Government nuclear inspectors have raised serious questions over the safety of Britain's aging atomic power stations, some of which have developed major cracks in their reactor cores, documents revealed yesterday.
The safety assessments, obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation, show the Nuclear Safety Directorate (NSD) has issued warnings over the deterioration of reactor cores at Hinkley Point B in Somerset and other British nuclear plants. The directorate also criticizes British Energy, which operates 13 advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors (AGRs) including Hinkley.
According to the papers, the company does not know the extent of the damage to the reactor cores, cannot monitor their deterioration and does not fully understand why cracking has occurred.
The papers reveal that in June last year, the NSD said it was faced with "significant regulatory issues ... for all operating AGR reactors."
The NSD's most recent safety assessment of Hinkley, completed in April, warns that its continued operation is likely to increase the risk of an accident. While the NSD said it does not believe that there is any immediate radiation danger to the public, it said there is a possibility of serious faults developing that would force the long term or permanent closure of other nuclear plants of the same design.
"While I do not believe that a large release [of radiation] is a likely scenario, some lesser event ... is, I believe, inevitable at some stage if a vigilant precautionary approach is not adopted. There is an an increased likelihood of increased risk should we agree to continued operation," the inspector said.
The documents show the NSD wants more frequent and more probing inspections of the reactor cores at all Britain's AGR plants. These inspections require the reactors to be shut down for weeks.
The premature closing of any nuclear power plant could throw Britain's electricity supplies into chaos. Closure of Hinkley Point would be likely to lead to closure of at least three other nuclear stations built at the same time, which are also known to be suffering from cracks in their cores.
Cracks in the graphite brick cores of ageing reactors have been observed for some time but until now there has been little public knowledge of the extent of the problem. British Energy warned in 2004 that its Hinkley Point B, Hunterston B, Heysham 2 and Torness plants might not be able to be extend their 30 year lives because of cracked bricks, but it gave few details of the extent of the problem.
British Energy is keen to extend the life of its AGR reactors but the papers, obtained by Greenpeace via Stop Hinkley, a local nuclear watchdog group, suggest that unless British Energy improves safety checks, the plants might have to be closed.
The revelations come at a critical point, with the government's energy review expected to be published in the next two weeks and both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown having indicated that a new generation of nuclear power is needed.
On Tuesday the prime minister told the Commons liaison committee that he had altered his position in favor of nuclear power since the last white paper on energy policy in 2003.
"I'll be totally honest with you, I've changed my mind," he said.
British Energy said on Tuesday that it had provided new evidence to the NSD.
"If the Health and Safety Executive [the government body that oversees the NSD] were not confident in the safety of the reactor cores we would not allow the reactors to operate."
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