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Cracks found in nuclear reactor that could lead to the full evacuation of Edinburgh and Glasgow
The
Hunterston B reactors in Ayrshire are the oldest in Europe, and
dangerous cracks have been found
8
March, 2019
The two reactors at Hunterston B nuclear power plant near Ardrossan are 43 years old - the oldest in Europe.
They're
already well beyond their operating lifetimes, which have twice been
extended by EDF Energy, and they're scheduled to close down for good
in 2023.
However,
there's a serious safety fault in the reactors. The fault is known as
keyway root-cracking: where the graphite moderator cores in the
reactors develop cracks leading to instabilities that could lead to a
major nuclear accident: which would lead to a large swathe of
Scotland's central belt having to be evacuated.
"In
the very worst case the hot graphite core could become exposed to air
and ignite leading to radioactive contamination of...the metropolitan
areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh."
The
reactors have been closed since October 2018 as a result, but owners
EDF Energy are currently making a case for turning them back on, with
help from trade union GMB.
Although
the probability of a meltdown is still low, the consequences could be
incredibly severe. In such an event, both Glasgow and Edinburgh would
need to be entirely evacuated due to radioactive contamination
According
to Dr
Ian Fairlie,
an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, and Dr
David Toke, Reader in Energy Policy at the University of Aberdeen,
the two reactors definitely should not be restarted. Speaking about
the cracks in the barrels, they say:
"This
is a serious matter because if an untoward incident were to occur –
for example an earth tremor, gas excursion, steam surge, sudden
outage, or sudden depressurisation, the barrels could become
dislodged and/or misaligned.
"These
events could in turn lead to large emissions of radioactive gases.
Further, if hot spots were to occur and if nuclear fuel were to react
with the graphite moderator they could lead to explosions inside the
reactor core.
The
reactor core is made up of 3,000 bricks; cracks run the full length
of one in 10 of them
"In
the very worst case the hot graphite core could become exposed to air
and ignite leading to radioactive contamination of large areas of
central Scotland, including the metropolitan areas of Glasgow and
Edinburgh."
Station
Director Colin Weir said: "Nuclear safety is our overriding
priority and reactor three has been off for the year so that we can
do further inspections.
"We've
carried out one of our biggest ever inspection campaigns on reactor
three, we've renewed our modelling, we've done experiments and tests
and we've analysed all the data from this to produce our safety case
that we will submit to the ONR.
"We
have to demonstrate that the reactor will always shut down and that
it will shut down in an extreme seismic event."
The
operational limit for the latest period of operation was 350 cracks
but an inspection found that allowance had been exceeded.
EDF
plans to ask the regulator for permission to restart with a new
operational limit of up to 700 cracks
.
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