation has prompted one former senior MoD safety official to warn that workers and the public are being put at risk by lower safety standards. It has also angered politicians and trade unions, who suspect a “cosy stitch-up” to save money.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) nuclear sites have historically had crown immunity from prosecution because they’ve not been covered by nuclear safety legislation. But in the past when their management was put into private hands, this has had to change. 

In 1997 the bomb-making factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire were licensed under the Nuclear Installations Act and subject to independent inspections after they were handed over to private companies. Critics say this has greatly improved safety and transparency. 

But the same has not happened at Coulport. Internal documents released under freedom of information law show that the companies now running the nuclear weapons store escaped safety licencing because the MoD’s continuing oversight was deemed “the absolute minimum that is acceptable.”

Plutonium: repeating the same mistakes exactly

comment, 23 March 2013

There is a very funny sketch by the comedians, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, performed for Amnesty International in 1989. Cook plays an aristocrat who ran a failing restaurant on the Yorkshire moors serving only frog and peach to eat. 

At the end, Moore asks him what he has learnt from his “catastrophic” business experience. “I’ve learned from my mistakes,” says Cook, “and I’m sure I could repeat them exactly.” 

I kept thinking of the joke over the last two days while cloistered in a small, stuffy room at Chatham House in London listening to leading experts talk about what to do with the world’s plutonium. The event, organised by Princeton University’s International Panel on Fissile Materials, was fascinating.

The slow motion disasters caused by making US and Soviet nuclear bombs

Review from New Scientist, 18 March 2013

Making plutonium for nuclear bombs takes balls, but not in the way you might think. In 1965 scientists at the Hanford nuclear weapons complex in Washington State wanted to investigate the impact of radiation on fertility - and they weren’t hidebound by ethics.

In a specially fortified room in the basement of Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, volunteer prisoners were asked to lie face down on a trapezoid-shaped bed. They put their legs into stirrups, and let their testicles drop into a plastic box of water where they were zapped by x-rays.

The experiments, which lasted for a decade and involved 131 prisoners, came up with some unsurprising results. Even at the lowest dose – 0.1 gray – sperm was damaged, and at twice that the prisoners became sterile. They were paid five dollars a month for their trouble, plus $25 per biopsy and $100 for a compulsory vasectomy at the end so they didn’t father children with mutations.

The testicle tests are just one of many disturbing details Kate Brown has unearthed from the official archives in her fascinating nuclear history. She also tells how tunnelling muskrats undermined one of Hanford’s storage ponds, causing 16 million gallons of radioactive effluent to pour into the Columbia river. 

And there is the scary tale of how Hanford scientists in 1949 conducted one of their most risky experiments, later dubbed the “green run”. For seven hours they processed highly radioactive ‘green’ fuel that hadn’t been allowed to decay for as long as usual - and showered 407,000 gigabecquerels of radioactive iodine over nearby cities.

Revealed: how the MoD gets away with dumping radioactive waste at sea

from Sunday Herald, 10 March 2013

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been evading an international ban on dumping radioactive waste at sea by defining thousands of uranium weapons lost in the Solway Firth as “placements”.

Minutes of secret meetings released under freedom of information law reveal that the MoD was worried about breaching an inter-government agreement on marine pollution by firing depleted uranium (DU) tank rounds into the sea from a military range at Dundrennan near Kirkcudbright. 

But officials found a way round the problem, by arguing that the munitions were not being “dumped” in the sea, but “placed” there. This is despite the fact that attempts to retrieve them have failed, and their locations are unknown.

Campaigners have accused the MoD of desperately resorting to “semantic trickery” to justify its plans to dump more DU weapons in Scottish waters. Based on past practice, the MoD will restart test-firing at Dundrennan this year, they say.

In the last 30 years, army tanks have fired more than 6,700 shells into the Solway Firth from the range, containing nearly 30 tonnes of DU. The shells pierce canvas targets set up on the cliff tops, and then plunge into the sea.

Cleaning up 300 Iraqi sites contaminated by uranium weapons will cost $30m

from The Guardian, 06 March 2013

Cleaning up more than 300 sites in Iraq still contaminated by depleted uranium (DU) weapons will cost at least $30 million, according to a report by a Dutch peace group to be published tomorrow. 

The report, which was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warns that the contamination is being spread by poorly regulated scrap metal dealers, including children. Many more contaminated sites are likely to be discovered, it says.

The report also casts doubt on official assurances that DU weapons were only fired at armoured vehicles during the Iraq war ten years ago. There is strong evidence that they were widely used against buildings and other civilian targets, including the Iraqi Ministry of Planning in Baghdad, it says.

More than 400 tonnes of DU ammunition are estimated to have been fired by jets and tanks in the two Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the vast majority by US forces. The UK government says that British forces fired less than three tonnes. 

DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear power industry. It is used in weapons because it is an extremely hard material capable of piercing armour.

But in the wake of firefights it can contaminate the environment, and has been linked to health problems in civilian populations. Iraqi doctors have reported increases in cancers, and an alleged rise in birth defects is under investigation by the World Health Organisation and the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

The health effects are disputed, however, by the US and UK governments, who joined with France and Israel to vote against a resolution calling for “a precautionary approach” to the use of DU weapons at the United Nations General Assembly in December. 155 countries voted in favour of the resolution.

Secret nuclear bomb plant closed over safety fears

from The Guardian, 24 January 2013

A top-secret plant at Aldermaston that makes enriched uranium components for Britain's nuclear warheads and fuel for the Royal Navy's submarines has been shut down because corrosion has been discovered in its "structural steelwork", the Guardian can reveal.

The closure has been endorsed by safety regulators who feared the building did not conform to the appropriate standards. The nuclear safety watchdog demands such critical buildings are capable of withstanding "extreme weather and seismic events", and the plant at Aldermaston failed this test. 

They have set a deadline of the end of the year for the problems to be fixed. 

Although the closed plant has not been officially named for national security reasons, the Guardian understands it is known as A45. It makes enriched uranium parts for Trident nuclear weapons, and has recently been helping to make the uranium fuel for the Astute generation of nuclear-powered submarines.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) insisted it had contingency plans to cover the loss of the enrichment plant, but a prolonged closure could force the government to buy in materials from the US to ensure there is no disruption to Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

Row with Norway over Dounreay discharges

from Sunday Herald, 06 January 2013

Radioactive discharges from the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness triggered a fierce row with Norway in 1990, according to official files just released by the Scottish government.

Norwegian ministers made strong representations to the UK government, in protest at discharges that they said threatened their fishing industry. This prompted a flurry of memos within the UK government, expressing concerns that the UK wasn’t doing enough to refute the Norwegian accusations.

Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, wrote to the British Ambassador in Oslo, David Ratford, agreeing that more “pre-emptive action” should be taken.

“By its very nature the subject of radioactive waste attracts biased and inaccurate media coverage, which results in the creation of widespread concern both at home and abroad,” he wrote. “We should certainly do what we can to minimise that.”

Trident submarines can’t move from Scotland to Devonport

from The Guardian, 04 January 2013

Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines cannot be moved from Scotland to the Devonport naval base in Plymouth because they do not have safety clearances to dock there.

The disclosure has huge implications for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) if Scotland votes for independence and a new government demands the withdrawal of the nuclear fleet.

The MoD has revealed that the safety arrangements for Devonport do not permit the presence of submarines carrying Trident nuclear warheads. The MoD's safety experts are not considering changing that.

The problem is that the dockyard is in a densely populated area and, if there were an accident, thousands of people would be put at risk. The worst accident scenario envisaged by the MoD would kill up to 11,000 people in Plymouth and would not meet the official criteria for what’s acceptable, according to a new report.

The Scottish government, which is run by the Scottish National Party, has said that it will eject nuclear weapons from the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde soon as possible after Scotland becomes independent. A referendum on Scottish independence is due to be held in the autumn of 2014.

Sellafield involved in 18 nuclear transport accidents

Exclusive, 18 December 2012

The Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria was involved in almost half of all the accidents transporting radioactive materials in 2011, the government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has revealed.

In 18 of the 38 incidents recorded on an official database, the radioactive cargo was being moved to or from Sellafield. Shipments were made to nuclear sites in the UK and abroad.

ONR only agreed to name the sites involved in the accidents after it was challenged under freedom of information law. At first it insisted that they had to be kept secret, but then it relented and released a list of nuclear industry sites.

It only did so, however, in a way that meant that the sites couldn’t be matched to previously published accounts of individual accidents. And ONR refused to name the hospitals, universities and other agencies outside of the nuclear industry involved in accidents.

Revealed: Trident submarine suffers defect after £300m overhaul

from Sunday Herald, 16 December 2012

A Trident submarine has been forced to limp back to port in the US after its rudder broke, upsetting Britain’s nuclear weapons patrols and undermining the effectiveness of a £300 million overhaul.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that HMS Vigilant, a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads, suffered a “defect to her rudder”. She was on the way home to the Faslane naval base on the Clyde after test-firing a Trident missile in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida on 23 October.

The submarine is understood to have turned around and returned to the US naval base at Kings Bay in Georgia, near Florida, where the damage is now being investigated and repaired. The base is home to the US fleet of Trident submarines.

A submariner on Vigilant revealed that the boat’s planned schedule had been disrupted when he complained on twitter that he was “stuck in the USA for Christmas”. Vigilant was due to return to Scotland to recommence continuous patrols of the oceans after a three-year overhaul.

The MoD has released very few details of the incident because operations of Trident submarines have the highest security classification. The ministry never usually says where the boats are, or whether they are carrying nuclear weapons.

"While returning to the UK after the successful firing of an unarmed Trident II D5 missile, HMS Vigilant suffered a defect to her rudder,” an MoD spokesman said. “This is not nuclear related and the crew and boat have safely returned to port where the defect is being assessed.”

400 Fukushima safety recommendations not yet met in UK

Exclusive, O1 November 2012

More than 400 of the recommendations made to improve the safety of British nuclear plants after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan last year still have to be implemented, according to the government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

Military sites like the nuclear bomb factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire and the nuclear submarine yard at Devonport in Plymouth have been the slowest to match the ONR’s timetable. Of the 178 recommendations that apply to UK defence sites, 70% (120) have so failed to meet ONR’s expectations.

The French company, EDF Energy, also has a large backlog of safety issues at its nuclear power stations. According to ONR’s latest progress report, it has yet to complete half of the recommended changes (62 out of 126).

Overall, 58% (426) of all the 747 safety recommendations made for all UK nuclear sites are defined by ONR as not yet closed. Nearly a third (265) are described by ONR as needing “further development or provision of evidence/information before ONR can be content that they adequately address expectations.”

The recommendations are designed to improve the ability of nuclear facilities to withstand extreme weather and severe accidents. They include better protection against floods, fires, storms, snow and earthquakes, as well as improved back-up power supplies in emergencies.

Acid incident at Britain’s nuclear bomb factory

29 October 2012 

Britain’s nuclear weapons factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire has admitted to another safety incident involving the local fire service.

On 16 August a problem during an acid experiment resulted in Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue being called to the site, which helps maintain the nuclear warheads for Trident missiles carried by Royal Naval submarines.

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), a group of three private companies that runs Aldermaston for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), has previously said that there have been 50 fires at Aldermaston and at the nearby Burghfield site in the last two years.

Job losses from cancelling Trident ‘exaggerated’

from Sunday Herald, 28 October 2012

Labour and the Conservatives have been accused of misleading the public by exaggerating the number of jobs that would be lost if the Trident nuclear weapons system were removed from the Clyde.

Figures released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) under freedom of information law reveal that only 520 civilian jobs at Faslane and Coulport near Helensburgh are directly dependent on Trident. This contrasts with the 6-11,000 jobs that pro-Trident politicians claim are at risk. 

Predicted job losses are central to the escalating arguments about Scottish independence, which could see Scotland refuse to allow nuclear warheads on its soil. But the claims made by opposing sides have differed wildly.

Now the MoD has disclosed the number of staff who actually work on Trident. “There are 520 civilian jobs at HM Naval Base Clyde, including Coulport and Faslane, that directly rely upon the Trident programme,” it said.

Of them, 159 are employed by the MoD and 361 by the MoD’s contractors, Babcock Marine and Lockheed Martin. Most of the workers – 310 - live in West Dumbartonshire or Argyll and Bute, with the rest living elsewhere in Scotland (103) or at unknown locations (107).

Last week, the Labour MSP for Dumbarton and the party’s health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie, reiterated her claim that getting rid of Trident would be “devastating” for the local economy. “To remove nuclear weapons from HM Naval Base Clyde would wipe out the 11,000 jobs that are dependent on the base,” she said.

After the publication of a report by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee on “terminating Trident” last week, the Conservative defence secretary, Philip Hammond, also suggested that a large number of jobs were at risk. “The naval base at Faslane is the largest single site employer in Scotland with over 6,000 jobs,” he said.

Nuclear bomb factories confess to 50 fires

Exclusive, 13 September 2012

As many as 50 fires have broken out at Britain’s nuclear bomb factories in the last two years, according to the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). 

The admission came in response to inquiries about two hitherto unpublicised fires at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire in April and March this year.

AWE is due to appear in court in November, charged with breaching health and safety rules in relation to a major fire at Aldermaston on 3 August 2010. It has also been required by government regulators to review its fire safety arrangements.

AWE’s sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield near Reading provide and maintain the nuclear warheads for Trident missiles, carried by Royal Naval submarines. AWE is managed for the Ministry of Defence by three private companies, Lockheed Martin and Jacobs Engineering Group from the US, along with the UK’s Serco. 

An insider tip-off that there had been a fire at Aldermaston on 12 April was confirmed by AWE. It was started by an overheated ventilation motor in a machine shop and was put out “within minutes”, AWE said - though the fire brigade had to be recalled two and a half hours later after “residual smoke” set off a fire alarm.

Revealed: secret plan to dump nuclear submarines at sea

from Sunday Herald, 19 August 2012

Had the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had its way, Britain’s 17 defunct nuclear submarines – seven of which are moored at the Rosyth naval dockyard in Fife – would have been dumped whole into the world’s oceans. 

A secret MoD briefing extracted from the UK National Archives reveals that the ministry’s “technical preference” was to dispose of the radioactive hulks at sea without dismantling them. Dumping radioactive waste in this way would raise “many environmental and other issues”, it said.

Since Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was taken out of service 30 years ago, the MoD has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its reactor compartment. Over the decades it has been joined at Rosyth by six other retired nuclear submarines, while another ten have been tied up at the Devonport naval base at Plymouth on the south coast of England.

Since 2000 the MoD has conducted a series of prolonged public consultations on what to do with all the submarines’ radioactive remains. The latest in the last year suggested that the reactor pressure vessels should be removed from the submarines at Rosyth and Devonport.

But what would then happen to them is still far from clear. The MoD says it wants to work with the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on whether to build a new waste store on an MoD or commercial site, or to use current or planned stores at nuclear power station sites, like the one at Hunterston in North Ayrshire.

The MoD’s failure to ensure funding for decommissioning the submarines has been repeatedly criticised by its own internal nuclear safety regulator, Commodore David Langbridge. His 2011 annual report highlighted the lack of funding as a “risk to meeting government policy”.

Disagreement over nuclear power threatens to divide SNP

from The Herald, 14 August 2012

The SNP government’s plan to permit the lives of two ageing nuclear power stations to be prolonged until 2033 has been condemned as dangerous and unnecessary by a powerful group of local authorities, including three run by the SNP. 

The issue is threatening to open another damaging nuclear divide within the SNP, following fierce disagreements over the party leadership’s move to end its decades-long opposition to membership of the Nato nuclear weapons alliance.

An expert report due to be published today by the ten-strong group of nuclear-free councils in Scotland says that Scottish ministers are wrong to try and keep the nuclear reactors at Hunterson in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian running for the next two decades.

The nuclear-free group includes two SNP-led councils, Dundee plus Perth and Kinross, as well as Edinburgh where the SNP is part of a ruling coalition with Labour. Other councils involved are Labour-controlled Glasgow, Fife, Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire, along with two independent councils, Western Isles and Shetland Isles.

“There is no need for the Scottish Government to support risky life extensions,” the group’s report concludes. Instead, it says that a combination of improved energy efficiency, combined heat and power schemes and renewables could ensure that Scotland met its energy needs.

Surprise visit by French nuclear submarine prompts safety fears

from The Herald, 13 August 2012

An unannounced visit to the Clyde by a French nuclear submarine has been attacked as “particularly insensitive” and raised fears about the safety of nuclear weapons.

A submarine flying the French flag was towed by tugs into the Faslane naval base on Gareloch on 2 August. It was spotted and photographed from the shore by anti-nuclear campaigners from the Faslane Peace Camp. 

The campaigners identified the boat as one of the four French Triomphant-class that usually carry nuclear weapons. They say that this is the first time a nuclear-armed French submarine has been seen visiting the Clyde.

The first of the class, Le Triomphant, famously collided with the British submarine, HMS Vanguard, which carries Trident nuclear missiles, three years ago. The accident happened somewhere under the Atlantic, but details have been kept secret for national security reasons.

The SNP defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP, said the French visit prompted serious questions. “Weapons of mass destruction are not welcome on our shores,” he said.