Post by Tridge on Feb 17, 2005 12:03:50 GMT -5
I went home for lunch today and cooked myself a nice bit of Beans on toast. I had just started to tuck into my scran when i heard this on the news.
This info is a bit brief because the work computer restricts me from nearly every news site there is, but this is worth reading. If anyone has any views or any other info it would be nice to hear it.
It doesn't say here but on the news it said the amount thats unnaccounted for is enough for 8 nuclear war heads.
Plutonium "missing" from Sellafield
By Sudip Kar-Gupta
LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly thirty kg of plutonium is unaccounted for at the Sellafield nuclear complex, auditors have found, adding however that there was no need to worry.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said on Thursday in the audit that 29.6 kg of plutonium at Sellafield, northern England, was classified as "material unaccounted for" during 2004.
Plutonium can be used as a nuclear fuel and a nuclear weapon, but the report said the findings were not a cause for concern. State-owned company BNFL operates Sellafield.
"The 2003/04 figures in the attached table conform to the pattern over previous years and give no rise to concern over either the safety or the security of the operation of UKAEA (and) BNFL..," the report said.
A spokesman for the Department of Trade & Industry said there was "no evidence of real losses of nuclear material," while BNFL said the unaccounted plutonium was the result of statistical errors.
"None's gone missing, none's been stolen. This is an accounting exercise," said a BNFL spokesman.
"Sellafield handles such huge volumes that any small statistical error could result in what seems like a big figure," he added.
The amount of Sellafield plutonium that was unaccounted for is within the guidelines set by European nuclear regulator Euratom.
Those guidelines state that levels of unaccounted nuclear material must not exceed about 1 percent of plutonium throughput.
BNFL said the amount of plutonium unaccounted for at Sellafield represented about 0.5 percent of the plant's throughput.
This info is a bit brief because the work computer restricts me from nearly every news site there is, but this is worth reading. If anyone has any views or any other info it would be nice to hear it.
It doesn't say here but on the news it said the amount thats unnaccounted for is enough for 8 nuclear war heads.
Plutonium "missing" from Sellafield
By Sudip Kar-Gupta
LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly thirty kg of plutonium is unaccounted for at the Sellafield nuclear complex, auditors have found, adding however that there was no need to worry.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said on Thursday in the audit that 29.6 kg of plutonium at Sellafield, northern England, was classified as "material unaccounted for" during 2004.
Plutonium can be used as a nuclear fuel and a nuclear weapon, but the report said the findings were not a cause for concern. State-owned company BNFL operates Sellafield.
"The 2003/04 figures in the attached table conform to the pattern over previous years and give no rise to concern over either the safety or the security of the operation of UKAEA (and) BNFL..," the report said.
A spokesman for the Department of Trade & Industry said there was "no evidence of real losses of nuclear material," while BNFL said the unaccounted plutonium was the result of statistical errors.
"None's gone missing, none's been stolen. This is an accounting exercise," said a BNFL spokesman.
"Sellafield handles such huge volumes that any small statistical error could result in what seems like a big figure," he added.
The amount of Sellafield plutonium that was unaccounted for is within the guidelines set by European nuclear regulator Euratom.
Those guidelines state that levels of unaccounted nuclear material must not exceed about 1 percent of plutonium throughput.
BNFL said the amount of plutonium unaccounted for at Sellafield represented about 0.5 percent of the plant's throughput.
