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.'"

Comments

"Secret" as in "well signposted"?

[Neil_Brown]

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.

Re:"Secret" as in "well signposted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody in the Guardian comments pointed out that it's even listed in the (slightly comical) Wiki entry for the area:

5 Economy

        5.1 Agriculture
        5.2 Pubs and brewing
        5.3 Cricket bats
        5.4 Pottery
        5.5 Atomic Weapons Establishment
        5.6 Other businesses

Re:"Secret" as in "well signposted"?

[mekkab]

No. It's probably "secret" as in "you don't have the clearance to enter the building and there are armed guards."

Re:"Secret" as in "well signposted"?

[robthebloke]

No it's probably secret as in:
Government: "MI6 does not exist"
Everyone else: "Yes it does, it's in that big building with MI6 written on it"
Government: "No, MI6 does not exist".
Everyone else: "But you just responded to this question using the e-mail address: queries@MI6.gov.uk"
Government: "ok, so MI6 does exist"
Everyone else: "We already know"

Nuclear Fear Mongering

[Irate Engineer]

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.