NIS Nuclear Information Service | nuclear weapons/safety

Nuclear emergency exercise is a good start - but real-life test needed for bomb factory

An emergency exercise for the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has resulted in invaluable learning for emergency services – but further improvements in planning for an accident are needed as a result of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, according to a new report from Nuclear Information Service.

Report warns that MoD nuclear safety is deteriorating

The safety of the MoD's nuclear programmes is under threat in the medium term from a lack of finance and suitably competent staff, according to the Defence Nuclear Environment and Safety Board (DNESB), which oversees nuclear and radiological safety and environmental protection in the MoD.

Flawed MoD nuclear response could place emergency personnel at risk

Significant safety problems have been exposed in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) response to an accident involving nuclear weapons after an emergency exercise in East Anglia last year.

Had the exercise been a real emergency, civilian emergency personnel would have been placed at risk from explosions and radioactive contamination as a result of misunderstandings about key safety information because a specialist MoD nuclear emergency response team “did not emphasise the hazards adequately” and gave “insufficient priority” to liaison with emergency services, according to official post-exercise reports.

Public inquiry into AWE safety extended by four days

The Boundary Hall planning inquiry into development in the emergency planning zone at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Aldermaston is to be extended by four days to allow evidence into public safety to be fully examined.

New AWE Emergency Plan highlights chilling consequences of a nuclear accident

Download NIS's special briefing on West Berkshire Council's new emergency plan for the Atomic Weapons Establishment and read about the full consequences of a major accident at one of Berkshire's nuclear weapons factories.

Hansard on International Regulations affecting safety at AWE Burghfield

*Mr. Hancock:* To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 22 January 2009, /Official Report,/ column 1668W, on AWE Burghfield: nuclear weapons, what internationally recognised standards and codes of practice are applicable. [265568]

Nuclear reactor being dismantled in Devonport

In advance of agreement by the Interim Storage of Laid Up Submarines (ISOLUS) Advisory Group that meets on 11th March in Reading, the MoD has gone ahead and ordered the cut up of a submarine nuclear reactor. An ISOLUS Technical Options Group facilitated by Fraser Nash Ltd meeting last August, reported that 'cutting up' was not proved to be as safe as cutting the reactor compartment 'out' and storing it whole until radiation levels had decayed.