nuclear-news

Is it safe to extend the life of a nuclear power station?

BBC, Pamela Tickell, North East and Cumbria

When Hartlepool’s nuclear power station came online in 1983, it had an initial lifespan of 25 years. Now in its 43rd year, its operator has announced another extension. While the news has been welcomed by hundreds of employees, is it safe to keep doing so?

“Yeah, absolutely,” is the short answer from Mark Wenman, professor of nuclear materials at Imperial College London.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), which Wenman describes as a “very stringent regulator”, would not grant a licence unless they were sure it was safe to do so, he said.

Hartlepool is one of five sites, including Heysham 1 and Sizewell B, which have had their lifespans extended multiple times.

Even when French energy firm EDF took over all of the UK’s working nuclear power stations in 2009, Hartlepool was due to stop generating electricity in 2014.

On Friday, it extended the lifespan again until 2030……………………………………………..

However, opponents argue that while the technology might be clean and safe, it is not completely clean, or completely safe.

Nuclear power produces radioactive waste and disposing of it can be costly and comes with environmental risks, which Friends of the Earth says there is “no answer for”.

The UK government is currently looking for a site to build an underground storage facility for its radioactive waste, some of which would have to be buried for thousands of years before its safe.

Why is the lifespan limited anyway?

The radioactivity permanently degrades the nuclear reactor’s core over time.

At about 10 metres (33ft) high, uranium fuel is channelled through the core.

The graphite bricks, which make it up, break down due to cracking and weight loss and cannot be replaced.

“Once they [the core graphite bricks] reach the end of their life, that is the end of the life of the reactor,” Wenman said.

Can they be brought back online?

You would not get another one in the exact same spot because it takes a long time to decommission a reactor, Wenman said.

“Remember, everything in there is radioactive,” he said.

Equipment may be left to sit there for many years so it can lose its radioactivity over time.

“It will be quite a slow process, so where the actual AGR is built right now, they’ll probably leave it there for quite a few years,” Wenman said……….. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp87y14r11do

August 2, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Two ageing nuclear power stations will stay operational until 2030

EDF said on Wednesday it had decided to extend
the life of the Hartlepool and Heysham 1 plants for an extra two years
after safety inspections of their cores

Hartlepool and Heysham 1 are two of four advanced gas-cooled reactors
(AGRs) that have been generating since the 1980s. The others, Heysham 2 and
Torness, also had their lifespans extended until March 2030 last year. EDF
said those dates remain “under review” and will be subject to further
safety extensions, leaving open the possibility that the plants could run
for even longer.

However, the country still potentially faces a “nuclear
gap” from 2030 if the AGRs come offline. That would leave Sizewell B, in
Suffolk, as the sole remaining plant, before Hinkley Point C in Somerset
and Sizewell C come online later in the 2030s.

How long the remaining four
will continue depends on the condition of their graphite reactor cores, EDF
has previously said. Hairline cracks can occur in the graphite over time,
potentially impeding control rods which must be dropped to lower output –
or shut the reactor down in emergencies. To continue operating, EDF must
prove to regulators that this will not happen and that it could still shut
down the reactors during a “one in 10,000 years” earthquake, much
larger than any the UK has ever experienced.

Telegraph 23rd July 2026 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/07/23/ageing-nuclear-plants-to-be-kept-running-to-keep-lights-on/

July 26, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Alarm over bid to keep cracked reactors running by cutting nuclear safety margins

“The bottom line is that continuing to operate these reactors with cracks in the reactor core is gambling with public safety.”

The company that runs Scotland’s ageing nuclear power station wants to weaken safety standards to keep it running for at least four more years. But the nuclear safety watchdog has its doubts.

Rob Edwards, July 23 2026

Moves to keep Scotland’s increasingly cracked reactors at Torness in East Lothian generating electricity until 2030 or 2032 have prompted formal action from the UK government’s nuclear safety watchdog, according to internal files obtained by The Ferret.

The station’s operator, EDF Energy, has been pressing for safety margins to be relaxed so reactors can keep running for as long as possible with hundreds of cracks spreading through their highly radioactive cores.

But the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has “concerns” and has demanded that the company justify its understanding of the safety implications. ONR inspectors lacked confidence in some of the company’s measurements, and accused EDF of a “trend of under-predicting cracking”.

ONR has also revealed that the estimated number of cracks in one of the reactors at Torness leapt by more than a third from 585 to 782 in just six months. A further 62 cracks have been found in the second reactor at the site, which only started cracking in May 2025.

Campaigners urged ONR not to be “bullied” by EDF into allowing safety margins to slip. The cracks were “extremely worrying” and keeping Torness running was “gambling with public safety”, they said.

ONR told The Ferret that its inspectors made “independent and proportionate challenges” to EDF’s claims. It stressed that the current number of cracks at Torness did not breach safety margins.

EDF said that “robust challenge” by regulators was essential to a strong nuclear safety culture that prevented accidents. The company’s ambition was to generate electricity from the station “for as long as it is safe and commercially viable to do so.”

Torness nuclear power station, near Dunbar, is 37 years old, having been officially opened in May 1989 by the then Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. The site had been the target of anti-nuclear protests since 1978.

In 2016 the planned life of the station was extended from 2023 to 2030. In 2021 EDF backtracked on that, saying that Torness would be closing two years earlier in 2028 because of expected cracking.

But in 2024 EDF again changed its mind, and announced that Torness would keep generating electricity until March 2030. According to ONR, EDF had decided to extend the lifetime of the station “to 2030 plus or minus two years”, suggesting that operating to 2032 was also being considered.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s other nuclear power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire was closed down in January 2022, more than a year earlier than planned. This followed the discovery of an estimated 586 cracks in its two reactors.

The graphite bricks that surround the uranium fuel in reactors, such as those at Torness and Hunterston, crack after being bombarded by radiation for decades. The danger is that this could distort reactor cores, making them more difficult to manage. 

ONR previously said that spreading cracks could result in debris inhibiting the cooling of the hot fuel. In some scenarios, this could lead to a reactor meltdown, which could result in the escape of radioactivity to the environment.

In response to a freedom of information request by The Ferret, ONR has released 11 heavily redacted files about its latest moves to regulate cracking at Torness. They reveal that between April 2025 and April 2026 ONR held 23 meetings with EDF, and formally demanded action on safety issues.

There have been prolonged and gritty tussles between ONR and EDF over how to understand the way in which cracks were impacting safety. Some of the technical issues at stake are difficult to understand because key words and phrases have been blacked out.

But it is clear there have been a series of disagreements between the regulator and the company. EDF has been arguing to cut safety margins to allow Torness to operate for longer, while ONR has been challenging EDF’s assumptions, methodologies and conclusions.

ONR raised a formal “regulatory issue” because of potential shortfalls in EDF’s understanding of how cracks are spreading. ONR said it had “concerns over EDF’s ability adequately to predict the number of cracked bricks within the graphite core”.

ONR disputed EDF moves to relax the so-called “damage tolerance boundary”, which limits the operation of Torness. According to one account from ONR, after a series of meetings in 2025 consensus “has not been reached.” 

ONR pursued a second regulatory issue in 2025 because it lacked confidence in EDF’s measurements of the width of cracks and resulting fragments. The company accepted that “a number of errors and incorrect assumptions” had been made, but rectified them and the issue was resolved.

“Safety margins cannot be something to be negotiated simply to keep an ageing reactor running.” – Kristopher Leask MSP

After an inspection in September 2025, ONR’s expert graphite panel commented that there was “reason to pause and think”. They said that EDF forecasts “suggested a continuation of the trend of under-predicting cracking”. 

One meeting between ONR and EDF in 2025 was about the risk of vital safety systems shutting down because of “snags” caused by cracking. EDF was said to be proposing to increase the number of permissible snags from one to five

The Ferret also used freedom of information law to ask for an update on the number of cracks in the two reactors at Torness. We previously reported that there were an estimated 585 cracks in reactor one in March 2025, and the first crack had been found in reactor two in May 2025.

ONR has now told us that “reactor one was inspected in August 2025 where it was estimated the number of cracked bricks were 782.” It added that after an inspection of reactor two in February 2026 “it was estimated that 62 bricks were cracked”.

The Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM) highlighted recent moves by the UK government to relax regulation to make building new nuclear power stations easier. The Ferret reported in May that this had prompted “serious concerns” from the Scottish Government.

“This is an extremely worrying situation,” said SCRAM’s Pete Roche. “There is bound to be huge public concern that the ONR will be bullied by EDF and the UK Government into allowing safety margins to slip.”

He added: “The bottom line is that continuing to operate these reactors with cracks in the reactor core is gambling with public safety.”

July 26, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear plants face risks of AI-powered cyber-attacks and insider threats

17 Jul, 2026 By Tom Pashby, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/uks-nuclear-plants-face-risks-of-ai-powered-cyber-attacks-and-insider-threats-17-07-2026/

Civil nuclear power plants in the UK now face cyber-attacks enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) and insider threats, according to the government’s National Risk Register 2026.

The National Risk Register (NRR) is the annual, public-facing version of the government’s National Security Risk Assessment, it “includes a summary of all but the most sensitive, classified risks,” according to Cabinet Office minister of state Darren Jones.

Jones informed parliament and the public of the publication of the 2026 edition of the NRR in a written ministerial statement on 14 July.

The NRR attracts attention because it explains the government’s assessment of the likelihood and severity of a broad range of risks, including terrorism, cyber threats, geopolitical and diplomatic risks, accidents and systems failures.

The 2026 edition covers 95 risks. Of relevance to the civil engineering and infrastructure sector, “cyber-attack water infrastructure” was added as a new risk to reflect learning “from reported cyber-attacks targeting the water sector,” the NRR said.

It also added, “accidental damage on the National Gas Transmission Network – to explore damage to the gas transmission network as a result of agricultural digging.”

In her foreword to the 2026 NRR, Cabinet Office security minister Angela Eagle said: “This government is committed to sharing risk information as openly as possible, to support all those working to build the UK’s resilience with their planning, preparation and response activity.

“Greater transparency also means that people can scrutinise our assessments, and challenge us to do things differently when needed.”

She added: “A whole of society approach is required to increase resilience; therefore, I encourage all risk and resilience professionals to consider the risks in this publication, and join our collective endeavour to make the UK more prosperous and secure.”

While the 2025 edition included “conventional attack” and “cyber-attack” against civil nuclear as two distinct risks, the 2026 edition removed the cyber-attack risk profile and instead covered cyber risks facing civil nuclear into “malicious attack: civil nuclear”, in its “state threats” grouping.

Within the new malicious attack: civil nuclear profile, the NRR 2026 said: “AI can automate the process of launching cyber-attacks, making them faster, more efficient and lower the barrier for entry.”

Reacting to the 2026 NRR, cybersecurity firm e2e-assure CEO Rob Demain told NCE: “Nuclear plants have always planned for physical threats and human error. What’s new is the assumption that the attacker may already have a way in, that someone with legitimate access can do real damage without ever needing to break down a fence.

“AI is exacerbating the threat. The National Risk Register itself says AI can automate attacks, making them faster, cheaper and easier to attempt without much skill.

“Elsewhere it goes further, describing how AI makes fake messages harder to spot and helps attackers find weaknesses faster. That’s a very different risk to plan for, than a lone bad actor.”

Demain added: “For the people who design, build and maintain this infrastructure, the message is simple: security can no longer be something bolted on afterwards, or left entirely to IT.

“It has to be built into how these sites operate, day to day, alongside the safety systems engineers already take for granted.”

Also responding to the “malicious attack: civil nuclear” risk profile, an EDF spokesperson told NCE: “As the risk from cyber-attack on UK critical national infrastructure continues to evolve, EDF continues to further refine its defences, with horizon scanning for developing threats and a constant series of system improvements to make it harder for those attempting to damage our systems.

We note that the National Risk Register does not propose a scenario of a safety risk but one that ‘results in a disruption to normal operations until investigations have demonstrated nuclear safety and security critical systems remain unaffected’, and that ‘the disruption is not a direct result of the attack’.”

Demain told NCE earlier in July that critical national infrastructure assets are now more at risk of cyber-attacks due to the deployment of newer, more powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Anthropic’s Mythos.

July 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment