Windscale, United Kingdom

Only two earlier reactor accidents caused significant releases or radionuclides the one at Windscale (United Kingdom) in October 1957 and the other at Three Mile Island (United States) in March 1979 (UNSCEAR-1982). While it is very difficult to estimate the fraction of the Windscale radionuclide core inventory that was released to the atmosphere, it has been estimated that the accident released twice the amount of noble gases that was released at Chernobyl, but 2,000 times less and Cs (DOE-1987). The Three Mile Island accident released approximately 2% as much noble gases and 0.00002% as much l as the Chernobyl accident. 

A second source of plutonium, dispersed more locally, is liquid effluent from fuel reprocessing facilities. One such is the fuel reprocessing plant at Windscale, Cumbria in the United Kingdom where liquid waste is released to the Irish Sea(6). Chemical analysis of this effluent shows that about one percent or less of the plutonium is in an oxidized form before it contacts the marine water(7). Approximately 95 percent of the plutonium rapidly adsorbs to particulate matter after discharge and deposits on the seabed while 5 percent is removed from the area as a soluble component ). Because this source provided concentrations that were readily detected, pioneering field research into plutonium oxidation states in the marine environment was conducted at this location. 

FINGAL [Fixation in Glass of Active Liquors] A batch process for immobilizing nuclear waste in a borosilicate glass. Developed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority from 1958 and piloted at its Windscale Works 1962-1966. After a lapse of several years, the project was resumed in 1972 under the acronym HARVEST. 

Several accidents in nuclear facilities have been extensively analyzed and reported. The three most widely publicized accidents were at Windscale (now known as Sellafield), United Kingdom, in 1957 Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979 and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 (UNSCEAR 1988 Severn and Bar 1991 Eisler 1995). From the accident at Windscale about 750 trillion (T)Bq 22 TBq Cs, 3 TBq Sr, and 0.33 TBq °Sr were released and twice the amount of noble gases that were released at Chernobyl, but 2000 times less and Cs. From the Three Mile Island accident, about 2% as much noble gases and 50,000 times less than from the Chernobyl accident were released. The most abundant released radionuclides at Three Mile Island were Xe, Xe, and but the collective dose equivalent to the population during the first post-accident days was <1% of the dose accumulated from natural background radiation in a year. 

At 18.15 on August 24, 1970, toe criticality alarms sounded in the Plutonium Recovery Plant, building B.203 and in nearby building B.277, at the Windscale Works of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Production Group. 

Apart from experience on prototype plants, criticality aspects of the storage and transport oi commercial irradiated fuel have only become important in the United Kingdom with the introduction of the Commercial Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (CAGR). In addition to this fuel from the domestic program, LWR fuel from stations abroad is transported to and stored at British Nuclear Fuels Windscale Works. 

AEA Technology pic Building 7 Windscale Seascale, Cumbria United Kingdom... 

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