news & information about the UK nuclear industry
Does France send its nuclear waste to Russia, as Greenpeace says? In a report published on October 12, the environmental NGO denounces the transport of reprocessed uranium to Siberia and disputes the recycling promises made by Orano (ex-Areva) and EDF.
Liberation 20th Oct 2021 read more »
Australia to receive UK nuclear waste shipment amid bitter dispute over national storage facility. Two-tonne load to be stored at Sydney’s Lucas Heights until national facility built in several years. Two tonnes of nuclear waste will be shipped from the United Kingdom to Australia next year as debate continues over a national storage facility. The shipment of four 500kg canisters inside a forged steel container called a TN-81 is part of a waste swap deal with the UK. The intermediate-level waste is to be stored temporarily at Sydney’s Lucas Heights facility then sent to the national radioactive waste management facility the federal government plans to build near Kimba in South Australia. However that project is the subject of a bitter dispute, and is years away. It will take several years for all the regulatory approvals to pass, and the government has declined to nominate when it will start construction. In 1996 Australia sent spent fuel rods from its Hifar reactor – the predecessor to the existing Opal multi-purpose reactor – to the UK to be recycled into fuel for nuclear power plants. The “radiologically equivalent” waste will be sent to Australia under the 2022 waste repatriation project. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (Arpansa) reported this week that it is working with the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation “for the inspection of radioactive waste containers, set to return to Australia from the Sellafield Reprocessing Plant”.
Guardian 21st Oct 2021 read more »
The Oceanic Pintail purpose-built nuclear transport ship, which was decommissioned in November 2020 after 33 years of service, has now been fully recycled, Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) announced today. Its contractor – Dales Marine Services – had been set the target that 98% of the vessel be recycled.
World Nuclear News 12th Oct 2021 read more »
NDA 12th Oct 2021 read more »
Activists from environmental group Greenpeace protested against a shipment of reprocessed nuclear fuel that was set to leave France for Japan on Wednesday for use in a power plant. The load of highly radioactive Mox, a mixture of reprocessed plutonium and uranium, was escorted by police from a plant near the port of Cherbourg to the dockyard in the early hours of the morning. A handful of Greenpeace activists waved flags and signs with anti-nuclear logos as they camped out on Tuesday night to wait for the heavy-goods truck transporting the high-security cargo. The Mox from French nuclear technology group Orano is destined for a nuclear plant in Takahama in Japan and is the seventh such shipment from France since 1999.
France24 8th Sept 2021 read more »
Nuclear: a convoy of Mox fuel will leave Cherbourg for Japan on Wednesday. Greenpeace affirms that a new transport of Mox nuclear fuel, containing Plutonium, will leave this afternoon from La Hague to Cherbourg and then reach Japan by boat on Wednesday. The NGO is opposed to this transport which it considers very dangerous.
France3 7th Sept 2021 read more »
A convoy carrying Mox nuclear fuel (“mixture of oxides”, Editor’s note), containing plutonium, left La Hague (Manche) overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday to reach Cherbourg, from where it will reach Japan by sea, announced Greenpeace France.
Le Figaro 8th Sept 2021 read more »
Greenpeace says a new transport of Mox nuclear fuel, containing plutonium, will leave La Hague on Tuesday for a departure from Cherbourg by boat on Wednesday to Japan. “Two English boats should arrive around 6 am Wednesday” in Cherbourg, according to Greenpeace France. “The loading will be done Wednesday in the day for a departure towards Takahama in Japan”
Sud Ouest 6th Sept 2021 read more »
In support of the Japanese who oppose the restart of nuclear reactors and the dumping of radioactive water from Fukushima into the ocean, the above anti-nuclear and critical associations are calling for a mobilization of protest pending the passage of the convoy: Tuesday September 7 from 8 PM at the Pyrotechnie roundabout in Tourlaville.
Crilan 6th Sept 2021 read more »
Spanning the length of the state, U.S. Highway 285 is a major thoroughfare for truck transports and other traffic. This busy highway, nicknamed “Death Highway” due to the number of fatal accidents on it, may get busier. Concerned citizens in Santa Fe County recently called out the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for expanding its mission in a permit renewal application to include more nuclear waste being shipped along the 285 corridor. Part of Highway 285 goes along the southern edge of the city of Santa Fe, and local activists are calling on local and federal leaders to halt this increase in nuclear waste transportation.
Albuquerque Journal 4th Sept 2021 read more »
The French nuclear group Orano has signed a contract worth more than 1 billion euros to return high-level nuclear waste processed in France to Germany by the end of 2024. Orano announced on Thursday that a “package of deals” between electricity companies PreussenElektra, RWE, ENBW and Vattenfall had formalised an in-principle agreement made in June by the French and German governments. For 44 years German electricity companies have sent spent nuclear fuel to Normandy for recycling. Train convoys carrying the waste were regularly blocked by environmental activists, some of whom chained themselves to the tracks.
RFI 20th Aug 2021 read more »
World Nuclear News 20th Aug 2021 read more »
The UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) today publishes a detailed analysis considering the wide range and large number of transports of nuclear materials around the UK and Europe, and from the UK to other countries. The report highlights nuclear transports are continuing to increase and remain a concern from the perspective of an accident or malicious incident taking place with one of them. Nuclear transport is of particular concern to the NFLA as radioactive materials are at their most vulnerable when they are being transported off site, as they are away from dedicated safe storage facilities and are in an ‘uncontrolled’ environment where they face a greater level of risk. The report considers in detail the following transports: The safety of nuclear weapon road convoys – it considers recent reports by the Nuclear Information Service, ICAN UK and Nukewatch Scotland. The future transport by road of vehicles containing redundant submarine reactors from Rosyth and Devonport to Capenhurst by road. The report highlights the sheer number of road transports involving nuclear materials as well. The transport by rail of spent nuclear fuel from existing and decommissioned reactors, with particular focus on the rail transports of radioactive materials from Dounreay to Sellafield. It also highlights learning points from recent conventional rail transport accidents. The transport of radioactive materials by sea around the British Isles and globally to fulfil international contracts. The transport of highly enriched uranium materials stored at Dounreay by air to a site in South Carolina, United States. There is also reference to a historical list of accidents involving planes with nuclear weapons.
NFLA 22nd June 2021 read more »
Wanda Goldwag, late chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, whose CV includes spells at organisations as diverse as BA Air Miles, the Leasehold Advisory Service and the gas industry’s Uniform Network Code Modification Panel, was today named as the first chair of Nuclear Transport Solutions. The new organisation brings together the bodies responsible for shuttling radioactive materials safely around by rail in the UK and plutonium-containing fuel by sea between Sellafield and Japan, so no pressure there.
Law Gazette 18th May 2021 read more »
NDA 18th May 2021 read more »
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