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A REPORT FROM an independent panel of international experts has claimed that a radioactive leak at Sellafield would have “no observable health effects in Ireland”.
The team, which includes nuclear physicists, chemists and engineers, was commissioned by the Irish government to make a risk assessment of what would happen if there were an incident at the nuclear site. Sellafield lies about 180km from Ireland’s coastline.
The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government has just released the report detailing the findings of the group.
The department says that the report is based on “previously unavailable information” and that it was an “objective and scientifically robust assessment of the risks to Ireland from Sellafield”. It is what is called a Probalistic Risk Assessment (PRA). It took into account many possible scenarios, including airplane crashes, terrorist attacks, fires, human error and natural events such as earthquakes or meteor strikes.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan said the report would be used to help form Irish government policies relating to Sellafield and nuclear policy in the UK. He did say, however, that Ireland should remain “vigilant” over Sellafield to be assured that the work being undertaken there to decommission the site is safe. He reaffirmed Ireland’s status as a non-nuclear country.
These are some of the key findings in the report:
The analysis showed that some radioactive materials could reach Ireland but at levels far below the dose levels that could cause observable health effects and well below the level of background radiation people normally receive each year. For all other PRA scenarios, doses would be much lower. While radioactive materials from the release could be detected using sensitive measurement equipment, the levels would not be enough to cause observable health effects in Ireland.
The National Audit Office in the UK said earlier this month that Sellafield posed “significant risks to people and the environment” in Cumbria. The NAO accused the site operators of failing to maintain many of its 1,400 buildings to a modern standard and warned that progress in sorting out the high-risk ponds and silos of the 1950s and 1960s was not moving swiftly enough.
The Sellafield Thorp reprocessing plant is to close in 2018. The Mox plant there closed down last year. A target of cleaning up the entire Sellafield site has been set for 2020 and €84bn earmarked for the decommissioning works.
This graphic is from today’s report to the Department of the Environment on the risk posed by various incident scenarios at Sellafield:
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Many if not most people seem to have an irrational fear of radiation. It’s not as dangerous as people think. It is an imperative that Ireland build its own Nuclear Power electricity generation stations asap if we are to meet out moral obligations to reduce CO2 emissions.
100% behind you
Don’t we already import electricity generated from nuclear sources in the UK? With new interconnectors in the pipeline too, the amount we import will rise significantly. There’s very little point in Ireland beginning work on its own reactor now, when; by the time of completion the technology would be almost obsolete.
@Pierce2020 How far behind him, and are you also behind some sort of shielding?
I presume you don’t own a smartphone with that attitude. The ones they would build now won’t be obsolete, they would be the latest ones. We’re still decades away from Nuclear Fusion.
Joking.
As I say I grew up about 10 miles from a nuclear power station.
Exactly how long would it take to build one.. including the whole drawn out processes of acquiring planning permission and the politicking that would surround such a move?
I can’t imagine the IMF etc giving it the nod in any case. It would be quite an Irish endeavor though.. to start work on one; when other, more advanced and wealthier nations are currently phasing out the use of nuclear plants… bless.
mart_n, by the time it’s finished Ireland, fresh from reunification with the North, will be experiencing a period of unbridled growth and prosperity.
Mart, about 10 years to build one. We could always build a couple at the same time. That could be speeded up if we got real with the regulations. There is FAR less pollution from a NP plant than from virtually any other form of electricity generation so why should planning be an issue?
No large geographic area of the world is reducing NP. It’s projected to increase by 2-3% per year. I suspect it will be more than that as the anti-nuclear brigade are falling away because many of them now realise, the least religious/pagan/earth worshipping/fanatical of them, that it’s not dangerous and FAR better than causing dangerous climate change.
Irish government are in the pockets of the oil lobby will not develop alternative energy supplies when curtailment of wind and wave power grants but pressing ahead with oil and gas exploration in nominal Irish waters where the profits will go abroad compared to Norway’s oil and gas approach is a stark reality
Mac, it’s completely daft to suggest the Irish Government ministers, their civil servants and the TDs are being bribed by the oil industry. You must have turf for brains to think that. Wind is a total con for most purposes and wave hasn’t been developed yet. Wave, like wind, is also intermittent which makes it almost useless.
Small scale Japanese plants yes, but green energy is the way forward.
The day of large scale nuke plants is over.
Punch.., your statement is simply daft. Lots of very large nuclear plants are being planned and built.
NP IS green energy and the only one that works. The rest are wishful thinking by those who can’t think.
William, what about the disposal of spent fuel and the decommissioning of plants when they reach their end of life cycle. You seem to be focused simply on the safety while in operation, which is terribly short-sighted. The main reason for Germany’s (and many others) phase-out of nuclear power is the sheer uneconomical and unsustainable nature of decommissioning and waste disposal.
Honestly looks like you’re basing your entire argument on some sort of pseudo-skeptical reasoning about the dangers of nuclear materials. What about bioaccumulation? Just because small doses aren’t immediately life threatening doesn’t mean that over the course of years; that organisms aren’t negatively affected… organisms which invariably end up in the food chain.
Should I bin my out of date iodine tablets?
Don’t tell Bono.
Christy Moore, Bono & his wife and Adi Roche (with a little non-sceptical help from Pat Kenny) are one of the major reasons the irrational fear of Nuclear Power exists in Ireland. Needless to say the bunch of cowards in the Dail didn’t want a fuss either, so carry on burning coal, oil and gas. Sod the climate.
Ireland needs nuclear power now, or as soon as the French can build us a power station.
Have you looked at the price tag of decommissioning the plant, or looked at the cost of building a new one?
On top of that, I’d trust the Irish government with nuclear energy as I trust my 3-year old with a matchbox! It’s just waiting for meltdown!
The Irish Government wouldn’t be running the plant. It would be run under the control of International bodies, trained scientists and engineers. I wouldn’t trust any of our politicians to fly a plane either.
Decommissioning anything costs money. Part of the extra cost of NP is associated with the irrational fear of radiation which is overly regulated and petty politics (Christy sings an anti-nuclear song and the politicians run a mile.)
William Grogan,
quite the little angry abrupt guy making your points, personal insults add nothing to your argument.
Firstly I cannot believe this statement
“Mac, it’s completely daft to suggest the Irish Government ministers, their civil servants and the TDs are being bribed by the oil industry. You must have turf for brains to think that. Wind is a total con for most purposes and wave hasn’t been developed yet. Wave, like wind, is also intermittent which makes it almost useless.
so lobby groups do not exist and backhanders don’t happen in Ireland, WAKE UP
Secondly you keep saying wind and hydro as useless forms of power generation, true both have issues on standing alone as power generation, its the combination of both that ticks most of the boxes.
Ireland is uniquely suited to this form of power generation.
and you can keep on saying radiation does not cause health issue in small dose (what about continual does), but nobody is going to accept that, so continue to sight all that scientific paid for propaganda all you like, while you are at it why don’t you convince us that global warming is a natural occurrence and man has no part to play, there is plenty of so called scientific data out there to support that claim, but we know that’s not true either.
Mr Punch, there being lobby groups hardly equates with the statement “Irish government are in the pockets of the oil lobby”. Backhanders are very rare to politicians and civil servants in Ireland. To believe that politicians are being bribed to the extent that they are forming government policy on oil in a corrupt manner is a gross exaggeration and is a typical conspiracy theory. A lot of claims with no evidence.
I never mentioned Hydro and certainly not that it’s no use. It’s a very good way to generate electricity when it’s available. Wave you probably mean. Wave hasn’t been developed. Where they’ve tried it, it has failed.
What’s “scientific paid for propaganda” supposed to mean. That’s gibberish. Or is that me being angry, personal and abrupt?
I’ve read the following sentence a few times and can’t figure out are you claiming man made Climate Change is true or false; “why don’t you convince us that global warming is a natural occurrence and man has no part to play, there is plenty of so called scientific data out there to support that claim, but we know that’s not true either
I’m just reading the part pasted above, which basically states accidents ranging from minor equipment malfunctions to meteorite impacts, but the answer in the column headed,”Impact on Ireland” states for all of them, “No observable health impacts on Ireland.”
Really? There would be no observable health impacts on Ireland from a plane crashing into Sellafield? According to this if a meteorite hit the plant and the wind was blowing towards us and there was a full scale meltdown, the impact on Ireland would begin, “No observable health impacts on Ireland.”
The people who wrote this report should prove their assertions by going to Fukushima, they should live there for a few months and we can all see if there are any observable health impacts on them?
Dave, scientists know for a fact that living in Japan near those reactors wouldn’t have any health effects on them. Radiation isn’t some magic ghostly thing. It’s well understood. Below certain limits (much higher than regulation limits) it’s simple not dangerous.
@William
I’ve heard this view again and again since the explosion at Fukoshima, and I don’t believe it. I think partly it emanates from the nuclear industry but there are also alot of scientists who genuinely believe it, but I think its flawed. Because I think it would be very difficult to draw a cause and effect link between the radioactive particles that were released from say Fukoshima and the cancers (supposedly) that it will cause all around the world.
But just because it would be difficult to make the link scientifically, doesn’t mean that its safe, because it is scientifically proven that many of those radioactive substances are poisonous. But what you seam to be saying is that they stop being poisonous once they are scattered all over the atmosphere? I don’t believe that for second, because we know that in a lab they are poisonous.
Dave, scientists, at least good ones, don’t “believe” in things. They prove or disprove things. I can’t explain science and part of the problem is that most people have a very poor grasp of how science works. If you want to really understand that NP is not particularly dangerous and that radiation is also harmless in low doses you have to start reading up on the subject. It’s ALL about dose, the same as all poisons. Did you know you have 1,000,000,000 atoms of Radioactive Uranium in your body?
Try this http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
Here’s an excerpt
Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated. Although those most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure.
WG: The thyroid cancer rate would have been far less if the Communists hadn’t tried to keep the accident a secret, handed out Iodine tablets to children and evacuated people from the vicinity immediately rather than wait days. So Totalitarian Communism was the cause of the injury to those children. Btw about 20 of them died, the rest recovered. Chernobyl killed less than 50 people in total. No reactor remotely like Chernobyl would be built today. It was a complete heap of sh1t.
Dave there are no reactors at Sellafield. They were decommissioned in the 90s. At present Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing facility which turns spent uranium into plutonium for further use. It is all powered by gas turbines. So a meltdown similar to Chernobyl or Fukushima cannot happen there.
Fabio, that is why wind/hydro should be combined to meet different levels of demand and it also takes out problems surrounding wind energies inconsistencies
As regards Fukushima, that was a nuclear meltdown caused by a super-critical nuclear reactor. Sellafield is a waste-processing plant with no reactors or fission events so a meltdown is not possible.
There are other functioning reactors on the Irish sea however, I wonder why they weren’t considered.
As far as I understand the spent uranium can become critical again, it doesn’t matter if its being used to generate energy or not, there is no off switch. One of the major problems in Fukushima was a storage facility, where the rods where in danger of becoming super-critical. So storage facilities and re-processing plants are dangerous. There is a risk no matter how small of material becoming critical, heating up, and melting through its protective bunkers.
Also on the report on thyroid cancer. That report looks at thyroid cancer and only thyroid cancer, it doesn’t investigate any other types of cancer. It screens 12,500 people for thyroid cancers, not any other cancers. The report shows that radioactive iodine causes thyroid cancer. It doesn’t claim that there weren’t other types of cancers at all.
The Chernobyl disaster caused the biggest group of cancers ever from a single event. Thyroid cancers and lung cancers are the most studied. The bulk of the research on Chernobyl is focused on those who were children at the time or those who were workers at the time, and it shows that there were huge health effects for those groups.
Dave, you’re totally wrong. Scientists have studied ever cancer there is and every disease they can think of as a result of Chernobyl (and the dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan). Other than Thyroid Cancer there isn’t a shred of evidence any other disease was caused. You’re just making stuff up. You need extremely high doses of radiation to get cancer. VERY few people got that dose. It’s all about dose.
I asked you a question (in fact there was an error in my number), do you know that we all have about 1,000,000,000,000 atoms of radioactive Uranium in our bodies? How come we don’t all have cancer then?
Dave, re “the spent uranium can become critical again …etc..”. You’re wrong. The spent fuel is just that spent. It can leak but a reaction can’t start again. You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Have you?
William, Uranium is one of the most commonest elements on the planet, if you are using that as an argument you really are a fool.
Everything I stated in my last comment is true. The vast bulk of research in Chernobly was on those who were children at the time or those who were workers, thats a fact.
“”Dave, re “the spent uranium can become critical again …etc..”. You’re wrong. The spent fuel is just that spent. It can leak but a reaction can’t start again. You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Have you?”"
Yes it is spent, but if there are enough rods stored in close proximity, and the solution covering them begins to disappear there is a risk of the fuel becoming critical again. Which I seem to remember is what scientist after scientist were saying when they were interviewed during the Fukoshima disaster.
Dave, the rods might heat up but they CANNOT become critical. What possible relevance is it that Uranium is common, and it isn’t that common on the surface of the Earth btw. It’s radioactive. The EXACT same sort of radiation that leaked from Chernobyl and Fukushima. So why don’t we all get cancer as children and why hasn’t all life disappeared from the Earth? You obviously know zilch about this science. Read some books on the subject and stop making silly untrue statements.
That’s the great thing about science, it’s true whether or not you believe it
I grew up about 8 to 10 miles (as the crow flies) from a nuclear power station and there’s aboslutely wibble wrong with me. It’s quite safe.
Then why have you got a tail and 12 fingers?
Well according to your profile pic your look more like a cartoon than a human… That could be from the radiation!
Yes, Joseph, that’s a photo. My secret is revealed!
I only realised after I posted that comment that mine is a caricature!
Be grand so, if the government says its safe , they wouldn’t lie would they?
Phew
That & more Fairytales of Ireland !
William, wrong! If u research you may find big differences in style of plants being built in Japan, you seem to use Japan as a example further down the thread.
Also Japan has and is investing in a combination of wind/hydro plants, BTW this is something Ireland can build at a fraction of the cost due to natural geography here
Also insults are a sign of low intelligence in any debate
Good news but, Minister Hayes and Co have identified that site at Cumbria as one of their 8 proposed sites for new Nuclear generation by 2025!. With coalition’s agreement on the Energy Bill last week we learned that nuclear gen in the UK will get a favourable subsidy and the two French giants EDF and Areva have wasted no time with EDF being grated a licence to build a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset last Monday!! With all this additional power coming online, wind energy generators stand no chance of trying to compete with a variable energy versus a Nuclear which can be easily ramped up or down. Interesting times ahead for FiT recipients!!
Nuclear plants can’t be ramped up and down easily, they take a couple of days to reach a steady operating point.
Yes you can. I’m referring to ramping ‘up & down’ to meet a baseload, same, a wind turbine cannot meet predicted baseload demands!
No, I mean hydro, not wave, specially hydro combined with wind, this is the way forward. (spirit of Ireland project for example)
My point regarding global warming was simple, their is much info produced from both sides of the argument with both using “Scientific Data” to support there claims, this also exists in the nuclear argument.
Backhanders are very rare to politicians and civil servants in Ireland.,, Your Evidence!
but thats not the point the point is these people are actively lobbied and convinced and the decision makers in this country lack the knowledge combined with little transparency all leads to misinformed and ill-conceived plans.
What’s “scientific paid for propaganda” supposed to mean. That’s gibberish. Or is that me being angry, personal and abrupt? what do you think it means, it means data is produced/funded by one side of the argument to support there case, I don’t understand you confusion! are you that innocent William?
BTW, I am not against NP in principal. Modern advances have made this a much safer cleaner form of energy production, i just feel Ireland can produce power without it due to our geographical position and make up.
That ought to be the biggest pile if bullcrap released by the government this week
Unfortunately you’re wasting your time trying to convince the Irish public that nuclear energy is safe, its like incineration, just mention the word and people have a fit. There’s a completely irrational fear or nuclear energy both here and in many countries around the world.
I visited Sellafield in the mid 90s, very interesting tour of every major element of the operation, Thorp, MOX, Chalder Hall etc. The tales from the staff were very scary and blackly funny, especially the Wire Brush and Dettol crew. If someone registered radioactive the wire brush and Dettol crew arrived to scrub the victim, remove the outer layer of skin.
Calder Hall was straight out of a 1950s Quatermass Sci Fi. As we were leaving I asked what the big red button on the wall was, “To turn off the next door reactor”. There was two reactors next to each other, one man operated his reactor and monitored the one next door. If there was a problem, he could jump up and press the big red button, turning off next doors reactor in a few seconds. It was scary that one man operated the reactor, what if he wanted to cause an accident, would the big red button work in time.
There was no need for the scrubbing they overestimated the risk.
They were worried about plutonium particles stuck to the skin, not brief exposure to external radiation. If Pu gets on your skin it can get absorbed and result in dangerous chronic exposure.
On exiting Thorp, you have to go through these booths, a bit like old Telephone booths, they have steel turnstiles and thick stainless steel bars. They are full body radiation scanners. If they detect that you’re contaminated, an alarm sounds and you get locked inside. You then wait for the wire brush and dettol crew.
Think of the positives : It’d give us all a nice healthy green glow and we would save a fortune on lighting!
That’s only in the cartoons. :)
Thank you Mr. Burns.
@William CO2 targets aren’t moral obligations!-if they were nobody would sign up to them!
Maybe get a fusion plant going and forget about fission which has far to much waste material. Although we are only reaching break even point with fusion as it is, at least it’s less likely to pass off carcenagenic radiation from a chain reaction.
As far as I know, there has NEVER been any evidence of cancers caused by ANY Nuclear Power Station, including Chernobyl. As I said above Nuclear Fusion is decades away.
Radiation only causes cancer if the dose is very high indeed. High enough to nearly kill you on the spot. In other words you have to be blasted by radiation to have a significant risk of getting cancer.
Most radiation that gets into the environment comes from burning coal.
Mr Bean, if ALL your energy came from NP, the total high level waste that you would “generate” in your entire life is about the size of a bar of soap. This waste can be put back from where we got it, in the ground.
Decades and the rest of a few centuries before fusion is a reality. Our sun is a fusion reactor and have you ever tried to make your own star?
I’m in favour of nuclear but that’s a bit extreme, a couple of dozen firemen and power station staff died of acute radiation poisoning in the months after the Chernobyl accident. Then there’s statistical evidence of ~15 excess deaths from Thyroid cancer. But excess cancers are only reliably detected if the excess ~20% above average. In any case, looking at Japanese Atom Bomb survivors were there was 600 excess cases of cancer, we can be quite certain that the physical heath effects on Ukrainian civilians was very minor, but psychological effects are a very different matter.
I will read the report, but I suspect the risks were calculated assuming people will be evacuated if needed, food and water monitored.
These were probably the same type of experts who told us that the property market would have a soft landing, HELP.
Are we really to believe that? They’d say anything to justify its existence.
Everything is fine, go back to sleep people. Your government cares for your safety.
Can’t be as bad as the quality of our bathing water… 3 eyed fishy methinks
In all my days I’ve never known such a busy environment minister! I swear I see more of phil than I do Enda.
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