31 Mar (NucNet): Hazard reduction and remediation at the UK’s Sellafield nuclear site is the priority for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and will continue to be so for many years to come, the ONR has said in its annual plan for 2015-2016.
The ONR said Sellafield, in Cumbria, northwest England, is one of Europe’s largest industrial complexes, storing more radioactive material in one place than any other nuclear facility in the world.
“The possible consequences of a serious accident would be extremely significant and could extend beyond the UK,” the plan says. “The age of the facilities on site and the way in which waste has been stored do not meet modern standards. Unique challenges are therefore posed.”
In 2014, the ONR developed a strategy to support the delivery by Sellafield Ltd, the company that manages and operates the site, of high hazard and risk remediation programmes, focusing on securing the removal of waste from legacy ponds and silos.
“For the first time in decades this began to happen with retrieved material being moved to more modern storage at the site,” the report says.
The ONR said it would continue to influence Sellafield Ltd to make improvements in hazard and risk reduction at Sellafield.
The ONR said it would be carrying out “a targeted programme of interventions” at Sellafield site on “systems that are most important to nuclear safety”. It will also hold Sellafield Ltd to account on behalf of the public in cases where it fails to comply with its legal duties.
In January 2015 the UK government stripped private consortium Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) of the contract to clean up Sellafield.
The government said ownership of Sellafield Ltd would revert to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) from NMP, which took control of Sellafield Ltd under contract to the NDA, a public body, in 2008.
The government said Sellafield consumes 60 percent of the NDA’s £3 billion ($4.4 billion, €4.1 billion) annual budget and houses the vast majority of the UK’s civil nuclear waste.
The Sellafield site comprises of a range of nuclear facilities, including redundant facilities associated with early defence work, as well as operating facilities associated with the Magnox reprocessing programme, the thermal oxide reprocessing plant (Thorp), the Sellafield mixed oxide fuel plant and a range of waste treatment plants.
It began life in the early 1950s making plutonium for nuclear weapons, and later that decade became the location of Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station.
The ONR’s annual plan is online: http://bit.ly/1BGVGFa
