U.K. nuclear employees ordered to stay home amid increased radiation levels

[bananas]

Source: NBC News

The United Kingdom's largest nuclear plant ordered thousands of workers to stay at home Friday after recording increased levels of radioactivity, its operator said.

The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site, in Cumbria, north-west England, told all non-essential employees not to come to work after the elevated levels were picked up by a monitor at the north end of the site.

"Levels of radioactivity detected are above naturally occurring radiation but well below that which would call for any actions to be taken by the workforce on or off the site," said a statement posted on Sellafield's website.

"The site is at normal status and employees and operational plants are continuing to operate as investigations continue. All our facilities have positively confirmed there are no abnormal conditions and are operating normally."

<snip>

Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/31/22518084-uk-nuclear-employees-ordered-to-stay-home-amid-increased-radiation-levels

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Just saw this on the tv news crawler.

[bananas]

1. BBC: Sellafield partly closed after 'above normal' radiation

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-25975785

31 January 2014 Last updated at 09:32 ET

Sellafield partly closed after 'above normal' radiation

The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria is partially closed after "elevated levels of radioactivity" were detected.

Each building was checked after a perimeter alarm was triggered at the north of the site.

The company later said it was naturally occurring background radiation and not attributable to any issue or problem with any operation on site.

<snip>

Rory O'Neill, director of stakeholder relations, said: "One of the 20-odd site perimeter monitors that we have is registering above normal levels of radiation.

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In a statement, The Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We are in constant contact with Sellafield, but we have no reason to believe that it is any more serious than they've said."

Part of the plant is being cleared to allow detailed investigations and the "relevant experts" are on site, a Sellafield spokesman said.

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[DeSwiss]

2. A 68 year old site.

All of these old decrepit nuclear sites and dumps are falling apart. And it'll just get worse.

K&R

[dipsydoodle]

3. As far as I'm aware

all that Sellafield does is sit there being decommissioned - it no longer generates energy.

[kristopher]

4. That place is a shining example of everything that can go wrong with nuclear power.

They are still engaged in reprocessing:

Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or THORP, is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, England. THORP is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and operated by Sellafield Ltd (which is the site licensee company). Spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors is reprocessed to separate the 96% uranium and the 1% plutonium, which can be reused in mixed oxide fuel, from the 3% radioactive wastes, which are treated and stored at the plant. The uranium is then made available for customers to be manufactured into new fuel.
THORP is due to close in 2018 once all existing reprocessing contracts have been fulfilled.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Oxide_Reprocessing_Plant

The Conservative government has identified Sellafield as one of 8 sites where they want to place more nuclear plants.

The place is a disaster area.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. British nuclear plant says radiation alert caused by natural radon gas

The plant's operating company said there was nothing wrong with its operations, but for several hours the cause of the higher reading at an air monitor near a perimeter fence was unclear, raising fears of a radioactive leak.

Before midday, the operating company, Sellafield Ltd, said it had found that radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas that comes from rocks and soil, was the cause.

"This is a very rare occurrence and the alert is over. Everything will be back to normal on Saturday," said a spokesman from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the public sector body that owns the site.
...
It was the first time local inhabitants could recall staff being sent home.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/uk-britain-sellafield-idUKBREA0U0CW20140131

Strange to have an increase of radon ...