Checking the ONR (Office for Nuclear Regulation) pages earlier for two incidents I could find no recent updates on them. The events I was interested in were an accident at Heysham (November) last year in which three staff were injured and also the possible restart time for Hunterston B nuclear plant in Scotland offline for sometime because of cracking in the reactor core.
I eventually learned in relation to Hunterston that the station, which is due to be decommissioned in 2023, has had its restart time set back by several weeks. However the problem with the station does beg the question should it restart at all:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/…/Hunterston-B-restarts-d…
While ONR publish final 2018 quarterly reports for many nuclear sites the final quarter report for several including Heysham and Hunterston are still not on their site.
It begs the question if the ONR are up to the job as reports should be posted expeditiously given their job is not to facilitate the nuclear industry but to ensure safety and maintain public confidence in the nuclear safety inspectorate.
One has to ask are ONR up to the job!
Bernard Moffatt
Assistant General Secretary
Celtic League