Sellafield radioactive sludge is removed

The first radioactive sludge has been removed from the Sellafield nuclear site, marking a “major step forward” in its clean-up.

About 1,500 cu m of sludge needs to be emptied from an area built in the 1950s to store used nuclear fuel for recycling.

“We’re making history at Sellafield by transferring the first sludge using a tried-and-tested pump to a new £240m [€327m] state-of-the-art sludge storage plant containing three enormous stainless steel buffer storage vessels, each of which is the same volume as seven double decker buses,” said Sellafield decommissioning spokesman Martin Leafe.

“The pond is six metres deep and we’ve spent years devising an engineering solution to literally suck up the radioactive sludge from the bottom of the pond, which in places is over one metre deep.

“What makes the job more difficult is that the pond is very congested and full of large metal boxes containing nuclear fuel, so we need to work around these and ensure these remain fully submerged at all times.

“Just to make matters more difficult we have to drive the platform remotely from a control cabin to minimise the radiation dose to the workforce.”