60 Years On
On October 10th it will be exactly sixty years since the Windscale Fire. We are organising a serious of events that day in conjunction with Radiation Free Lakeland as a part of Working Alliance.
What exactly caused the fire is somewhat difficult to explain, especially as it involves explaining what happens to graphite when exposed to radiation, and Wigner energy.
Thus we would recommend you to read the following article in the Journal of Radiological Protection.
The Windscale reactor accident—50 years on
Capenhurst in the news
At the start of September it was reported that:- Urenco tails plant to start up in 2018‘Uranium enrichment company Urenco yesterday said it expects to commission the Tails Management Facility (TMF) at Capenhurst in the UK in 2018, after construction delays. The facility, to deconvert depleted uranium hexafluoride tails, had previously been expected to enter service this year. ‘
Following on Brexit
It is now a couple of years since we heard much about the proposed sale of URENCO in the British press.
Though we did find find the following upon the URENCO website:
Statement from URENCO as the UK notifies of intention to withdraw from the European Union.
The part of this statement being:-
‘In a post-Brexit landscape URENCO will ensure that we sustain normal operations across all our facilities and continue to deliver on our commitments to our customers.’
Which might be summed up as them saying that it is – Business As Usual
This follows on from what we were asking earlier in the year.
Who Will Regulate URENCO Post Brexit ?
Yet given the very shambolic way in which the Brexit negotiations are being conducted, we still wonder what might happen if there is no clear post Brexit deal worked out within the next 18 months.
No Sale – For Now
During 2015 there were a number of news stories about the proposed sale of URENCO.
After that there was nothing published in the UK press about this proposed sale.
So we were very interested to learn the following of late from our friends in Stichting Laka :-
‘In October last year the Dutch Economic Affairs minister officially announced that the sale was off for now. No agreement could be reached about the possibility that Urenco would be sold on the stock market.
That is: the Dutch and UK governments agreed on that, but the German government did not.’
No doubt this will not be the end of this sale proposal, but at the moment it is just another case of Business As Usual.
Speaking of which.
If you are involved in any group or organisation which would like someone from the Close Capenhurst Campaign or Working Alliance to talk about any aspect of nukiller power then please let us know.
Between us we can talk every aspect of the Nukiller Fuel Cycle, Nukiller New Build, and Radioactive Waste Disposal.
To arrange a speaker just contact us via Closecapenhurst@gmail.com