Rob Edwards

UK plutonium stocks rise

from New Scientist, 09 July 2008

The UK's stockpile of plutonium from nuclear power stations has risen to 108 tonnes, according to the British government's latest submission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. The stockpile at the end of 2007 exceeded the previous year's total by 1.1 tonnes, and is enough for 13,500 nuclear bombs. Most is stored at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Contaminated US site faces 'catastrophic' nuclear leak

from New Scientist, 09 July 2008

One of "the most contaminated places on Earth" will only get dirtier if the US government doesn't get its act together - clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050.

More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground.

Nuclear bombs could explode 'like popcorn'

from New Scientist, 25 June 2008

If you thought that the clusters of nuclear bombs carried around the world in submarines were designed to ensure that they could never go off by accident, think again.

New Scientist reveals today that more than 1,700 nuclear warheads have design flaws that could conceivably cause multiple warheads to explode one after another. According to a UK Ministry of Defence safety manual, the effect known as "popcorning".

Protest over plan to send nuclear waste to Sweden

from Sunday Herald, 15 June 2008

An unprecedented plan to export radioactive waste from old nuclear submarines in Scotland to Sweden is coming under fire from local authorities worried about accidents and pollution.

The naval dockyard at Rosyth in Fife has applied for permission to ship metal contaminated with radioactivity to a smelter run by the nuclear waste company, Studsvik, near Nyköping in Sweden.

The plan is for the metal, from the decommissioning of seven defunct submarines laid up at Rosyth, to be melted, decontaminated and reused. The contaminated slag will be then sent back to Rosyth to be disposed of at Britain’s low-level radioactive waste dump at Drigg, near Sellafield in Cumbria.

Revealed: the £18.5bn price tag for Trident

from Sunday Herald, 08 June 2008

Maintaining and developing the Trident nuclear warheads stationed on the Clyde is going to cost the British taxpayer a massive £18.5 billion over 13 years, according to the first official breakdown of defence nuclear spending.

New figures released by the UK government after pressure from MPs reveal that £12.7 billion of public money has been spent on nuclear weapons over the last ten years. A further £5.8 billion is planned to be spent over the next three years.

The amount of cash being poured into the UK’s weapons of mass destruction is also steadily increasing, from £1.1 billion in 2003-04 to a projected £2.1 billion in 2010-11 (see table below). A raft of new high-tech facilities are being built at the nuclear bomb factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire.

Safety ban on nuclear bomb work

from Sunday Herald, 27 April 2008

Vital work at Britain’s nuclear bomb factory has been halted for months because of safety fears, preventing Trident warheads from being shipped to and from the Clyde. 

The ban on crucial maintenance at the Burghfield plant in Berkshire is believed to be the first time the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has ever been obliged to stop working on nuclear weapons. The implications, say critics, are “far reaching”. 

Managers of ageing bomb dismantling facilities have been struggling for the last six years to remedy over 1,000 safety flaws uncovered by the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII). But deadlines have been repeatedly broken. 

Now the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which runs Burghfield, has been forced to cease “live nuclear work” while outstanding safety problems are fixed. The stoppage has been in place since at least December, though it was only admitted by AWE last week.

One year on, how green is the SNP?

from Sunday Herald, 27 April 2008

The SNP grew up on oil, is wedded to economic expansion and always wants to put Scotland first. As a political party, it has never developed a coherent theoretical approach to one of the defining issues of the age: the environment.

It comes as some surprise then, that after a year in power, the SNP has won warm plaudits from many environmentalists. There are still major reservations, of course, but most observers outside political parties seem to think that the SNP is doing a better job than its predecessors in government.

DU contamination in breach of safety limits

from Sunday Herald, 13 April 2008

Radioactive pollution of a Scottish military firing range by depleted uranium (DU) has risen to the highest level for over ten years, according to a survey for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Soil on parts of the Kirkcudbright Training Area on the Solway coast is so contaminated that it breaches agreed safety limits. And the contamination is spreading, as DU fragments from shells misfired in the past start to corrode.

The contamination, revealed in a declassified scientific report passed to the Sunday Herald, was described as “very worrying” by the Scottish environment minister, Michael Russell, yesterday.

Work to rid Scotland of Trident to start

from Sunday Herald, 06 April 2008

The Scottish government working group aiming to get rid of Trident nuclear weapons is due to hold its first meeting in Edinburgh this week.

The 13-strong group, chaired by the minister for parliamentary business, Bruce Crawford, was set up last month to help further the Scottish National Party’s policy to make Scotland nuclear-free.

Depleted uranium turns earthworms into glowworms

from Sunday Herald, 16 March 2008

By Jasper Hamill

Earthworms were pushed into the firing line last week after a resumption of the testing of depleted uranium shells at Dundrennan.

Significant levels of radioactive uranium isotopes were found in the flesh of worms at the Ministry of Defence's Dumfries weapons range last year. Despite concerns from environmentalists and the international community, the MoD last week started a series of tests of depleted uranium (DU) shells, supposed "safety checks".

Trident missiles delayed by mystery ingredient

from New Scientist, 08 March 2008

Plans by the US and UK governments to prolong the life of Trident nuclear weapons have hit a serious snag because of a dangerous and mysterious ingredient codenamed Fogbank. As a result, politicians are likely to come under pressure to fund the design of new warheads instead.

Both countries want to refurbish the ageing W76 warheads at the tip of Trident missiles, to make them safer and more reliable. But now their programmes face delays due to manufacturing problems at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge in Tennessee. A new $50 million plant built to replace a facility that had been demolished has run into teething troubles, suggests a series of hints from the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which runs Y-12.

New government group to block nuclear weapons

from Sunday Herald, 17 February 2008

The Scottish government has set up an expert group to investigate how best to get rid of nuclear weapons, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The group, which will be chaired by the minister for parliamentary business, Bruce Crawford MSP, is seen by many as a crucial step towards making Scotland a nuclear-free nation - and could trigger a confrontation with Westminster.

Including religious leaders, academics, activists, a lawyer and a trade unionist, the group has been tasked with finding legal, planning, regulatory and diplomatic ways to block the UK government’s plan to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system on the Clyde.

New US design for Trident causes headache for UK

from Sunday Herald, 23 December 2007

The US nuclear-armed missile that the Westminster government is hoping will replace Trident may not actually fit into British submarines, creating a “major headache” for British weapons designers.

The Sunday Herald has seen evidence that US designers are contemplating new missiles too big to slot into the tubes that house Trident's current D5 missiles.

Tenders to bid for a test bed for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US Navy last month specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident's D5 missile tubes is 87 inches.

Tritium hazard rating 'should be doubled'

from New Scientist, 29 November 2007

Radioactive tritium, commonly discharged in large amounts by civil and military nuclear plants around the world, may be more dangerous than previously thought.

The cancer risk for people exposed to tritium could be twice as high as previously assumed, an expert report for the UK government's Health Protection Agency (HPA) concludes. The report suggests that international safety standards need to be tightened up, which will put pressure on nuclear plants to cut their emissions.

Study of nuclear security in Russia reveals lapses

from New Scientist, 28 November 2007

“Come quickly and come alone,” the fax said. “Illicit trafficking issues need urgent attention.” That is how a Russian nuclear agency asked experts at the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) for their insight and experience in assessing the scale of serious security risks in the Kola peninsula, arguably the world’s most radioactive region.

The resulting investigation was completed earlier this year, but in keeping with its cloak-and-dagger origin, the Russian authorities are keeping the details secret. However, New Scientist has learned that the report exposes gaping holes in the arrangements meant to prevent the theft of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Nuclear terror attack will happen soon, say police

from Sunday Herald, 25 November 2007

A nuclear attack by terrorists causing widespread panic, chaos and death is inevitable and will happen soon, a senior Scottish police officer has warned.

Ian Dickinson, who leads the police response to chemical, biological and nuclear threats in Scotland, has painted the bleakest picture yet of the dangers the world now faces.

Efforts to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining materials which could be made into radioactive dirty bombs - or even crude nuclear explosives - are bound to fail, he said. And the result will be horror on an unprecedented scale.

Stopping Trident sneaking out of the Clyde

from Holyrood Magazine, November 2007

Occasionally, you can glimpse them. From the slopes of the Arrochar Alps or the shores of Loch Long and the Gare Loch, they sneak quietly out to sea, looking curved, dark and lethal.

Every hour of every day, a Trident submarine from the Clyde carrying up to 48 nuclear warheads - each capable of obliterating a city - is hiding somewhere deep under the world's oceans. Some believe they are helping to deter war, but for most people in Scotland they seem supremely pointless, or worse.

The missiles are not targeted on any country. They have not prevented punishing wars in the Balkans, the Gulf and Afghanistan, and they certainly don't deter terrorists. They are draining the UK economy of billions of pounds. And if they were ever fired, they would wreak death and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

Risk of Trident terrorist attack underestimated

from Sunday Herald, 11 November 2007

The danger that a 7/11-style attack on the Trident base on the Clyde could cause a major nuclear disaster has been underestimated, according to internal Ministry of Defence (MoD) documents passed to the Sunday Herald.

A risk assessment for the MoD says that the shiplift used to hoist nuclear-armed submarines out of the water at the Faslane naval dockyard would collapse if it was hit by a plane. Another study by MoD experts says an aircraft crash could trigger "weapon ignition/detonation".

This would create "one helluva mess", according to nuclear experts, who argue that the shiplift is a prime target for terrorists because it exposes a submarine and its Trident nuclear-tipped missiles to attack. Even the Ministry of Defence (MoD) accepts that an aircraft crash would be "catastrophic".

The environmental impact of nuclear weapons

a talk to the Scottish Government's summit on Scotland's Future Without Nuclear Weapons, Glasgow, 22 October 2007

I'm very pleased to be here. I want to talk very briefly about the work that's been done on the environmental impact of nuclear weapons, and provide some pointers as to what I think the Scottish Government may be able to do to block Westminster's plans to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system.

We have gleaned a good deal of information over the last couple of years from freedom of information requests to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). As a result we are much better informed about the potential risks of nuclear weapons - and about the potential tools available to the Scottish Government.

I want to talk first about the risks of nuclear weapons convoys, then a little about health and safety at the Faslane and Coulport nuclear bases. Next I will talk about the environmental controls, and say something about potential planning issues. I have to also make the usual caveat. The views I express are mine and not necessarily those of my employers.

Scotland seeks world backing for banning nuclear weapons

from Sunday Herald, 21 October 2007

Alex Salmond has made a major bid to win international backing for his government's campaign to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The First Minister has written to over 180 countries highlighting the nation's opposition to the deployment of Trident nuclear warheads on the Clyde, and his determination to try and block the UK government's decision to replace Trident over the next few decades.

Salmond is also asking countries to support a request for Scotland to be given observer status at future meetings of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the world's main barrier to nuclear mayhem.