Nuclear reactor shut down at Torness power station

Reactor One at the plant in East Lothian went down unexpectedly on Monday afternoon and is set to be out of commission for weeks.

Locals said that alarms rang and white smoke billowed from the nuclear plant following the breakdown.

The reactor supplies more than half a million households but the National Grid said there is spare capacity to maintain the supply when such events occur.

SEPA said the breakdown was down to a generator transformer and added that the incident was now under investigation.

EDF Energy – which runs Torness – confirmed that the reactor was offline and said it would announce when it was back in business.

Susan Doherty, 32, who lives just 150 yards from Torness, said that she had heard alarms ringing for around an hour and a half on Monday morning.

The mum of two said: "They do a practice alarm every week on Mondays, and I didn't think anything of it when it went off twice.

"But when I came back from walking my dog it was going off in short bursts, maybe six between 10.30am and midday.

"There was a lot of smoke billowing out of the main building.

"My boyfriend has just recovered from cancer, so it was a worry when we first came.

"And we had to sign something at the school to allow them to give the kids iodine tablets if anything happens.

"But I'm sure if there's anything really wrong they'd tell us, would they?"

David Campbell, SEPA unit manager for Edinburgh, said: "The Scottish Environment Protection Agency was notified yesterday by British Energy of a failure of a Generator Transformer on Monday, February 1 at Torness Power Station.

"Reactor One tripped automatically as a result of this incident which had no radioactive implications. The incident resulted in some loss of oil from the transformer. The cause of the incident is being investigated.

"Initial investigations suggest that some of the transformer oil had escaped to surface water drains via an oil water separator that is connected to the transformer compound.

"However this protection system worked well to contain the bulk of the oil and prevent it from escaping. Recovery of this oil is being carried out.

"The company have confirmed that there are no radiological aspects associated with this event, no persons have been injured and there has been no significant impact to the environment.

"Inspection of the outfall by SEPA staff today confirmed no visible oil in the sea at the outfall from the site."

Stewart Larque, media relations officer at the National Grid, said that there is capacity in the grid for failures, but could not completely rule out a shortage.

He said: "Power stations do go down from time to time, whether it's for repairs or a breakdown.

"The larger power stations all feed into the national grid rather than supply locally.

"There is always spare capacity in the background for events like these."

A spokeswoman for EDF Energy said: "Reactor One at Torness power station tripped at around 4pm on Monday, February 1, 2010. It was unplanned. We will confirm once it has returned to service."