moded' management.
But, 11S like the Westlands crisis, the problems at Sellfield are not the result of minor errors They flow or Juagement.
the whole way the British economy and state have been built since the war.
Sellafield is not an ordinary nuclear plant. It is at the centre of the in tricate web which binds together Britain's nuclear weapons, power its tradin relations with the rest of the world.
Its main purpose is to give Britain guaranteed source of plutonium to ensure it can produce nuclear weapons dictate terms, through its control plutomull, nuclear powers 1980 'Square Leg' civil defence exercise, it was obliterated by an imaginary atom bomb. There is only one major facility the site with definitely identifiable military function, and that was shut down in 1981.
That is why, leak or no leak, Thatcher will strain every nerve to keep it runSellafield or Windscale, as it was called until it was renamed 1981 of sheer embarassment, is not a power stallon. It is above nuclear reprocessing faciliIt does three things. It stores nuclear waste, either to 'cool it off' or simply to wait until something better can be found to do with it.
It subjects waste to various treatments either to make more suitable BOI storage, or to separate out the more highly radioaccomponents. Third, LIve and most important, it extracts unused nuC. uranium, and plutonium which has been produced from uranium in nuclear reactors, to be recycled for of either in THITECT usc weapons or in reactors.
Plutonium Its third function reclaiming plutonium gives it a key strategic role in the weapons industry. It extracts plutonium LIlt nuclear nearby stallon, Calder which Hall then refines for the Ministry of Defence to make warheads. has high priority for the Trident project. All plutonium for warheads has, at one stage another, passed through Sellafield.
things, Among other this is why the government has refused to let any international team inspect the factory, despite insistent European demands Leaving aside the fact the inhabitants both Cumbria the East Irish coast can be poisoned without CYCL having the right to find out why, this sheds interesting light on claims that the main obstacle to nuclear disarmament is the Russian relusal permit nuclear inspections.
Windscale late as enquiry, the 1977 the government and the UK Atomic Energy Authority refused even to admit its military purpose. So Windscale's biggest investment Wa. sanctioned eith buines realed. rpose without its real But the plant's role goes further. the custodian of Britain's entire national stockpile of plutonium 'Control plutonium, said British Nuclear Fuels of'It will involve additional exposure to local inhabitants but the risks appear to be so small that this fact cannot outweigh the advantages' — Judge Parker at the 1977 Windscale (Sellafield) enquiry.
ficial 'and you control the AS a stockpile reprocessor of nuclear waste, equally key the plant plays an role in Britain's nuclear power dustry. The close connection between refining out plutonium, storing nuclear waste, means that the two facilities have had to be developed in tandem.
Early It stores used fuel under water from both the early Magnox nuclear stations and from the second generation advanced gascooled (AGR) reactors.
Between them, these two types of power station account for nearly one-nin of Britain's electricity. By 1990 the figure will be one quarter. It also stores the spent fuel from the Navy's nuclear submarines.
Nuclear waste is the dirty rear end of nuclear power. safe way dispose of it has yet been discovered. But British governments have ignored the problems because of the urgent need to build up a weapons capabilit ries the mania for getting shot of any reliance of coal for power.
The most criminal insanity of all, however, the Thermal reprocessing (THORPS) plant now beIng. built of £1.2bn. This was the subWindscale Enquiry, It is famous 1977 part of a grand design acIn the meantime if I were you, 1 wouldn't do too much swimming in the IRISH SEA!
take not just for its own waste but for the nuclear waste of most of the rest of the Its only current rival is the very large, and much more modern French plant at La Hague, on the Normandy Coast being built through deal with Japanese companies who are financing it in return for British : agreement • WaSLe reprocess it when the new off them facility is ready Export Implicit in this rangement is that a larg of the plutonium will extracted in Sellafield and re exported. When it was pointed out at the Wind scale enquiry that this con travened President •Cart er's non-proneraton in itiatives, the judge accepted evidence BNFL to the effect that only 'civil' • plutoni um would be exported.
By laking everyone else's waste off Thatcher gets to contro world plutonium supplies So keen is the nuclear in dustry that in the early '80s officials were even propos ing to pay for the privileg of receiving other people effluent.
Indeed, BNFL hasn' even waited for THORPS facility to be finished. By 1981 one two tonne flask of waste was arriving 'every few days according .to Peter Bunyard, editor of The Ecologist. This compares with a total British nuclea industry output of 30 tonnes per year.
The important thing to understand is that there is as yet, nowhere for this !
go! The world's radioac tive wastes are happily piling up in leaky tanks near the Cumbrian coast, storage facilities whose lifetime is known to be limited, with no method of disposal' hand That is why, just like Thatcher's cabinet crises, the Sellafield leaks are not going lo stop.
•Cortiac Well, thank you for the advice leaky mouth!!
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all appearances, about to become yet another That- cher "bananaskin'. Hard on the heels of a European Parliament call for the plant to be closed, the cabinet has suspended all plans to privatise nuclear power stations and is preparing to ditch Sellafield's 'out-