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.
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
A big study of nuclear workers has suggested an unexpectedly strong link between radiation exposure and heart disease.
The study, published yesterday, analysed health records and radiation doses for 65,000 people employed at four nuclear sites - Sellafield, Capenhurst and Springfields, in north-west England, and Chaplecross in south-west Scotland - between 1946 and 2005.
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.
Date of release: 24/09/2007
The European Investment Bank has signed a EUR 200 million loan with Urenco Ltd for the expansion of two uranium enrichment plants based in the UK and the Netherlands. This project forms part of the company’s medium-term investment programme, meeting global uranium enrichment demand by the use of Urenco’s world-leading energy-efficient technology.
