REDUCTION IN UK NUCLEAR WARHEAD NUMBERS BEGINS
The Ministry of Defence has announced that the programme for implementing reductions in the number of UK nuclear warheads outlined in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has now commenced.
Significant safety problems have been exposed in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) response to an accident involving nuclear weapons after an emergency exercise in East Anglia last year.
Photo: The explosives processing facility which caught fire, showing the burnt-out frontage of the building. (Credit: AWE)
An official annual report has found “significant weaknesses” in the Ministry of Defence's safety performance and plots a deteriorating trend in military safety.
“Numerous difficulties” were experienced by agencies involved in fighting a serious fire at the Berkshire factory where Britain's nuclear warheads are made because of the security status of the site and the time of day the fire broke out, according to a fire service debrief report for the incident- which is available for download at the bottom of this article.
Emergency plans for the explosives technology facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston have been released into the public domain (available for download at the bottom of this article) following a series of questions from Members of Parliament.
Following the fire in the explosives area at Aldermaston on 3 August 2010 Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, enquired about the emergency arrangements which were implemented in fighting the fire.
The Health and Safety Executive's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has completed an interim assessment of the implications of the Fukushima nuclear emergency in Japan and concluded that the UK nuclear industry can learn a number of lessons from the incident, although the current operations of UK nuclear plants need not be curtailed.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE REJECTS LINKS BETWEEN NUCLEAR PLANTS AND LEUKEMIA
A government advisory committee on radiation and health has concluded that there is no significant evidence of an association between the risk of childhood leukaemia and living in proximity to a nuclear power station.
Secret information inadvertently released by the Ministry of Defence reveals that the reactors powering the UK's nuclear submarine fleet are twice as likely to suffer a catastrophic accident as civil nuclear reactors and reactors on US Navy submarines.
Nuclear Information Service is calling for the Royal Navy's nuclear propulsion programme to be included within the scope of the Health and Safety Executive's review of the UK nuclear industry following the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The UK's nuclear submarines are powered by pressurised water reactors (PWR) but, according to an official report, the Navy's nuclear reactor programme “currently falls short of current relevant good practice.
US-UK CO-OPERATION ON WARHEAD FUSE DESIGN PAVES THE WAY TOWARDS A NEW BRITISH WARHEAD
UK nuclear weapon scientists are co-operating with colleagues in the USA to develop upgrades to a US nuclear warhead design, according to budget documents prepared by the US Department of Energy.
The nuclear reactors which power the Royal Navy's fleet of submarines do not meet civilian standards of safety according to secret documents released to the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament under the Freedom of Information Act.
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