Sellafield: Britains Nuclear Power Secrets Inside Sellafield Timeline
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Date: 2022-07-19
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Comments and reviews: 20
Alastair
My dad worked at Sellafield in the 50s and was there on the day the reactor caught fire. He said that staff were shouting at him to run for his life' as he arrived at 6am, and that his foreman told him they were messing about with the reactor, testing it overnight, when it caught fire. ' A small band of scientists took a look down the chimney and made the decision to flood the reactor, even though others thought this would cause a fracture of the vessel, and subsequent meltdown - the China syndrome. After the immediate emergency, the MOD who ran things there arranged for a whole load of radioactive items to be buried in a large pit within the site; vans, building materials, tools, clothing - all kinds of stuff that was heaviliy contaminated was dumped. The bits of buildings, clothing, bulldozers etc that weren't emitting high level radiation were allegedly stored at Drigg down the road, where the MOD had a gun range in the 60s - the waste is probably still there. For a few days after the '57 fire milk was thrown down the drains locally, but at my Grandparents farm which was just one mile away at Gosforth village, they held some back and drank it anyway. Gran lived to be 91, and after two years at Seascale school I've still got my hair, so I guess the radiated milk/crops we all ate back in the 50s/60s was no big deal.
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My dad worked at Sellafield in the 50s and was there on the day the reactor caught fire. He said that staff were shouting at him to run for his life' as he arrived at 6am, and that his foreman told him they were messing about with the reactor, testing it overnight, when it caught fire. ' A small band of scientists took a look down the chimney and made the decision to flood the reactor, even though others thought this would cause a fracture of the vessel, and subsequent meltdown - the China syndrome. After the immediate emergency, the MOD who ran things there arranged for a whole load of radioactive items to be buried in a large pit within the site; vans, building materials, tools, clothing - all kinds of stuff that was heaviliy contaminated was dumped. The bits of buildings, clothing, bulldozers etc that weren't emitting high level radiation were allegedly stored at Drigg down the road, where the MOD had a gun range in the 60s - the waste is probably still there. For a few days after the '57 fire milk was thrown down the drains locally, but at my Grandparents farm which was just one mile away at Gosforth village, they held some back and drank it anyway. Gran lived to be 91, and after two years at Seascale school I've still got my hair, so I guess the radiated milk/crops we all ate back in the 50s/60s was no big deal.
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Tom
! I remember year 2011 when I was working in the west coast of Norway. For a week after the Fukushima Da'ichi unit 3 explosion, with all the dark cloud above the Fukushima Dai'ichi facility, it rained almost continuously for a week afterwards. The rain had an odd metallic taste and caused nose bleeds. On my window ledge, the rain was carrying coarse black gritty particles. At other times in Norway, the rain never had such a metallic taste, nor left such coarse black particles.
Analysis: the debris from the explosion were carried in the jet stream and deposited over much of the world. Birds ingested the debris into their lungs, causing a massive bird die-off. The particles have landed on the surface of the oceans and is now poisoning the biosphere.
It only takes 200 kg of Plutonium thinly spread over the biosphere to end all life on Earth. It is then not surprising that are witnessing all these die-offs. Since year 2011, insect numbers in Europe have plummeted. Birds are rare to see in gardens. Automobile windscreens in the summer do not need to be cleared of insects.
It is very clear what we are now experiencing: the poisoning and collapse of the entire Earth biosphere in slow motion.
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! I remember year 2011 when I was working in the west coast of Norway. For a week after the Fukushima Da'ichi unit 3 explosion, with all the dark cloud above the Fukushima Dai'ichi facility, it rained almost continuously for a week afterwards. The rain had an odd metallic taste and caused nose bleeds. On my window ledge, the rain was carrying coarse black gritty particles. At other times in Norway, the rain never had such a metallic taste, nor left such coarse black particles.
Analysis: the debris from the explosion were carried in the jet stream and deposited over much of the world. Birds ingested the debris into their lungs, causing a massive bird die-off. The particles have landed on the surface of the oceans and is now poisoning the biosphere.
It only takes 200 kg of Plutonium thinly spread over the biosphere to end all life on Earth. It is then not surprising that are witnessing all these die-offs. Since year 2011, insect numbers in Europe have plummeted. Birds are rare to see in gardens. Automobile windscreens in the summer do not need to be cleared of insects.
It is very clear what we are now experiencing: the poisoning and collapse of the entire Earth biosphere in slow motion.
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Tom
Sellafield complex is a huge commercial white elephant and a major loss making activity for the UK. The original economic basis for Sellafield has been subsequently shown to be ill considered and incorrect. I feel sorry for the young people of today who are trying to clear up the mess caused by poor decisions and recklessness of their grandparents' generation. There are huge rotting tanks of acidic nuclear waste at Sellafield, not to mention the 500 kg of Plutonium Pu239 deposited into the Sellafield mud flats, not to forget all the hot particles along the Cumbrian coast and all the 20000+ barrels of nuclear waste dumped into the Atlantic Ocean during the 1960's and 1970's. Keeping Sellafield in operation is heavily loading the UK economy. Sensible countries such as Denmark and Norway shunned nuclear power for electricity generation because of the issues of coping with nuclear waste. Sweden is closing down all its nuclear reactors, likewise Germany, likewise Switzerland. Sentiment in Japan is now rather negative after the Fukushima Dai'ichi accident that many people envisage will be an extinction level event for humanity during the 50 years. !
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Sellafield complex is a huge commercial white elephant and a major loss making activity for the UK. The original economic basis for Sellafield has been subsequently shown to be ill considered and incorrect. I feel sorry for the young people of today who are trying to clear up the mess caused by poor decisions and recklessness of their grandparents' generation. There are huge rotting tanks of acidic nuclear waste at Sellafield, not to mention the 500 kg of Plutonium Pu239 deposited into the Sellafield mud flats, not to forget all the hot particles along the Cumbrian coast and all the 20000+ barrels of nuclear waste dumped into the Atlantic Ocean during the 1960's and 1970's. Keeping Sellafield in operation is heavily loading the UK economy. Sensible countries such as Denmark and Norway shunned nuclear power for electricity generation because of the issues of coping with nuclear waste. Sweden is closing down all its nuclear reactors, likewise Germany, likewise Switzerland. Sentiment in Japan is now rather negative after the Fukushima Dai'ichi accident that many people envisage will be an extinction level event for humanity during the 50 years. !
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Bill
The 2019 audit opinion issued in the annual financial statements was unqualified. It's clean. That said, it's not like they have much to report beyond reimbursement from the NDA and about a dozen pages worth of pension disclosures. What they do is important, but it's important for the wrong reasons. This is fundamentally a legacy operation that exists to bill taxpayers. It's a business model that requires subsidization, enormously expensive fixed assets, and operations that pose persistent and pervasive risk for all manner of contingent liabilities. It's stated clearly in the video that there is little commercial basis in MOx fuels. In my opinion, which has little basis in ISA (I'm not British, THORP creates a significant political, security and economic dependence on the company operating such a facility. Ball and chain.
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The 2019 audit opinion issued in the annual financial statements was unqualified. It's clean. That said, it's not like they have much to report beyond reimbursement from the NDA and about a dozen pages worth of pension disclosures. What they do is important, but it's important for the wrong reasons. This is fundamentally a legacy operation that exists to bill taxpayers. It's a business model that requires subsidization, enormously expensive fixed assets, and operations that pose persistent and pervasive risk for all manner of contingent liabilities. It's stated clearly in the video that there is little commercial basis in MOx fuels. In my opinion, which has little basis in ISA (I'm not British, THORP creates a significant political, security and economic dependence on the company operating such a facility. Ball and chain.
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Adam
Very interesting to watch. And tbh damning on the attitude of the U. K. at the time and probably now. There was a careless regard for safety in the U. K. for decades. It resulted in some horrendous disasters which could have easily not happened. And the leaks they talk of were basically down to lack of inspection, to save a few quid. And it was so prevalent in the U. K. at the time. It will not get any better due to bloody Brexit either.
But yeah, total lack of proper management, completely broken culture. The quid comes first. Proven time and again.
Herald of Free Enterprise
Piper Alpha
Hillsborough
Kings Cross Fire
Bradford City Fire
Leaks at Sellafield
They all happened due to a breakdown in procedures and a failure to adjust the culture.
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Very interesting to watch. And tbh damning on the attitude of the U. K. at the time and probably now. There was a careless regard for safety in the U. K. for decades. It resulted in some horrendous disasters which could have easily not happened. And the leaks they talk of were basically down to lack of inspection, to save a few quid. And it was so prevalent in the U. K. at the time. It will not get any better due to bloody Brexit either.
But yeah, total lack of proper management, completely broken culture. The quid comes first. Proven time and again.
Herald of Free Enterprise
Piper Alpha
Hillsborough
Kings Cross Fire
Bradford City Fire
Leaks at Sellafield
They all happened due to a breakdown in procedures and a failure to adjust the culture.
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Ed
They always place these mass murdering death factories next to farms, wana know why? Because that way they can dose the population, and hide the local illness near nuclear power plants. And because nuclear science and industry, is literally a sadistic death cult. Guess what else, if global warming is true, the nuclear industry is to blame. Why? Because the nuclear industry spewed all those hot particles into the atmosphere in bombs and accidents and daily opperation for decades. You know, like strontium 90 thats in your bones and teeth, and the rest of the nuclear elements constantly radiating heat, obviously enought heat to boil the water in their reactors. Wake up all you dodo birds, before its too late.
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They always place these mass murdering death factories next to farms, wana know why? Because that way they can dose the population, and hide the local illness near nuclear power plants. And because nuclear science and industry, is literally a sadistic death cult. Guess what else, if global warming is true, the nuclear industry is to blame. Why? Because the nuclear industry spewed all those hot particles into the atmosphere in bombs and accidents and daily opperation for decades. You know, like strontium 90 thats in your bones and teeth, and the rest of the nuclear elements constantly radiating heat, obviously enought heat to boil the water in their reactors. Wake up all you dodo birds, before its too late.
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factorylad
What a very boring docu mostly hot air being expelled by politicians and financial analysts and the occasional bleating of greenies. Does nothing to explore the inner workings of the plant which is based on power fluidics designed by a person I knew. Can anybody be so gullible as to conceive a nuclear reactor could be designed and operated by a television engineer? Is that because a television engineer has innate knowledge of conic sections and non Euclidean geometry? Then dream on.
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What a very boring docu mostly hot air being expelled by politicians and financial analysts and the occasional bleating of greenies. Does nothing to explore the inner workings of the plant which is based on power fluidics designed by a person I knew. Can anybody be so gullible as to conceive a nuclear reactor could be designed and operated by a television engineer? Is that because a television engineer has innate knowledge of conic sections and non Euclidean geometry? Then dream on.
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Michael
They made every wrong step along the way when it comes to nuclear name it lol meaning power plutonium production and production of all the byproducts nuclear power storing it windscale the bombs they made were even never working right and they covered up so much and outright lied about enough to make them look more like the Soviet Union than a free country they were nothing but arrogant with this and that really messed them up here
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They made every wrong step along the way when it comes to nuclear name it lol meaning power plutonium production and production of all the byproducts nuclear power storing it windscale the bombs they made were even never working right and they covered up so much and outright lied about enough to make them look more like the Soviet Union than a free country they were nothing but arrogant with this and that really messed them up here
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Tom
Misjudgment by UK government ministers and staff at Sellafield has now created in a perod of just a few years a radiological hazard that will last for hundreds of millions of years - what idiots! - they should never have started on such a dumb project! The best that can be done now is it use molten salt reactors to transmute the waste into short-half-life materials and usefully generate some electrical power as a by-product.
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Misjudgment by UK government ministers and staff at Sellafield has now created in a perod of just a few years a radiological hazard that will last for hundreds of millions of years - what idiots! - they should never have started on such a dumb project! The best that can be done now is it use molten salt reactors to transmute the waste into short-half-life materials and usefully generate some electrical power as a by-product.
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Tom
The German government, likewise the Danish government, seem to have wise scientists advising them and are getting out of nuclear power in favour of cheaper renewables. The UK is foolishly investing in EPR design that is a terrible design; it would be better to use molten salt configurations such as proposed by Seaborg Technologies that are capable of burning (i. e. transmuting nuclear waste.
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The German government, likewise the Danish government, seem to have wise scientists advising them and are getting out of nuclear power in favour of cheaper renewables. The UK is foolishly investing in EPR design that is a terrible design; it would be better to use molten salt configurations such as proposed by Seaborg Technologies that are capable of burning (i. e. transmuting nuclear waste.
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Oak_meadow
Having worked in the special subfield of chemistry, extraction and purification of a material in fact an element whose true properties or unknown at the time. These gentlemen in this arm of chemistry, slowly began to understand the incredible abilities of plutonium to slither, sneak, dematerialize, and otherwise just disappear from any container in which It is put.
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Having worked in the special subfield of chemistry, extraction and purification of a material in fact an element whose true properties or unknown at the time. These gentlemen in this arm of chemistry, slowly began to understand the incredible abilities of plutonium to slither, sneak, dematerialize, and otherwise just disappear from any container in which It is put.
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mikey
At 34: 05 these are the types of people that need taken out back and dealt with. Completely incompetent people handling materials that have an effect on EVERYBODY and to then have the absolute audacity at 36: 00 to say safety is a number one concern is worth getting a swift high five to your face. Completely appalling. It's been proven your NOT safe nor honest!
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At 34: 05 these are the types of people that need taken out back and dealt with. Completely incompetent people handling materials that have an effect on EVERYBODY and to then have the absolute audacity at 36: 00 to say safety is a number one concern is worth getting a swift high five to your face. Completely appalling. It's been proven your NOT safe nor honest!
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Republi
38: 04 Tony Benn saying what so many thought for so long Nuclear power was supposed to be cheap. in fact it's 3 1/2 times as expensive as coal. except no one includes the clean up cost of coal, the worst of which is CO2. That bill has yet to be paid, while nuclear has to include decommissioning costs right from the start. It's not a level playing field.
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38: 04 Tony Benn saying what so many thought for so long Nuclear power was supposed to be cheap. in fact it's 3 1/2 times as expensive as coal. except no one includes the clean up cost of coal, the worst of which is CO2. That bill has yet to be paid, while nuclear has to include decommissioning costs right from the start. It's not a level playing field.
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Tom
Now the UK government wants to stuff nuclear waste under the carpet in the void created by coal extraction at the new coal mine proposed in Cumbria. This will end up being yet another commercially white element project when the waste starts leaching into the Irish Sea and has to be removed from the void when things start to go wrong. Beware UK government!
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Now the UK government wants to stuff nuclear waste under the carpet in the void created by coal extraction at the new coal mine proposed in Cumbria. This will end up being yet another commercially white element project when the waste starts leaching into the Irish Sea and has to be removed from the void when things start to go wrong. Beware UK government!
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Barbara
The most important thing was money. Is what they said. The entire industry is built upon greed. All that complicated b's to boil water to move a motor to move electrons. That much money and time and danger. They could have just paid thousands of people to turn the damn thing by hand. But a scientist told them it would be cheap and quick.
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The most important thing was money. Is what they said. The entire industry is built upon greed. All that complicated b's to boil water to move a motor to move electrons. That much money and time and danger. They could have just paid thousands of people to turn the damn thing by hand. But a scientist told them it would be cheap and quick.
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steve64464
I have no reason to believe they have changed the way in which they operate today as they did back then, Its all one huge experiment in this secret nuclear society, And when they are functioning on the basis of making huge amounts of money to clear up filth they are going to cut corners and hope no one notices.
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I have no reason to believe they have changed the way in which they operate today as they did back then, Its all one huge experiment in this secret nuclear society, And when they are functioning on the basis of making huge amounts of money to clear up filth they are going to cut corners and hope no one notices.
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Joe
If Politicians were kept out of this and let the scientists do what they believed to be safe this probably wouldn't have happened. But Nooooo Let the politicians in and they dictate policy to enhance their power. Until we get rid of politicians and have real honest people heading governments we are doomed.
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If Politicians were kept out of this and let the scientists do what they believed to be safe this probably wouldn't have happened. But Nooooo Let the politicians in and they dictate policy to enhance their power. Until we get rid of politicians and have real honest people heading governments we are doomed.
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MrTommyboy68
That in a nutshell describes the entire nuclear industry: NO ONE GAVE MORE THAN A PASSING THOUGHT TO THE COMPLEX ISSUES OF DECOMISSIONING AND LONG TERM WASTE STORAGE AND SAFETY AND COSTS INVOLVED. Because they ALL know they will be LONG DEAD AND BURIED by the time to pay the piper comes.
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That in a nutshell describes the entire nuclear industry: NO ONE GAVE MORE THAN A PASSING THOUGHT TO THE COMPLEX ISSUES OF DECOMISSIONING AND LONG TERM WASTE STORAGE AND SAFETY AND COSTS INVOLVED. Because they ALL know they will be LONG DEAD AND BURIED by the time to pay the piper comes.
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Barbara
If you listen carefully and I'm quite sure it can be proven if you have access to their operating procedures. They have always planed on releasing radioactive water into the ocean. Probably diluted and would disperse in the sea but not degrade and accumulated in animals and around the plant.
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If you listen carefully and I'm quite sure it can be proven if you have access to their operating procedures. They have always planed on releasing radioactive water into the ocean. Probably diluted and would disperse in the sea but not degrade and accumulated in animals and around the plant.
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Tom
The UK now has a stockpile of 140 tonnes of Plutonium, enough to fabricate 15000 nuclear bombs. Moreover, all the processing at Sellafield (Windscale, Calder Hall) has resulted in 500 kg of Plutonium discharges into the mudflats by the coast at Sellafield. Plutonium is the most toxic element.
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The UK now has a stockpile of 140 tonnes of Plutonium, enough to fabricate 15000 nuclear bombs. Moreover, all the processing at Sellafield (Windscale, Calder Hall) has resulted in 500 kg of Plutonium discharges into the mudflats by the coast at Sellafield. Plutonium is the most toxic element.
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