Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s role at Sellafield is “unclear” says watchdog. National Audit Office says a review is needed.
Whitehaven News 20th June 2018 read more »
Work to reduce risk and high hazard at Sellafield has “taken an encouraging turn for the better”, the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) concludes in a report published today. Sellafield, in northwest England, is the largest and most hazardous nuclear site on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) estate, accounting for 75% of the long-term cost estimate. The NAO scrutinises public spending for Parliament and is independent of government. The NDA is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The NAO report, ‘The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: progress with reducing risk at Sellafield’, is an update to its previous report in 2015. It says: “In recent years, Sellafield Limited has met significant milestones in retrieving hazardous waste from its legacy ponds and silos. While delays and cost overruns are still evident for major projects at Sellafield, the NDA has made progress with reducing these since we last reported. However, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, UK Government Investments, the NDA and Sellafield Limited have more work to do to measure, evaluate and communicate progress more effectively,” the report says.
World Nuclear News 20th June 2018 read more »
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) notes the National Audit Office remain sharply critical of the relatively slow speed in decommissioning high hazard sites at the Sellafield nuclear site in West Cumbria. While the costs continue to rise, there also remain ‘intolerable’ risks on the site, which still remain to be resolved. NFLA is encouraged that some improvements have been made, but it remains highly concerned with the slow rate in dealing with the highest hazard facilities on the site. The National Audit Office (NAO) and the NFLA has been keeping a close eye on progress at Sellafield, which has been subject to much instability in recent years. This includes a damning BBC ‘Panorama’ documentary which raised a number of serious deficiencies on the site.
NFLA 20th June 2018 read more »
People from across Cumbria are showing their support ahead of International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June. The theme for this year’s campaign is ‘Raising the Bar’. Thousands will be proudly holding a ‘selfie card’ to show solidarity for equality, diversity and inclusion within the engineering profession. The campaign has been supported by Copeland MP, Trudy Harrison, and Pat Graham from Copeland Borough Council, aswell as employees from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Ltd and other companies throughout the region. Members of Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster (BECBC) were keen to get on board and arranged a photo opportunity at their most recent member meeting.
Cumbria Crack 20th June 2018 read more »
The article in this Telegraph article and elsewhere suggests that plutonium is classified as a waste. It is’nt, It SHOULD be, but it isn’t. This is what the NDA say about nuclear waste: “If it is assumed that the baseline inventory, as set out in the Managing Radioactive Waste White Paper (but excluding plutonium and uranium) is to be included in the (GDF) concept then the cost is in the order of £12 billion (at 2008 money values and undiscounted).”
Radiation Free Lakeland 20th June 2017 read more »
