3 weeks ago
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Fife Councillor Brian Goodall, the NFLAs spokesperson on nuclear submarine decommissioning, has condemned the latest plan to cut out the radioactive pressure vessel of an old nuclear submarine currently in dry dock in his electoral ward of Rosyth as “experimental’’ and “unnecessary”.
HMS Swiftsure is currently being decommmissioned by Babcock at the former naval base. The NFLAs have called for the removal of the entire reactor compartment from the submarine, and its transport to and long-term storage at an off-site facility, however contractors Babcock wish instead to cut out the pressure vessel rather than removing the whole compartment.
This is an idea that Councillor Goodall has described as “an experimental process that has never been done anywhere in the world before”.
Babcock’s strategy has meant that the company has had to seek permission to increase the amount of radioactivity they can discharge into the environment surrounding the facility.
Councillor Goodall has been consistently adamant that “the removal for long-term storage of the entire reactor compartment would be the more logical, proven, safer and cheaper approach” in decommissioning the submarine.
The Scottish NFLAs want to ensure that the local population is shielded as far as possible from exposure to radiation resulting from the decommissioning work, and full removal and relocation to storage would minimise that exposure.
The concern is valid. Cllr Goodall explains that he objected to the decommissioning from the very start of consultation in 2012 protesting that “Rosyth should never have been considered a suitable location for the work as there are homes within metres of the site and schools, shops and countless other businesses right next door”.
Nonetheless Rosyth is now home to seven old nuclear submarines, with fifteen more laid up at the Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth. There are many more British nuclear submarines awaiting decommissioning than there are vessels currently in active service. Decommissioning at Rosyth started in 2015 and the project is way behind schedule with costs mounting up.
Rather than seeing Rosyth accepting more vessels as a designated ‘centre of excellence’, Cllr Goodall wants to see the work on the existing abandoned fleet concluded as quickly and safely as is possible, with radioactive waste taken off site, so “we can create in the longer-term a clean, green future for the dockyard”.
There also remains considerable uncertainly as to where the most radioactive components will end up. The intention was to transfer them for permanent disposal at a new Geological Disposal Facility, but this is now not expected to come on stream before the late 2050s’.
Ironically, the GDF, a dump for Britain’s most dangerous radioactive waste, will be located beneath the seabed, so it could be said the lifecycle of this reactor, and the reactors of the other docked redundant submarines decommissioned at Rosyth after Swiftsure, will have come full circle.
Ends://..For more information please email NFLA Secretary Richard Outram at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
