Reactor problem

Councillor Bill Butler (Letters, 22 August) repeats the
mistake contained in your 
original article about decommissioning the Dounreay Fast 
reactor and which led to a number of statements being made by Dr John Large that were therefore based on an incorrect assumption.

The mistake that has been made is that the camera survey of the reactor vessel did not find additional nuclear material.

It revealed that more of the elements in the breeder zone than previously thought had swollen during reactor operations and will need to be cut out. Their number hasn’t increased.

The swelling of the breeder elements has been public knowledge for many years – our website goes into more detail about this.

The team at Dounreay have already developed a solution to this challenge. A purpose-built tool, with a variety of remotely operated cutting and retrieval heads, is now in place above the reactor, ready to descend into the vessel and begin removal of the elements.

The camera survey that revealed the swelling has given our operators a much better understanding of the conditions they will encounter as we continue our efforts to establish Dounreay and Scotland as the European leader in safe and cost-effective nuclear decommissioning.

Mark Rouse

Managing director

Dounreay Site 
Restoration

Thurso