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NUCLEAR weapons-grade uranium, given up for lost at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, has been found during the clean-up at the sprawling site, it has been revealed. A team of specialists found 1.5kg of the highly radioactive material over the past year during an operation to repackage waste at the site. Some of the material was found in drums filled with waste and other small particles were found in the "nooks and crannies" of previously inaccessible equipment. Three years ago, an official government report revealed that 238g of highly enriched uranium - the material used to make nuclear weapons - was unaccounted for at the Caithness nuclear facility.

NUCLEAR weapons-grade uranium, given up for lost at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, has been found during the clean-up at the sprawling site, it has been revealed. A team of specialists found 1.5kg of the highly radioactive material over the past year during an operation to repackage waste at the site. Some of the material was found in drums filled with waste and other small particles were found in the "nooks and crannies" of previously inaccessible equipment. Three years ago, an official government report revealed that 238g of highly enriched uranium - the material used to make nuclear weapons - was unaccounted for at the Caithness nuclear facility.

An emergency planning zone around a former nuclear power station in Caithness has been reduced from three miles to less than one. The smaller area circling Dounreay has five neighbouring households within its boundary, instead of more than 200. The zone is covered by detailed plans to deal with the worst-case radiation emergency that can be "reasonably foreseen". Dounreay said the reduction reflected a lower risk posed by the site.

THE future for the workforce at Vulcan has become less secure now that it looks certain the Ministry of Defence will not be extending its current contract at its reactor base in Caithness. advertising Barring new commercial work being found, the site is set to go into decommissioning mode in five years' time. Such an outcome would add a fresh headache to the public agencies currently battling to replace the 2000-plus jobs which are to go at the next-door site at Dounreay. As with its defunct civil counterpart, Vulcan will require a workforce to decontaminate and dismantle its redundant plant. It is unclear how many of the 280 employees of site contractor Rolls-Royce would be required for the clean-up. The pressurised water reactor at Vulcan is used to test and trial the propulsion systems used on Britain's fleet of nuclear submarines. Up until recently there were positive noises about the prospects of the MOD extending its £360 million contract beyond 2014. But Royal Navy chief are now believed not to foresee a need for Vulcan to support the proposed next generation of Trident subs.

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets. The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent. Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF. Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets. The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent. Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF. Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.

"Safety at the Dounreay nuclear plant continues to improve, according to the bosses of the company leading the clean-up of the Caithness complex. In their annual report, the directors of Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said no time was lost through accidents between March 2009-10. They said the low dosages of radiation workers were exposed to also underlined the priority given to safety. Two workers were exposed to radiation last July. "

"The company leading the decommissioning of Dounreay has awarded contracts totalling more than £12m to three firms for the next stage of the project. NDSL, Nuvia and Morson International will supply 70 staff to dismantle plant and machinery in some of the most hazardous areas of the Caithness site. They will wear special suits as protection against radiation. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said the contracts should help it save millions of pounds. "

"Skills gained from decommissioning the Dounreay nuclear plant could be turned to the dismantling of defunct oil and gas platforms, an expert has said. Simon Coles, a member of industry forum Decom North Sea, said 80% of the skills at the Caithness site "overlapped" with those needed in the oil sector. Two years ago, it was estimated that work breaking up redundant rigs could be worth £30bn by 2040. Most of the 470 offshore structures in UK waters will need to be scrapped. "

Plans for a dump to store low-level radioactive waste in Caithness has won conditional approval from a Highland Council planning committee. The application to build the £110m facility to handle waste from the Dounreay complex will now be considered by Scottish ministers. People living close to the proposed site on a former military airfield have raised concerns.

The number of radioactive particles from Dounreay threatening to contaminate a public beach two miles from the plant is six times greater than previously thought, according to experts. The Dounreay Particles Advisory Group, which advises the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) on the hundreds of thousands of particles believed to have been dispersed from the Caithness plant in the early-1960s, said that around 400 or 500 particles were extending into Sandside Bay on the north coast.

WORK to remove one of the most persistent problems affecting the clean-up of the Dounreay nuclear site has begun beneath the waves off Caithness. A remotely operated vehicle is combing the seabed to find the worst of the radioactive particles that have caused concern for more than quarter of a century. Up to £25 million will be spent on covering an area the size of 60 football pitches and on monitoring up to the 2020s.

A SCOTTISH Government minister yesterday visited Dounreay to witness the dismantling of the plants that once supported Britain's nuclear research programme. Richard Lochhead, the minister for rural affairs and the environment, spent time at the Caithness site to see for himself how waste from the shutdown and clean-up of Scotland's biggest nuclear site is being managed.

A device described by its operators as a hi-tech worm has been used to probe the condition of a pipeline once used to discharge radioactive effluent. The £100,000 pipe crawler has beamed back images from inside the system at the Dounreay plant in Caithness. The underground pipeline to the sea was in use from 1957 to 1992.

The £1.99 household product Cillit Bang is being used to help clean plutonium stains at the defunct Dounreay nuclear power plant in Caithness. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said it would help reduce the £2.6bn cost of dismantling the site. The cleaner's use has also drawn interest from operators of other nuclear sites in the UK. A different domestic product has already been applied in the cleaning of contaminated glass tubes.

An area of seabed equivalent in size to more than 10 football pitches is to be checked for radioactive particles during the summer using a remotely operated vehicle, known as Trol. Fathoms, a company based near Dounreay in Caithness, will use the device off to scan 75,000 sq metres of seabed near the old effluent discharge outlet from the nuclear plant, and retrieve particles detected in the sediment. It can work in water up to 30 metres in depth.

Workers decommissioning a nuclear power complex have found Mr Muscle to be more effective than specialised techniques for cleaning contaminated glass tubes. The household cleaning product was used at Dounreay in Caithness, which is being demolished at a cost of £2.5bn. Hi-tech equipment had been developed to destroy radioactive materials. However, Mr Muscle was found to be the best option to help make safe the tubes which were used at a nuclear reprocessing laboratory.

FACTORY workers near Chester have received a boost after securing a £1.2 million contract. VT Nuclear Services has announced it will build a supply of nuclear waste drums at its DEVA plant. The manufacturing facility, in Chester Gates Business Park, Dunkirk, will make the drums for safe long term storage of nuclear waste for the Dounrea ADVERTISEMENT y Cementation Facility in Caithness, Scotland. A VT Nuclear Services spokesman says the contract secures the 60 staff positions at the plant on a short-term basis as the company seeks more work during "these austere times".

"For more than half a century the futuristic dome of Dounreay nuclear power station has stood as one of the most iconic - and intimidating - coastal landmarks in Scotland. Now, despite last-ditch rescue attempts, it seems the imposing and eye-catching structure is doomed to be removed from the Caithness landscape forever. Although Dounreay is now defunct and set to be decommissioned, a public consultation over the future of the monumental structure has come up with a series of strange suggestions designed to save the building."

"An investigation has been launched following a fire at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. Fire alarms alerted the site's firefighters to the blaze at the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at about 0040 BST on Friday. The fire involved sodium which had earlier been removed from pipe work and stored in a small tented enclosure. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said the fire was extinguished. The company, which is l"

AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, and EnergySolutions, the international nuclear services company, have formed a joint venture to bid for the Parent Body Organisation (PBO) contract at Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL). The joint venture, which will be called Caithness Solutions Limited, brings together two companies with unrivalled experience in the international nuclear decommissioning market as well as in other key industrial sectors. AMEC is a member of Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), the consortium that owns the shares in Sellafield Ltd and operates the site on behalf of the NDA. EnergySolutions, is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and holds the contracts to manage and operate the ten Magnox nuclear sites in the UK on behalf of the NDA."

"A FRESH trawl of waters off Dounreay will get under way next month to recover more rogue radioactive fragments. A robot mounted on a bespoke subsea assembly is being mobilised to detect and then retrieve some of the hottest of the reactor fuel particles. The operation is part of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd's attempt to tackle the legacy of radioactive pollution caused by sloppy historic waste practices at the site. A major part of its strategy is to target the seabed near the site's original sea effluent plant. This area - the size of 10 football pitches - is thought to contain the 1500 to 2000 particles deemed to pose a significant health hazard. Last year, a robot recovered 64 particles, including 13 in the significant category."