Torness

Opposition to the building of Torness
Effect of an accident
Safety plans
Admitted there was no need for Torness
Control rod problems
Dry storage of used fuel on site
Onload refuelling
Train derailed
Air crash
Various accidents and incidents
Cost
Reactor Design
Nuclear waste
British Energy Torness webpage

Opposition to the building of Torness

In May 1978 - 4000 people marched from Dunbar to occupy the Torness site. Many of them signed a declaration to "take all nonviolent steps necessary to prevent the construction of a nuclear power station at Torness". In June 1978 thirty tractors and trucks were driven by local farmers from Torness to the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh.

In September 1978 -16 people who had occupied the site were arrested when work began. 400 people turned up shortly after to support them. In November a further 38 people were arrested during a nonviolent protest at Torness.

May 1980 - Arrests at Torness.

15 May 1981 - 1000 march in Edinburgh for a nuclear free Lothian. The following day 150 people occupied a row of empty cottages owned by SSEB next to Torness. A few remained and were there when the cottages were bulldozed several days later.

In June 1986 - Miners, Trade Union, Labour, SNP, CND and local council representatives joined in a "stop Torness" platform at the Miners Gala in Edinburgh. The following month 2000 people attended a concert and rally at Torness organised by SCRAM.

1967 - A System Three poll conducted for Greenpeace in Lothian showed that 53 per cent of those polled wanted Torness dismantled or mothballed, 35 per cent wanted it to open as scheduled and 12 per cent did not know. In East Lothian 49 per cent favoured dismantling or mothballing and 38 per cent wanted it to open.

13 May 1989 - Torness opened by Mrs Thatcher. 150 demonstrators gathered on the approach road. One woman from Faslane Peace Camp stepped into the road in front of the VIP cars. Three of the cars bumped into each other as a result. Mrs Thatcher said: "Nuclear is very good - not only as an alternative source of power, it is also very environmentally conscious and it is very safety conscious." Local MP John Home Roberston refused to join Mrs Thatcher and Malcolm Rifkind at the ceremony and said: "It would be more appropriate for them to deliver redundancy notices personally to the miners of Bilston Glen and Monktonhall".

Effect of an accident

In 1980 the Political Ecology Research Group at Oxford carried out a study into the effects of a catastrophic accident at Torness. This indicated that there could be 300 early deaths and 25,600 fatal cancers within 30 years. It also suggested that it could be necessary to evacuate Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Safety Plans

In 1986, prior to the start up of the reactor local councils called a public debate on plans to evacuate the local population in the event of a major accident. In the same year a report for Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade said that it could take fulltime firemen and specialist equipment up to an hour to reach Torness in the event of an accident. In the early period of a fire reliance would have to be on fire personel and equipment at the plant. Part time firemen from Dunbar, East Linton and Eyemouth could arrive within about 20 minutes. Units from Edinburgh would take between 45 minutes and 1 hour. In 1986 Lothian and Borders Police board asked for a feasibility study to be carried out into evacuating people living around Torness in the event of an accident. This would cover a wider area that SSEB plans, which were limited to a 3 km radius around the plant.

In 1987 Lothian Regional Council, along with the Fire and Police Boards were pressing for the evacuation zone to be extended from 3 kms to 10 kms. The council was also asking the Scottish Office to extent emergency planning provisions to extend to 25 and 50 kms from the plant. A 3 km zone would include 400 people, including the village of Innerwick. The zone would also include the Thornton Loch caravan park. A 10 km zone would include 7000 people.

In March 1987 Councillor Bill Axon, Chairman of Lothian Fire Board said: "It is the continuing belief of this board that the present evacuation plans, in the event of a major accident at Torness, are totally inadequate."

No need for Torness

In 1995 Irene Currie, Corporate Communications Manager of Scottish Nuclear admitted that there was no need for Torness. In a letter she wrote:

"The decision to build Torness was not based on a need for generating capacity. .. The decision to build Torness - and its sister station Heysham II in England - was taken in order to support the UK engineering industry through what was obviously going to be a lean period"

In the 1970s the South of Scotland Electricity Board had forecast that there would be a need for extra capacity. This was based on an estimate of 6 per cent compound growth per year. But by the time the decision was taken to build Torness, the demand had flattened off and North Sea gas was providing the extra capacity needed.

At the public inquiry in 1974 objectors had critisised the inflated estimate but their views were not upheld by the inquiry. Labour MP Martin O'Neil said when this was made public: "I have always felt that the estimates of demands and increases that were adopted were optimistic and not borne out by experience."

Control rod problems

In 1985 Frank Cook MP said that he had been told by a worker at the AGR reactor at Hartlepool that the control rods were getting stuck in the reactors. If this happened with a large number of control rods then the reactor would burn out of control. CEGB admitted that they had spent 2 years modifying the reactor at Hartlepool to try to overcome control road problems. Very frequent checks on control rods there were required as a result (1987)

In 1987 there was concern about vibration of the control rods at Torness shortly before the reactor came into operation. SSEB said that "oscillation of the control rods" had been discovered in 1986. One newspaper article, believed to be based on an internal report, said that the control rods were spinning wildly inside their guide tubes when subjected to the high-pressure cooling gas. This article also said that many control rods were being wrecked in less than 40 hours. This resulted in a delay to the start up.

Dry Storage of used fuel on site

In the early 1990s Scottish Nuclear proposed building a dry store to house used fuel on site at Torness. This was an alternative to transporting this dangerous material across country to Sellafield for reprocessing. Environmental campaigners argued that the proposed dry store was preferable to reprocessing, partly because of the extent of contamination from reprocessing. However, following pressure from BNFL the plans for a dry store at Torness were dropped in 1995. Reprocessing at Sellafield will increase radioactive contamination of the Irish Sea. £115,000 of public money had been spent on an enquiry into the dry storage proposal.

Onload refuelling

In 1988 deficiencies were identified in fuel handling, storage and dismantling equipment identified during commissioning of the reactors. As a result refuelling was restricted to when the reactors were shut down.

In an AGR reactor cooling is provided by gas pumped through the reactor at high speed. However in the early reactors of this design this was found to lead to fuel rods vibrating as they were lowered into the reactor. In the worst case this could lead to the rods breaking up and fuel falling and then burning up in the reactor. As a result the power output was being reduced to 20 per cent while refuelling was carried out (1987 article)

On 29 January 1994 there was an incident at the AGR reactor at Heysham. A fuel rod was stuck as it was being lowered into place during refuelling. This was explained as being caused by a "distorted standpipe". As a result plans to introduce online refuelling at Heysham and Torness were put on hold while the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate carried out an investigation. First onload refuelling took place at Torness in 1996.

Train Derailed

A train carrying spent nuclear fuel flasks has derailed as it arrived at a power station. Police say no one was injured in the incident outside the Torness power station near Dunbar, East Lothian. The accident happened around 9.45am, when two of the train's carriages derailed. One of them was carrying an empty 50 ton nuclear flask, the other had no load. The train was carrying three empty flasks in total. The train had been travelling at 5mph when the derailment happened and none of the flasks were damaged, said a Janine Claber, spokeswoman for freight company Direct Rail Services, a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels. The incident took place adjacent to the east coast main line while the train was reversing at a railhead but the derailed carriages remained upright and British Transport Police said disruption to passenger services was unlikely.

The train was reversing at 5mph on a siding when the derailment, which was blamed on frozen points, happened. The trains regularly carry spent nuclear fuel from the plant to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria. The RADSAFE Emergency Response Procedures were activated and a Health Physics Monitor and the emergency services attended the scene.

Movements of special carriages used to transport used fuel from Torness to Sellafield have been seen at Torness on 27/1/99, 22/8/00, 18/1/01 and 8/3/01. (www.c37lg.co.uk)

Air crash

On 17 November 1999 a Tornado F3 aircraft crashed into the sea 1 mile from Torness power station. Both crew survived. The pilot said that when they realised where they were they kept going as long as possible. Aircraft are not supposed to fly lower than 2000 feet within one nautical mile of the power station. However this part of the country is regularly used for training by low flying military aircraft.

Various Accidents and Incidents

January 1989 - SSEB chairman Donald Miller says that the power output of Torness should be increased by 170 MW per reactor by running them at a higher temperature and pressure.

September 1989 - Reactor 2 shut down. SSEB said "A fuse in the reactor equipment developed a fault". It was also revealed that faults had been found in the automatic safety system which should ensure that the reactor shuts down if there is a problem. SSEB indicated that these faults had been fixed.

On 15 February 1994 - a control rod was withdrawn for more than the 90 per cent limit permitted.

On 27 February 1994 - a 110 volt power supply unit broke down, no back up was available preparations were made to shut down the reactor within 8 hours. However during this period the power supply was restored.

19 May 1994 - Safety valve doors were left open while the reactor was operating. The doors had been opened for the inspection of pipe supports.

1998 - Monitoring of the coastline around Torness found Manganese 54 in seaweed 20 miles from the power station. Cobalt 60 and Silver 110 were also found. Scottish Nuclear said this indicated that the reactor was aging, but denied this was from corrosion.

? - Cracks in the high pressure steam pipework were discovered at Heysham I AGR reactor.

Cost

Torness cost £1.2 billion at 1980 prices. Also given as £1.7 billion in 1987

Reactor Design

Detailed information on the AGR design (large pdf file); Summary of AGR reactor design

Nuclear waste from Torness

The major form of nuclear waste from Torness is the used fuel.

The figures below do not include the used fuel but show the amounts of Iintermediate Level Waste (ILW) and Low Level Waste (LLW) produced while the power station is operating and when it is decommissioned. These figures are from the UK Radioactice Waste Inventory 1994 and assume that the station is taken out of service in 2024. The figures are in cubic metres of waste as stored. Conditioning of waste will increase these amounts.