Britain’s
nuclear industry is again the center of controversy. The UK has the biggest
stockpile of Plutonium in the world, but there are no definite plans for how to
get rid of it – and the delays are costing the UK taxpayer billions.
A
record number of radioactive particles have been found on beaches near the
Sellafield nuclear plant, in North West England. The authorities who run it
admit it’s the most radioactive place in Western Europe but insist it’s safe.
Sellafield
is where all storage of radioactive materials and nuclear reprocessing in the
UK takes place. It was once at the heart of plutonium manufacturing for the
British atomic weapons program.
Despite
the controversy that surrounds the plant, there are plans to build new reactors
at Sellafield. The government has approved initial plans to build a fast PRISM
reactor on the site. Most locals are against it. They want the UK government to
commission a safety study into Sellafield’s effects on the health of the local
population.
Janine
Allis-Smith has a lot of experience of dealing with the fallout from
Sellafield. She is a senior campaigner
from Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) and lives only a few
miles from the plant. Her son was diagnosed with Leukaemia and she blames
Sellafield.
She
told RT, “Kids play on the beaches, they get sand in their clothes.” This sand,
she explains, could contain dangerous radioactive particles released from the
nuclear complex and “Parents have a right to know the risks”.
Anti-nuclear
campaigners are demanding the beaches be closed or at least signs put up
warning the public of the potential danger.
Sellafield
has been monitoring a number of beaches near the plant since 2006, when it was
ordered to do so by the UK government’s Environment Agency after the discovery
of a highly radioactive particles.
Between 2010 and 2011, 383 radioactive particles were found and removed.
However,
locals claim they are not sufficiently informed about the pollution at the
site. Allis-Smith explained that they are fulfilling the legal minimum
requirement, so that although information is available, no-one knows about it.
The local council has refused to become involved.
A
study in the 1980’s found that over ten times the national average of childhood
Leukaemia’s occurred near Sellafield. Thirty families tried to take the company
who then ran the site to court and lost.
“There
has never been a proper investigation into the environmental impact of the
plant and there should be.” Allis-Smith said.
Cold
war legacy
It
is not surprising that people like Allis-Smith are worried. Behind the razor
wire, security guards and public relations campaigns, Sellafield is home to
some of the most radioactive buildings in Europe.
The
UK has the largest stockpile of Plutonium anywhere in the world and it’s all
stored at Sellafield. Plutonium is used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons
and is extremely radioactive with a half-life of 25,000 years.
According
to Francis Livons, research director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute in
Manchester, this 113 tonne Plutonium mountain is the historical consequence of
the British nuclear weapons programme in the 1950’s and 60’s and of over 60
years of reprocessing nuclear fuel. Since the late 1980’s the plant has been
plagued by technical failures and, according to Livons, and a lack of political
will to invest in new technology that works. He also said a vast amount of
other nuclear waste stored at Sellafield “is not in a good state at-all.”
It
is the task of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to clean all this
up. The plans are to pay the French company Areva, who have proved their
technology works, to build a new mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant.
The other option is to let the US-Japanese
GE-Hitachi build a new fast PRISM reactor on the site to burn the plutonium and
produce electricity. This is a more elegant engineering option but the reactor
is totally unproven and is decades away from completion.
The
GE-Hitachi plans have been met with dismay by many locals, despite the
prospects of large scale job creation in the area. Martin Fullwood, campaign
co-ordinator at CORE has branded the proposals “absolute nonsense”.
Livons
admits that the fast reactor plans are extremely ambitious, given that this
type of reactor has never been built anywhere in the world before.
Fullwood
says Sellfield is “A can of worms” and believes “The NDA are clutching at
straws”. However, he concedes that something must be done about the nuclear
waste. But Livons says “The NDA is finally beginning to get to grips with what
is a really nasty problem that lots of governments have tried to run away from.
Things are finally starting to happen.”
Sellafield
is a legacy of cold war decision making and will remain a problem for decades,
and will cost the UK taxpayer tens of billions of pounds to clear up. The
British public are worried new reactors built in the UK will also be
mismanaged. The government and scientists maintain that modern nuclear power
stations are much cleaner and more efficient than the old ones.
If
new nuclear does go ahead in the UK then the technology will be French,
Japanese or American. Britain’s post war dreams of being a world leader in
nuclear energy lie in radioactive ruins in Sellafield.
Douglas
Parr, the head scientist at Greenpeace, told RT, “Sellafield is a monument to
the huge failings of the British nuclear industry.”
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