Missing Plutonium

Sparks

From RTE:

Plutonium 'unaccounted for' at Sellafield

17 February 2005 07:30

Figures published today are said to show that up to 30kg of plutonium are unaccounted for in an audit of nuclear material stored at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

However Britain's Department of Trade and Industry has stressed that the material is not missing and that it is not unusual for annual audits to show nuclear material unaccounted for.

The figures have been published in The London Times newspaper.

Nuclear material stored at Sellafield is measured every year under International Atomic Energy Authority guidelines.

While the accounting loss does not mean any material has been stolen or diverted, it is thought such a large discrepancy will be an embarrassment for British Nuclear Fuels - the company which runs Sellafield - and the British government.

The government is about to embark on a lengthy process of making safe decommissioned nuclear sites across Britain.

Right, ignoring the obvious concerns:

• Is it really missing?
• 30kg of one of the most dangerous substances we know of is considered to be within an accounting error margin?
• Won't someone think of the children?

The interesting thing that popped into my head on this was at what point does this kind of malarky overrule national soverignity? If plutonium is so badly controlled in a plant on a coast like Windscale is, then should national soverignity be overridden by the threat to public safety in the state on the opposite coast, following Holmes' principle that the right to do something ends where it inflicts harm on others?

Villain

Well they seem to fighting the argument that it's not missing just unaccounted for??

Whats the bloody difference if they don't know where it is it coul be anywhere, I really do think sellafield is a disaster waiting to happen.

Sparks

The nuclear physicist they had on Morning Ireland this morning was explaining that the discrepency arose because they don't know how much plutonium comes into the plant in the first place as they can't directly measure it since it's a reprocessing plant It's like trying to measure how much silicon is in a container of sand - you can get a pretty good estimate but there'll always be a small error - and since there's so much material going through Windscale, that small error builds up. Thing is, that implies that there's never going to be a way to tell for sure if material goes missing...

Villain

Thats even more worrying, I can see the headline now:

"Plutonium container turns up in Courtown Harbour", then Sellafield say "Well it could be ours but we don't know how much we had"

Hobbes

This came up before. I think on slashdot and AFAIR it is possible for the count to be off as the stuff decays or something like that.

Same day it gets mentioned in the news Porter Goss goes in front of congress saying that a nuke could be in the hands of terrorists. But seriously why would anyone bother? There are much cheaper and easier ways to induce fear.

pickarooney

Hobbes wrote:

There are much cheaper and easier ways to induce fear.

Such as claiming there's missing piles of plutonium floating about in the sea?

mike65

Good to see this is being viewed for what it is....

Mike.

AmenToThat

Is this type of plutoniam of the type used in wmd's?
If so maybe Britain is aiding international terrorists?
If so it seems Syria and Iran have formed a coalition to ward off the Americans maybe they will let Britain join to form a united front..............

Victor

I hear DHL found an empty package in their depot in Baghdad signed "Saddam W. Hussein".

A lot of this will be plutonium stuck in pipes etc.

Boggle

Good to see this is being viewed for what it is....

Mike.

Well according to some fella on today FM last night, to date (in the last ?60? or so years) 50kg of the stuff has gone unaccounted for. They've lost 30kg in one foul swoop!

Whether this be by theft or miscalculation I do believe that these people are incapable of running a Nuke Reactor.

ressem

Possible that lots of the reprocessed pellets that they've been shipping over the years have been incorrectly made, as happened to the shipment that was returned from Japan that were not to spec (incorrect diameter, falsified QA).

So instead of terrorist nukes, we get 'minor issues' at plants around Europe.