Читать книгу Industrial and Medical Nuclear Accidents - Jean-Claude Amiard - Страница 43

Spent fuel reprocessing plants routinely represent the most polluting step in the fuel cycle [AMI 13a]. These include significant releases of tritium and rare gases (krypton, xenon, etc.) to the atmosphere and many radionuclides to the freshwater and marine environments: fission and activation products as well as transuranics (plutonium, americium). Thus, the activity rates of ¹²⁹I and the ratios ¹²⁹I/¹²⁷I in marine samples show the spatial and temporal influence of the La Hague site on its near environment as well as on a regional scale along the Channel coast [FRE 03].

Only a few countries, France (La Hague), Japan (Tokai-Mura and then Rokkasho-Mura), United Kingdom (Sellafield) and Russia (Ozersk), have developed this stage and have reprocessing plants. The United States shut down its West Valley plant in 1972. The main accidents or incidents will be described below in chronological order. The largest number of them concerns THORP (Sellafield’s plant).