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Exclusive: Dungeness nuclear power station quietly taken offline for five months over fears of Fukushima-style flood disaster Exclusive: Dungeness nuclear power station quietly taken offline for five months over fears of Fukushima-style flood disaster
(about 1 hour later)
The Dungeness nuclear power station on the Kent coast shut down one of its reactors for five months last year because of a Fukushima-style flood scare, it has emerged. The energy giant EDF has been accused of playing down the threat of flooding at Dungeness after it emerged that one of the nuclear power plant’s reactors was quietly shut down for five months last year after experts identified risk of a Fukushima-style disaster.
EDF, the Big Six energy company that operates the power station, closed the reactor on 22 May last year to work on a new protective wall after alerting the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that it faced a so-called category 1 incident, described as having “the highest possible safety significance”. EDF closed the reactor on the Kent coast on 22 May to allow work on a new flood protection wall, after alerting the Office of Nuclear Regulation that without urgent work the site was at risk of being inundated by sea water.
The closure of the 550-megawatt reactor B - which generates enough power for about 750,000 homes - followed an internal EDF report which found that the shingle bank sea defences at Dungeness were “not as robust as previously thought” raising fears that they could be overwhelmed in extreme weather, according to the ClickGreen website, which first reported the closure. A breach of the sea defence could lead to catastrophic flooding of the advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors and trigger a meltdown. The reactor – which should provide power for about 750,000 homes – did not reopen again until 15 October.
EDF notified the ONR in December 2012 that it “no longer had confidence” in its primary sea defence. It committed to boosting flood protection on the site by “taking due cognisance of the need for a margin against more severe events”, according to ONR documents. The closure of the 550-megawatt reactor – one of two at Dungeness – followed an internal EDF report which found that the shingle bank sea defences were “not as robust as previously thought”, raising fears that they could be overwhelmed in extreme weather, according to the ClickGreen website, which first reported the closure.
This involved upgrading the defence from one that could protect against a 1 in 1,000-year weather event to one that occurs every 10,000 years. EDF marked the closure of the reactor with a short statement to local media saying: “Unit 22 at Dungeness station was taken offline on 20 May for maintenance work which includes completing improvements to flood defences for extreme events.” Five months later, the company said: “Unit 22 at Dungeness B power station resynchronised to the Grid at 0.522am on Tuesday 15 October.”
ONR said at the time it would monitor EDF's programme of safety improvements at Dungeness B “until permanent engineered protection is in place”, threatening “enforcement action if necessary”. There was no clear explanation of the remarkable length of the outage, which was not widely reported.
According to a briefing to local community representatives by the station director, EDF boosted the flood defences early last year. However, a further review of the site in May concluded that “the flood protection work already completed needed to be extended and improved to further enhance the plant resilience to this extreme hazard,” the station director said. Stephen Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich, said: “EDF should have made more of an announcement. If a plant closes for five months it is not just fiddling about, it is something serious and EDF can’t pretend it’s not.
The enhancement includes a new permanent wall around the site which EDF expects to finish by the end of this month. “I think there is a bad attitude in this country that we must not frighten the horses. But playing it down is the wrong way – we need to be told the truth,” Professor Thomas added. He calculates that the five-month closure could have cost EDF around £100m in lost electricity revenue, while the group would have saved very little in the way of expenses, still having to pay wages and maintain the reactor.
Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “With Dungeness perched on shifting shingles next to rising seas, this is a stark warning of the risks climate change poses to our infrastructure”. Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Guy Shrubsole added: “It’s astounding that the shutdown of EDF’s reactor wasn’t better publicised and calls into question the transparency of the nuclear industry.”
“It's astounding that the shut-down of EDF's reactor wasn't better publicised and calls into question the transparency of the nuclear industry,” Mr Shrubsole added. The EDF review that led to the flooding work was carried out with the Environment Agency and meteorological experts based on new modelling in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, which involved assessments of extreme still-water levels, wave heights and historical tsunamis.
The meltdown at Fukushima occurred after a 14-metre tsunami waves overwhelmed the plant's 10m high seawall, flooding the rooms which housed the emergency generators needed to ensure the cooling systems stayed on to protect the reactors from melting down. EDF notified the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) in December 2012 that it “no longer had confidence” in its primary sea defence. It committed to boosting flood protection by “taking due cognisance of the need for a margin against more severe events”, ONR documents show.
A spokeperson for the Department for Energy and Climate Change declined to comment saying it was a matter for EDF. This involved upgrading the defence from one that could protect against a one in 1,000-year weather event to one that occurs every 10,000 years.
Martin Pearson, station manager at Dungeness B, said: “The recent adverse weather has had no impact on existing infrastructure and the power station has operated normally in recent high tides and stormy weather.” According to a briefing to local community representatives by the station director, EDF originally boosted the shingle flood defences early last year. However, a further review of the site in May concluded that “the flood protection work already completed needed to be extended… to further enhance the plant resilience to this extreme hazard”, the station director said.
An EDF spokesperson added: “We are continuously updating and improving the plant to ensure it is operating safely. We conservatively took the decision to take both reactors offline in order to undertake additional protection to cover extremely rare events, ones which would happened every one in 10,000 years”. The defence consists of “a permanent flood protection wall around the site” and is expected to be finished by the end of this month.
Separately, a landmark new report on the case for building new nuclear power stations in the UK finds concludes that they could play a significant role - but only if some key hurdles can be overcome. Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Whilst EDF are happy to publicise interviews with community radio stations on their website, it does not feel the need to tell the wider community about serious safety worries over flooding.”
The report finds that political consensus is “particularly critical” because the development and construction of power stations often spans two or three governments and says it's essential for politicians to work towards a consensus. Dungeness is one of eight operational nuclear power plants in the UK and the Government has plans to build 12 new reactors as it looks to switch to lower-carbon energy. But none of the proposed projects has been finalised.
It also found there was potential for the UK to construct “multiple nuclear power stations alongside a substantial amount of other infrastructure” but identified dealing with nuclear waste as a big problem. The meltdown at the Fukushima plant in Japan in March 2011 occurred after a tsunami overwhelmed a 10m-high seawall, flooding the rooms which housed the emergency generators needed to ensure the cooling systems protected the reactors from meltdown.
“The UK has amassed a large stock of long-lived nuclear waste from 60 years of nuclear weapons development and power generation at 39 reactors. Although the Government has developed a long-term strategy for managing this waste, efforts to identify a site for a Geological Disposal Facility have failed to date. Having stalled, the Government must urgently revisit the process for resolving a crucially important challenge,” the report said. An EDF spokesman said the decision to shut down the reactor was taken “to improve the flooding defence: not because the prior work was not sufficient or ‘bodged’”.
The report was conducted by Carbon Connect low-carbon energy forum set up by Ed Miliband in 2009 when he was Energy and Climate Change Secretary. The spokesman said the closure was part of its “response to events in Japan which caused serious damage to Fukushima Daiichi [while] an extensive programme of analysis, modelling and physical testing has been carried out to review and update the assessments of potential flooding around our sites”.
Charles Hendry, the report's co-chair and a former Energy Minister, said: “The report concludes that nuclear can play a very significant role in delivering secure, low-carbon electricity, but there is much work still to be done to secure the nuclear renaissance that many of us want to see.” He added: “We are continuously updating and improving the plant to ensure it is operating safely.”
Martin Pearson, station manager at Dungeness B, said: “The recent adverse weather has had no impact on existing infrastructure and the power station has operated normally in recent high tides and stormy weather.” A spokesperson for the Department for Energy and Climate Change declined to comment.