Nuclear scare at Navy submarine base after 'unbelievable' failures

[bananas]

Source: Independent



A major nuclear incident was narrowly averted at the heart of Britain's Royal Navy submarine fleet, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. The failure of both the primary and secondary power sources of coolant for nuclear reactors at the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth on 29 July last year followed warnings in previous years of just such a situation.

Experts yesterday compared the crisis at the naval base, operated by the Ministry of Defence and government engineering contractors Babcock Marine, with the Fukushima Daiichi power-station meltdown in Japan in 2011.

It came just four months after the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, announced that the base would "remain vital in the future".

The failure of the electric-power source for coolant to nuclear reactors and then the diesel back-up generators was revealed in a heavily redacted report from the Ministry of Defence's Site Event Report Committee (Serc).

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Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nuclear-scare-at-navy-submarine-base-after-unbelievable-failures-8861361.html

[antiquie]

1. One more from the link

Ten days ago, the Office for Nuclear Regulation watchdog published details of an improvement notice it had served on Devonport on 16 July for three alleged breaches of health and safety legislation, and of Section 24 of the Nuclear Installations Act – regarding "operating instructions".

[Crowman1979]

2. So NHS funding gets slashed and tuition gets hiked.

Yet the Tory twats want to keep funding nuclear weapons and anything else nuclear-powered?!?!

Tony Benn said it best about why the UK should have no nukes:

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I am looking at all the houses and other buildings all around that base.

Seems to me that somehow, over the years, almost everyone became very nonchalant about the ongoing maintenance
and potential problems of nuclear facilities.