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In the National today: UK Government buries ‘200 containers of radioactive waste’
The location is the Dounreay nuclear site in Scotland.
From the Chief Nuclear Inspector’s annual report on Great Britain’s nuclear industry October 2025, page 28:
In July 2024, we increased NRS Dounreay to an enhanced level of regulatory attention for safety because of unsatisfactory site performance across numerous areas: the current condition of a number of site assets (such as buildings, electrical systems, steam systems); management and compliance with various aspects of conventional health & safety legislation (such as COMAH and DSEAR); the level of management & organisational change affecting safety culture.
Decommissioning of Dounreay 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]
90 excess childhood Leukaemia cases
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.
[i] https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredounreay-site-restoration-plan/
[ii] https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html
[iii] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Dounreay-decommissioning-framework-contracts-award
[iv] https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/new-end-date-at-dounreay-will-mean-a-spend-of-7-9bn-347604/
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Frankly, they don’t care. London needs energy, it needs somewhere to dump its toxic waste and it needs plutonium for its nuclear bombs and torpedoes stored at Holy Loch.
The START treaty expired today, so the race is on to expand nuclear weapons and sell them.
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