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FOE demands shake-up of "#34 nuclear inspectorate
23 June 1998
Friends of the Earth today demanded a major shake-up of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), after its “hopeless failure” to ensure the safety of Britain's nuclear industry. FOE believes that reprocessing of nuclear spent fuel at Sellafield should be stopped, since the industry cannot show it is either safe or properly regulated.The call comes on the day that Dr Gordon Thompson, Director of US Institute for Resource and Security Studies is expected to release new research showing that an accident at Sellafield's liquid high level waste storage facility could result in a disaster ten to a hundred times worse than Chernobyl. (Dr Thompson's research will be released by the Irish General Council of County Councils, and the UK Nuclear Free Local Authorities, at a briefing at 10am Tuesday 23rd June, in Committee Room W1, House of Commons.His research gives details of the NII's lack of openness and refusal to submit its safety assessments to peer reviews.)
1000 cubic metres of high level nuclear waste is stored in 21 cooled tanks at Sellafield. The NII has urged British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which runs Sellafield, to solidify the waste into glass blocks for permanent storage (“vitrification”). But the vitrification suffers from what the UK Atomic Energy Authority calls “continued poor performance”. Crucibles for melting the glass have lasted for less than half their predicted life, because of corrosion and fatigue.A failure to vitrify existing high level waste could lead to the licence to reprocess nuclear fuel being suspended or withdrawn.
In a letter to Energy Minister John Battle, FOE states that the Nuclear Industry Inspectorate, is unable to keep the industry safe.
. The NII has accepted the nuclear industry's suggestion that large scale accidents,such as a major disaster at Sellafield's high level waste storage, are too unlikely to be worth considering. The result is that there are no emergency plans for such accidents
. The NII has repeatedly discovered that nuclear facilities are in a dangerous state,whereas it should have stopped them reaching such a state in the first place.
. The NII has refused to release its Probabilistic Safety Assessment of the Sellafield High Level Waste Tanks to the Nuclear Free Local Authorities so that they can be peer reviewed by independent scientific experts.
. The NII does not stand comparison with its equivalent US body, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in terms of financial resources and number of inspectors per plant, release of documents for per review, and culture of openness.
. A long withheld NII memo has now been published showing grotesque safety failures at Dounreay, prompting the Government's recent decision to close the plant Failures listed included: buildings awash with nuclear waste; lack of qualified and experienced staff; poor safety culture; and lack of safety procedures to prevent runaway nuclear chain reactions. FOE argues that the NII's refusal to release the Dounreay memo despite requests from MPs shows that it colluded with the industry in keeping evidence of its own failure secret.
Dr Dominick Jenkins, FOE Nuclear Campaigner, said today:
“The NII can't keep the public safe and has colluded with the industry in hiding its failure as a regulator. The NII's own documents and past performance show it can't be trusted to keep either Sellafield or Dounreay at an acceptable safety standard. When an accident at Sellafield's liquid high level waste storage could result in a disaster ten to a hundred times worse than Chernobyl, the NII's failure is appalling. Nuclear reprocessing should be halted until we can determine whether the NII's failure is due to lack of resources or bad management or, in the end, because it is an impossible task to keep Britain's aging reprocessing industry safe.”
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jul 2008
