By Rob Edwards
EDF Energy has been reprimanded by the government’s nuclear watchdog for a series of safety lapses at the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, The Caledonian Mercury can reveal.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has criticised the French power company for a “shortfall” in its arrangements for checking safety valves and for inadequacies in addressing concerns about the state of radioactive waste discharge pipes following a leak.
The ONR has also expressed concern over slow progress in introducing self-closing “hazard barrier doors” to prevent large releases of hot gas. And it has urged EDF to improve its early warning systems after a “jellyfish blockage” caused Torness to be shut down last June.
The revelations have prompted critics to question the safety of prolonging the working life of Torness, alleging it is becoming increasingly unreliable. EDF, however, says the plant has a good safety record.
The ONR has posted its latest report on Torness online, covering 1 July to 30 September 2011. It disclosed that staff at the plant failed to inspect a safety relief valve on a nitrogen test rig when they should have done.
“The omission represents a shortfall in the station’s arrangements to ensure that examinations are carried out on time, and it has been asked to provide proposals to improve them,” the ONR report said. Both the ONR and EDF said that the problem had since been addressed.
EDF were criticised for producing a draft report that “did not adequately address the issues” raised by the ONR about the condition of pipes for discharging radioactive tritium. A small leak from one of the pipes was reported last February.
EDF said that it has now provided a “more detailed” report on the pipes, which the ONR said would be assessed.
According to the ONR report, Torness “had not progressed sufficiently in some areas, and specifically with regard to self-closing hazard barrier doors”. Temporary alarms have been put in place, and EDF has agreed to find a “permanent engineered solution”.
The blockage of the coolant inlets at Torness by large numbers of jellyfish in June “presented a challenge to station systems related to safety”, according to the ONR report. EDF were asked to review its safety systems.
As a result, new arrangements for introducing a “heightened state of alert” for external hazards have been implemented. They were used during the strong winds in December, and are being monitored by the ONR.
The ONR’s criticisms were described as ”very worrying” by Stan Blackley, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. “Scotland's remaining nuclear reactors are growing older and more unreliable by the day," he said, "so it is increasingly important that they are run safely and properly, and it seems this is not the case.
“This disproves the argument that nuclear power stations are required to keep the lights on in Scotland. Nuclear power is unreliable and surprisingly fragile.”
Pete Roche, a nuclear consultant based in Edinburgh, argued that EDF’s slow implementation of requests from the regulator illustrated why the lives of ageing reactors should not be extended. “Problems are bound to increase as they get older," he said, "so the sooner they are closed the better.”
EDF Energy insisted that all its plants, including Torness, had good safety records. “This regulator's report was part of our ongoing dialogue with [the] ONR, whose job it is to scrutinise our operations in detail,” said a company spokeswoman.
“We welcome their input and use it to learn and improve. Under our policy of openness and transparency, all of these events were communicated to our local liaison committee, which includes local residents, and local government representatives.”
Addressing all the criticisms in detail, the EDF spokeswoman added: “During a routine inspection, an operator failed to inspect one valve. This had no implications for nuclear safety but the regulator asked us to draw up procedures to ensure this does not happen again, which we have done.
“In February [2011], during routine sampling, we detected abnormal readings in water in one borehole. The readings were extremely low – one would have to drink one tonne of the fluid found to receive a dose equal to 30 minutes' flying time in an aeroplane. The drip was fixed immediately and we carried out a review of the entire pipe. The ONR has since asked for a more detailed report on this, which we have provided.
“We have a number of station hazard barrier doors fitted with piercing alarms which ring when a door opens and some key doors are centrally monitored to ensure safety. All doors inspected by the ONR were found to be closed as expected, but a small number are not designed to close automatically which is what we have agreed to address.
“Both units at Torness Power Station were manually shut down in June as a precautionary measure in line with our normal operating procedures. The shut down cooling systems performed in a satisfactory manner and at no point was there a risk to our ability to cool the reactors or nuclear safety in general.”
– Rob Edwards, environmental news and comment.
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