DOUNREAY’S training and development team has become the first of its potential spin-out businesses to move off the site.
The 12-strong group has relocated to Naver Business Centre in Thurso where there are better prospects for growth. (more…)
Robots will soon begin dismantling the plant which gave Dounreay the title of being the world’s nuclear dustbin.
Workers are currently drilling through the concrete that surrounds the uranium fuel reprocessing plant which was to receive spent nuclear fuel from reactors around the world, with the waste being stored at the Caithness facility for up to 25 years; a facility that outraged environmentalists. (more…)
3 September 2008 - A proposed low-level radioactive waste store near the former Dounreay nuclear power plant has won approval from the Scottish Government environmental agency.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) wants to construct the £110m ($195m) facility - the first of its kind in Scotland - on grazing land as a deposit for material removed from the Caithness plant during decommissioning. An approved site nearby is now considered too susceptible to coastal erosion. (more…)
GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS protesting against a shipment of nuclear waste on its way to Sellafield are putting themselves at risk of death or injury, the UK nuclear security chief has warned.
Roger Brunt, the director of the government’s Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), has accused the international anti-nuclear group of “recklessness” during attempts to board a boat carrying plutonium-contaminated waste from Sweden. (more…)
Tonnes of radioactive liquid metal - a legacy of the experimental fast reactor programme at Dounreay in Caithness - have been destroyed.
Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said the material was turned into “harmless” salt water.
The water was put through a further process so it could be discharged into the sea. (more…)
PEOPLE living near the Dounreay nuclear plant say they will fight plans for a waste dump close to their homes, despite the scheme winning the conditional backing of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Sepa says it supports proposals for a £110 million underground low-level radioactive waste store – the first of its type in Scotland – provided seven planning conditions are imposed to protect people and the environment. (more…)
SCOTLAND’S environment regulator has given a boost to plans to build a new low-active nuclear dump at Dounreay.
The £110 million scheme earmarked for ground adjoining the former fast-reactor complex is being fought by residents of the small adjoining settlement at Buldoo. But the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on Wednesday gave notice of its conditional backing for the development. (more…)
The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain’s atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.
The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account. (more…)
Staff at Dounreay nuclear plant can transfer their skills to a renewable energy “revolution” in Scotland, it has been claimed.
Scotland’s environment secretary Richard Lochhead is expected to visit the Caithness site to see how the decommissioning process could be harnessed to create jobs in alternative energy production. (more…)
Robot submarines are to be used to sweep particles of plutonium and other radioactive materials from the seabed near one of Britain’s biggest nuclear plants in one of the most delicate clean-up operations ever in this country.
Each submersible will be fitted with a Geiger counter and will crisscross the sea floor to pinpoint every deadly speck close to Dounreay on Scotland’s north coast before lifting each particle and returning it to land for safe storage. (more…)
