Cad News

The first shipment of highly radioactive waste from the UK has left the Sellafield nuclear site, the BBC has learnt.
It has been loaded onto a ship specifically designed to carry nuclear waste that will sail for Japan later.
The waste is a by-product of nuclear fuel spent by Japanese reactors that was sent to the UK for reprocessing during the 1980s and 1990s.
Some campaigners have criticised the shipments, saying they are dangerous.
Standing next to a 113-tonne metal cylinder filled to the brim with highly radioactive waste is a good way to get the heart racing – especially when that cylinder is dangling mid-air from a moving crane.
But the small group of workers at the Sellafield nuclear complex remain calm during the careful loading of the first ever high-level nuclear waste shipment set to leave the UK.
But if the workers are cool, their cargo is hot. The flask, which is being shipped to Japan, contains 28 steel canisters filled with high-level nuclear waste, each emitting heat.
As I brush against the steel surface, I can feel a warm breeze of air coming from the shiny metal.
Following the journey of the waste
“It is highly irresponsible for the industry to still be sending this kind of material across the world,” said anti-nuclear campaigner Martin Forward.
But Sellafield spokesman Mike Johnson said the site was simply fulfilling its contractual obligations, and government policy, in transporting the waste safely.
Only two countries, the UK and France, have been engaged in the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from power stations.
The process involves extracting reusable uranium and plutonium from the fuel, leaving behind a liquid waste.
Japan has storage facilities in place already, having received 12 shipments of high level nuclear waste from France in recent years.
Over the next decade, high-level waste will also be returned to European countries.
Returning waste to countries that have benefited from nuclear energy production is in line with both global agreements and UK government policy.
For Sellafield, it is also a source of revenue, as the company – which runs the site under a contract with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority – is being paid by the government for meeting targets set as part of a complex contract that involves the decommissioning, reprocessing and waste management at the site.
“This is a performance-based milestone,” Mike Johnson, executive director of Sellafield’s waste and effluent disposition, told BBC News. “This is one of the ways we earn our fees.”
Sellafield declined to reveal the payment details.
Sellafield’s high-level nuclear waste storage is one of the most concentrated sources of radioactivity anywhere in the world.
When measured by volume, 65% of Britain’s total waste is stored there, though it accounts for about 95% of the waste when measured by radioactivity.
It is also widely seen as the most complex nuclear facility in the world, because its waste is derived from a broad range of weapons and energy production – in the UK and abroad – during a period in history when the focus was more on quick solutions than on how to deal with their aftermath.
For the UK, the shipment goes one step towards reversing the country’s reputation as the nuclear dustbin of the world – although, over time, it will also lead to a fall in revenue from nations currently paying for their nuclear waste to be stored at Sellafield.