Revealed: Sellafield nuclear site has leak that could pose risk to public
www.theguardian.com
Safety concerns at Europe’s most hazardous plant have caused diplomatic tensions with US, Norway and Ireland

Extract

In 2019, Sellafield reported a leak from the storage unit to the ONR. The leak significantly worsened over the next two years, and a previously unreported document reveals that 2.3-2.5 cubic metres of radioactive “liquor” has been leaking from the facility every day. This liquid is a soup of radioactive magnesium alloy filings dissolved into water, from waste cladding that encased spent Magnox nuclear fuel.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    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.

    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.

    Norwegian officials are concerned that an accident at the site could lead to a plume of radioactive particles being carried by prevailing south-westerly winds across the North Sea, with potentially devastating consequences for Norway’s food production and wildlife.

    In July last year, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment noted in its public minutes that “the leak has been continuing at the same rate since October 2020, around 2.5m [cubic meters] per day …”.

    Described by workers at Sellafield as “Dirty 30”, it contains radioactive sludge from corroded nuclear fuel rods used in old power stations, and its concrete and asphalt skin ribboned with cracks.

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