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* Faulty reprocessing facility threatens UK atomic plans * Critics call for plug to be pulled on 'white elephant' The company that runs the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant admitted that it may have to close for a number of years owing to a series of technical problems. The huge £1.8bn plant at Sellafield imports spent nuclear fuel from around the world and returns it to countries as new reactor fuel. But a series of catastrophic technical failures with associated equipment means Thorp could be mothballed at a cost of millions of pounds. Under strict orders from the government's safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the plant's operators, Sellafield Ltd, is expected to have little option but to mothball the reprocessing plant for at least four years.

Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant is to shut down while a probe into an evaporator is carried out. Site bosses said the move is not linked to a rumour sweeping west Cumbria last week that the troubled site would be closed because of the failure of another, older evaporator. Thorp's 1,500 workers were told last Thursday that evaporator B had been fixed, normal operations would resume and the threat of closure had been lifted. However, it emerged this morning that Thorp will be shut down, for a routine inspection of evaporator C.

"SELLAFIELD Ltd has just exported a shipment of recovered uranium to Russia for processing to allow its manufacture into new fuel. The uranium was recovered from spent nuclear power station fuel owned by European reprocessing customers in Germany and the Netherlands and sent to Sellafield for reprocessing at the Thorp plant. It was the eighth such shipment of material from Thorp."

Individual payments of up to £1m have been handed out from the public purse as a "golden goodbye" to directors at the loss-making nuclear holding group BNFL, according to the latest set of accounts. David Bonser, executive director for human resources and a key figure in the development of BNFL's troubled Thorp reprocessing plant, received £1,046,350 compensation for ending his employment last month. That was on top of an annual salary and bonuses worth £577,112 for the 12 months to March 31, 2008. Two other directors left with well over £1m in combined salaries, bonuses and golden goodbyes as the company that once presided over a sprawling empire of nuclear assets was wound down.

THE future of Sellafield's controversial under-achieving Mox plant which support around 1,000 jobs on the site is still on the line. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority says in its annual report out this week that "on a less positive note the performance of the Sellafield mixed oxide plant (SMP) remains under close scrutiny by the NDA Board. "The NDA is in the process of examining options for the future of the plant in conjunction with Sellafield Ltd," reports acting chief executive Richard Waite. Against a target of eight Mox fuel assemblies, only two had been produced. Both the Thorp and Magnox reprocessing plants also failed to meet targets.

A disaster narrowly avoided, a danger only spotted by chance - yet the company involved faces no prosecution. Channel 4 News tells the untold story of Sizewell A, one Britain's older nuclear power plants. These are details that, but for a Freedom of Information request, would have remained secret. Two years ago, a burst pipe inside the Sizewell A station led to a huge leak from the pond used to cool thousands of nuclear fuel rods. Sizewell lies in Suffolk, on the East coast of England. If the nuclear fuel rods had caught fire, the resulting radioactive plume could have landed on villages from Southwold and Dunwich in the North, to Thorpeness and Aldburgh in the South, and inland to Leiston and Saxmundum.

RADIOACTIVITY leaking from a pipe, which was first spotted on the day of the Prime Minister's visit to Sellafield, had been escaping into the open for 14 months, it has been revealed. The incident has been raised to level two on the International Event scale - the highest at Sellafield since the major leak in Thorp four years ago. Sellafield Ltd said: "There is no relation between the two. The amount of radioactivity involved in this incident was very low." The leak was discovered on January 23 - the day the Prime Minister made his announcement about new reactors. The radioactivity came from an overhead ventilation duct carrying water vapour (condensate) from the Magnox reprocessing plant for dilution treatment before authorised discharge to the sea. There was a steady drip from a faulty valve flange contaminating a two metre square concrete slab. A walkway had to be cordoned off to prevent access. No workers are said to have been harmed and no contamination was found above normal background levels.

The increased sourcing of raw uranium that will arise from nuclear new build is an ethical and environmental nightmare currently being ignored by the government. The World Nuclear Association (WNA), the trade body for companies that make up 90% of the industry, admits that in "emerging uranium producing countries" there is frequently no adequate environmental health and safety legislation, let alone monitoring. It is considerately proposing a Charter of Ethics containing principles of uranium stewardship for its members to follow. But this is a self-policing voluntary arrangement. Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency's safety guide to the Management of Radioactive Waste from the Mining and Milling of Ores (pdf) are not legally binding on operators.

A Sellafield worker is still being treated in hospital for injuries he received at the nuclear plant more than a week ago.