The Sellafield body parts inquiry has hit a major legal hitch after a doctor suggested his patients’ medical records should remain confidential – even though they are dead.
Michael Redfern QC is leading an inquiry into claims organs and tissue were secretly removed from workers at Sellafield and other nuclear plants without the knowledge of bereaved loved ones. (more…)
Bidders interested in buying the Government’s share in the uranium company Urenco have contacted its former chairman about forming a consortium to table an offer for the stake which could be worth up to £4bn.
Neville Chamberlain, who was chairman of Urenco from 2002 to 2005, said: “I have had discussions with various potential bidders.” He added: “I would not be surprised if a bid emerged.”
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Britain has a stockpile of plutonium and uranium that, if converted to fuel, could be worth nearly £160 billion and power three nuclear reactors for 60 years, scientists say.
The future of the stockpile - largely left over from burning fuel - will be decided by ministers over the next year, The Times has learnt. Its value is estimated as the equivalent of 2.6 billion barrels of oil. (more…)
It has been revealed that it will take more than 100 years before the toxic nuclear site in Sellafield is safe.
A report from Westminster’s Public Accounts Committee says the UK’s largest atomic power station will not be completely clean until 2120.
The South Down SDLP MP, Eddie McGrady, described the nuclear waste as a time bomb waiting to happen. ‘They are not only producing but importing the dirty stuff from the rest of the world, it is incredible,’ he said. (more…)
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown will talk to his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, at the G8 meeting in Hokkaido next month about a potential £1bn a year deal which would boost the UK’s nuclear industry.
Mr Brown and Mr Fukuda will discuss a contract to reprocess fuel at Sellafield in Cumbria to be used in Japan’s nuclear reactors, industry sources said. (more…)
The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield has restarted commercial operations three years after it was closed following a radioactive leak - a development that should ease the funding crisis at the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or Thorp, at the nuclear complex in west Cumbria, is a large source of income for the owner NDA, which is responsible for cleaning up the UK’s nuclear reactor sites and dealing with radioactive waste. (more…)
A nuclear plant built at a cost of £470m to provide atomic fuel to be used in foreign power stations has produced almost nothing since it was opened six years ago, the government has admitted.
The mixed oxide (Mox) facility at Sellafield in Cumbria - which was opposed by green groups as uneconomic - was originally predicted to have an annual throughput of 120 tonnes of fuel. (more…)
The Times, January 31, 2008
The man responsible for raising £8.3 billion for the Treasury by selling off some of the country’s most controversial assets is poised to receive a bonus of £766,200 for successfully winding up British Nuclear Fuels.
Mike Parker, chief executive of BNFL, which used to own Westinghouse, the nuclear reactor maker, as well as Sellafield, could receive the bonus before the end of the financial year, The Times has learnt. (more…)
London Evening Standard, 4 December 2007
The organs of miscarried and stillborn babies may have been harvested for testing by nuclear scientists, it emerged yesterday.
Victims of road accidents could also have been part of the grisly programme set up to establish whether workers at Sellafield had suffered radiation poisoning. (more…)
By Rebecca Bream, Utilities Correspondent
Mon Oct 22 23:06:32 EDT 2007
The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Sellafield is set to restart full commercial operations in the new year, almost three years after it was closed following a radioactive leak.
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