The Sellafield body parts inquiry has hit a major legal hitch after a doctor suggested his patients’ medical records should remain confidential – even though they are dead.
Michael Redfern QC is leading an inquiry into claims organs and tissue were secretly removed from workers at Sellafield and other nuclear plants without the knowledge of bereaved loved ones.
The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield has restarted commercial operations three years after it was closed following a radioactive leak - a development that should ease the funding crisis at the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or Thorp, at the nuclear complex in west Cumbria, is a large source of income for the owner NDA, which is responsible for cleaning up the UK's nuclear reactor sites and dealing with radioactive waste.
A nuclear plant built at a cost of £470m to provide atomic fuel to be used in foreign power stations has produced almost nothing since it was opened six years ago, the government has admitted.
The mixed oxide (Mox) facility at Sellafield in Cumbria - which was opposed by green groups as uneconomic - was originally predicted to have an annual throughput of 120 tonnes of fuel.
By Rebecca Bream, Utilities Correspondent
Mon Oct 22 23:06:32 EDT 2007
The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Sellafield is set to restart full commercial operations in the new year, almost three years after it was closed following a radioactive leak.
London (Platts)–24Aug2007The UK’s Oldbury-2 magnox reconnected to the grid August 23, operatorMagnox North said August 24. A fire and then turbine vibrations kept thereactor offline most of the time since May 30. Oldbury-2, one of the fourremaining operating magnox reactors, underwent a 23-month outage until May 27to determine the extent of graphite depletion in its core. It operated onlythree days before a May 30 fire on the non-nuclear side of the plant forcedits shutdown.
