A pinhole in a stainless steel pipe was responsible for the leak of a litre of radioactive fluid at the Dounreay plant last week.
During a routine operation of destroying liquid metal coolant in the Dounreay Fast Reactor, which was housed in Dounreay’s landmark dome, drips of caustic liquor from pipework in a shielded cell were detected by the monitoring systems. The plant was immediately shut down and the leak isolated
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority were all informed as soon as the leak was isolated.
A Sepa spokeswoman said “I can confirm officers carried out an inspection on Wednesday and the seepage was contained within the plant and there was no release to the environment.”
The destruction of the metal coolant is part of the £2.6 billion decommissioning of the Caithness plant being conducted by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL). To date the company has destroyed more than three-quarters of the 57 tonnes of primary liquid metal coolant, and expects to complete the job by March 2012.
A spokeswoman for DSRL said “A new part of pipe will be bolted in at the weekend and it should be up and running again next week. It is a very small plant within a plant within another plant and there are only five or six people working there.”
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