Remains of nuclear reactor stored in UCC

ONE of the country’s largest universities is sitting on a two-and-a-half tonne nuclear store of uranium rods, the remains of a nuclear reactor which has been stored in one of its basements for 17 years.

University College Cork has stored the material in the basement of its physics department since 1986.

It wants to get rid of the material and is facing a bill of several million euro for the transport abroad of the 1,400 uranium slugs, along with a supply of plutonium.

Green TD Dan Boyle said it was not good enough that the college’s 10,000 students and 3,000 staff as well as the residents living close to the college knew nothing of the store.

And he said it would be a huge irony if it had to be sent to Sellafield for reprocessing.

The material is being held in secure conditions behind a steel door which is guarded by closed circuit television.

It is categorised as nuclear fuels and features the remains of a research nuclear reactor, which was used for more than a decade on the campus of the university but is now dismantled.

The reactor was given to Ireland by the US under the Atoms for Peace Programme in 1974.

The same programme supplied India and Pakistan with their first nuclear reactors.

At the time, the Government was considering using nuclear power, but backed off when faced with huge public opposition to the proposed construction of four nuclear power stations at Carnsore Point in Co Wexford.

Professor Stephen Fahy, the university’s head of physics, who is in charge of the reactor’s remains, said attempts had been made to export the nuclear materials, but definite plans had still to be made.

“At the time it was brought over some people thought it was dangerous,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Times.

“In the 1980s, it was decommissioned and taken apart. Technically speaking, it was a nuclear reactor, but we didn’t have space for it any more. Some parts were sold off.

“But now there’s nobody for us to pass the materials on to.”

Later this week, officials from the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) will travel to Ireland to monitor the nuclear store in the university’s basement.

A representative from the International Atomic Energy Agency will also take part.

The university is licensed by the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) to “carry on the practices of custody, disposal, use of the radioactive substances/nuclear devices/irradiating apparatus.”

Mr Boyle said while it was known around Cork that some material from abroad was given to the college several years ago, very few people would know that such an amount was being stored there.

“This is quite a large amount of material to be storing in a huge residential area. I’m surprised that this was not brought into the public eye by now.

One of the jobs of the Radiological Protection Institute is to let us know where this type of material is being stored. Someone somewhere seems to have fallen down on the job,” he said.

A spokesperson for UCC declined to comment, saying the relevant people would not be available until today.