A BBC Report yesterday, has nothing to say about just why a robot snake is needed for work on the clear-up of the Dounreay facility in Caithness.
We have:
The Dounreay waste shaft before the 1997 explosionThe Dounreay waste shaft after the 1997 explosion – Debris was projected over the boundary fence on to the sea shore, lead sheeting was thrown over the security fence and two six-metre scaffolding poles were found outside the fence, one 40 metres [130 feet] away on the beach. The windows of the control room were also shattered and asbestos weather shields surrounding the shaft and a 20ft length of the nearby security fence were extensively damaged. About 50 spots of ground contamination were found to the north of the shaft and pieces of asbestos were discovered up to 75 metres [245 feet] away.
From BBC Scotland today:
More than 500 members of the Unite union at the Dounreay nuclear power complex have voted to strike in a dispute over pay.
The workers, who will take action on Wednesday, have rejected the latest offer to resolve the matter.
Meanwhile, the Prospect union said in a close ballot its members had voted to accept the deal, and the GMB union said the result of its vote was expected later but expected to back strike action.
While it is always disturbing to hear of industrial conflict in a nuclear plant, these two-day strikes will, relatively speaking, make little difference to the decommissioning process.
Why?
Decommissioning began in 2019 and the plan envisages 50-60 years to complete but ‘complete’ doesn’t mean to the company, Magnox Ltd., what it means to most of us and the site will be under surveillance, i.e. not usable, for at least another 300 years or 110 000 days[i].
However, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, one of the most dangerous elements, left on the soil, Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24 000 years.[ii]
How much will the decommissioning cost? According to World Nuclear News in 2019, £400 million,[iii] but 5 years later, according to the Northern Times in April 2024, £7.9 billion![iv]
Researchers based at Oxford University, reporting conveniently for some political forces, in July 2014, revisited earlier studies of the incidence of leukaemia around Sellafield and Dounreay and concluded that children, teenagers and young adults currently living close to Sellafield and Dounreay were not at an increased risk of developing cancers.
The researchers, dependent upon UK Government grants for their survival, notably downplayed two earlier studies finding a raised risk of leukaemia among 0–14 and 15-24 year-olds, living within 12.5 km of Dounreay during the period 1979–1984[i] and in a subsequent study in 1996, reported an excess of childhood leukaemia and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL) within 25 km of Dounreay for the period 1968–1993.[ii]
The researchers do not tell us just how many cases, how many more children and young adults than expected, had developed these often-deadly cancers, but 1 287 cases near seven nuclear sites in Scotland were looked at in the second study. Around Dounreay, almost twice as many cases as expected were found. The difference was greatest around Dounreay but even if we share the 1 287 between the seven sites, we get around 180 cases near Dounreay, of which half or 90, might not have occurred if the plant had never been built. To, me that’s ‘significant’ and I feel sure it was for them and their families.
With every passing month, it becomes clearer that Scottish Labour must reconsider its plans for a nuclear Scotland.
[i] Heasman MA, Kemp IW, Urquhart JD, Black R. Childhood leukaemia in northern Scotland. Lancet. 1986;327 (8475:266.
[ii] Sharp L, Black RJ, Harkness EF, McKinney PA. Incidence of childhood leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the vicinity of nuclear sites in Scotland, 1968–93. Occup Environ Med. 1996;53 (12:823–831.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 