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Secret UK Uranium Components Plant Closed Over Safety Fears
Lasrick writes "The Guardian has an exclusive story regarding a secret uranium-enriching plant in the UK that was closed due to safety fears. From the article: 'A top-secret plant at Aldermaston that makes enriched uranium components for Britain's nuclear warheads and fuel for the Royal Navy's submarines has been shut down because corrosion has been discovered in its 'structural steelwork', the Guardian can reveal.
The closure has been endorsed by safety regulators who feared the building did not conform to the appropriate standards. The nuclear safety watchdog demands that such critical buildings are capable of withstanding 'extreme weather and seismic events,' and the plant at Aldermaston failed this test.
It has set a deadline of the end of the year for the problems to be fixed.'"
The AWE plant at Aldermaston is well signed from the road, and its website seems at least reasonably open about what it does:
Our role at AWE is to manufacture and sustain the warheads for the Trident system ... Our work at AWE covers the entire life cycle of nuclear warheads; from initial concept, assessment and design, through to component manufacture and assembly, in-service support, and finally decommissioning and disposal.
So it's the actual *building* that is unsafe, and not the plant as such.
Why not just build a new building and move everything over? Or, maybe just reinforce the old one until it meets sufficient safety standards?
Sounds like the system is working as it is supposed to. Inspectors found problem, problem will be rectified.
Now had they not found anything, and it fell apart like that bridge a few years back, then that's news.
The facility doesn't sound terribly 'secret', not any more at least...
Sent from my PDP-11
A top-secret plant at Aldermaston
An uranium enriching plant is not something you can hide very easily, once you know where it is localed (more or less). ...
I mean, unless you aim to enrich a few grams a year
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
"The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), for which Aldermaston has become known,[103] is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village. "
Very well kept secret...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
FormerlySecret UK Uranium Components Plant Closed Over Safety Fears
This is not the same Secret Nuclear Bunker which is signposted nearby Brentwood. That is a totally separate formerly secret nuclear site.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
And what are they doing?
Live in UK?
Somebody get an Architect we need a new building.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I read this -- it is a scam. They have not really closed the plant, they just erected some sort of social barrier to prevent humans from entering it to do whatever it is humans do there. The plant is presently doing what plants do when humans are not present, openly so. Everything is working as it should, as might be expected. Under this circumstance of the plant being unpopulated by humans, I mean.
I see this shoddiness everywhere these days. Absurd claims that something is closed when you could shove a stick right into it, or reach your arm right into it. If maths were done this way birds would fly backwards and farmers would be forced to grow smaller potatoes.
Now if they built a Sarcophagus around it then it would truly be closed. They may as well for it sounds like a dreary place of corroded steel and despite the excitement of it being somehow 'nuclear' there there is nothing interesting to see, no "Elephant's Foot" of molten corium or such-like.
Oh dear. It seems things are wearing out as fast as we are growing up.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
This is an example of the social headwinds nuclear engineering (actually any engineering) faces all the time. Engineers identify a problem, usually during routine inspections (inspections that take place in order to find any problems!), and take an action such as shutting down in a controlled manner to remedy the problem. The tabloid title of the summary of the event invariably reads "Nuclear Plant X Forced to Shut Down Due to Safety Fears" and is followed by an article which lists the last N times the plant had to shut down, possibly followed by a comment about TMI/Chernobyl/Fukushima just to keep the drama up. Yes, accidents happen, but the fact that many problems are identified, investigated, and remedied as part of a engineered safety response program seems lost on the public. The battery problems on the Boeing 787 are another similar example - correct actions are being taken to remedy a problem, but journalists are branding the Dreamliner as a potentially unsafe lemon.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Is it possible that these warheads can reach the USA?
Countries are blocking Iran and North Korea from trying to create weaponsgrade uranium/plutonium, but the UK, the US and some other countries are still producing it themselves... who are they to judge Iran and NK for trying to do the same... (Not that I like them to have it, but hee, if you say to someoneelse "you're not allowed to create something" then you aren't allow it yourself IMHO, otherwise it's just a big hypocritic fingerpointing)...
The nuclear safety watchdog demands that such critical buildings are capable of
I demand that people who write articles in newspapers be capable of writing proper English before getting their degree in journalism, let alone being hired by said newspapers.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm not sure what's worse, that you feel the need to specify that it's the "liberal left" who you spend your time slagging off on internet comments threads (as opposed to...?), or that you think the media industry is largely stocked with baby boomers, a generation that is currently either retired or getting ready to do so. If you're going to go off on one at least make your pejoratives self-consistent.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"Oil & Gas Frackquake Threat Closes Nuke Weapons Plant"
side note: the baby boomers are not retiring fast enough; the "bathtub" curve of workers for available slots from retirees(since Gen X is ~ half the size of the Baby Boomers) hasn't yet materialized. My take is that due to poor retirement finances, people can't afford to retire!
/I've been waiting for Executive Vice President positions to be handed to me simply due to retirement... I'm still waiting, btw.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
link to Classified Information, and pay particular attention to the Classification Levels section.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
"that you feel the need to specify that it's the "liberal left""
You're obviously not aware of the politics of The Guardian are you. Its the liberal left bible.
"(as opposed to...?),"
People who can think for themselves and don't blindly follow some out of date right-on ideology.
"you think the media industry is largely stocked with baby boomers,"
Get some glasses, you missed the slash.
"If you're going to go off on one at least make your pejoratives self-consistent."
If you're going to post an indignant reply at least get your facts straight first.
Viol8 is a bit of a prat, but honestly the Grauniad is really whiny.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Off topic, sorry... No offense, but that doesn't take rocket science... watch the "can we afford to retire" ads for various financial institutions or ask someone in that age bracket. In the U.S. the only thing getting any of them to "retire" is that they want to claim Social Security before the money they paid in gets re-purposed as taxes to pay the national debt (this whole "social entitlement" claim looks kinda iffy since when I look at my paycheck I see separate line items for fica and federal taxes).
Thanks, reading the article on Aldermaston definitely made my day. Indeed, very fine understated British humour methinks, that section on "Economy" ;-)
Everyone knows the 51st state is Canada. You get in line behind Puerto Rico and Guam.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If the irradiated parts of the building weren't designed to be easily removed and replaced then they're doing it wrong. That shit is hard on the molecules.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
It's a double-edged sword...we need the Boomers to retire to open up the senior level positions that we all want, but at the same time, as they retire, a huge number of people will leave the group that currently pays Social Security and Medicare. This basically means that there will be less of us supporting more of them. I recall that when Social Security and all these other safety nets were proposed, it was designed to have three workers supporting one retiree. Now, with medical expenses ballooning, it's more like one to one. At a certain point in time (soon) the situation is going to collapse, and it won't be pretty.
it seems like military experience should be mentioned on a resume/CV (if you actually have it, of course. :P)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
You're mistaken on two levels: first off the problem is not in "the irradiated parts" & secondly those parts are generally massive enough to make "easy" replacement difficult.
The problem is in certifying that the building is solid enough to withstand a major seismic event or something similar, not anything to do with radiation. Reinforcing the rusted girders will be sufficient.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
At a certain point in time (soon) the situation is going to collapse, and it won't be pretty.
Yeah, and since they're retired and smell like mothballs eating them is probably out of the question.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Viol8 is a bit of a prat, but honestly the Grauniad is really whiny.
still nothing compared to twitter, before twitter was around
My ism, it's full of beliefs.