Secret UK Uranium Components Plant Closed Over Safety Fears
January 25th, 2013Via: Guardian:
A top-secret plant at Aldermaston that makes enriched uranium components for Britain’s nuclear warheads and fuel for the Royal Navy’s submarines has been shut down because corrosion has been discovered in its “structural steelwork”, the Guardian can reveal.
The closure has been endorsed by safety regulators who feared the building did not conform to the appropriate standards. The nuclear safety watchdog demands that such critical buildings are capable of withstanding “extreme weather and seismic events”, and the plant at Aldermaston failed this test.
It has set a deadline of the end of the year for the problems to be fixed.
Although the closed plant has not been officially named for national security reasons, the Guardian understands it is known as A45. It makes enriched uranium components for Trident nuclear warheads and has recently been helping to make the uranium fuel for the Astute generation of nuclear-powered submarines.
