New report says Sellafield plans a 'bodge' as operators face prosecution
One year after a series of alarming errors resulted in 18,000 litres of highly radioactive dissolved spent fuel leaking in the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield, Greenpeace has published a report which exposes how the current plan to reopen THORP is an 'engineering 'bodge' which risks compromising safety. The publication comes as it was revealed that the plant's operators will be prosecuted over the accident.
The emergency closure of the plant occurred on 21 April 2005. For the past year nuclear fuel has been stored on site at Sellafield. It's not yet clear if and when THORP will reopen, but indications from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are that storage capacity at Sellafield could run out in the near future (one to two years from now) leading to serious problems for the nuclear industry.
A report prepared for Greenpeace by nuclear engineer John Large castigates the option proposed by the NDA for reopening the plant.
'My investigation exposes a trail of major engineering failures by THORP's operators, British Nuclear Group. It also exposes the NDA's inability to impose an acceptable solution. The result is simply a bodged job rather than a sound engineering solution,' said John Large.
The leak which closed the plant had been going on for nine months before it was detected. British Nuclear Group's (BNG) Board of Inquiry into the THORP accident has stated that there is a risk that the plant could fail again, even if the Board of Inquiry recommendations are implemented. A tank intended for future reprocessing, were the plant to reopen, could be subject to the same failures as the infrastructure which caused the original leak. The operators want to reopen the plant this summer.
John Large's report explains that properly engineered solutions could take up to three years to implement. The NDA has claimed that if it does not reopen the plant it will face mounting problems because of the amount of foreign and UK spent nuclear fuel stored in THORP's receipts and storage unit. Continued closure could even impact on the operation of British Energy reactors which continue to send spent fuel to Sellafield on a weekly basis.
'The nuclear industry is anxious to reopen the plant because it's worried about the prospects for spent fuel storage if it doesn't clear the backlog. What's most worrying is that the operators never had a plan B for this situation, They always assumed THORP would operate smoothly. Now it appears they're prepared to risk the same scenario again with a questionable reopening plan,' said Greenpeace's Jean McSorley. She added, 'All documents relating to the accident and safety case should be released for public scrutiny as soon as possible. As it is, information is currently being withheld because of pending legal action.'
Secrecy currently surrounds the conditions under which the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) would allow THORP to reopen. The NII has not released the 49 conditions which it has imposed on British Nuclear Group (BNG) before it can reopen the plant.
'It is unbelievable that the authorities think it is acceptable that a major plant, which handles such hazardous materials and which may be liable to failure again, should be allowed to operate again without the public knowing exactly what the inspectors have imposed as conditions on the reopening and also what the consequences of a second failure might be,' McSorley added. 'The nuclear industry and the government are so desperate for the industry to appear viable so they can build new stations, they will run extraordinary risks to keep a plant like THORP operating.'
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns THORP, has refused to fully disclose the cost of the accident, despite repeated requests under Freedom of Information legislation by Greenpeace. BNG has been unable to provide sound financial costings for the non-restart options for THORP
Despite its refusal to detail the costs of the THORP'S closure, the NDA has put in an insurance claim for lost revenue and repair costs and stated it estimates losses will amount to £50m - significantly less than the Greenpeace report estimate of £575m.
Download the report Leak of radioactive liquor in the feed clarification cell at BNG THORP Sellafield by nuclear engineers John Large and Associates as a pdf.
For more contact Greenpeace on 0207 865 8255
Note to editors:
- The NDA has said there are 800 tonnes of light-water reactor fuel from overseas reactors, along with 500 tonnes from BE's advanced gas cooled reactors waiting to be reprocessed. Due to the system of reprocessing, less radioactive spent nuclear fuel from British Energy reactors has to be co-reprocessed along with foreign fuel.
- The £2.8bn plant was in its tenth year of operation, but was lagging behind in its reprocessing schedule due to a series of earlier technical problems leading to unplanned closures. This has compounded the current storage problems
- The NDA/BNG have said the LWR fuel needs to be cleared from the receipt and storage facility at THORP in order to change the water quality of the pond for long term storage of AGR fuel.
- It is expected that if reopened the plant will operate on only one accountancy tank although it was designed explicitly to operate with both tanks working properly. Operating on one tank will reduce THORP's throughput to 60% of the original production process.
- Claims that it would be more expensive to not reopen THORP and take alternative measures have not been substantiated either by the NDA or BNG. In particular, BNG has admitted that its costings for some options e.g. having the fuel reprocessed overseas, are not based on sound financial analysis but are purely estimates of what costs they think might be accrued.
- BNG's Board of Inquiry report stated paragraph 5.2 on page 9 of the 34 page document:
"This event has demonstrated that despite high quality construction, serious faults can occur within Thorp which breach primary containment. Given the history of such events so far, it seems likely that there will remain a significant chance of further plant failures occurring in the future even with comprehensive implementations of this report."
(Board of Inquiry report into the fractured pipe in the Feed Clarification Cell in Thorp, BNFL, 26 May 2005. http://www.britishnucleargroup.com/pdf/2765_1.pdf)
