Sellafield (Windscale) in the news the past couple of days

It seems that Sellafield has been in the news again, and doesn't sound good. Hacked, most toxic nuclear site, contaminated the Irish sea with Plutonium!!? All sounds delightful!

Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site

Ministers who visit Sellafield for the first time are left with no illusions about the challenge at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site. One former UK secretary of state described it as a “bottomless pit of hell, money and despair”, which sucked up so much cash that it drowned out many other projects the economy could otherwise benefit from.

For workers, it is a place of fascination and fear. “Entering Sellafield is like arriving in another world: it’s like nuclear Narnia,” according to one senior employee. “Except you don’t go through a cupboard, you go through checkpoints while police patrol with guns.”  Others call it nuclear Disneyland.

https://nuclear-news.net/2023/12/06/3-a-sellafield-bottomless-pit-of-hell-money-and-despair-at-europes-most-toxic-nuclear-site/

This is the Guardian story cited in the article above. There was a video with the Guardian story, but seems it has gone from the article. 

Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site

The estimated cost of running and cleaning up the site have soared. Sellafield is so expensive to maintain that it is considered a fiscal risk by budgetary officials. The  latest estimate for cleaning up the Britain’s nuclear sites is £263bn , of which Sellafield is by far the biggest proportion. However, adjustments to its treatments in accounts can move the dial by more than £100bn, more than the UK’s entire annual deficit. The cost of decommissioning the site is a growing liability that does not count towards the calculation of the UK’s net debt.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-money-europe-toxic-nuclear-site-cumbria-safety

This is the video. I know it is MSM but it is worth a watch if interested:


Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China

The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, the Guardian can reveal. The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found. The Guardian has discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks. It is still not known if the malware has been eradicated. It may mean some of Sellafield’s most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring for leaks of dangerous material and checking for fires, have been compromised.

https://nuclear-news.net/2023/12/05/3-b1-sellafield-nuclear-site-hacked-by-groups-linked-to-russia-and-china/

Sellafield has contaminated the Irish Sea with plutonium.

Sellafield discharges two million gallons of radioactive water into the Irish Sea every day at high tide. This includes a cocktail of over 30 alpha, beta and gamma radionuclides. BNFL admits that radioactive discharges in the 1970’s were 100 times those of today. As a result of these discharges, which include around half a tonne of plutonium, the Irish Sea has become the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world. Caesium-137 and Iodine-129 from Sellafield have spread through the Arctic Ocean into the waters of northern Canada and are having a bigger impact on the Arctic than the Chernobyl accident. Sellafield’s gas discharges of Krypton can be measured in Miami.

The guinea pigs in a ‘deliberate scientific experiment’ to find out levels of contamination in the food chain, were the Cumbrian people and their environment. Claiming then that the radioactive materials discharged from the 2km pipeline would dilute and disperse into the wider oceans, the industry clearly got it wrong, with high levels of radioactive discharge material washed ashore and trapped in the coastal sands and sediments.

https://nuclear-news.net/2023/12/05/3-b1-sellafield-has-contaminated-the-irish-sea-with-plutonium/

All sounds just fantastic! I live 46 miles from Sellafield (as the crow flies) and about 1.5 miles from the Irish sea. Heysham NPP is in-between Sellafield and myself, and 20 minutes to the east I have Westinghouse Springfields site. Maybe I should move...... To another planet maybe? Mars is looking nicer every day I read the news! 

It really does make you wonder though, what else has happened, or is happening that we just don't know about. I had no idea Sellafield was still pumping crap into the ocean. I know they did some time back, and there was the episode with Greenpeace getting their boat run over after finding barrels of radioactive waste on the ocean floor a couple of miles off the coast of Sellafield. I honestly thought the radioactive dumping had stopped some years ago. Obviously not! It's alright though, the ocean is a big bit of water, those nuclides will easily dilute, right? They will just disappear into the ether just like the Fukushima wastewater releases. Getting it rite again! Hooray! 

 
Some more on this:

Revealed: Sellafield nuclear site has leak that could pose risk to public

Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, has a worsening leak from a huge silo of radioactive waste that could pose a risk to the public, the Guardian can reveal.

Concerns over safety at the crumbling building, as well as cracks in a reservoir of toxic sludge known as B30, have caused diplomatic tensions with countries including the US, Norway and Ireland, which fear Sellafield has failed to get a grip of the problems.

The leak of radioactive liquid from one of the “highest nuclear hazards in the UK” – a decaying building at the vast Cumbrian site known as the Magnox swarf storage Silo (MSSS) – is likely to continue to 2050. That could have “potentially significant consequences” if it gathers pace, risking contaminating groundwater, according to an official document.

Cracks have also developed in the concrete and asphalt skin covering the huge pond containing decades of nuclear sludge, part of a catalogue of safety problems at the site.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public

All sounds just peachy! Crumbling buildings, cracks, leaks going on until 2050. A model of safe nuclear engineering!   It really does seem that an awful lot of these leaks and radioactive releases are down to the actual buildings deteriorating and plant breaking down. Maybe back then they didn't know that radiation would actually accelerate natural deterioration. Maybe they did. When I read articles like the above, I really wonder just how they expect nuclear waste to stay nicely safely buried in concrete and metal containers, for thousands of years, when they struggle to get (top notch, very expensive, well engineered) buildings to last 100 years. It just doesn't compute.

‘Dirty 30’ and its toxic siblings: the most dangerous parts of the Sellafield nuclear site

Radioactive sludge
In the early 1950s, a huge hole was dug into the Cumbrian coast and lined with concrete. Roughly the length of three Olympic swimming pools and known as B30, it was built to hold skip loads of spent nuclear fuel.

Those highly radioactive rods came from the 26 Magnox nuclear reactors that helped keep Britain’s lights on between 1956 and 2015. When B30 was first put to work, it was designed to keep the fuel rods submerged for only three months before reprocessing work was carried out.

But when 1970s miners’ strikes shut down coal power stations and forced greater reliance on nuclear plants, more spent fuel than could be quickly reprocessed was generated. The silos and ponds, built to prevent airborne contamination if the fuel or radioactive sludge dried out, rapidly filled up. Meanwhile, the fuel corroded in the water, breaking down into radioactive sludge.

Debris from elsewhere within Sellafield was later added and the pond was abandoned when new facilities were built in 1986, clouding over and leaving workers on site with little idea what lay beneath its murky waters.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/dirty-30-dangerous-sellafield-nuclear-site-ponds-safety-fears

Some more on this:

Sellafield nuclear site workers claim ‘toxic culture’ of bullying, sexual harassment and drugs could put safety at risk

A “toxic culture” of bullying, sexual harassment and drug-taking risks compromising the safety of Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, multiple employees at Sellafield have claimed.More than a dozen current and former employees have alleged to the Guardian that the Cumbrian site, a vast dump for nuclear waste, has a longstanding unhealthy working culture, where staff have been bullied, harassed and belittled, with some apparently pushed to suicide.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/06/sellafield-toxic-culture-bullying-harassment-safety

Sellafield staff ‘used home computers to beat security failings’.

Staff at Sellafield were asked to work on sensitive projects using their home computers, a former employee has said, amid questions about cybersecurity at Britain’s most hazardous nuclear site after claims it was hacked by groups linked to Russia and China.

https://nuclear-news.net/2023/12/13/3-b1-sellafield-staff-used-home-computers-to-beat-security-failings/

MEP URGES SWIFT ACTION ON SELLAFIELD NUCLEAR THREAT

During his contribution last Monday, MEP Andrews said: “Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, holds 140 tons of plutonium posing a significant threat to Ireland’s safety.

“Daily, a staggering 2.3 cubic meters of radioactive sludge seeps into the ground, prompting concerns over potential far-reaching consequences.”

Expressing his concern, MEP Andrews continued: “Ireland is facing a potentially catastrophic environmental crisis right on its doorstep.

“Given the substantial amount and type of radioactive materials, both the Government of Ireland and the European Union should be deeply alarmed by the reports of the deteriorating infrastructure.

https://dublinpeople.com/news/dublin/articles/2023/12/14/mep-urges-swift-action-on-sellafield-nuclear-threat/