TENS of thousands of litres of highly radioactive liquid has been leaking unnoticed at the UK's nuclear reprocessing plant for nine months, it was revealed yesterday.While it's tempting to use this as a "gotcha" for my friends at NEINuclearNotes, I'm going to refrain. But, this does raise another issue about nuclear power: the element of human error. That's going to be an element of any energy development, of course, but it's hard to see how truly renewable sources can create a danger to public health when overseers screw up...
The leak is being described as the worst nuclear accident in Britain for 13 years and could threaten the future of the Thorp plant, at Sellafield in Cumbria, where the leak was discovered on 19 April.
The International Atomic Energy Authority has admitted that it would classify the accident as "serious".
It was only discovered that liquid was leaking last month, but by that time 83,000 litres of radioactive fuel, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, had already been accidentally discharged.
Tecnorati tags: nuclear power, Great Britain
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