Staff at Dounreay nuclear plant can transfer their skills to a renewable energy "revolution" in Scotland, it has been claimed.
Scotland's environment secretary Richard Lochhead is expected to visit the Caithness site to see how the decommissioning process could be harnessed to create jobs in alternative energy production.
Robot submarines are to be used to sweep particles of plutonium and other radioactive materials from the seabed near one of Britain's biggest nuclear plants in one of the most delicate clean-up operations ever in this country.
Each submersible will be fitted with a Geiger counter and will crisscross the sea floor to pinpoint every deadly speck close to Dounreay on Scotland's north coast before lifting each particle and returning it to land for safe storage.
NEI, 18 January 2008 - UK firm JGC Engineering and Technical Services has won a £7.4 million contract to replace an old ventilation network at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland.
The old system, in the site’s fuel cycle area, is not up to modern standards and has been earmarked for upgrading for some time, partly due to radiological contamination.
The official cost of cleaning up 20 of Britain's nuclear facilities will be more than £73bn, 16% higher than estimated last year, according to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority yesterday. The latest rise in clean-up costs came as the government completed consultation on whether to proceed with a new generation of atomic plants, with one potential operator arguing there was a "moral imperative" to allow more to be built.
03 October 2007
Operators of the Dounreay nuclear plant in northern Scotland have come up with a seven-year plan to retrieve spent fuel particles from a section of seabed around the plant’s old active effluent outlet.
The plan to remove offshore particles is to be accompanied by the ongoing legal requirement to detect and remove particles from local beaches – work that is expected to total about £18–25 million.
The 0.6km2 section lies above the site’s old effluent diffusion chamber and is believed to be the main source of particle pollution washing up on local beaches, although there are other less significant suspected sources.
