Accounts blamed for missing plutonium

Sellafield cannot account for almost 30kg (66lb) of plutonium, but the loss was an auditing issue rather than involving any actual material, it was announced today.

An annual check of nuclear material at all of Britain’s civil nuclear installations showed that 29.6kg of plutonium was unaccounted for in the last financial year at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority said the figure was within international standards of expected measurement accuracies.