From: The Telegraph U.K. Newspaper
Nuclear disaster averted by dirty laundry A radioactive leak that could have caused Britain's worst nuclear
disaster was only averted when a worker in an adjoining room spotted
water as he sorted laundry, according to a newly-obtained official
report.
More than 40,000 gallons of radioactive water leaked into the open
when a 15ft crack appeared in a pipe leading to a cooling pond in the
Sizewell A reactor in January 2007.
If the worker had not
spotted it, the pool, which contained 5,000 spent uranium fuel rods,
could have run dry, causing the rods to ignite which would have sparked
a supercharged radioactive fire, it was claimed.
Despite the potential severity of the incident, no one has been fined or prosecuted.
HM
Nuclear Installation Inspectorate, which compiled the report into the
leak and found "significant risk that members of the public could have
been harmed", only issued a safety directive to Magnox South, the
site's operator.
It recognises that a prosecution may have been
thought appropriate but none was undertaken. A prosecution would have
taken "considerable resources" at a time when the NII was financially
"stretched", it added.
Sizewell A, which is on the Suffolk coast,
stopped generating electricity in December 2006 and the decommissioning
process began.
Part of that process is the cooling of spent fuel rods in water ponds and it takes years before they can be moved.
The complete details of this incident were only released after a Freedom of Information request.
The report reveals a series of worrying failings.
When
the pipe cracked before 11.30am on the morning of Sunday 7 January
2007, some 40,000 gallons of radioactive water spilled from a 15ft long
split.
The radioactive water washed into drains and some found its way into the North Sea.
Any such leak should trigger an alarm but the one in situ not was working.
Even
if the alarm had been working, it is unlikely that anyone would have
noticed it, as a different alarm had been going off for days without
anyone turning it off.
The next routine inspection of the area where the leak took place was not due for more than 10 hours.
By
that time the pond could have drained dry and started a fire that would
have released a radioactive plume which could have killed hundreds of
people and forced the evacuation of thousands of people for tens of
miles in villages along the coast and inland.
However a workman in the laundry room nearby noticed water leaking in and alerted engineers.
The
report stated: "The pond could have been drained (it takes about 10
hours) before the required plant tour by an operator had taken place.
In this worst-case scenario, if the exposed irradiated fuel caught fire
it would result in an airborne off-site release."
John Large, an
independent nuclear consultant, obtained the report as part of a
dossier he compiled for the local Shutdown Sizewell Campaign.
He said the leak could have caused the worst nuclear disaster in Britain.
"It would have been a very serious radioactive release running down the coast of Suffolk as far as the wind would take it."
Campaigners
claim the incident has been downplayed because the inspectorate was
reluctant to highlight a leak at a time when the Government was
beginning to make public plans to build a new generation of nuclear
plants.
The Government is currently planning to begin building a new generation of nuclear power plants from around 2013.
However,
Mike Weightman, Chief Inspector of the NII said that the leak could not
have caused a fire because the fuel rods were already partly decayed
and two feet of water would have remained in the pond.
He also denied claims that the NII failed to prosecute because of a lack of funds.
"The
operators secured improvements in safety and complied with the law very
early on," he said. "If we had had to go to prosecution we would have."
The
Environment Agency said the leak had caused no threat to the public but
would look at using wider powers to inspect nuclear installations in
future.
Magnox South said it took the incident extremely seriously and co-operated fully with both the NII and the EA.
{ Say, how come this story hasn't been on any of the U.S. news media?
Yes, Republicans, let's build 100 new Nuclear electric plants in the U.S. Let's just forget this, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl.
Not to mention that building Nuclear plants is the most expensive means of generating electricity and no one has developed a means of handling nuclear waste which has a half life of 750,000 year. Nothing like taking chances on poisoning the earth beyond repair. Spend more money on research for nuclear fusion. That produces no waste. Though I suspect it's potential for providing cheap unending energy frightens the hell out of oil companies. - Charlie