Journal 62 60p Fuel Store Controversy p 3 Magnox - Are They Safe? ~~ ~ -- ·-- 1 Coal Emissions - No Easy Solution 11.::=:.~~ CONTENTS COMMENT .Fuel Store Controversy 3 A year ago Babcock, the West of Scotland boiler STEVE MARTIN reports on the growing manufacturers, made 620 workers redundant due opposition to dry store proposals. News 4-6 to a lack of orders. They have now announced a Finnish Nuclear Power 7 further 475 job losses, despite securing Following a visit to Finland this summer, contracts for steam generators and pipework THOM DIBDIN reveals faults in their reactors. for Sizewell B. This makes 5000 redundancies Hinkley C - The Campaign Begins. 8 in 5 years. The STUC believe the Government CRISPIN AUBREY explains how the campaign against the second PWR is building. should hove brought forward orders for coal­ Mognox - Are They Safe? 9 fired stations instead of freezing orders during The Nil have given Bradwell a conditional the Sizewell Inquiry. However, it's difficult extension. JAMES GARRET asks whether to imagine, such a pro-nuclear government Berkeley will get the same treatment. announcing coal stations in the middle of o Energy Review Continues 10 MIKE MALINA gives the background to the nuclear inquiry and so soon after the miners' TUC's decision to continue their nuclear strike. energy review. The future of the UK Power Engineering US Waste Mess 11 Industry now looks pretty bleak. Lord Marshall PETE ROCHE has been looking at the current has already mode it plain to the TUC Energy US nuclear waste management proposals. Juggling With Figures 12-13 Committee that he does not wont two British DAVID WEBSTER analyses the NRPB's suppliers of power station equipment. In other technical appendices to their EEC Chernobyl words, after privatisation, NEI-Porsons would report, and concludes it was misleading. be superfluous. GEC-Bobcock, Morsholl's Playing With Robots 14 preferred choice, would probably be forced to With the announcement that the Windscale piles are to be decommissioned PETE ROCHE compete with overseas suppliers like Mitsubishi examines the present status of decommissioning. of Japan. Business As Usual 15 The NUM in Sheffield reckon that 100,000 PATRICK GREEN reports on the ICRP's jobs ore at risk because of privatisation, and decision not to change their regulations. another 70,000 jobs could be lost by the knock­ Cool Emissions - No Easy Solution 16-17 on effects. MIKE TOWNSLEY investigates the different systems for limiting emissions from coal-fired There is no doubt that we urgently need power stations. changes in the way our electricity industry is Cornish Energy Study 18 organised. We need to make sure that energy CHARMIAN LARKE reports on the progress conservation con compete fairly with new of the Cornwall Energy Project's work to supply; we need to ensure small generators - reduce energy consumption in the County. Appropriate Technology. 19-21 preferably dominated by local authority-run Reviews. 22-23 CHP stations and small-scale renewable Little Black Rabbit 24 projects - con receive o reasonable price for electricity which they produce; we need to CRISPIN AUBREY is a journalist and local introduce more democracy into what has organiser for Stop Hinkley Expansion. become o bureaucratic monster. JAMES GARRETT is a freelance journalist However, we are not convinced, as some working in Bristol. people seem to be, that privatisation is the MIKE MALINA is eo-choir of the Socialist best hope for closing down nuclear power on Environment & Resources Association. the grounds of econpmics. Cecil Porkinson has DAVID WEBSTER is a senior housing officer made it quite clear that he is determined to maintain 0 substantial nuclear programme. with the city of Glasgow. After all there ore plenty of ways of hiding PATRICK GREEN is FoE's radiation consultant subsidies to the nuclear industry - top secret CHARMIAN LARKE is Director of the defence payments for plutonium, for example. Cornwall Energy Project. They hod better think again before they find Views expressed in articles appearing in this themselves supporting something which Journal ore not necessarily those of SCRAM. threatens 170,000 jobs. Editor: Steve Martin News Editor: Thorn Dibdin Features Editor: Pete Roche Appropriate Technology: Mike T ownsley This Journal is produced for the British Anti-Nuclear and Safe Energy movements by the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace. We welcome contributions of articles, news, graphics and photographs. Deadline for the next issue: Articles (900 words/pdge), 4 December News & graphics, 11 December ISSN 0140 7340 Bi-monthly. SCRAM, 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh EHl 3LE. Tel: 031 557 4283/4. 2 SCRAM. Journal November/December 1987 Fuel Store Controversy below those of foreign contracts. At Rumours of a dry storage facility to be built at Chapelcross, the signing of the £1.6 billion contract have intensified the anti-nuclear waste struggle in South West for the first ten years' worth of AGR Scotland yet again. STEVE MARTIN analyses recent develop­ fuel in April 1986, the electricity board chairmen announced that they ments and the nuclear industry's motives. were getting a better deal than The nuclear industry are trying to Lancaster City Council's Policy overseas customers. maintain a low profile over plans for a Committee in April, Labour Group The current dry store proposal is £200 million spent fuel dry storage Leader Abbot Bryning said, "I have seen os an insurance policy against facility, despite an announcement mode sometimes thought in the post that we increased costs, or THORP being out in April lost year that they were ore a bit of a soft option when it of commission for long periods due to interested in building such a plant. comes to the construction of nuclear accident or maintenance - it will be The announcement was mode jointly power sites." capable of storage for up to 100 years. by the Central Electricity Generating In south-west Scotland political Because the plant is a CEGB/SSEB Board (CEGB) and the South of opinion is divided - Nithsdale District initiative, BNFL would like to have it Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) when Council and Dumfries and Galloway on their land so they can have an they signed contracts with British Regional Council hove both passed input into management and operational Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) for reprocessing motions opposing the development; decisions. The CEGB ore reported to irradiated fuel from their Advanced Stewortry District ore marginally in be in favour of their site so they con Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). Two favour; and Annondole and Eskdole dictate terms and use it os a possible locations have been suggested District, in whose area the plant lies, bargaining counter when the time - the CEGB's Heyshom nuclear power "do not oppose" it. comes to negotiate the terms of the station near Lancaster, and BNFL's At a public meeting in Dumfries next ten year contract. Chopelcross works near Annon in south­ on 17 September nearly 100 people west Scotland. voted overwhelmingly to oppose the TRANSPORT CONGESTION Observers see the emergence of the plans, and a 'watchdog' committee has two possible sites os the public been set up to monitor developments Whereas dry storage of spent fuel manifestation of a bitter feud within and focus opposition. is preferable to reprocessing because the nuclear industry. The CEGB would it does not disperse radioactivity like to see the plant built at Heyshom, JOBS BLACKMAIL throughout the environment, one single but BNFL have proposed Chapelcross. In centralised facility is not the answer. either case the plant is to be built by The proponents of each site hove It will mean spent fuel from all the the electricity boards. advanced employment arguments to UK's AGR and PWR stations (and high The proposed dry store, which will support their choice. At Lancaster level waste from Sellafield) converging cover an area of 20 hectares, is meant construction work is nearing on tile chosen site; overseas spent fuel os on interim 'buffer' store for spent completion on Heyshom 2, the second should also not be discounted. fuel from the UK's 14 AGRs awaiting AGR power station there, with the The store has been designed by the treatment at Sellofield. The Thermal consequent effect on unemployment National Nuclear Corporation and could Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) is le.,els. Chapelcross is the second oldest handle ten spent fuel flasks a day, currently under construction, and will nuclear complex in the country, the requiring 3 to 5 trainloods arriving not be fully operational until 1992. first of its four 60MW(e) plutonium each day. Chapelcross does not production mognox reactors was presently have a direct roil link and OPPOSITION GROWING commissioned in February 1959, and spent fuel from the site, and its according to BNFL, "We hove to look nearest railway station at Annan has The CEGB soy they need the buffer to the long-term future of Chopelcross. now been downrated to an unstaffed store because the stainless steel The power station is not going to run halt; without a rail link the south-west cladding of AGR fuel slowly corrodes forever." Sir Hector Munro, Tory MP corner of Scotland faces the prospect if kept under water, the current for Dumfries, is backing the plans of ten slow-moving low-loader nuclear storage system, for over 10 years. because it could create 100 full-time transports a day moving through a The store will also be capable of jobs and 1700 construction jobs - the particularly congested section of taking spent fuel from Pressurised complex currently employs 650 people. motorway. Water Reactors (PWRs) and even However, employment is on issue It appears that the communities of vitrified high level nuclear waste. which the nuclear industry is fond of Lancaster and Annon ore being used os Concern has already been expressed using in these days of increasing pawns in a dispute within the nuclear in both areas.