THORP.

national | environment | news report

Tuesday August 26, 2003 19:11

by iosaf

aka Windscale aka Sellafield.

In today's european edition of the English "Guardian" newspaper the headlines suggest that THORP will be closed at a cost of 30,000,000,000stg by 2010.

Throughout our lives, THORP/Windscale/Sellafield has been kept opened at the cost of our security, our peace of mind, the right of our unborn to gestate without ambient radiactive threat.
Further: at the cost of our SEA.

In May 2002 the present director of BNFL responsible for the THORP project accepted his post "on a temporary basis". He got the job because his predecessor Mc Laughlin quit.

No nuclear facility in Europe has been subject to as much disinformation as THORP. The list of lies and deception, manipulation and disregard for ordinary people's opinion is almost endless:

Falsification of safety records.
Falsification of inquiry reports.
Concealment of accidents.

there are more than fifty good articles in our archives on Sellafield/Thorp/windscale/MOX fuel.

today's article in "The Guardian":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1029361,00.html

selection of articles from ireland indymedia's past:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60006&search_text=mox&results_offset=20
(if you go to that link you can by clicking on "newswire" afterwards see the list of some 20 other articles on "Mox").
likewise
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?search_text=sellafield

Remember the Nuclear free flotilla?
with Rainbow Warrior? the ship that was later impounded by the Spanish state?
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=12327&search_text=bnfl

(But one thing don't go searching for THORP in the oscailt indymedia search engine)

http://www.nuclearfreeflotilla.org/

Comments (5 of 5)

Aye

by >>>>>Seainín

Wed Aug 27, 2003 04:02

It's a great excuse all the same for a bit of Britbashing.

Iosaf, I'd advise "the subject of so much disinformation" rather than "subjected to so much disinformation".

What About The Workers?

by Red Pawn 1791 - SP

Wed Aug 27, 2003 12:26

We must campaign for them! They must get special retraining! They are more important than the existing unemployed! Priority for the despoilers of nature!

Nuclear Workers Unite!
You have nothing to lose but your acid rains!

(That maybe seen as satire but it sums up the attitude of Johnno from the SP when he last posted about this issue)

Workers at Sellafield.

by Tim

Wed Aug 27, 2003 18:34

like evrywhere else, they've moved towards contract workers, and ripped people off with the redundancy settlements.
(But they're a great union, the last head of it, Johnny Kane left to join management and his brother got to replace him)

One contractor who was working on the OUTSIDE of the THORP building, erecting scaffolding, managed to get radiation burns THROUGH HIS PROTECTIVE CLOTHING from touching the OUTSIDE of the building.

the case was settled out of court.

The Windscale piles ceased production in the 50s, following the 1957 fire in Pile no.1
The Calder Hall reactors were closed following an accident in the Chapelcross reactors in Scotland. (these were identical in design, and therefore subject to same problems.) officially they closed in March '03 for economic reasons.
In reality, the safety systems at Chapelcross had failed and no workable solution was found, therefore Chapelcross and Calderhall had to close.

The vitrification plants have never worked properly and have even been subjected to internal sabotage with cables for robotic equipment being cut.

The THORP and MAGNOX plants are due to close in less than 10 years.

That leaves MOX... and the Japanese, their biggest overseas customers have decided not to buy any MOX, following:

1. the falsified MOX scandal from the MOX Demonstrator
2. The discovery of cracks in the reactor shrouds of the two Japanese reactors expected to take the first batch of MOX. (Kashiwazaki-Kariwa and Fukushima)

MOX is never going to have enough orders to make money, it was doomed from the day it started operating (and there was a nice contingent of the Shut Sellafield Campaign outside on that cold December day)

Sellafield's closure is now inevitable. It may take 15 years, but within our lifetime it will change into a clean-up operation. and it's going to be some job and not without its dangers.

There is currently a health and safety investigation into the death of a worker inside Windscale Pile No.1, the plutonium reactor chimney which caught fire in 1957, and BNFL may face a corporate manslaughter charge.

See the Whitehaven news (a local paper) for more.
http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/viewarticle.asp?id=29149

http://www.antenna.nl/wise/558/5339.html