Plutonium 'missing' from Sellafield
Sellafield nuclear plant cannot account for 30kg of plutonium which has “gone missing” from its site, it was reported today.
Figures published by the British Nuclear Group (BNG) each year reveal an audit of nuclear material which is admitted and processed by the various plants around Britain.
According to The Times, 30kg of plutonium has gone astray in this process at Sellafield.
But the nuclear plant insisted that, even if this figure was accurate, it would not be an amount that would raise concerns.
A BNG spokeswoman at Sellafield said: “This is material that is unaccounted for, and there is always a discrepancy between the physical inventory and the book inventory.
“There is no suggestion that any material has left the site.”
The Sellafield spokeswoman said the most likely reason for any shortfall was due to the complex measuring processes that are carried out.
“When you have got a complicated chemical procedure, quite often material remains in the plant,” she said.
“We are extremely confident with the safety and security measures we have here at the site.”
Asked if the 30kg figure was a cause for concern, she said: “I wouldn’t say we would be alarmed by it, because we are only talking about a book figure here.”
Guidelines issued by the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) say that material unaccounted for must not exceed 3% of the amount that is processed.
If the 30kg figure is accurate, it would equate to around 0.1% of that amount, the spokeswoman said.
“We work in tonnes rather than kilogrammes. Hundreds of tonnes of nuclear materials are processed here.”
Sellafield is monitored by the UK's Office for Civil Nuclear Security, which looks at all the nuclear sites across Britain.
In 2003, the processing plant revealed that there were 19kg of plutonium unaccounted for.
“We have published these figures since the seventies,” the spokeswoman said. “Some years there is an apparent gain. Some years there is an apparent loss.
“It is all to do with the complex measuring procedures that we have to carry out.”
Plutonium makes up 1% of the nuclear material handled at the Cumbrian nuclear plant. The rest is uranium.
